I’m never trusting of those who give ultimatums. Deadlines to make us panic, start tossing anything we might think is extraneous out the window in a madcap rush to follow along with what we are told is the way forward. It’s as insulting as proclaiming a silver bullet. People who say that we have 10 years, 12 years to completely change Everything to their way of doing things because they have the answers. ![]() We gave up on the ounce of prevention because we didn’t like the taste, so now we have to go for our pound of cure and it’s coming in the biggest needle the doctors can find.īut there are those who don’t want us to have more time. Now we have to do all those things but without any buffer and With the added problem of having to start pulling CO2 out of the air instead of simply preventing it from getting there in the first place. ![]() That would have given us the time to work on decarbonizing the rest of our industry and then some. We squandered that 40 years ago when we could have decarbonized our electrical grid with nuclear and other clean technologies. Every tiny scrap of energy that we can harness that doesn’t compound our problems, every joule that we can use to make things better, every erg, every calorie, every bead of sweat on a forehead is the currency that we can use to buy ourselves Time to fix our problems.īut we can’t just ignore the problems and symptoms that are in front of us right now because we have no time left to spend on waiting for a solution. ![]() And it is the most precious commodity in the world right now. Without complete data, no one can make a correct answer.īut there is one thing that nuclear, solar, geothermal, even wind energy can give us. I hate this chart, because it is so successful at making people think that individual changes can make a substantial difference, but fails so completely at showcasing what the actual scale of the changes that need to happen are. And switching to a plant based diet is even Less carbon savings per person than Reducing air travel let alone stopping it. What you might not know is that air travel is only 2% of global carbon emissions, so even if Everyone stopped flying for leisure we would have made less than a 2% difference in global emissions. “Cut back your air travel and switch to a plant based diet and things will get better” is something I’m sure basically everyone has heard by now. If anyone is offering you a silver bullet, saying that “If we just had more of this all our problems would go away” they are insulting you and everyone else that they think will believe them. And the same goes for every other clean energy technology out there. It would be monumentally, stupendously, Insultingly arrogant of me to say that. So of course I’m not going to say that nuclear power could solve all of that. 1st world countries where people are constantly fearful of their economic security, and are being told to turn on their fellow man and neglect their basic basic human decency because they are different. ![]() Rising ocean levels, Methane deposits melting, northern bogs losing their ability to sink carbon, ocean acidification, and probably several more that haven’t reached mainstream knowledge yet.īut that’s just the environmental side of things, what about the social aspect? A population struggling to all rise to 1st world levels of stability, displaced peoples trying to find a place where they can feel safe and not go to bed hungry. The scale of the impact of climate change is so large it is almost impossible to comprehend, and whenever someone thinks that the whole breadth of it has been explored, new components crop up. And the reason I think this is because I can’t convince myself that Climate Change is the problem, it’s simply one of the symptoms. Neither is solar, wind, geothermal, and especially not combined cycle gas or “clean coal”. But I love subverting expectations so here’s where I get to say that I don’t think that it is. I can imagine that most people right now are thinking that this is where I start saying that only nuclear is the solution to today’s problems such as Climate Change. One of his favourite lines is “The problems of today cannot be solved with the solutions of yesterday, and the problems of tomorrow cannot be solved with the solutions of today.”įor those of you a bit more deeply embedded into internet culture you might be more familiar with this way of putting it: You are full of more wisdom than anyone ever expected Dave. I had a mentor a few years back and he gave me some very good advice that has shaped a lot of the outlook I have on what is going on in the world. I’m going to start this article off with a bit of a personal touch.
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