Here is a website that outlines what are the most effective steps to take to combat climate change.
This is mind-blowing. To tackle climate change most effectively, look to reconfigure refrigeration and waste less food and educate girls. Mass transit is number 37 on the list!
Here is the key take away…
“Every refrigerator and air conditioner contains chemical refrigerants that absorb and release heat to enable chilling. Refrigerants, specifically CFCs and HCFCs, were once culprits in depleting the ozone layer. Thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, they have been phased out. HFCs, the primary replacement, spare the ozone layer, but have 1,000 to 9,000 times greater capacity to warm the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.”
Conspiracy Theory 1 – One very significant reason that the climate is changing is because we made the colossal mistake of moving to HFCs in refrigeration starting about 30 years ago. Prior to this, we had been pumping CO2s into the atmosphere with negligible effect on the climate. It was only once we started with HFCs that climate change became a significant issue, and that climate change really took off – the recent culprit then is HFCs, not CO2. In tackling CO2, we are mostly going after the wrong target, and we are ignoring a far more cost-effective way to tackle this issue – adjust refrigeration, not transportation.
What about the fixation on Net Zero – we will get to a point by 2050 where we will contribute no net CO2 to the atmosphere?
Can we call this what it is….a lie and borderline insane? No one believes we will do this. And we actually don’t have to do this, for reasons I note below…in short, here is what I actually think about the debate regarding climate change.
The goal regarding this issue should be to find some balance between what we have to do to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time to adjust to a changing planet given that one causes the other. Net Zero is not balance, but it is extremist, unrealistic and unnecessary, driven by mass psychology that serves the interests of certain politicians and parties and other actors who have absolutely no intention of ever implementing it.
There is no going back now – we are going to have to adjust as the planet’s climate has started changing, and it will continue to do so. But in this we do have a fairly powerful ally that environmentalists seem to mostly ignore. It is here that we need to discuss “An Inconvenient Truth”.
This was Al Gore’s movie of more than a decade ago. Like Greta’s recent prognostications, it was alarmist and purposely disturbing…and very popular. In the movie, Gore looks to a chart that purports to show CO2 levels in the atmosphere over one thousand years, and to show a future massive spike stemming from our burning of fossil fuels.
Here it is…
When I saw this, I was struck by what I thought was a fairly gigantic analytical flaw. In short, apparently Nature is neutral and doesn’t change – or it will at least be easily overwhelmed. If we pump more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, Gore’s chart seems to suggest that it will just collect there, Nature having no net effect on the level of CO2 in parts per million.
But Gore’s own graph seems to belie his own flawed logic. It shows that for 1,000 years, Nature kept the level of CO2 in the atmosphere right about 400 parts per million, no matter what. That level represents Nature in balance – and Nature always seeks to return to a balance. And yet, Gore’s chart says it will eventually go above 450 + parts per million. Really?
Conspiracy Theory 2 – What was “An Inconvenient Truth” actually about? Gore lost the presidency by a hair in 2000 – had he won his own state, he would have been the president, not Dubya. The movie was an attempted come-back by Gore, which is why he figured so prominently in it – it came out in 2006, perfectly timed if he wanted to throw his hat back in the ring for the 2008 campaign. He could have done a movie about climate change – he did one about himself and climate change. In the end he declined to run again, and has continued with climate change projects and organizations ever since….he is also on the board of directors of Apple. It’s good to not be the king!
Back to the point - our ally is Nature itself. As we pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, Nature will adjust to pull it back out and return to balance – the carbon sinks will not just pull carbon out of the air as they have always done, but they will grow and pull out even more. Net Zero seems to assume this is not the case – in short, the environmentalists appear to me to have forgotten the environment itself. The goal should be balance, not the evisceration of our existing way of life.
My suggestion is simple!! To achieve a balance in concert with Nature, we need to give Nature some time to catch up as it is possible that we have been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere faster than Nature can adjust to absorb it, at least in the short run. In fact, regarding “role sand responsibilities”, Nature will do far more than we will or even can to address this issue – we have to just let that happen.
The CO2 target that makes sense is not Net Zero which would require that we completely replace our entire fossil-fuel energy infrastructure in thirty years. Rather than that, if we simply flat-lined or slightly reduced our carbon footprint over the next decade or so, while leaving existing carbon sinks intact, that should allow for the inevitable balance to be restored. Net Zero Growth in Emissions, is preferred to Net Zero Emissions.
Conspiracy Theory 3 – Some of the discussion around this issue is totally nuts, and aspects of the concept of carbon capture seems to me to be particularly insane. This pertains to the development of technical processes for pulling the CO2 that we spewed into the atmosphere back out again – picture big carbon sucking factories. We already have a system for this…it is called a “tree”.
In moving back into balance, Nature will adjust in ways that will require us to adjust as well. There are implications for sea levels, growing seasons, the geography of the planet etc. that we will have to adjust to. This will cost money, but I think it will cost way less than trying to move to an economy that does not use fossil fuels at all….and the cat is out of the bag – we have to adjust now anyway.
OK - let’s discuss every mainstream environmentalists favourite boogeyman – Bjorn Lomborg. This guy is the Skeptical Environmentalist. He wrote a book called “Measuring the Real State of the World” about 20 years ago that is well worth looking at.
Why?
Because after any amount of reading it is impossible to come away as anything but an environmental optimist. He shows that that Humans have successfully tackled the vast majority of environmental issues that we have ever faced – things are getting better, not worse. He accepts climate change as a reality, including the basic science around it, but has asks some very good questions about the implications of climate change, wondering if tackling this is the best use of our money.
Many in the environmentalist community see Lomborg’s discussion of the relative costs of tacking climate change this as a red herring – as in, he is writing about the costs so as to not engage in the debate. This is only partially true – in fact, Lomborg has touched on the key issue in this debate which is the fact that we have multiple priorities as a society, and we do not have unlimited funds. He challenges us to think about rational and cost-effective solutions, not pie in the sky fantasies. He is the antithesis of Greta and Al.
Conspiracy Theory 4 – Politics and mass psychology are not the same thing. Greta and Al are about mass psychology, not politics or even real solutions. They are about helping people to feel that they are effective, when in fact most of the mass efforts, like the recent climate change strike, are a colossal waste of time.
To wit, when your revolution is used by main stream politicians for photo-ops during an election campaign, and when the “barricades” are actually police vehicles set in place to keep the crowd in check, you are being used.
A few people got it and called-out the phonies…good for them, but far too many people were there for the selfies. If you want to change and to do real politics, you need to get in the room with decision-makers and change their decisions. You do this by showing them how you will help them with money and votes – nothing else matters to them.
How do we flat line emissions?
Well, you saw the URL above it outlines the most cost effective things we can do to address this. Most of these are not earth shattering or especially difficult. If you want to be part of the solution, don’t buy a hybrid – get a new refrigerator without HFCs.
Note that our family will probably buy an electric car next, not entirely because of climate change, but because the economics of auto ownership will likely have tipped in favour of electrics for local trips by the time we need a new car. We will add solar panels to our roof when we redo it, also not entirely because of climate change, but to get partially off the grid and save even more cash.
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