Blog Warming Party
The first thing to do in a new house is throw a house-warming party. This is a blog-warming party, and appropriately concerns the predicted increase in the earth's mean temperature in the coming decades.
Why a party? To celebrate a recent article in Newsweek by Robert J. Samuelson which seems to be right on target. This is significant because I anticipate this blog will produce some highly critical reviews of other mainstream media commentators.
Mr. Samuelson's argument is that stopping global warming is an extremely difficult, almost impossible engineering problem. He notes politicians talk about this with "self-serving hypocrisy" but do not, or cannot address the intractability of the problem. I agree.
CO2 levels are rising rapidly - this is an unassailable fact. It is hard to prove this is due to human activity, but it's a reasonable hypothesis supported by some evidence. It is hard to predict how this will affect the earth's mean temperature, but it's reasonable to expect greenhouse warming. The preponderance of scientific opinion tends toward the conclusion that it is happening now.
When we read about the hypermodernization of Asian societies, the huge numbers of people make our American civilization look like a modest town by comparison. We read in the papers that America is unpopular, but the evidence is that people across the globe want to live like Americans: to generate large quantities of electricity for a better standard of living, to become mobile with automobiles, to live in the suburbs with a house and a lawn and to drive the kids to soccer practice in a minivan. Why shouldn't they? Are you going to stop them? You won't stop me. Now close your eyes and imagine ten Americas on our little planet.
All of the oil will be burned. Much of the coal will be burned. There's just no way to stop this. The stuff is too useful - too easily converted into the energy we crave. What could take its place? And what will take its place when it's gone? Increased efficiency simply does not solve this problem. Growing food to make ethanol seems irrational. Perhaps massive amounts of nuclear power could help somewhat, but there is little movement in this direction. Do any serious politicians talk about reducing the population of the earth? All of the oil will be burned. Isn't this a more profound problem?
Returning to the lesser problem of warming: perhaps a warmer world is not all bad. Up here in chilly Massachusetts, it sounds OK to me. The sea will rise many inches and we clever humans will adapt to that. Some animal species will go extinct; others will shift their territorial range. Plants love CO2. And did you ever ponder how much sparsely populated land there is in snowy Canada and Siberia? The biosphere will thrive. But we are making catastrophic changes to the earth in other ways. Global warming is a detail. What do the most knowledgable environmental scientists, like E. O. Wilson, worry about? I suspect they are more distraught by the loss of species to rapid urban development and chemical pollution.
There is a misundestanding in the enlightened classes of people who are concerned about environmental protection. They take small actions which relieve the guilt associated with the transformation of our planet. They can say, "I'm doing my part" when they turn off a light, or recycle a Coke can, or buy a hybrid car. They say, "every little bit helps" when they propose a windmill farm. But the energy problem is much worse than they imagine. No solution is in sight.
So the next time you hear someone warn about global warming, thank him politely, but press him hard on this question: Is it possible to stop it?
Why a party? To celebrate a recent article in Newsweek by Robert J. Samuelson which seems to be right on target. This is significant because I anticipate this blog will produce some highly critical reviews of other mainstream media commentators.
Mr. Samuelson's argument is that stopping global warming is an extremely difficult, almost impossible engineering problem. He notes politicians talk about this with "self-serving hypocrisy" but do not, or cannot address the intractability of the problem. I agree.
CO2 levels are rising rapidly - this is an unassailable fact. It is hard to prove this is due to human activity, but it's a reasonable hypothesis supported by some evidence. It is hard to predict how this will affect the earth's mean temperature, but it's reasonable to expect greenhouse warming. The preponderance of scientific opinion tends toward the conclusion that it is happening now.
When we read about the hypermodernization of Asian societies, the huge numbers of people make our American civilization look like a modest town by comparison. We read in the papers that America is unpopular, but the evidence is that people across the globe want to live like Americans: to generate large quantities of electricity for a better standard of living, to become mobile with automobiles, to live in the suburbs with a house and a lawn and to drive the kids to soccer practice in a minivan. Why shouldn't they? Are you going to stop them? You won't stop me. Now close your eyes and imagine ten Americas on our little planet.
All of the oil will be burned. Much of the coal will be burned. There's just no way to stop this. The stuff is too useful - too easily converted into the energy we crave. What could take its place? And what will take its place when it's gone? Increased efficiency simply does not solve this problem. Growing food to make ethanol seems irrational. Perhaps massive amounts of nuclear power could help somewhat, but there is little movement in this direction. Do any serious politicians talk about reducing the population of the earth? All of the oil will be burned. Isn't this a more profound problem?
Returning to the lesser problem of warming: perhaps a warmer world is not all bad. Up here in chilly Massachusetts, it sounds OK to me. The sea will rise many inches and we clever humans will adapt to that. Some animal species will go extinct; others will shift their territorial range. Plants love CO2. And did you ever ponder how much sparsely populated land there is in snowy Canada and Siberia? The biosphere will thrive. But we are making catastrophic changes to the earth in other ways. Global warming is a detail. What do the most knowledgable environmental scientists, like E. O. Wilson, worry about? I suspect they are more distraught by the loss of species to rapid urban development and chemical pollution.
There is a misundestanding in the enlightened classes of people who are concerned about environmental protection. They take small actions which relieve the guilt associated with the transformation of our planet. They can say, "I'm doing my part" when they turn off a light, or recycle a Coke can, or buy a hybrid car. They say, "every little bit helps" when they propose a windmill farm. But the energy problem is much worse than they imagine. No solution is in sight.
So the next time you hear someone warn about global warming, thank him politely, but press him hard on this question: Is it possible to stop it?
posted by Simon Willard at 10:14 PM
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