Category Archives: Climate Change

Why I’m Optomistic About Thing To Come

Climate Change, Philosophy
The Future of Telephones in 2000
Telephones of the Year 2000

As I write it is 2 January 2024. In the past year I’ve been asked why I’m optimistic about the future. An while the answer is not particularly complex I have found it hard to explain to others. After much thought I’ve come to understand it comes down to two things. I know the history of what we thought the future will be like and I know the history of doom I have personally lived thru.

Let’s start with the History of the future and by that I mean what did we think the future would be like back in the day. The two pictures above show to distinct images of the future. One from around 1920 and one from 1973. The top one is wildly optimistic and the other is wildly pessimistic. Both are quite inaccurate in their vision. I can go on and on with examples and I invite the reader to try looking for their own for examples. They are surprisingly easy to find.

My second reason for being optimistic is I have personally lives thru three “we are DOOMED” events. Back when I was just a boy (1950s) it was the “Atomic Bomb”. Quite a few of the SF movies of the era delt with both the “Atomic War” and or it’s aftermath. Some, like “On the Beach” were very well done. Others like “Panic in the Year Zero” not very good at all. Most were made to be “B” reel movies. Like the movies, the written SF of the time that dealt with “Atomic War” tended to be only fair to poor and were mostly pulp fiction. They all had a few things in common. First the “Atomic War” was inevitable. Next nobody wanted it and last “It just Happened”. An finally it almost always ended up where everything was “Bad”, with wildly varying degrees of ‘Bad’. As of this writing the “Atomic War” has yet to happen.

The next, second, “we are DOOMED” even started in the 1960’s, over population and is in the second of my images above. I selected “Soylent Green” because it is set in the ‘far distant future of 2022’. None of what it predicted has come to pass. Although we do seem to be working our way to the ‘permanent heat wave’ of the story. There have not been as many movies/stories about the “over population crisis” as the “Atomic Bomb crisis” but it was not as “flashy” as an atomic explosion.

The third and last event was the short lived “Ozone Layer”. This “Dooms Day” event could be easily missed if you blinked hard as it was going by. Needless to say the Ozone Lay is still with us.

We are now in a new “We are Doomed” crisis with “Climate Change (AKA Global warming). I don’t know how we are going to solve this one, thankfully it is not my job or responsibility. An that brings me to why I’m optimistic. It is simple, I have faith that the up and coming generations will find solutions to their problems just like mine found solutions to its “crisis” events. I feel this way because they are just like my generation it what is important. They don’t know what is impossible. They do not accept that there are “Insolvable Problems” and they, like us, are ready, willing an able to tackle what comes their way.

Now don’t ask me what the solutions they will find will be or look like, I don’t have a clue. But I do know it will most likely not look like, if even be, what we can imagine today. That is why I have the first picture. To show how right and wrong our current visions are. We have the video phone, and no, they don’t look or work like anything imagined back then. But it will happen and it will be wondrous.

A fun little thought experiment

Climate Change, Philosophy, , ,
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine

I would like to share a fun little thing I do to get a perspective on things. I also use it to show why I have such high hopes for the kids of today. So here we go….

First think about the year you were born. In my case that is 1951. Now think about 100 years earlier, again in my case that would be 1851. Now here comes the first hard part, think about how people lived in that year. Then think about how things were 100 years ago, 1923 and how people lived back the. This last part is easier to do because there is an excellent and very readable history “Only Yesterday’ by Fredrick Lewis Allen to help you out. Now just think about just how much things changed in that time. In 1851 the telegraph was brand new. There was no Republican Party. Most Americans lived either on farms or in small market towns, lest than a few thousand people. Slavery was still going strong in the south. Most people depended on walking to get anywhere, you were both luck and well off to be able to ride a mule or a horse and that for a long trip, like 20 miles to town. Finally a dollar a day was very good wages, especially if you were paired in gold coin.

Now let us look at 1923. The telegraph is being changed by the Telephone. Railroads are “The” way to travel long distance over land. Commercial Radio stations were springing up and in two years the live broadcast of a Presidential Inauguration will take place. The start of the age of the automobile and expanse of paved highways between towns. The idea that to become a medical doctor you need to have a college degree before medical school. The list seems to go on and on.

Now look at your life, in my case 1951 to 2023 and look at what you took for granted when you were in grade school or Middle school or High school. For me one easy way is to watch old movies of the 1960’s that I watched. Not just science fiction, spy dramas, crime dramas, even comedies. With Science fiction it can be an especially big giggle when they talk about the distant future like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solent Green (set in 2022)., By the way I’m still waiting for my self driving flying car. Other movies like “Fantastic Voyage” and “ Satan Bug” can remind you of cutting edge technologies of the 1960s. In any case it will give you a wonderful feel for how we misestimated the changes we will see, both what we thought would happen and things we never saw coming.

Now to the whole point of this experiment. When ever you start getting down about the state of the world. When the “Doom” sayers get to you take a look and all we have accomplished in just your life time and even before. An have faith in the kids to over face what comes, to adapt and to over come.

A change in view and Tactics

Climate Change, Politics, Science, , ,
Weather Control
Coming Soon: Weather Control

A little while ago a friend of mine suggested a new way of talking about the Climate Change Crisis. She recommend I use the phase “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” I tried it and it worked. We got away from arguing about if it exists or not and started discussing just how we will pay for either just letting things happen or trying to do something preemptively. I was even able to change the wording. No longer are we trying to reverse the effects of “Global Warming (AKA Climate Change) we were now talking about controlling the Climate aka Weather.

Controlling Weather has be a staple of Science Fiction since forever. It is right up there with sailing under the sea and flying to the Moon. Both of which we now have done and take for granted. One big advantage is we can take off the table how we get other countries to cooperate. We can just assume they will joint in just so they have some say in what kind of weather. This also gets the Climate Change Deniers off of defending their denial, very non-productive, and onto thinking about what we can do that benefits us.

Another thing is we can get them to look at just how much the recovery from ‘Natural’ disasters cost and looking at how much preventive action would have cost. One example is the cost of improving the levy system of the lower Mississippi vs building all new sea ways when the river changes its path it has now away from the Port of New Orleans. The river has tried to do this a couple of time already and preventing it has been both costly and difficult. We even have a great ‘Bad Example’ in the wild fire in Hawaii, recovery costs of over $5 billion or greater are being talked about. What would it cost in recovery cost be for Miami when it is hit head on by a mega Hurricane?

Finally we can point out, with hard examples, that the money we put into the research on Climate Control will, 1) be mostly spent in the USA and 2) even pure research has always pay itself back many times over. A when the research is targeted, like in the space program, the return on investments is even greater. An as an added bonus we can go looking for the hidden examples of where research in one area has given great benefits in totally unrelated areas.

You can pay for it now, or you can pay for it later.

Dorian & Mar a Largo

Climate Change, History, Socioeconomic, , ,

For years now I’ve been saying that what is needed for the 1%ers to get hurt by the effects of Global Warming (aka Climate Change) and it looks like it could be happening now. According to Forbes, 40 of the wealthiest people in the world live in West Palm Beach.

At the time of writing hurricane Dorian is only a category 1 but it is projected to be a category 4 by the time it makes landfall in Florida. If you look at a map you will see that West Palm Beach is almost exactly in the middle of the cone of projected path for him. Looking at the map will also show that there are a great many ‘large houses’ (dare we say mansions) on the island that Mar a Largo is located.

I have been told that many of these island of the Florida East cost are not very high. It is also be projected that Dorian will be coming ashore at high tide and that it is also a new moon, so the tide will be higher than usual. This is just made for some serious damage. The people who are not going to be your average citizen of Porto Rico, shoot they wont be your average American, much less Floridian. We are talking about the 1% of the 1%. People who don’t take kindly to loosing anything to anything. An they like to find some body to blame other than themselves.

Unfortunately for the President the usually candidates for blame, the poor, the Immigrant, or any “not us” are really good as a scape goat for this. The 0.01%rs are not, generally stupid. They know just what is going on and who is doing what to whom. This has happen before in our, human, history. The example I like to remember is how London started to get a modern sewer system. In the mid 1900’s London was swept by annual Typhus epidemics every summer. Also the Times River was used as an open sewer for the city. The stench was getting so bad everyone but the very poor and the people who made their living off the river got as far away from the river as possible. Unfortunately for Parliament, the parliament building was on the river. So when both the stench and Typhus got too close (aka knocking on the doors of parliament) both the city and national government took action.

They waited this long, in spite of the clambering of the common fore about the problem. Nothing was done till ‘those who mater’ were inconvenienced and/or threatened. Well, we could be seeing this happen to the 0.01% now. First West Palm Beach, tomorrow Manhattan Island.

While the world burns.

Climate Change, Rants, Science, ,

Now that the G-6 +1 is over I’d like to share some thoughts I’ve had while volunteering at the Discovery Cube L. A. When I’m asked about climate change/global warming/Amazon Rainforest fires. I shan’t boor you with the science we going into, it is after all for kids and you can get much better information just googling the subject or go to NOAA and/or NASA. Rather I’m going to take you on a thought Experiment into what will happen.

I was originally going to go thru a step by step process of my reasoning but it quickly turned into a very nice term paper. Quite long and equally boring. It has been set aside for another day. Instead I’m just going to dive into a positive view of what things will be like if we either do something or don’t do something about climate change and the rapidly global warming that is driving it.

First off, in the 4.6+ billion years that the earth has existed it’s climate has been changing. Most assuredly in the estimated 4 billion years that life has been around the earth’s climate has been changing and life has been a key player in that change. It is here I like to talk about the “Great Oxygen Catastrophe” that leads to Snowball Earth. I have seen estimates that go as high as 98% of all life on Earth went extinct but I usually say that it was over 90%. I then talk about the multiple Great Extinction events in the Earth’s history.

I now like to point out that life has existed on both land and sea when the Earth was so hot there were no polar icecaps. If fact some estimates of the temperatures were several degrees centigrade higher than current predictions for the current warming. If the conservative prediction of warming occurs then it is most likely all of the two polar icecaps will totally melt. If we go with the accepted estimates of how much ice is in the two icecaps we will see sea level rise just about 80 meters (262+ feet). It is here I bring up the SOS (Science on a Sphere) data set that shows the sea rise in 10 meter increments.

If you are wondering, the USA doesn’t do too badly. We loose two states for sure (Louisiana and Delaware) and most of about six others. California will loose the Great Central Valley and get a new, expanded San Francisco Bay. We will have to say bye bye to places like Denmark, Holland, Bangladesh, and maybe Vet Nam. Cities lost will include Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia, London, and Beijing. All this happens if we do nothing. Not very likely to happen but still a possibility.

Now is when I like to point out that we, Americans, have faced economic and environmental crisis like this before in our history and have come thru all the better for it. For that mater the world has faced crisis like this in the last few centuries. I like to talk about the annual Typhus outbreaks that hit London in the mid 19th century. When the causal factor (using the river as a sewer) reached the Houses of Parliament action was finally taken. I feel very confident that when the rising sea level starts affecting the 1% they too will take action. An it may not take the annual flooding of southern Florida either.

Now for something I don’t share with the kids, ever. If the most pessimistic projects come true the earth can loose between 50% to 90% of both life and bio diversity. This has happen before in the list or of life on Earth and most likely happen again. We, like the first photosynthetic life, maybe the major cause of it. In any case, given the spread of humanity over the earth, and our numbers 7.7+ Billion it is unlikely we will go extinct (7.7 billion * 0.01 is 7.7 million). Also while this is all happening with lighting speed in geological time it is still taking either decades or centuries to happen.

In closing just remember this, Mankind has been slapped silly by Mother Nature many times in our history. An while we usually pick ourselves up, dust ourselves of and go on our way as if nothing has happened, sometimes we do learn something. An always, always we become wiser, stronger, better.

The Blob and Global Warming

Climate Change, Humor, , ,
The Blob coming out of theater

I wonder if all those Climate Change aka Global Warming, deniers truly understand the horror that is facing mankind. Back in the mid 1950’s in a small town in America a group of courageous high schoolers saved their town and the country from an outer space monster. We know this happened because of the Docu-drama that hit the drive-in theaters in 1958 under the catchy name “The Blob”.

So what is the danger to us now? Simply put the “Blob” wasn’t killed, only frozen. An as Steve Andrews says at the end of the movie “As long as the Arctic stays cold.” Well the Arctic isn’t staying cold, now is it. Just listen to the news, Alaska and Greenland have and/or are having the hottest heatwaves in their history. An if the movie is accurate on where the Blob’s capsule was dropped, it was on the Arctic Icesheet. That is sea ice, not land.

Are we sure the capsule shown in the movie was an accurate representation of the actual capsule used. Is it jelly tight or can the Blob, once it has thawed out, squeeze out. How corrosion resistant is the capsule? After all it has been over 60+ years are we really sure that the Blob is in it’s prison? Do we know if the capsule is still on the ice sheet and hasn’t melted it’s way thru the ice and dropped to the Arctic sea bed?

From what we saw in the movie the Blob will absorb any animal life. (In the movie the Blob ignores all of the plant life in the town and goes for the people and other animals.). We also know it will move towards the nearest concentration of animal life and will recoil from cold. This leads to holding it will move towards schools of fish and eventually towards land and villages. But that is not the worst, not at all.

If the docu-drama is anywhere accurate the Blob grows almost exponentially. Grow even bigger than what it eats. Also just what effect will high explosives have. It won’t kill the Blob but it could scatter bits a pieces all over the place. Will the pieces rejoin to make on big blob or will the each go on their own way help create a Blob Apocalypse? What will we do if one or more pieces get down below the snow line, where it rarely, if ever, get down to freezing. How do we stop it then?

So there you have it. The TRUE terror of global warming. Now we know just what the 1% is truly hiding from us. They are able to afford cryogenic fortifications able to stop the Blob(s). The rest of us, not so much. So

Beware the BLOB!