Fossil-fuelled climate change: industry made

Manmade climate change is the most frightening term I am aware of. What bugs me though, is the fact that the whole term is so useless. We should be discussing another concept: industry made climate change. Or fossil-fuelled climate change. That way we’d probably raise the chance of us proving able to do something about it.

I mean: think about it. Manmade climate change is a term that might work to make people feel a bit numb. And it may even paralyse the masses of people collectively. As the easiest way to go about dealing with a problem is to exterminate. And I don’t long for people to start exterminating each other. Exterminating big industry on the other hand. Or doing away with all fossil-fuels use. Those would be things that I’d love to see happening. Because climate change is not necessarily manmade, in the sense that there truly are many people who hardly ever make use of fossil-fuels and who are certainly not in the habit of doing factory work.

Tribal peoples from around the planet shall be notified: the problem with global warming and climate change is hardly their fault. A tremendous lot of poor and unemployed westerners like myself shall also be notified: it is indeed possible to lead a perfectly normal low-carbon life, even here in modern Europe.

Climate change is not manmade in the sense that all humans are equally to blame. Some humans do have a bigger part of the responsibility around here. It goes without saying. What bugs me the most is the simple fact that those who are responsible for the most CO2 emissions are the same people who are in complete and unrestrained control of all possible policy making. The super-rich are responsible for all that big industry is doing and as concerns the interest-based decision-making of the political world, they’ve got a lot of control to answer for. And while I’m at it: every middle-class car owner has a stake in climate change which the poor and car-less do not have. It really goes without saying, but few people ever do so. Not on the internet and not anywhere else. It’s frightfully true to the point, that’s why. It makes you feel slightly nauseous and a little irritated, and that’s also why.

But let me return to my first case in point. Fossil-fuelled. Industry made. I think it would be easier to do away with a problem that is fossil-fuelled and industry made, and not manmade as such. I mean: I’d be killing off industries every day. I’d be boycotting all fossil-fuelled activities every hour of every day! No problem! And I would no longer need to think too much about what little the poor masses of this world really matters to members of the upper and middle-classes of society. But that belongs to a rant on the achievement of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. —

Slowing down on fossil-fuels consumption should come as the first and the best solution to global warming

APRIL 3, 2008: “Angry African” is stating the bleeding obvious, and quite eloquently so, saying: Global warming is just not cool. If you’re out there and wondering what is going on down here, you should read this post. It ends like this: “But those kids of mine. I sometimes wonder. Just wonder how cool it will be when they grow up. Will it be too warm when they are my age? Might be a bit too warm for them. A little bit too warm to live? And that is so way not cool…”

Has he got a point?

“Sure thing! He’s got a point alright. The strange weather reports from around the world are just starting to make themselves heard. There will be much more of the same on a later stage. Early warning signs include heat waves and periods of unusually warm weather, ocean warming, sea-level rise and coastal flooding, glaciers melting, spreading disease, earlier spring arrival, plant and animal range shifts and population changes, coral reef bleaching, downpours, heavy snowfalls, and flooding, droughts and fires. It’s definitely not cool. And casting a blind eye at these most worrisome signs do not make them go away either.”

So what are we supposed to do?

“Not much! And that is the thing: it is not primarily a question of what you choose to do. It’s more a question of what you choose to stop doing. You could start by putting an end to your excess fossil-fuels use. It’s not so difficult, really. And it would be a very wise response to the information that the coal, the gas, and the oil are the substances that are in fact warming this planet and thus making climate systems go weird. Slowing down on fossil-fuels consumption should come as the first and the best solution to global warming. But here we are, looking at a species of fossil-fuel addicts. And we can safely say it proves difficult for whole societies of people to kick the habit.”

As noted previously, almost a thousand new coal-fired power plants are being built around the world. In the light of manmade climate change, it is not the best of ideas, but okay: this is what the policy makers of this world is choosing to do, so.

“So?”

We got to accept it!

“You do?”

Unfortunately, yes! I mean, think about it: hundreds of new coal-fired power plants are being built all over the world. It’s not a good idea, but it’s what’s happening. The only thing we, as ordinary human beings, can do, is tell the policy makers that the development is going in the wrong direction. After which we can only hope that they care to listen. At the same time, we’re up against millions of not-so-informed ordinary citizens who crave for more energy to consume. We can tell them that it is not good for the environment, and then sit back and accept that we’re losing out here. Ignorance reigns supreme, you see. It’s strength.

“But all humans ought to realise.”

What?

“That they can’t just continue doing what amounts to plain stupid behaviour. Just continue doing what ought not to be done, and continue doing so until people start dying from climate change. In big numbers.”

You see: this is what we do not like to think about. The worst case scenarios. We don’t want to hear of them no more. We just want to be ignorant and forget about all the signs. Allow Mother Nature to do what She is doing, unabated. While we continue partying like it’s 1999. Because that is much more convenient than starting to make rash and active climate change decisions that have anything at all to do with the consumption of fossil-fuels. The vast majority of us don’t want to hear of it. — And that’s final. — Because we’re not quite ready for lifestyle changes. Not now. And probably not ever! We depend on fossil-fuels and are going to make use of them indefinitely. Unless, of course, a fucking miracle were to happen. And I don’t think that’s a thing to count on.

“It may seem as if a growing number of people are ready to accept the facts of global warming and world-wide climate change. So things are indeed happening.”

Yes. But these are individual people. I guess they’re just starting to cope with facts that they are going to keep on coping with until tomorrow comes. — Because on a societal level, I’m telling you: we’ve got so many problems, we’d much rather wish to pretend it’s just not happening. —

New coal-fired power plants are the last thing this planet needs

No matter what the science have to say about the atmospheric warming effects of CO2 emissions, hundreds of new coal-fired power plants are being built. I wish I was joking but I’m not. It seems like the policy makers of this world is trying to kid themselves and all others into believing in something that is very hard to tell. Only one thing is for certain: they are not taking the climate science very seriously. If they did, they would call off the building of all new coal-fired power plants, and put the blame on something as honest as relatively new scientific breakthroughs. They could even say that the decision not to build new coal-fired power plants came as a rational response to the same scientific breakthroughs.

New coal-fired power plants are the last thing this planet needs. It should really be as simple as that. But it isn’t, and you’ve got to wonder why. Having heard about the greenhouse effect ever since you were a child, you will be perfectly right in asking yourself simple questions. Like, are they not worried? Are they mad..?

And the simplest of all answers would be: “NO. THEY’RE NOT MAD. — It’s only that fossil-fuels are the cheapest of all sources of energy in existence.”

Money is money.

- — – — – —

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the environmental impacts of coal-fired power plants:

The world’s power demands are expected to rise 60% by 2030. With the world-wide total of active coal plants over 50,000 and rising, the IEA estimates that fossil fuels will still account for 85% of the energy market by 2030. World organizations, and international agencies like the IEA are concerned about the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels. According to a 2005 report from the WWF, coal power stations are at the top of the List of least carbon efficient power stations in terms of the level of carbon dioxide produced per unit of electricity generated. The combustion of fossil fuels contributes to acid rain, global warming, and air pollution due to the impurities and chemical composition of the fuel (electricity generation is responsible for 41 percent of US manmade carbon dioxide emissions). Acid rain is caused by the emission of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide into the air. These themselves may be only mildly acidic, yet when it reacts with the atmosphere, it creates acidic compounds such as sulfurous acid, nitric acid and sulfuric acid that fall as rain, hence the term acid rain. In Europe and the USA, stricter emission laws have reduced the environmental hazards associated with this problem.

Paid vacation, anyone..?

“They should all have been in favour of taking workers out of the emissions prone industries. They should all be willing and eager to going as far as paying people to take a leave. It would certainly be the best thing they could ever do for the ecosystems of the planet. — Think about it: how many coal miners do the planet need? The answer seems to be none. And think again: how many truck drivers do the planet need? The answer is very few.”

I wonder what the average truck driver and coal miner would think about any of this?

“What do you think?”

First of all, I don’t think they’re thinking about what the planet needs. — Well, at least not in terms of their professions. — I think they’re thinking they’ve got every right to do what they do in order to place food on the table and pay the bills, that’s what I think. As for the manner in which your question is put, I think both the beginning and the end of it would be alien to everyone.

“Quite.”

But seriously?! You can’t expect the government to pay the people for not going to work anymore, now can you?

“Why not?! I mean: what’s good for the planet is good for humanity, and what’s good for humanity should be good for the government too. And if certain lines of work are easily found to be destructive to the environment, you know what I mean..?”

It’s just that people do not think like that.

“Okay. Fine. But you see: I’m not people. All I am doing is think about what might come as good news to the ecosystems of this planet. As for how people think, I’m not sure: are they at all thinking?! I mean: how can they possibly look at environmental destruction due to the consumption of coal, for example, and then conclude that the building of several hundreds new coal-fired plants is a matter of great importance?”

I don’t know the right thing to say.

“It’s irrational!”

That’s possible.

“Irrational seems to be the key word to all enhancement of understanding of what appears to be happening around here. More than 16.000 species are presently listed as at risk of extinction, and human activity threatens 99 percent of them. It’s irrational, isn’t it?”

It is.

“Now I wonder what good would be the end result if people in emissions prone industries were paid for taking a long vacation while a whole species at rest woke up to the fact that what they’re about to commit here is a crime against nature. — And all for what? Well, for nothing. You know what I mean.”

Yes, I do. But I also know that people won’t think like that. What you’re thinking has nothing to do with the globalized capitalist system of our times. Now, that’s a problem. You’re coming out as a real idiot here. Or an April’s fools prankster. –

“And that, my dear friend, makes me happy. Isn’t it perfectly clear by now that humanity is in need of a substantially new manner of thinking?”

Far out.