It's the End of the World As We Know It
Global warming is not only in progress, it is now unavoidable. There is no turning back. There is no way to prevent the continual heating of our planet before it reaches equilibrium, before Earth is a much different world from the one we know. When Earth reaches equilibrium, sea level will be much higher, climate zones will have radically changed, land that is now home to many millions of people will no longer be habitable.
That is the gist of Elizabeth Kolbert's presentation last night here in Albany. But she emphasizes that there is still hope for human civilization. We can continue on our current path of resigning ourselves to a catastrophic fate, maybe hoping for divine intervention. Or we can commit ourselves to the radical changes that are absolutely essential to make global warming manageable.
Numbers aren't as important as trends. You can find countless numbers relating to global warming, numbers that people will eternally argue over, revise, hypothesize, predict, prove, disprove. But the trends are irrefutable evidence of what is now taking place and what will happen in the future. You can easily find the evidence from many sources, including Elizabeth Kolbert's book Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Since she wrote the book, Elizabeth says that many of the estimates regarding time and degree of global climate change have been shown to be conservative. Change is happening much more quickly than originally anticipated by the leading experts.
So it comes down to determining just how radically we need to alter our lifestyles and how to accomplish the task. Elizabeth thinks that Americans (by far the largest producers of greenhouse gases) need to reduce their impact by a whopping 80%. That seems almost impossible to accomplish given the current attitude of nearly all Americans. Certainly there is much greater awareness and commitment to doing something, but how will it be possible to get so many people to do so much, and soon?
We not only need to convince individuals to change their ways... that will not by itself prevent catastrophe. We need to institutionalize radical change. We need an entirely new framework of energy use. We need to abandon fossil fuels as quickly as possible. We need a huge investment in technology (if only we had the money that was sunk into the destruction of Iraq). We need bold planning for larger, denser cities well above sea level. We need investment in infrastructure that doesn't rely on the internal combustion engine. We need local food everywhere. We need new ideas.
There is so much that needs to be done and can be done if we are willing to avoid catastrophe. I'll do what I can as a regional planner but I can't do it alone. Who's with me?
~Kurt
That is the gist of Elizabeth Kolbert's presentation last night here in Albany. But she emphasizes that there is still hope for human civilization. We can continue on our current path of resigning ourselves to a catastrophic fate, maybe hoping for divine intervention. Or we can commit ourselves to the radical changes that are absolutely essential to make global warming manageable.
Numbers aren't as important as trends. You can find countless numbers relating to global warming, numbers that people will eternally argue over, revise, hypothesize, predict, prove, disprove. But the trends are irrefutable evidence of what is now taking place and what will happen in the future. You can easily find the evidence from many sources, including Elizabeth Kolbert's book Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Since she wrote the book, Elizabeth says that many of the estimates regarding time and degree of global climate change have been shown to be conservative. Change is happening much more quickly than originally anticipated by the leading experts.
So it comes down to determining just how radically we need to alter our lifestyles and how to accomplish the task. Elizabeth thinks that Americans (by far the largest producers of greenhouse gases) need to reduce their impact by a whopping 80%. That seems almost impossible to accomplish given the current attitude of nearly all Americans. Certainly there is much greater awareness and commitment to doing something, but how will it be possible to get so many people to do so much, and soon?
We not only need to convince individuals to change their ways... that will not by itself prevent catastrophe. We need to institutionalize radical change. We need an entirely new framework of energy use. We need to abandon fossil fuels as quickly as possible. We need a huge investment in technology (if only we had the money that was sunk into the destruction of Iraq). We need bold planning for larger, denser cities well above sea level. We need investment in infrastructure that doesn't rely on the internal combustion engine. We need local food everywhere. We need new ideas.
There is so much that needs to be done and can be done if we are willing to avoid catastrophe. I'll do what I can as a regional planner but I can't do it alone. Who's with me?
~Kurt
posted by Swallowtail at 08:02
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