“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde
There is a lot of outrage privilege on this site recently. There I said it; finally got it off my chest. Some of the outrage I get and I can get whipped up into a lather with the best of them, but most of it I don’t understand, considering the freaking mess we find ourselves in the scheme of things.
I am, for example, outraged by the lack of outrage on global warming, climate change and the humanitarian disasters it causes due to it’s mortifying impacts to life as we know it. See the thing is, people are suffering and dying by the millions throughout the world from drought, lack of clean drinking water, pestilence, acidifying oceans, unbearable heat and powerful storms (Remember, Hurricane Maria was made stronger from climate change, so was Irma and Harvey).
Those who raise the issue of climate change have been unable to convince the majority of people to give a shit, let alone work to make sure environmental concerns are front and center in this country especially when such a hostile and chaotic regime is in power.
Even the left appears to yawn when the subject of climate comes up. If the issue arises at all it is treated as a side dish to other issues deemed by some as much more worthy.
The subject of climate change is too dicey, too scary, too overwhelming to contemplate, and the looming disasters won’t happen to me at least for awhile people like to convince themselves. But it does happen to people like you and me, for example, 3.5 million American’s are still living in intense misery on the islands of Puerto Rico and the USVI. People in California experienced horrifying wildfires with dozens of deaths and people in Florida and Texas experienced upending life destruction in their corner of the world. That bothers me as a human being.
When I observe the very distractions that allow the rich and powerful to undermine everything decent about this country I get discouraged. I am outraged that I truly believe that humanity is done, a stick a fork in us kind of done.
I write a lot about the climate change issue and I share disturbing news of the changing dynamics of the climate that keeps us alive. But guess what? I share very little bad news in actuality, though I have hecklers who would disagree with me on that. I am an alarmist some say, I am frightening people needlessly. But when exactly do we sound the alarm?
We are on course for a civilization ending nightmare of biblical proportions, and it may just very well occur during our lifetimes.
Melisandre, often referred to as the Red Woman on Game of Thrones warns in the series that the “Night is dark and full of terrors”. And it is here my friends, no distraction will stop the terrors that we face. We have serious work to do and I remain unimpressed about our work ethic on this issue.
What they don’t tell you about climate change
If we want to live and want children and grandchildren to survive in this rapidly changing world, eliminating carbon emissions seems like the answer. It’s a great start and we have made significant progress, green technology is one way to get us to zero emissions.
But here is the outrageous inconvenient truth, it is not enough to eliminate carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, replanting forests will not be enough, changing agriculture practices will not be enough. There are billions of us and all of us need to eat. If we reforest the earth or change mass production of food policy it means that billions of people will die. Who get’s to make the decision of who starves and who doesn’t?
My friends, greenhouse gasses need to be sucked out of the atmosphere. And we are barely trying to develop the technology that could achieve that lofty goal.
The Paris agreement assumes, in effect, that the world will find ways to suck CO2 out of the air. That is because, in any realistic scenario, emissions cannot be cut fast enough to keep the total stock of greenhouse gases sufficiently small to limit the rise in temperature successfully. But there is barely any public discussion of how to bring about the extra “negative emissions” needed to reduce the stock of CO2 (and even less about the more radical idea of lowering the temperature by blocking out sunlight). Unless that changes, the promise of limiting the harm of climate change is almost certain to be broken.
Don’t be so positive
Fully 101 of the 116 models the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses to chart what lies ahead assume that carbon will be taken out of the air in order for the world to have a good chance of meeting the 2°C target. The total amount of CO2 to be soaked up by 2100 could be a staggering 810bn tonnes, as much as the world’s economy produces in 20 years at today’s rate (see article). Putting in place carbon-removal schemes of this magnitude would be an epic endeavour even if tried-and-tested techniques existed.
They do not. A few power stations and industrial facilities capture CO2 that would otherwise end up in the air and store it away underground, a practice known as carbon capture and storage. But this long-touted approach to cutting emissions still operates on only a very small scale, dealing with just a few tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 a year. And such schemes merely lower emissions; they do not reverse them.
snip
Indeed, facing the shortcomings of Paris is beyond most governments. Under Mr Trump, America is not prepared to reduce the flow of emissions, let alone the stock. But the problem would not magically be solved even if America returned to the fold. Many rich countries say they are already doing their bit by cutting emissions more steeply than developing countries. In fact, taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is not an alternative to belching out less greenhouse gas. It is necessary in its own right. Unless policymakers take negative emissions seriously, the promises of Paris will ring ever more hollow.
Assuming my rant does not scroll down into oblivion, let me be clear, because I anticipate comments about human extinction will come up. Even if the threat of life ending extinction is not true which many like to claim, what humans that do survive will find a life that is not pleasant. I imagine survivors being covered in scabies, digging for grubs for sustenance and drinking whatever water is available whether it is clean or not (Sounds like Puerto Rico doesn’t it). I certainly hope I will be dead before the new normal is in full swing. It may seem like we are living environmental collapse now but we haven’t seen anything yet.
x xYouTube VideoRant over.