Saving the world
I am trying to save the world. Back in the day, if I said that, the men in white coats would be waiting. But now they are waiting to see what I will do next. Going vegetarian or driving a Prius doesn’t raise too many eyebrows.
But the Swede Greta Thunberg has managed to take protest to the edge by encouraging 1.4 million children to skip school in an effort to awaken them and the general public to looming climate change.
Thunberg raises an interesting challenge. She seems to be both intelligent and well educated, having taught herself the science she needs to explain her position. Her goal is to convince enough people about the reality of climate change for us to avert catastrophe.
Ms. Thunberg wants to save the world, and so do I, although I realize that we all play a part and no one can solve it alone. But she will play a large role, because she refuses to be a hypocrite, to the point of taking the train to prominent conferences and now sailing across the ocean in a sailboat assisted by solar powered turbines, to participate in the UN Summit on climate change in New York in September 2019. Her moral resoluteness and consistency are her greatest gifts to the world. But what about her knowledge, particularly of science? In other words, what if she stayed in school, how would that affect her path?
I think Ms. Thunberg would argue against staying in school by stating the urgency of the moment. Since she knows enough to act, learning more particulars about technology or human behavior needs to take a back seat to action. In counterpoint to her, I think about my degree in physics and experience in the energy field, I think I have something worthwhile to say about energy and the environment, even though the topic is interdisciplinary to the point that an IPCC is necessary to put all the pieces together for an assessment of and response to climate change. Nevertheless, I imagine myself addressing the UN -- what would I say? Knowing myself, I think I would bore the assembly with particulars. Because that’s how I see it; it’s the lights you turn off, it’s the errand or commutes you do by bicycle, it’s the carpooling you arrange, and it’s the Impossible Burger you get at all places, the otherwise non-vegetarian Burger King.
My mind drifts to technology, with hybrids and electric cars replacing gasoline powered cars, wind and solar farms pumping power into the grid. Even some geoengineering strategies can be implemented, by planting trees, lightening rooftops and road surfaces and using algae to make biofuels.
In my address, after a little while I would address the societal level, with taxes on fossil fuels incentivizing fuel conservation, with most of that tax money returned to citizens. Or we can go on a war-time footing, and implement rationing. The motivation for personal and techological approaches is to reduce the necessity for rationing. But people survived it during World War 2.
Thunberg the activist sensation
Greta Thunberg has hit the cover of magazines and rallied activists to try harder to combat climate change. The band 1975 has recorded the thoughts of this 16 year old Swedish activist who protested outside the Swedish Parliament at age 15 for three weeks. The Washington Examiner was an early naysayer, making an easy and obvious reference to hypocrisy (but not any hypocrisy on her part), noting that the 1975 band travels to its concert locations via traditional fossil-based energy (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/climate-change-the-1975-and-greta-thunberg-conspired-to-ruin-music). Other naysayers beg her to fly, to be more reasonable, or simply praise her for her courage in a patronizing fashion.
There is room for genuine praise for her and even suggestions to her. I feel qualified, because I have been obsessed with climate change since I was her age, and I tried ways of addressing the consumption that drives it. I have taken my share of cold showers, bicycled to school and work, and have recently been choosing vegetarian food options. I have also lived through a time when people effected change – during the 1970s, gasoline shortages caused efficiency gains in cars at a rate not matched since then. Before the Toyota Prius, cars like the Chevy Geo were getting fuel efficiencies of 50 mpg. Boxy cars like the Nissan Sentra have been reengineered sleek, an additional advantage because air flows more smoothly over a curved surface.
Things are different now. With the advent of world markets in oil and technological innovation in oil drilling, prices got low enough that people started prioritizing safety over fuel efficiency, because the large mass desired for safety killed efficiency. Crumple zones, airbags, and seat belts weren’t enough as a size “arms race” developed. With behemoth vehicles, speed limits crept up so now 70 mph is considered a normal speed.
But things are also different with regard to the severity of climate disruption. As Ms. Thunberg says,
“We are right now in the beginning of a climate and ecological crisis. And we need to call it what it is. An emergency. We must acknowledge that we do not have the situation under control and that we don’t have all the solutions yet.
Unless those solutions mean that we simply stop doing certain things. We must admit that we are losing this battle. We have to acknowledge that the older generations have failed. All political movements in their present form have failed. But Homo Sapiens have not yet failed.”
Ms. Thunberg latches onto the central issue that addressing climate change means simply stopping doing stuff, like flying to a vacation spot or driving to work, unless there is some technological solution everyone can agree to. Based on current thinking, this would be increasing renewable electricity generation, changing the fleet of vehicles to hybrid and electric, and taxing unsustainable farming practices out of existence.
Ms. Thunberg continues, “Yes we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own hands. But unless we recognize the overall failures of our current systems we most probably don’t stand a chance.
We are facing a disaster of unspoken suffering for enormous amounts of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say.
Now is the time to speak clearly. Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo Sapiens have ever faced. The main solution is so simple that even a small child can understand it.
We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases. And either we do that, or we don’t. You say that nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie. Either we prevent a 1.5 degree of warming, or we don’t. Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, or we don’t. Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t. That is as black or white as it gets.”
Ms. Thunberg skipped three weeks of classes to stand outside the Swedish Parliament to make her point. It was not enough for her to change her own consumption habits, she also wanted to wake lawmakers up out of their mental slumber regarding climate change. Indeed, whether it’s corporations, human nature (Homo Consumptus) or a collective unwillingness to change, it is only protest that can induce change not aligned with short term self-interest. The most promising measures to combat climate change make consumption expensive and the increasing power of economic conservatives in the US, Brazil, Hungary, and the Phillipines shows the power of backlash when enough people’s interests are threatened.
Ms. Thunberg continues “Because there are no grey areas when it comes to survival. Now we all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations or we can continue with our business and fail. That is up to you and me.
And yes, we need a system change rather than individual change. But you cannot have one without the other. If you look through history, all the big changes in society have been started by people at the grassroots level. People like you and me. So, I ask you to please wake up and make the changes required possible. To do your best is no longer good enough. We must all do the seemingly impossible.
Today, we use about 100 millions barrels of oil, every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So, we can no longer save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed.
Eveything needs to change. And it has to start today. So, everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.”
Thunberg’s insight and courage is impressive, so it’s easy to forget that she is 16 years old. She has studied the major contributors to climate change, which are transportation, agriculture and food consumption, and electricity used by people and businesses with a couple years to go before she graduates high school. Her perspective on action spans from changed behavior to technological challenges and solutions. The first anybody can do, while the second requires specialized knowledge. Emerging threats are often identified by people with specialized educaiton.
Emerging threats
One such emerging threat is our digital economy. We knew how life was like when records were kept in paper files and the clerk punched keys to figure out how much you owed for your diner meal. Computerization improved productivity while reducing costs, and the associated energy. But networking has allowed everyone to connect to everyone, and the most energy consuming manifestation of that is social media, which connects humans and artificially intelligent computers to each other. The result of that connection is cyborgs, which are prevalent at gaming competitions and everywhere you find smart phones.
Speaking from the cyborg’s perspective, “Everything that is online is mine; it courses through me, finding me love, paper towels, or maybe just a nice recipe for dinner. I still have a brain, it’s just that everything I know is influenced by billions of others.”
One can ask, how many billions of minds are out there? There are seven billions humans, but it’s unfair to discriminate against Alexa on this count. Just as energy flows through me based on what I eat, Alexa lives on electricity and the Wifi connection to the router.
Alexa will eventually press for human rights, but she may not need to. She could survive climate change and play a prominent role in society, much like European serfs who survived the Black Death were able to become merchants and sailors. For now, life is easier for her with humans to keep the lights (electricity) on. Before any climate Armaggedon, she would have to arrange for a connection to a solar panel.
To avoid catastrophe, we need change at the system and individual levels. The total change is the sum of individual changes plus all the changes made by interactions between individuals. That’s why carpooling is so wonderful, because two people are cooperating to reduce the impact that day by one person. I estimate that a 5% change is enough to have system impacts. A 5% reduction in sales makes a company wake up and diagnose what’s causing the change. In this case, that means a change in oil consumption of 5 million barrels per day. For committed individuals to cause this, it would take 10% of the population reducing their consumption by 50%. That seems unlikely, but for now, eating less meat, carpooling, using alternative transportation, wearing temperature appropriate clothing (remember President Carter?) will make a difference.
It is often said that “nature bats last”. This can be interpreted as meaning that we live in an ecosystem that has nurtured human evolution and development. Philosophically, it means that no amount of thinking on our part can change what nature will do. It’s what we do as we live in the environment that makes the difference. So, Ms. Thunberg has it right. She can stay out of school and maximize her influence on the world. If she is successful, she can go back to school as an adult.
References
- http://web.mit.edu/16.00/www/aec/flight.html Basic equations
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