What we leave behind

Warning: Although I have tried to avoid preaching tones here, some may be involved.


There is absolutely no doubt that humanity is the reason for massive carbon dioxide increase over last hundred years or so. There also is absolutely no doubt that if this process keeps going, co2 levels will keep going up fast, and the end results will be ugly. It has also come in to light that these issues were already well known by oil and coal companies in 80s; the internal memos from that period that have leaked have climate change predictions that closely match the scientific predictions of today.

Something needs to be done. 

Sometimes other issues we successfully managed are brought up as counterexamples to make this issue sound less severe. Ozone layer? We took action and solved it. Acid rains? Likewise.

Issues mentioned above were "fast". They appeared relatively quickly and when corrective actions were taken, situation was observed to improve (relatively) quickly and within decades, they are effectively gone. And worse, mostly forgotten.

Co2 is different as huge amounts of it are needed to have an effect, and equally huge amounts of it have to be removed from circulation again to undo said effects. Currently we're releasing around 36 gigatonnes - that is 36 billion tonnes - of co2 per year, a figure so huge that you really can't even grasp it - and even with that amount the change from year to year is nearly inobservable. Compound that over tens of years and the total amount grows even more incomprehensibly large, but compounding effects start to be visible for all.

Only now we're starting to feel its effects, but still in relatively insignificant way. Few more floods here, some unseasonal cat 5 storms there, drought elsewhere... All still almost normal, although now there's a bit more of them, a bit more often than before. Outside normal, but just barely.

If we stopped all co2 emissions right now, the effects of all co2 emissions so far would still accumulate over next decades, if not centuries, and disasters mentioned above will still get even worse for a while until nature finds new balance.

A paraphrased quote from Sahara (by Clive Cussler) somehow has branded itself in my memory:

"Let's say that this algae growth doubles in size every week. Let's also say that it will take a year - 52 weeks - until it has filled every ocean and killed everything in them.
"Governments will not take action until seas are already half full. How much time it leaves for us?
"One. Week."

This of course is gross simplification of the idea, but the general trend is still there, and not just among the governments - all humans share this behavior, more or less. We tend to not take action until issue gets really bad. I know I am guilty of this too. Climate change so far isn't even close of being bad enough to make us react. But the problem is that if we wait until it gets bad, we don't have even that "week" to fix the situation (quotes because I'm speaking proverbially here, referring to that quote above). By that point we are "months" past the one year marker.

We do absolutely have to react now. And fortunately many people are waking up, but there is huge amount of resistance to change. I know, and I can't fully blame most of those who are resisting as the things we need to, have to do are - and will be - painful and difficult.

And now we enter the next issue. Many people are effectively saying "why should I do anything, as those people are emitting more co2 than us?" Or even worse "why should I have to do anything, I will be dead by then!"  Especially the selfishness of the latter towards their own children and grandchildren is absolutely disgusting.

But all those are exactly wrong questions or arguments. The correct question is "why should I be able to do nothing to fix the situation?"  Everyone must start to do what they can.

There is also "we will adapt so this is no problem" argument. This is a more dangerous, as it sounds plausible and might even be true in the long run, but problem here is that this is the same "I will be dead by then" argument, just veiled better in good sounding argument. "Our children will clean up the mess we've made." Of course they will deal with it somehow, as they have been left with no other option. 36 billion tons of co2 a year. While it is possible that someone makes absolutely wonderful new invention that can remove massive amounts of co2 from air with low enough energy usage to make it actually feasible, it's irresponsible to count on that. And while nothing is done, the world will drown in wars and unrest caused by mass migrations caused by increasingly worse floods, droughts, famines and other catastrophes caused by slow and gradual climate change.

That is not the future I want my children and grandchildren to live through.

Drive less. Fly less. Eat less meat, and instead of beef, have pork or chicken more often. Buy less stuff and use older things longer.

Note that at no point I am saying to stop doing these things, as that will be difficult or even impossibly for many. Just do less of them. And while at it, start requiring for industries to do their part too. Voting with your wallet is always an option there. Single individual's effect is small, but it is still there. With enough individuals change will happen.

Also, do support replacing all coal and as much as oil/gas (or fossil fuels in general) energy production with nuclear. While renewables, especially wind and solar are great, they're horribly intermittent (no sun at night) or variable (wind can drop from 100% to 5% over few hours), so without sufficiently massive energy storage options (and again, numbers involved are so massive that you can't even comprehend them) they are quite simple useless. We do not have time to wait that technology to mature, we need action now.

Nuclear has bad reputation, but even if you count two worst accidents there have been, Chernobyl and Fukushima, we're still talking about thousands of deaths. If we let climate change progress much further, thousands of deaths are something we can only dream of. That death toll will be measured in millions if we let the situation escalate.
Currently nuclear is slow and expensive to build, but if we could, say, standardize for example two to four standard designs, all fully and thoroughly inspected and reviewed, with power output of, say, 100-500MW per plant, it suddenly would get much easier and quicker to build nuclear power plants (with obvious requirement of very strict periodic inspections of every factor of operations of every single plant). This would be exactly what we need to get rid of carbon power with accelerated schedule.

Changing individual habits is always hard, so start easy. About two years ago I decided to reduce the amount of meat I eat, primarily for health reasons but climate was a (smalller) factor in that decision too. I started easy, replace a meal once in a while with plant-based one. It was difficult at first, but got easier, and not long ago now I suddenly realized that we hadn't eaten any meat for several weeks and I hadn't even noticed. Difficult things start that way but they also get easier as time passes.

Every gram of co2 not released counts towards better future, and many people doing small things have significant effect in the long run.

"World grows better when men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit."

Maybe ancient proverb, maybe not. Does not matter; either way, it is still very true. Especially now. Also, do plant non-proverbial trees. More than one. It will also help.