What I Think About Climate Change
Climate change is on everyone’s mind – at least if they are paying attention – because we are seeing a lot of things change very quickly. Storms are more intense. Temperatures are more extreme. The physical environment is being impacted. Some scientists report that it is changing faster than ever seen in recorded history.
I don’t dispute that things are changing, but I also acknowledge that this is a living planet that has been through climate change both large and small during its existence. I think that the framing of this issue as an “existential threat” does more harm than good because it leads to paralysis. If you think you can’t make things better, and everyone’s arguing about the data, and WE ARE ALL DOOMED, then what’s the point of it all? Why even bother if we are all just going to die anyway? Go ahead – buy that Hummer that gets 6 miles to the gallon because we are ALL GOING TO DIE.
Well, we are going to die anyway but hopefully in a different manner than the planet imploding due to the environmental changes happening.
I wanted to make sure I understood fully what an existential threat is so I asked the Google Search AI Assistant. This is what it reported:
“An existential threat is a threat to something's existence, or when its continued being is at risk. It can be used to describe threats to living things, non-living things, countries, or ideologies. For example, climate change is considered an existential threat to humanity because its effects, such as rising sea levels and extreme weather events, pose a significant risk to human societies and the natural world. Other examples of existential threats include:
Nuclear war: Some say that nuclear war is the biggest existential threat to humans.
Pandemics and bioterrorism: These are examples of human-driven global catastrophic risks that could cause the collapse of human civilization.
Threats related to biotechnology: These could also be considered global catastrophic risks.”
Climate change could end human life if we don’t adapt quickly enough. But I also think we have a better chance of dying from a nuclear explosion, pandemics, or biotechnology than climate change. Thinking of nuclear annihilation and the “new Ice Age” makes me nostalgic for my childhood because those were the existential threats I grew up with. And yet, I’m still here and the world is still standing.
We should not ignore the existential threat of artificial intelligence and the havoc it can wreak on our lives. When people like the late Stephen Hawking warn that AI might kill us all, I think I’d be more worried about that since we are installing it everywhere in everything without a lot of thought or guidelines. And since I asked an AI Assistant about existential threats, I’m not surprised AI didn’t make the list.
When it comes to climate change, I do think we will die of something else first because humans tend to leap before we look. [For an example of this, see my article “The Day After Trinity & Artificial Intelligence”. ]This is why I think if we are wiped out, we will depart this mortal coil in a much different manner than a hotter planet.
The current conventional wisdom is that climate change is going to end the human race. There’s lots of hand wringing and angst. But if climate change is going to kill us, shouldn’t we take it more seriously?
We are being told that the way we live is driving climate change, but we don’t take climate change seriously enough to actually change the way we live. Too much of the focus is on fossil fuels and not enough is placed on all the other things heating the planet. Gluing yourself to a painting or cementing yourself to a busy roadway has absolutely no impact on rising sea levels. It does, however, contribute to the declining intelligence of the species. As usual the human race is doing things that look good but have no substantive impact on the issue at hand.
Instead, we want to take the easy way out: electric cars and recycling. We pat ourselves on the back and smile condescendingly at the people who “don’t get it.” I’m doing my part, we think. But your part is part of the problem because, it has no impact on the situation and it’s not a solution.
The problem is not the planet changing and doing its natural thing which is what is happening. That’s what planets do. The problem is that we don’t want to examine the real causes of what’s speeding up the changes in our environment. The real problem, as usual, is US.
We have to listen to people argue that we all need to drive electric cars without considering that the electricity needs to be generated by something somewhere. We don’t think about the fact that we need charging stations all across the country for that to even be feasible. Who is going to pay for that? Who is going to build it?
We recycle but most of us don’t want to admit that most of our “recycling” ends up in the garbage dump. We use lots of water in our homes and gardens, not thinking about the tremendous amounts of water required to cool all the servers that make up “the cloud,” that we all insist we need to have to back up those photos of our breakfast that we shared on social media.
Human ways of doing things – the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality – is what is killing the planet. We pave the world with asphalt and cement, which are great retainers of heat, and wonder why the temperature is rising. We commit heinous acts of deforestation and wonder why the planet is hotter and bears are eating our garbage. This is why I hate developers; they destroy the land like locusts, and then move on, leaving the devastation of destroyed communities and habitats in their wake. I doubt their thoughts for the future are about how to leave the world a better place where we live in harmony with nature.
Our current state of discourse is an all or nothing approach to everything. “Electric cars only” when hybrids are the obvious answer. Yes, hybrid still uses fossil fuel but LESS fossil fuel. I saw a recent ad for a hybrid vehicle that pointed out “electric for short trips and gas for long trips.” Yes. Exactly. Balance is a beautiful thing.
We can gather solar power, wind power, and hydro power in addition to fossil fuels but we still are grappling with energy storage and distribution. But then we have those opposed to fossil fuels screaming that we can’t use any of the natural power gathered either because it hurts the environment. So where exactly does that leave us? Naked and afraid in the dark, that’s where.
There are too many righteously indignant activists who want to scream about the issue but not actually solve it. Lifestyles need to change globally if we are to minimize our impact on a warming planet. Individuals can make some changes, and if enough individuals make changes that will have a small ripple effect. But as long as we continue doing things the way we always have from paving the earth to overdevelopment to overfishing and overconsumption, the impact of individuals will not be strong enough.
Buying an electric car will not solve the problem. Changing the ways we build cities, support technology, and act as stewards of the environment will. What are you prepared to let go of in order to hold on to something better?
