Cut Energy Use
Global Warming Isn't the Only Problem
I thought the idea of global warming made sense when I heard of it in the early 70s just on the level of greenhouse gasses.
It's just a matter of equilibrium. The Earth gets a certain amount of energy from the Sun and radiates a certain amount of energy into space. Globally, the temperature of the Earth is an equilibrium between the energy coming in and the energy going out. What we call climate is a direct function of that global temperature
That idea is so simple that it's not even rocket science. At the time there was very little actual evidence for it though.
Over the years I've watched the evidence for it growing. It was well established that CO2 levels are rising at present and have been rising in the past and that was directly linked to humanity's increasing use of fossil fuels.
We gathered data and developed statistical techniques that tease information about climate from the chaotic data about weather.
In the past few weeks I've been seeing headlines saying that 2023 was the hottest year ever! And we've seen what that means - lots of wild weather because there is more energy in the atmosphere. This means more storms and floods and also more heatwaves and (paradoxically) cold waves.
Global warming isn't something a hundred years away if we don't get our act together. It's upon us now.
We still need to reduce the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere or thing will get worse. This means reducing our use of fossil fuels dramatically. The question is: How?
I've observed that non-fossil energy sources all have their own problems. I once worked on a hydro dam in on the Saint John River that flooded thousands of acres and a couple of villages and transformed the ecosystem of the valley. And hydro is 'clean'.
The wind which is increasing because of global warming might seem promising. Wind farms are a bit of a visual blight (just ask Donald Trump) but maybe they can be placed out of sight like out on the ocean. But wind farms are fatal to birds. They don't have the cognition or instincts to dodge the blades.
I've seen pictures of solar power plants that involve acres and acres of solar panels. I would bet that these have pretty severe ecological consequences under them.
Of course we have nuclear power. What could possibly go wrong with that?
There are other non-fossil energy sources like tidal and geothermal under development.
The issue is that when any of these sources are scaled up to provide a significant proportion of humanity's energy needs there are always unanticipated (or counted) problems. And Collingridge's Dilemma applies; We can't know the consequences of a new technology until we apply it, and then it's too late to back out.
One of the factors driving the use of fossil fuels is that they have many advantages as an energy source. It puts a lot of power into a small package. An EV is lucky to get 300 miles in warm weather and then needs to wait half an hour to recharge. A gas car gets 500 on a fillup and then refills in 10 minutes. Steamships took over from sail because they didn't need to wait on the fickle wind.
There is a mindset involved in all of these power sources; that humanity should use as much power as it can get when it wants to.
This does lead to pretty absurdly wasteful situations. Around here it's common for people to use pressure washers to wash the sidewalks! These are very noisy stinky machines that are strong enough to damage the pavement and whose hoses present a tripping hazard. What's wrong with just sweeping the sidewalk?
I hear talk about the "15 minute city" idea where people find that most of what they need is within a 15 minute walk. The main impetus behind the idea is that it provides a much more livable urban environment. It would also reduce people's use of fossil fuels if they didn't have to drive. A friend was helping me move some electronic gear to recycling in a carshare car. He was taking the 15 minute city as a conspiracy involving everyone needing a passport to go more than 15 minutes from home. It was a conspiracy to get rid of cars. We were stuck in a traffic jam as we spoke.
He gestures at the traffic - in 5 years all of this will be gone, he exclaimed. He didn't get the irony.
One way of cutting energy use is to implement a general policy of buy local. Canada produces many great apples. Our market is flooded with apples from New Zealand. I'm sure we ship apples to New Zealand in turn. That's all at great expense in terms of both fossil fuels and energy.
With the internet we don't need to travel as much to conduct our business. This points to another way of cutting energy use. Just don't travel for the fun of it using airplanes and cars. The B52s put it well when they sang "roam if you want to; without wings, without wheels" But really - and this is personal - I think it's pretty nuts to fly to a tropical isle for a week in fantasyland.
People adapted to both heat and cold since time immemorial and had many methods of coping. We've evolved to be a society that uses lots of energy both to keep warm and keep cool. There are many traditional ways of doing that. Think of Arabian and Inuit dress. But our culture might go beyond that using superior insulation and smart clothes that generate power as we move.
Climate change is upon us. It's bad enough now and we expect it to get worse unless we drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels. Non-fossil energy sources all have their own problems. We need to be thinking about how to drastically reduce our use of energy.
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.