I am scared of Global Warming. I am scared of living in an England that is below 10 degrees everyday with constant overcast. I am scared of the ice caps melting and floods occurring all over the world. I am scared of the world that I know changing so rapidly that we hardly have time to think. I don't care if the idea is supposedly some big plot to scam us all for our money. I can see it happening, and I am scared.
But what, exactly, am I supposed to do about it? How can I prevent myself and my family from ever living in a dark age? I think that actually instead of us all complaining about the money going into ecological attributes and changes, we should encourage it. I want to know more about what I can do, I want to see people making a difference. I do not care if the actual warming of our atmosphere is a myth, something is happening and I want to stop it. I think we all need to be told how, and pretty damn soon.
One of the cleverest ideas I've heard, is to simply make removing CO2 (and other global warming gasses) from the atmosphere *profitable*. Whereas humankind won't do anything to save ourselves until the pain threshold is unbearable, we'll *always* want to make an immediate profit.
ReplyDeleteIt's not practical at this moment - though some outfits are working along those lines (I saw an article back a week or three ago). It does point out that if we can somehow leverage human nature, we can overcome this seemingly insurmountable challenge.
I feel your frustration, though. I sit here in New Mexico, a state that has a very low population (not much more than an entire Texas urban area), 300+ days of sun and wind a year. And our biggest power source? A filthy coal plant up in the northwest of the state. The local news is crowing over a 70 acre solar plant being built in the southern portion of the state. 70 acres?!! Drop in the bucket. How about 70 *miles*? That would be better. We've got plenty of state grazing land that could be double-purposed. And we could resell to neighboring states.
Texas has a terrible international reputation, I know ... but they're no fools. They've built huge windmill infrastructures east of Fort Stockton and west of San Angelo (those I've driven through). They're hedging their bets, oh so quietly. If you zoom in here near Fort Stockton (center/top) on the tops of the mesas, you'll see dozens of those huge windmills: http://goo.gl/maps/dS3f2
So there's room for hope, M. If *Texas* can quietly adopt renewables on such a huge scale, then others can, too. Question is, what can we all do to speed up the process so it has real, immediate climate impact.
And, I think your blog is terrific, BTW.
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting, Garret, I think the idea of making a profit is in some ways a good one, but will take us longer to think of good plans. But I guess if we completely pump all our money into saving the planet and leave us with nothing then we'll be left with another problem. There's always a double sided sword somewhere along the line.
ReplyDeleteIt's the simple denial of any change that gets me. Those filthy coal plants don't seem to be disappearing fast enough, as if they don't have huge impact on the climate. Texas seem to be doing it right though, in their own way. I actually really love the windmills. Whilst others complain of them being an eyesore I think they're quite beautiful. Like mechanic flowers up in the sky symbolising our desire to bring the earth back to normal and empowering that desire simultaneously.
I hope in the future I'll be writing about how much of a difference we've made, but for now I think you and I will just be waiting with frustration.
And thanks so much, I'm glad you like it! :-)
"Denial of change." I know what you mean. I can tell you a story of how we lost half of our native trees - in *three months* - here in Northern NM in 2003 due to climate change, and *still* we have deniers. Here's a flavor, just one of my posts from the period:
ReplyDeletehttp://dangerousmeta.com/site/comments/pion_problems/
The powerlessness gets to you ... especially when you're sitting in the middle of a slow-motion train wreck.
One can't lose hope. When you sit down and talk to people one-to-one, everyone wants to be reasonable. Everyone wants a future. One has to work hard to find common ground, but it can be found ... and you build on that.