Category Archives: Climate change

Opinions on Climate Change

Humanity is on Thin Ice that is Melting Fast

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Climate change, Decline of the west

 

Our future keeps getting more dire, but we keep doing nothing about it.

In March 2023 while we were relaxing in Arizona complaining about the cool wet winter we were having, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, issued one more report, in a very long series of similar reports, warning us, again, that the climate is getting worse and we are not doing anything about it.

The latest report shows that the world is very likely to miss its publicly declared goal to hold global warming to 1.5ºC or 2.7ºF. Remember that is the upper limit most of the countries of the world agreed we should not allow global temperatures to rise beyond, because the consequences would be catastrophic. If that level is exceeded world scientists have agreed our planet will pass a tipping point we will not be able to reverse. The damage will be that serious. Passing that limit will mean dangerous sea levels will be inevitable, many species will go extinct, and millions of people will suffer serious harm and die, including, of course, the poorest who will by and large suffer the most. But it won’t be just the poorest.

Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General is always bluntly eloquent on the subject. He said, we should think of it this way: “Humanity is on thin ice that is melting fast.” In fact, he said,  the rise of temperatures in the last half century, roughly the time in which Christiane and I have been married, has been “the highest experienced by our world in the last 2,000 years!” Added to that, he said, “concentrations of carbon are already at their highest in the last 2,000 years… The climate time bomb is ticking.” The ice we are standing on is melting and the climate bomb is ticking.   These are 2 mixed metaphors but it would be pedantic to worry about that.  And what do we do about it? Do we treat this like the emergency it is?  Not really?  Are we stupid? Yes. Really.

Amna Nawaz the PBS co-host of Newshour invited one of my favorite climate scientists to comment. This was Katherine Hayhoe from Texas Tech University. Besides being a staunch Christian she is one of the most respected scientists on the subject in the US. She began, by saying those dramatic words by the UN Secretary-General were “completely justified.” She did not mince words either.

 

She reminded us that the window of opportunity the world had in which to change its activities to ensure a better future is rapidly closing, yet our emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise steadily. We are not making progress. We are still falling farther behind. She also reminded us that 1.5 degrees was not a magic turning point or threshold. It is a goal that we have set for ourselves, because we know beyond that limit things will get very bad for the human race.  But as she said, “Every little bit that the planet warms carries additional costs with it. So, how much do we need to do? As much as possible. When? As soon as possible. Why? Because we will all benefit from that action.”

That is actually pretty simple:  Every bit makes a difference and we will all benefit from doing the right thing and the sooner we do it the better off we all will be!

 Hayhoe also pointed out that which we can all see already:

We are already seeing the impacts here today in the way that climate change is loading the weather dice against us.

We know we have always had droughts and floods and hurricanes and heat waves. But, in a warming world, they’re getting stronger and more dangerous. And they’re impacting all of us. But they are particularly affecting those who are vulnerable and marginalized the most.

The warmer the world gets, the more it endangers our food supply, our water supply, the safety of our homes, our own health, our economy and supply chains, the natural environment. Every aspect of life on Earth, including our life on Earth, is at risk the warmer this planet gets.

 

The UN has also made it clear that we should cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, which is now less than 7 years away, and we must stop adding any more carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere entirely by 2050.

Who does not think the west is declining? Declining really is too mild a word when you  are heading toward catastrophe.

Decline of Ancient Ancestral People of the Sonoran Desert

2018 Trip to Southwest USA, 2023 Grand Finale Tour, Climate change, desert, Environment, Indigenous People before Contact, Simple Life

 

At Casa Grande Arizona, a steel and concrete canopy was built in 1932 to protect what remained of the Great House from the elements.

As I mentioned earlier  the great puzzle is why were these magnificent structures and elaborate towns abandoned in favor of smaller communities after about 1450 C.E.

Some have speculated that some catastrophe caused the people to leave. There is evidence that the area experienced significant floods between 1300 and 1450.  Those were followed by intense periods of drought. Severe climate change in other words.

Archeologists use multiple kinds of evidence to answer such questions, or at least shed some light on the questions posed. As a result, they have been studying salt discharge on the Salt and Gila rivers, as well as the increasing soil salinity, diseases, and evidence of malnutrition. It is likely that environmental conditions changed and the Ancestral people of the Sonoran Desert (formerly Hohokam people) did what all smart people do, they adapted to changed conditions. That is how people survive. That is a lesson we moderns are beginning to experience. How will we adapt is not so certain.

The evidence does show that the extreme flooding deepened the Gila River Channel making it more difficult for canals to carry water to fields where water levels were low. Part of the canal system was abandoned while other parts were extended miles upstream to maintain proper water flows. Around 1350 C.E., the time of the Great House, a combination of factors may have triggered a breakdown of Hohokam society and undermined their leadership.

It is probable that as a result of all of these factors, the survivors of the floods and droughts abandoned large sites like Casa Grande in favor of smaller settlements along the Gila River. Today’s O’odham people believe that they are the descendants of the Hohokam people. As a result, Hohokam society never disappeared it just adapted and changed to a lifestyle that was better suited to the changed conditions. This change was likely to one more similar to their ancestors. They changed to a simpler life. Perhaps that is what we will be compelled to do.

There is a lot to be said for a simpler life.

Problems must be squarely faced

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Climate change, Woke

 

I  like listening to UN Secretary-General António Guterres who always speaks bluntly. He never holds back on his punches. recently,  he said, “We can’t confront problems unless we look them squarely in the eye. And we are looking into the eye of a Category 5 Hurricane. Our world is plagued by a perfect storm of problems.” He was referring to climate change, coronavirus, the war in Ukraine, and the possible recession that seemed to be advancing.

This is an important lesson. American conservatives have not learned it. They want the facts of racism in their country to be sugar-coated for themselves and for their children. This is an awful mistake.

In fact, in my opinion this is what it means to be woke. Confronting problems rather than evading them. That’s why so many conservatives don’t want to be woke.

 

Facilities of Doom

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Capitalism, Climate change, Decline of the west, Fear

 

Evan Osnos had the benefit of a tour of the Kansas facility. I wish I could have seen it, It had many amenities. $20 million buys a lot of amenities. It has a 75- foot- long pool, a rock-climbing wall, an Astro-Turf “pet park,” a classroom with a line of computers, a gym, a movie theatre and a library. According to Osnos “It felt compact but not claustrophobic.”

 

Osnos also described the armory and related facilities:

“We visited an armory packed with guns and ammo in case of an attack by non-members, and then a bare-walled room with a toilet. “We can lock people up and give them an adult time-out,” he said. In general, the rules are set by a condo association, which can vote to amend them. During a crisis, a “life-or-death situation,” Hall said, each adult would be required to work for four hours a day, and would not be allowed to leave without permission. “There’s controlled access in and out, and it’s governed by the board,” he said.”

 

The facility also contained a hospital bed, operating table, dentist’s chair and food storage area. 2 doctors will be residents and 1 dentist. I guess they are wealthy enough.

Many Americans don’t think Kansas is isolated enough. Many of them are choosing a New Zealand option instead. One American told Osnos this,

“I think, in the back of people’s minds, frankly, is that, if the world really goes to shit, New Zealand is a First World country, completely self-sufficient, if necessary—energy, water, food. Life would deteriorate, but it would not collapse.” As someone who views American politics from a distance, he said, “The difference between New Zealand and the U.S., to a large extent, is that people who disagree with each other can still talk to each other about it here. It’s a tiny little place, and there’s no anonymity. People have to actually have a degree of civility.”

 

There they don’t need bunkers. They are thousands of miles from Australia. They think they will be safe there. Amazingly some of them like New Zealand because it is mountainous and remote. They think there they can avoid rising sea levels. So these rich Americans who likely publicly supported all government inaction on the issue of climate change are actually privately worried about climate change. Worried enough to buy property in New Zealand.

Even people who claim not to believe in climate change actually fear the consequences of climate change!

 

Alternatives to the Green New Deal

Green New Deal

I have been thinking about the proposed Green New Deal. It sounds extremely radical. It probably is extremely radical, but is it as crazy as conservatives have argued it is? I don’t know, but here is what I think I do know.

First of all, the ravages of climate change are the most serious problem the world has faced in a long time–perhaps ever. If we cannot grapple with this problem the losses will be staggering. As well, until now very little has been done about it at least in Canada and the U.S. Conservatives in both countries keep pointing out how difficult it is to tackle this problem and how much it will cost to fight. When I hear this I think of what Oscar Wilde said about cynics, “They know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.”

So, they keep neglecting to come up with alternatives. I am willing to look at alternatives, but they must be rational. Liberals in both countries have spoken about how they want to control or limit climate change but are vague on how to do it. That is also unsatisfactory.

What is the alternative? Business as usual is sure to lead to doomsday. Therefore, that is unsatisfactory. So we need lofty goals. That much seems clear to me. Why not the Green New Deal? What better plan does anyone have to offer?

In the US a rookie Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, together with others, has come up with a bold proposal, commonly called the Green New Deal. Republicans like Donald Trump have mocked that plan. They try to put fear into people who might be inclined to support the proposal by saying it will require people to give up eating beef, driving cars, and shut down all air flight. None of that is actually required by the plan, but it sounds scary or daffy or both together.

Dave White a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Community Resources and Development is a cooler head. Professor White was a co-author of the recent Fourth National Climate Assessment in the US, a comprehensive study published by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a research group that studies the global environment and climate change. He knows something about the subject, unlike the former American President.

Professor White knows that because climate change is happening so rapidly and because its effects will be so severe, “we must consider transformative changes.” Professor White added, “Climate change represents a significant risk and exacerbates other risks that are dangerous.” Unfortunately, in part due to the successful campaign launched years ago by the oil and gas sector, the public was for decades confused into thinking perhaps climate change was not a real problem. It was and is a serious problem that now requires much more serious changes than would have been enough 30 years ago.

As a result, even if I consider the approach of young and inexperienced politicians like Ocasio-Cortez radical, the do-nothing approach of conservatives seems to me to dangerously worse. As White said, “We need solutions that match the scale of the problem. People underestimate the action needed, not only to reverse, but just to stop the increasing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Until the conservatives in the US or Canada come up with proposals for the transformative changes we need, I will look instead at the Green New Deal. I am willing to look at it critically and will consider criticisms, but I won’t move towards inaction that conservatives seem to insist on. The new conservative leader in Canada Pierre Polievre is taking this exact  approach.

I think Professor White has the right approach.  He realizes the Green New Deal offers innovative ideas, but that does not necessarily mean we have to give up cars, air travel, or burgers. Instead, White says, “If we focus on outcome, which is reducing emissions, we need to implement innovative projects to reach those goals. Does that mean eliminating air travel? No, it means making air travel with less pollution. It also doesn’t mean getting rid of cars, but making cars with more green technology.” I would add that it also doesn’t mean we can’t have any more big Macs. It does mean we must have less. And I love Big Macs. And I’m not keen on cynicism.

 

The cost of New Green Deal; the cost of denial

Green New Deal

 

In the United States the Republicans are lining up with overflowing eagerness to tackle Democrats based on the “radical” New Green Deal proposals. The latest conservative issue is that it will cost every citizen of the US $600,000 if implemented. This I suspect is fear mongering at its most robust. I do not know what it will cost, but I do know that business as usual will cost horrendous sums. What will cost more? I wish some reputable economists would tackle this issue.

As Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany pointed out:

“We’ve already warmed the world by 1.1C, and we’re experiencing the effects: the International Federation of the Red Cross estimates there are as many as 50 million climate refugees. Once we reach 4C, most models agree it will be impossible to return to today’s abundant world.”

 

We know the problems that huge numbers of refugees can create. There are enough political refugees. We should add climate refugees to the mix. That can’t possibly end well.

 

Another climatologist, Ken Caldeira, climatologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in California  put it this way:

“For me, the issue is that we are transforming (and simplifying!) our world for many thousands of years into the future with millennia of rising sea [levels], acidified oceans and intolerable tropical temperatures, just because we weren’t willing to pay the small differential between fossil-fuelled prosperity and prosperity fuelled by non-greenhouse-gas-emitting energy systems…“People live in Houston, Miami and Atlanta because they live in air conditioning through the hot summers. If people are rich enough to air-condition their lives, they can watch whatever is the successor to Game of Thrones on TV, as the natural world decays around them,” he says. But he points out that while richer people risk a loss to their quality of life, the poorer risk their actual lives.”

 

The environmental reporter Gaia Vince summed it up this way:

“We are now making the climate of 2100 and however hard it seems to meet our emissions targets, it’ll be far harder for our children if we don’t. With international cooperation and regulation, we can make it liveable.”

 

I think the dangers of climate change are real and we should do everything to mitigate against it. The only ideas that might work, which I have heard so far, are the Green New Deal. Doing nothing serious about it, which basically is the conservative position everywhere, seems to be the worst thing we could do.

Conservative Fear Mongering About the Green New Deal

Green New Deal

 

Some time ago I watched the American talk show, The View. At the time it  had 2 regular Conservative commentators or hosts as they are called. At the time, both of them, Abby Huntsman and Megan McCain, thought the most alarming thing in years is the extreme radicalism of the proposed New Green Deal.  Abby opined that one of the most radical aspects of this proposal was offered by newly elected Senator from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among others. She said that she was thinking about whether it was a good idea for her to have children, given that they would be inheriting a world so awfully degraded. Is that not a legitimate question?

Huntsman thought that was the most extreme thing she had ever heard. She equated this with advocating the end of the human race, which of course entirely missed the point. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was just saying that some women might choose not to have children. No one was advocating that no women have children.

Others, like Sean Hannity have said we wont’ be able to eat burgers anymore. Some have said we all will be required to become vegans. What could be worse than that?  Some have said our entire lives will be unrecognizable.

These are all example of fear mongering on the right.

Rather than fear mongering, I wish the right would propose reasonable alternatives and the public could then weigh in on what makes the most sense.

Muscular Government Action

Green New Deal

 

When the Canadian federal liberals introduced a carbon tax many conservatives rubbed their hands with glee. After all, former Conservative Prime Stephen Harper ran a highly successful campaign against his liberal opponent Stephane Dion in 2008 in opposition to his plan to shift some taxes from income to carbon expenditure. Dion called his climate program a tax shift, but it was really a carbon tax. Harper successfully excoriated Dion as a tax grabber.

But a lot changed in 11 years and the Conservatives, cocooned from reality in western Canada, did not realize it. That is the problem of listening only to people who think like you. You begin to think wrongly that everybody agrees with you. People had moved on. People know that serious problems demand serious solutions. This becomes clearer every year.

The Conservatives lost the 2019 federal election running against a carbon tax proposed by all 3 of their political opponents.  They deserved to lose.

I have been surprised to learn how many people favour a carbon tax as the most viable solution to the emergency of climate change. Even that strongly conservative magazine The Economist, favours it. Even some pretty vigorous capitalists realize something serious, like a carbon tax is necessary. Therefore, they have said they favour it.

ExxonMobil, no shrinking violet of a capitalist firm, has said that a carbon tax is the best policy to tackle climate change in the United States and elsewhere. All of the 4 western major oil companies—Chevron, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Total—have said that they support the Paris agreement to limit climate change so that average temperature changes are held to an increase of no more than 2ºC and hopefully 1.5ºC. There is some hope for reason beyond self-interest from multi-national corporations.

Of course, we should not go too far in praising them. Being better than the Conservative Party of Canada is still pretty faint praise. The fact is oil companies are not doing enough, even if they are talking more nicely. The Economist, again, not a wild left-wing source, put it well:

“Yet amid the clamour is a single, jarring truth. Demand for oil is rising and the energy industry, in America, and globally, is planning multi-trillion dollar investments to satisfy it. No firm embodies this strategy better than ExxonMobil, the giant that rivals admire and green activists love to hate. As our briefing explains, it plans to pump 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017. If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequences for the climate could be disastrous.

ExxonMobil shows that the market cannot solve climate change by itself. Muscular government action is needed. Contrary to the fears of many Republicans (and the hopes of some Democrats), that need not involve a bloated role for the state.”

 

Yes, you read that right. The Economist said, “Muscular government action is needed.”    No doubt many of their readers consider that heresy. But I suggest the numbers who would say that are declining. The Economist also said, unsurprisingly, “It would be wrong to conclude that energy firms must therefore be evil.” To which I would respond, it would be wrong to conclude that energy firms must therefore be angels. They are large corporations responding to demand. That is how the system works. Until the demand is quelled that is exactly what they will do and no one should be surprised or dismayed. Rather, we should be determined to demand “muscular government action”.     And soon.

 The Economist has gone a lot farther than the Conservative Party of Canada which weakly criticized the Canadian carbon tax as “a tax grab,” without offering a significant alternative to it that had a hope of success. Recently Canada was criticized for being at the bottom end of the G20 in tackling climate change. To offer alternatives that were even weaker than the liberals did not seem like an attractive option to most Canadians.

 

The Green New Deal proposed by young radicals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be too extreme for many to accept, but offering Caspar Milquetoast in response was also too lame to accept.     Most Canadians know stronger medicine than that is needed. This is no time for lame.

And so far the only proposal that is not lame is the Green New Deal. If conservatives don’t want the Green New Deal they had better come up with something better than they have done so far.