Climate change? February 2010 has been one for the record books. Washington D. C. and the Mid-Atlantic states suffered monster blizzards on consecutive weekends that dumped five feet of snow. For a while, 49 of 50 states had snow on the ground. While no one has kept records, that certainly seems most unusual. Lot's of people say they would love to know where all that "global warming" is.
Jokes aside, and politics aside, climate and weather are not the same thing. The weather changes from day to day. Over a period of decades, any given day has its normal temperature, but the actual temperature may be twenty degrees higher or lower than normal. Climate does not vary from day to day. Climate change occurs more slowly and over a much longer time than weather.
In recent years, we have seen glaciers retreating. We have seen a lessening of ice at both poles. We have seen plant and animal life disappear from where we have been used to seeing it and appear somewhere else where it has never been before. The Northwest Passage, which Henry Hudson sought in vain in the frozen Arctic Ocean four hundred years ago, has become a reality, at least part of the year.
No one who bothers to differentiate between climate and weather can deny that the earth is becoming warmer. As we look back at climate changes over the last few thousand years, we can see that it has always fluctuated. Whatever legitimate controversy there is centers on whether today's climate change represents a continuation of age-old patterns or whether modern industrial technology has caused or contributed to it.
Those who, for scientific or political reasons, believe that climate change is at least partly man-made advocate making some wrenching changes in our industry. Others, for scientific or political reasons, hotly deny that human activity contributes to climate change.
In fact, it doesn't really matter who's right about that argument.
You read right. It doesn't matter whether human activity has caused climate change or not. We simply cannot sustain our current energy sources, energy usage, agriculture, transportation, solid waste, and much more--regardless of whether it's changing the climate or not.
Economic and geopolitical considerations--not to mention simple self interest--will eventually either dictate making changes or cause some kind of social collapse. Generally speaking, whatever changes man-made climate change may dictate need to happen for other reasons as well. Let's stop confusing climate with weather and figure out how to deal with the challenges that confront us
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Oil: an unsustainable addiction
"America is addicted to oil," said George W. Bush. That was a startling admission from a President who used to be in the oil business. Another oil man, T. Boone Pickens, launched a plan for energy independence that involves substituting wind power for natural gas to generate electricity and using natural gas instead of oil to run our cars.
We are indeed in the midst of an oil crisis on many fronts. In fact, Bush understated the problem. The entire world suffers from the same addiction. India and China, trying to catch up with the United States and Europe as industrial powers, are driving up the world-wide price of oil. As long as oil is the fuel of choice, it puts economic development, or even self-sufficiency, out of reach of poorer countries.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has more money than it knows how to spend wisely, so it diligently exports the anti-technology, anti-modern Wahabi sect of Islam to other countries.
The influence of that sect directly discourages education (especially for girls and women) and economic development. Indirectly, it discourages jobs and the people who need them. Whether on the Arab street or among the starving masses all over Africa or anywhere else, discouragement and discontent lead to violence.
I have nothing to say about global warming or climate change. Polar ice caps are melting, and the Northwest Passage that Henry Hudson couldn't find is becoming a reality. As to the argument over how much modern industry contributes to it, it really doesn't matter.
We--not just Americans or Europeans, but everyone else as well--have ample other reasons to find less expensive and more equitable sources of energy. Most of the ones under discussion now also seem to be cleaner and less damaging to the air and groundwater.
Both economically, environmentally, and geopolitically, the world cannot sustain its current energy usage. I, for one, would welcome development of enough viable alternatives to oil that we could stop using it entirely, or at least use less than we can produce ourselves.
We are indeed in the midst of an oil crisis on many fronts. In fact, Bush understated the problem. The entire world suffers from the same addiction. India and China, trying to catch up with the United States and Europe as industrial powers, are driving up the world-wide price of oil. As long as oil is the fuel of choice, it puts economic development, or even self-sufficiency, out of reach of poorer countries.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has more money than it knows how to spend wisely, so it diligently exports the anti-technology, anti-modern Wahabi sect of Islam to other countries.
The influence of that sect directly discourages education (especially for girls and women) and economic development. Indirectly, it discourages jobs and the people who need them. Whether on the Arab street or among the starving masses all over Africa or anywhere else, discouragement and discontent lead to violence.
I have nothing to say about global warming or climate change. Polar ice caps are melting, and the Northwest Passage that Henry Hudson couldn't find is becoming a reality. As to the argument over how much modern industry contributes to it, it really doesn't matter.
We--not just Americans or Europeans, but everyone else as well--have ample other reasons to find less expensive and more equitable sources of energy. Most of the ones under discussion now also seem to be cleaner and less damaging to the air and groundwater.
Both economically, environmentally, and geopolitically, the world cannot sustain its current energy usage. I, for one, would welcome development of enough viable alternatives to oil that we could stop using it entirely, or at least use less than we can produce ourselves.
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