Thinking Rationally About Climate Change

The young woman from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, arrived in New York City, having been brought across the Atlantic on a racing yacht by a supporter.  I heard her speak in several clips from various websites, and the young lady is remarkably well-informed, and precise and articulate in her speech (moreover in English, which is not her native language).  I have hardly the words to describe how much I admire the young lady, her speech, and her determination.

I recently read a guest editorial in a major newspaper—to which I have lost the link, unfortunately—that asserts that the first step to realistically addressing the problem might be to admit that we may have passed the deadlines for action.

These deadlines are important, but they are not critical.  Lay people do not understand the meaning of a time deadline in a geological world; yes there are certain turning points, when irreversible change takes place, and you have to begin approaching matters using different methods.  But those different methods are useful even now, while we race ahead with high-tech solutions to try and halt temperatures from creeping up, putting numerous creatures at risk, and make their environment acutely uncomfortable, which is something that should bother us, quite apart from its impact on our food sources.

So I look on the world today in two ways.  One is: let's start working on the environment right now, whether we believe in climate change or not, and whether we believe that deadlines we're handed down from scientists are, or are not, critical.  We have been trained so hard (at least some of us) not to be easily persuaded, that making a decision takes years.

Two: doing some of this takes mental adjustment, and some of that mental adjustment has to take place in how businesses work, how laws are passed, and how we respond to various things which are seen as inconveniences.

Carbon Trapping

This phrase means that carbon in solid form is less of a problem than Carbon Dioxide, which traps heat in the atmosphere (the so-called Greenhouse Effect, where the heat is sent back down to the Earth, without being radiated away, as we want it to be).  The Greenhouse Effect is a major problem now.  Someday, it might not be, if we stop burning things for energy and for heat and comfort.

The most important way of trapping Carbon Dioxide, as far as I can tell, is to plant more trees, and slow down the cutting down of trees.  Unfortunately, cutting down trees is an easy way of tidying up the land; clear a lot, cut down trees too close to a house or building, and so on.  Utilities cheerfully cut down trees that grow too close to power lines or gas lines.  Many of our laws have been written to make things easier for utilities, but today we no longer worship utility companies as we did at one time, and the time may be right to insist that utilities conduct business that are environment-friendly, both in the short term, and the long term.

Plastics

A lot of American 'Ingenuity' has been based on plastic.  It truly is the wonder material, able to do extraordinary things, with great flexibility of use.  But unfortunately the use of plastic as a packaging material, and the problems with plastic packaging, is at the forefront of our attention today.  This sort of plastic waste used to be shipped out to Third World countries for decades, where we considered that it was now their problem.  But as political balances shift, as the bosses of those countries stop considering themselves as owing the US any favors, they simply stopped accepting plastics for recycling, and in many instances, sent the plastic bundles back to the US.

What we have to realize is that plastics are trapped carbon.  There might be a great temptation to incinerate the plastic, just to get it out from underfoot.  The landfills in many poor neighborhoods of some states are filled with plastics, and citizens must be discouraged from burning plastic with great effort, because getting rid of plastic waste by burning it must be an enormous temptation.

Not just plastic wrapping, either.  Think of the letters we get, with plastic windows.  Think of the junk mail we get.  In some businesses, their "productivity" is measured by how much junk mail they send out per week.  As far as the little plastic windowed envelopes are concerned, the technology has made it unnecessary to print the addresses on the insert itself; addresses are easily printed right on the envelope.

I am not an expert, but I think we have to look at technology that simply bundles plastic, with a view to stacking it somewhere out of the way.  Across the country, there are countless malls that are no longer used.  Could they be used as cemeteries for carefully baled plastic?  Of course businessmen want to make use of them for something that will make money for them, such as to convert them into shooting ranges, or fun fairs, or flea markets.  So there will always be business standing in the way of some environmental action.  To make business and the environment push in the same direction, it becomes necessary to make environmental action profitable, or make it legally necessary, by passing laws that require responsible disposal of plastics (or anything) a requirement.  The escalating volume of junk mail across the nation is gradually making the environments of poor citizens unbearable.  The main point is: we must treat existing plastic with some respect, because after all it is trapped carbon.

Incineration

We must strongly discourage incineration as a means of disposing of corpses.  Up until recently, I was almost determined to have my body incinerated, because I did not want it cluttering up the ground anywhere, and I did not want it placed in a coffin soaked in anti-insect poison, as coffins often are, in order to prevent it from being eaten away by natural decaying processes.  People are often unreasonably picky about what happens to their mortal remains after they're done with them.

Convenience

Convenience is an assumption in the American Way Of Life.  The Alt Right is up in arms against the California proscription against plastic drinking straws.  That strikes me as being perversely petty.  This is, at present, just a political issue; the GOP is putting forward a plastic drinking straw as the face of progressive Democrats.

Personal Transportation.  Plastic grocery bags.  Plastic bags of all sorts!  For instance, if you get medicine at the supermarket, as we do, they put the medicine in a plastic container; that container goes in a plastic bag; several of those bags go in a grocery bag.  Some of those bags are for the sake of convenience: to group all your medication in a single container.  Others of those bags are for 'privacy', so that people can't see what medication you're getting.  Yet others are to signify that you have paid for this merchandise.

The principle of keeping plastic solid does not negate the principle that the less plastic is manufactured, the better.  Plastic takes energy to manufacture, which produces heat, and which often releases Carbon Dioxide, which (at the moment) is practically Public Enemy Number One.

Keeping Oceans Clean, and Cold

As far as I remember, keeping anything clean has been a tough sell.  We like to make things as dirty as we like, and then clean them, using really strong detergents, which unfortunately screw up the rivers and the seas.  The clever young people of the future must find ways of minimizing the energy, the chemicals, and the water we use to clean up things.  Rivers and streams and oceans are already at the point of being unable to take any more crap.  Yes, water utilities everywhere clean up the effluent water.  But that itself generates heat, and indirectly releases Carbon Dioxide into the air.

Well, that's all for now, but bear in mind that anyone who cares about the environment is going to be bringing unpleasant facts to the people.  It is the easiest thing in the world to resist this push to saner lifestyles, because ordinary, unthinking, consumer-oriented conservatives hate any sort of discipline.  Having to be careful with anything rubs them the wrong way.  It is going to be an uphill battle to do things for the good of our neighbors, because they will not perceive these actions as benefiting them in the least.  Truckers on the road glare indignantly at hybrid and electric vehicles, though they make gasoline available to them at a lower price!  If all the hybrids and electric vehicles on the roads are magically replaced with gas-guzzling pickups, the price of gasoline would soon inch upwards.  Many conservatives have not been strong in quantitative reasoning.

Kids are usually on board with being careful with things.  They will throw their wrappers in the trash, they will sort the plastics according to type, they will make sure that glass goes in the glass recycling container.  It is the parents and other adults who resent the discipline imposed by the needs of the environment.

Whether or not it is too late to prevent Global Warming from getting to the runaway stage, we may as well begin to plan to minimize its impact.  The future may be horrific, but it will be less horrific if we just dig our heels in, and work to lessen the impact of Climate Change for post-critical-point civilization.

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