Out of Time

Back in November, 2018 I was inspired by the 2018 IPCC report to write a series of blog posts asking if we were doomed -- between the climate and the internet, the answer I came to was "probably, unless we choose to make big changes soon". Gloomy stuff.

The latest IPCC report says there is no more time. You can take your pick of summaries, takes, and analyses. You should read a couple of them, if not the actual report. You need to understand what they say, and what it means for you and your family.

But they all say the same thing: It's hot, and will be getting hotter. 

This is not good news for anyone, but it is particularly bad news for the young. The next 20-30 years will be increasingly dangerous, with storms, fires, drought, and sea level rise. Nothing can change that at this point. But if enough changes aren't made, the decades after that will be exponentially worse. 

As dark as my posts were, the 2021 IPCC report is arguably darker. Yet the bleak IPCC report does offer some hope, some positivity -- but it comes with a price: massive, sudden societal change.

The only question is whether humanity will take immediate and collective action to prevent the worst and avoid total catastrophe, or whether we will continue to do something between making the problem worse and not doing enough to have material impact.

After watching the last few months of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers prolonging and worsening the COVID pandemic, I am pretty sure I know the answer:

It is probably not going to happen. 

Are We Doomed? Part 3: What We Must Do

A number of you commented on my previous posts in this series. Almost without exception, you said "you're not wrong, but this is really depressing."

Yes, it is depressing. That does not mean we are allowed to give up. In my conversations with all of you it has become clear to me that we are morally obligated to try, whether or not we think we can succeed. We must do something.

The current California wildfires are reminders of the unpredictable effects of climate change, and simultaneously a glimpse of an atmospherically compromised future. This is the road we are currently racing down, and it is up to us to change course.

"If you're not part of the solution, there is no solution" -- Jaron Lanier

We Must Change Culture

Our top priority is to change the global culture. This will enable governments to pass laws and implement programs required to slow the rate of climate change and mitigate its effects. It will also enable us to change the government, if and when it is required.

We must change culture so that everyone is thinking about carbon reduction and environmental conservation. We need to get people thinking about modifying their lifestyles to abandon gasoline, look for solutions to carbon problems, to contribute to solving problems, minimizing behaviors, technologies, and industries that create the problems, and take active steps to pass laws reinforcing the above.

It doesn't have to be 100%, everything all the time. It is sufficient to get people thinking about these issues the way they think about their weight, health, social media, or celebrities.

It will not be easy, but we can do this. It is possible to shift global culture and laws with concerted effort over time. As an example, in our lifetimes these same kinds of efforts have resulted in dramatic shifts in LGBTQ rights and acceptance. That progress may feel somewhat fragile at the current moment, but it is undeniable and significant. Culture and governments have shifted. It can be done.

There are other examples of rapid societal change you can think of: Smoking has drastically declined and is socially unacceptable in many places. Smartphones are barely 11 years old, and they have become ubiquitous and modified definitions of acceptable behavior. Seat belts. The switch from leaded to unleaded gasoline.

The same tools that have been used to cause problems or distract us -- social media, mob mindsets, technology, fads and fashions -- can be applied to this problem.

We do not have to get to 100% and perfect. Every little bit will help make the future less terrible and more bearable. We must keep our eyes on the most ambitious goals, but every positive change we can make, every half-degree of improvement will mean real benefits.

Change The Government

This is a part of changing the culture, and vice versa. The scale of the environmental problem requires long-term strategy and effort, in much the same way the GOP has worked to stack the deck in their favor in the USA. This cause is far more righteous.

We need to get elected officials at all levels of governments in all nations who will start this process. We must change the government to be able to pass and enforce the laws required to change the behavior of people and corporations. This is one of the reasons we have governments in the first place. It is possible for these types of changes to have real impact. Look at things like the removal of tetra-ethyl lead from the fuel ecosystem, the banning of smoking in public places, or phasing out of chlorofluorocarbons.

Changing the government is essential because it is the only way to get all of the people on board. We will need carrots and sticks to make behavioral changes: penalizing those who refuse to comply, and smoothing the way for positive change with expenditures and incentives.

Push for Legislative Solutions

At a minimum, we need governments to do things like:

• Ban carbon-emitting vehicles and subsidize a transition to zero-emission vehicles
• Shut down carbon-emitting power plants and massively invest in renewable power
• Start multiple Manhattan Projects and Moonshots for carbon extraction and capture
• Fund and encourage research into methane extraction and capture
• Look for other programs that can mitigate climate increase (such as requiring all roofs to be painted white, subsidizing relocation out of lost areas, and otherwise encouraging responsible behavior)
• Do more research to figure out what else can be done
• Make foreign aid available for (if not contingent on) assisting other countries in similar transitions
• Raise taxes and/or incur debt to fund the above

This will require constant lobbying of one form or another. These are controversial and huge programs, to say the least. They won't even be considered at first. It will take multiple concerted efforts over the next decade.

Get Money Out of Politics

For the USA, Citizens United has to be overturned, or laws passed which nullify it. Money corrupts, and we divert far too many of our resources into political races, which provide no real tangible benefits. It's like setting the money on fire, and the problem has become worse in recent years.

If money is speech (the argument which "won" Citizens United), it means that we do not all have equal speech, and corporations, plutocrats, and unaccountable SuperPACs have more speech than you or I. That's un-American and must stop.

We are wasting resources (time, money, and energy) to build bigger and bigger ads. All this investment hasn't produced better government. Arguably it has had the opposite effect, and forced politics and its coverage to become a horrific hybrid of entertainment and sports.

At least in the USA, this will be a difficult thing to accomplish. Many other countries are way ahead of us. This is one component required to get our elected representatives to stop focusing on raising millions of dollars and instead focus on saving millions of people.

Give Money to Candidates and Causes

As noted, we desperately need to get money out of politics (among other things, it means everyone's ability to speak isn't equal). But until we win and are able to enact those changes, money matters. Put your money where your mouth is and support candidates and causes, whether they are in your region or just swing districts.

The Koch brothers are doing it, and it has worked out great for them. What are you doing?

Unsurprisingly, it is extremely easy to make donations for political campaigns and causes. It is effortless and can have real impact.

The competition is rough here -- there are a lot of wealthy Republicans anxious to stay wealthy at any cost. They have more money (and thus more time, and more of everything) to reinforce the status quo. They will continue to try to outspend us. Regardless, we can make a difference.

Run for Office

Seriously. If you're reading this, you're smart and educated. We might joke those things are disadvantages, but this is part of the culture we must change. Who better than you? And absent people like you running, well, you see who we get.

You understand what the stakes are, and you are already less concerned about a long, celebrated career as a politician than getting important things done, which already means you are more qualified than many of the people who run.

Consider it. Do it.

I Need Your Help

I have never been a superlative member of our cohort. I am smart, but not the smartest. I am disciplined, but not the most disciplined. I am creative, but not the most creative. I have accomplished things, but I am far from the most accomplished. That is where you come in.

If you are reading this, you are already in a position to do something. You are intelligent, connected, and of some means. Spend some time thinking about how you can help save the world by changing the culture.

I have already reached out to some of you directly and will be doing more over the coming weeks. You all have unique expertise and skills, and we need a multi-disciplinary approach. This is not a question of one solution or approach. Our survival depends on relentless implementation of multiple solutions, large and small. There is no one right answer. Rather, it is all of us coming up with and implementing small pieces.

See What You Can Do In Your Organizations

Does your university have a Manhattan Project or research team devoted to some of the major problems, such as carbon extraction and capture, geoengineering, economics, or social change? Why not? Ask them. Whether you are on faculty or an alumnus, make it clear to the people you talk to how important this is. Schools do not have to devote all of their resources to this, but they must be devoting some of them. There is no point in educating people if there is no future.

Similarly, it is almost certainly today's high school and college students who will both bear the brunt of the effects and who can have the most impact in terms of developing solutions, working on breakthrough technologies. If you are one of those young people, it is up to you. You will have to live in the world through times of great change. If you are a parent or friend of these young people, talk with them. Encourage them to think of themselves as a critical and active part of the solution, rather than a passive part of the problem.

They don't all have to become scientists or engineers working on climate technology. But we need many more young people focused on how their work, whatever it is, helps to solve this problem.

How about your company? Many of you reading this are working for titans like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Tencent. These companies have all-but-infinite amounts of money and have all embarked on non-core-business projects. Talk to people internally and see if it is possible to get something going, or if something is already going. It almost does not matter what problem you are taking on, but take on something. Delivery. Conservation. Electric vehicles. The power grid. Education. Anything.

Environmental catastrophe is bad for shareholder value, and many of these solutions can be good business.

Talk to your community. Whatever social groups you are in, religious or otherwise, talk to people. Get the word out. Talk to your friends and family. Not just once. This needs to become a part of our regular conversations with everyone.

It is easy to want to look away. We can no longer afford the luxury of doing that 24/7. We have to get everyone thinking about these things.

Individual Actions

Individual actions and sacrifices are not enough to save the planet. We need culture and government to compel everyone to get on board. But individual actions have other benefits: They help spread the cultural message, turning each of us into messengers and influencers. They will also serve as reminders and help you feel like you are doing something.

Here are some examples of things you can do, or at least talk about. Many of them will be controversial, and I doubt any of us will be able to or want to do them all. I am sure you can come up with better ones.

Move.
Move someplace where your vote matters, or where you can effect change in the mindset of those around you. Don't preach to the choir. We need to change minds.

Take a look at projections of sea-level rise. Are you going to be OK? Do you want to live in areas that are disrupted over a few years? (Probably not...) Beyond that, there's desertification and other impacts of climate change.

Try to live in places that are walkable, or easily accommodated by the current range of electric vehicles. Avoid going off the grid unless you are committed to being totally self-sufficient...and then be prepared for anything that can happen.

Move as soon as you can, if you must. It will only get harder. The real estate market for your place may not be great, but it will be worse when it's sitting in a foot of water.

Have as few children as possible.
Preferably zero, but one is OK. Aside from general overpopulation, the modern Western lifestyle contributes extensively to our problems. Plus, consider what type of world these children will inherit. Pets are better than children in terms of environmental impact, but only just.

Drive your car as little as possible. When you need a new car, buy an electric vehicle.
Personal vehicle emissions are a major contributor to carbon emissions, and due to the distributed nature of the problem, it is hard to solve. The best thing you can do is just not drive, especially if your car has low fuel efficiency and high emissions.

If you know you need a new vehicle, go electric. If you don't absolutely need a new car right now, the benefits of buying a brand-new electric vehicle are somewhat muted -- 12%-15% of a car's total environmental impact comes from its production. The longer you wait, the better these vehicles will get, in every sense. Consider used EVs as well.

I recognize that our whole society in most of the USA is built around personal automobiles, and that simply stopping driving is not feasible for many of us (myself included) in the near term. That is OK. Do your own audit and think about what you can do. Can you work from home one day a week? Carpool? Have things delivered instead of driving to pick them up? (It's far easier for stores and companies to buy a fleet of electric vans and service many people).

Be mindful of air travel.
Like curtailing personal travel, I recognize this is difficult for all of us. There are not many good alternatives to air travel, and whether it is business or visiting relatives, sometimes you simply must do it.

But keep in mind that air travel is quite damaging to the atmosphere, as the emissions occur at high altitude. Consider alternatives, and consider purchasing offsets (even though they are not directly or actually solving any problems). Yes, it will make your trip more expensive. It should.

Eat less meat.
Particularly beef. But in general, eat less meat. It requires more fuel to make. Even consciously dropping meat one day a week will have positive impact.

Consume and use less of everything, particularly brand-new stuff.
Making stuff is part of the problem, and relentlessly needing new stuff has incredible impact, between manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and distribution.

Get off social media...

...or at least use it sparingly and carefully. You can read Jaron Lanier's book for a bunch of arguments (the book is OK but the arguments are compelling), but you already know the problems: It's full of hate and lies, and those base emotions are monetized by companies that have every incentive to keep it awful. It is designed to (and will successfully) manipulate you.

Social media played a critical role in electing Donald Trump, and continues to provide fodder for the worst elements of our current society. Social media contributed to the horrible violence of recent weeks.

More importantly, social media is fake, but it makes you feel like you did something. When you change your picture frame or re-post an article or type an angry response to someone else's angry comment, the energy you could have applied to real change in the real world dissipates.

Social media can have real effect on culture, but that effect comes from big movements of information driven by corporations and governments. It's 21st-century television, in the worst way. 

We will figure out a way to harness it eventually, but for now, just stop. Don't engage with the trolls. Don't use it to get your news. Cull your friends list ruthlessly. Stop reading anything except what your friends post. Don't engage with the horrible "friends" of your friends. Limit your exposure.

Do something

Stop whining. Stop complaining. You are right, it is not fair. But that's life. The other team doesn't care how you feel. In fact, if anything, they want you to whine and complain rather than doing anything meaningful.

There is nobody else. We cannot wait for some deus ex machina to appear and suck all the carbon out of the atmosphere. It is up to us. I am not saying we all have to go live in the woods somewhere. But one way or another, life is going to look very different in 10 and 20 years. Are you OK with sitting back and letting the worst things happen? Or will you try to do something?

Think it over. Talk to me. Talk to each other. We have just enough time. The clock is ticking.

We are doomed. Part 2: The internet.

At the start of the 20th century, humanity experienced remarkable technological change, at a speed and scale that is difficult for our contemporary minds to comprehend. Science and new inventions redefined what was possible. Within a few years, we had electric light, the telephone, radio, and flight.

For a brief moment, it looked like this technology would usher in a utopia. Then World War I happened, and every single new technology was turned into a horrific weapon of war.

The internet and social media are no different. For a brief moment, it looked like this technology would usher in a utopia. Information would be free. Artists would finally flourish, with the ability to distribute their art, instantly, worldwide. All the world's knowledge would be available to everyone equally. Rapid dissemination of truth would hold governments accountable, and topple unjust regimes. Greater understanding would bring peace and prosperity.

You know how it all turned out. Social media has become a weapon of war and a tool of oppression. Truth loses out to rapid dissemination of disinformation. Knowledge drowns in a sea of trivia. 

Removing the middlemen and gatekeepers allowed anyone with a voice to reach millions. We didn't get brilliant new artists or any insights that traditional media wouldn't support. We got Logan Paul and Lil Tay and Alex Jones, and new channels for the existing media companies to dominate or push the same old stuff they'd been pushing.

Truth shatters into a million mirror-bright shards, and we grab the one that reflects the world we already wanted to see.

We Are Stupid

Humans have frequently developed technologies which exceed our ability to wield them safely and responsibly, and seldom manage to keep them under control, no matter the cost. Everybody knows smoking is terrible for you, and yet people still do it. And then we find new ways to smoke. We make cars that require a high degree of skill to operate, and then people operate them while texting and distracted or drunk or just plain badly, and shrug as the exhaust poisons our skies and people die in crashes. We create foods that have nearly no nutritive value, but are such potent combinations of things we find irresistible that we all become fat and unhealthy.

Social media is no different. By intentional design or simply market forces, we have built systems that exploit humanity's cognitive biases. We increasingly gravitate towards those who agree with everything we espouse and shun those who do not. We forward articles after glancing only at the clickbait headline, pleased that it confirms what we already believe. We do not read critically. We do not check the sources.

Some of us think we're smarter, and cynically or darkly say "well, it has always been this way" or "the media is just a business, you know" or "I don't trust anybody".

Maybe you are one of the really smart people. You have your social media settings dialed in to keep things relatively private. You do the work of pruning and maintaining your friend list. You try to read things critically and carefully. You don't forward garbage. But you still occasionally comment on other people's articles, and find yourself drawn into unwinnable internet arguments.

You have also already handed over your information to companies that have proven to be terrible stewards of that information. Even if you haven't given them everything, they will either create a shadow profile, or their entire business is built on building unauthorized profiles of you that you cannot even see.

Maybe you aren't the problem, but your family and your terrible "friends", with their beyond-ignorant comments, their re-posting of the fake Ray-Ban discount, and their poor grasp of language and logic, most certainly are. They're in your network.

And there are far more of them than there are of you.

We are just too stupid to handle social media. Social media is the Doritos of the mind, and we are all crunching our way through a bottomless bag, unable and unwilling to stop. And just like excessive consumption of junk food leads to physical problems, consumption of mental junk food leads to mental problems.

That junk food has replaced the daily newspaper and evening news for most people, and has become the front end and frame for news for everyone else. Social media and its pandering has infected the news, forcing even institutions like the New York Times to resort to click-bait headlines, gimmicks, and "engaging with their audience". Maybe that's good. No, I just read some of the comments. It's not.

The Technological Assault On Truth

Aggressive use of social media to spread things that are obviously untrue is bad. But figuring out what is untrue is about to get far more difficult.

In 1985, I read a great article in Whole Earth Review about a new program called "Photoshop", and how it was "The End of Photography as Evidence of Anything. This was well before digital cameras rose to prominence. So far, we believe most official attempts at faking photographic evidence have been clumsy and easily detectable. That may be due to the fact that undetected fakes raise no alarm.

Even when we know what we are looking at is doctored (every magazine cover and many images within), we still almost instinctively accept it as true, no matter the harm. And again, even if we know this technology ultimately makes us feel bad, we do it to ourselves. Manipulated imagery becomes the norm.

And that is before further technological amplification and complication. Artificial intelligence is now being applied to create not just convincing photographic images, but astounding video footage. It looks real, but it isn't. Deep Blue begets Deep Fakes.

We have already observed how quickly blatant untruth races through our social media. I am sure deep-faked video will be far worse. At least for the moment, careful observation of the video and comparing against facts reported by reliable media can quickly extinguish faked video. But within a few years, techniques will have improved (driven by Star Wars and Marvel movies, no doubt) and the increasingly overwhelmed (and discredited and ignored) media won't be able to keep up with the volume of garbage "truth" flooding into our screens.

You Are The Botnet

Once computers were networked, hackers created viruses that could subvert the machines. First, they copied information, or held it for ransom. Then they began using the machines as part of concentrated attacks on other targets. In other words, without your knowledge or consent, your computer was turned into someone else's weapon.

Social media is doing the same thing to your social presence, and your mind. You are being used as someone else's weapon. This is not just for disinformation, it is for influencing elections and even the course of actual armed conflicts. Social media posts and data move Overton windows (or their equivalents) and help regimes decide what is and isn't acceptable, or what to target next.

Agents and actors post, and then legions of bots amplify that message, causing it to go viral and appear in everybody's feeds, which the news dutifully reports ("Some people on Twitter are saying..."), further legitimizing and amplifying the propaganda. The gullible are gulled, the rest of us are impacted.

Beyond the actual computer network, constant exposure to The Big Lies erodes people's sense of truth. Bias and doubt slip in. You cannot help it if you are surrounded by the noise. Like radiation, that misinformation is getting into you, whether you like it or not.

Even if you have hardened your computers, social profiles, and minds to a point where you believe you are not easily manipulated, remember there are over 3.2 billion people on the internet -- half the world's population. It only takes one person to infect every computer on your network, and only one of your "friends" to amplify garbage posts through your network.

Your actions do not matter. The idiots rule, or at least enable the Koch brothers, ISIS, and Putin to rule.

China Is The Future

Just as China's repressive autocracy suggests how governments will likely respond to catastrophic climate change, China's Orwellian Social Credit System points the way to our societal future. Individuals and businesses will be coerced and controlled in ways that were previously unbelievable.

The system uses 200 million surveillance cameras connected to facial recognition systems to identify people, and then matches that against financial, medical, legal, and other records. It looks at what you do, and it scores you. Take public transit? Maybe you get 5 points. Good boy. Play video games for too long? Buy the wrong products? Lose 5 points, you slacker. 

High scores might get you nice perks, like free recharges of your mobile phone at a coffee shop or low-interest loans or a great new job. Low scores might get you fined, have your internet speed slowed down, prevent you from getting a job, restrict your ability to travel, have the police come by, or even have you imprisoned or dragged off for "re-education", if not being forced to issue a public apology.

In true grade-school-classroom fashion, the system doesn't just score you, it scores your friends and family. So if you do something really bad, like post something negative about the government, it doesn't just decrease your score, it decreases the scores of the people in your network. So they will all pressure you to get with the program.

Before you dismiss this as science fiction or speculation, you should know China started implementing this in 2015, and expects to have their entire population of 1.4 billion people registered by 2020. That's in less than 2 years.

The Chinese government says the goal is algorithmic governance, which will "allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step."

The United States already has secret scores driven by mysterious criteria that exercise massive control over our lives: credit scores. These scores were developed by three private companies who build your profile without your consent and (until laws were reluctantly passed) would charge you to tell you where you stood. These scores determine what kinds of loans you can get, and thus what kind of house or car you can buy. Some landlords use them to determine whether they will rent to you. Some employers use them to determine whether or not you are trustworthy enough to hire.  We are already used to it.

Not that long ago, if you had asked most people to post who their friends were, what they liked, where they were going, and their political opinions in a public square, they would have looked at you like you were insane, or said "that's private", or wondered which government agency you were working for. They would have thought something was off about you.

Today, it is those who do not participate in social media that seem off. We treat those who don't participate with the same mix of pity and reverence we afford those who say "I don't drink".

China has gamified compliance and oppression. Given how rapidly and completely humans have fallen for both social media and the gamification of everything else, I suspect it will be incredibly effective.

We Are Doomed

We have already allowed social media to ensnare us all, and it has allowed us to polarize our society in frightening ways. Is it social media's fault, or ours?

For the moment, you have a choice to not participate. You can follow the recommendations of Jaron "don't get rich off technology like I did" Lanier, and delete your social media accounts.

But sooner or later, you will have no practical choice and will be required to be part of the system. It might be like China, where the government forces you in, or it might be a more capitalist system where your social media profile (or lack of same) makes it difficult to get a job (because your prospective employer can't stalk you) or cross borders (because Homeland Security cannot check up on you), or get a loan or find a place to live.

And then the very systems that promised to allow us to express our truest selves openly and freely will be used to force us all to smile, think corporate, and be mutual, lest the hammer of Big Brother fall on us. 

We already punish thoughts expressed on social media that deviate from our tribal party lines, whatever they are. You can (and will) lose your job for something you post outside of (and unrelated to) work. We don't need the government to start, we have done it to ourselves.

As we are destroying our physical environment, we are also destroying our intellectual environment. We have taken the most potent tools for truth and knowledge and turned them into weapons of deception and ignorance. We cannot help ourselves.

Should we somehow manage to avoid impending ecological catastrophe, I remain doubtful we will avoid the information catastrophe.

We are doomed. Part 1: The world outside.

The recent United Nations report on global warming is clear and unequivocal: Carbon emissions caused by human activity are warming the planet, and -- unless dramatic, unprecedented measures are taken within the next two decades -- that warming will cause catastrophic damage to the environment and our civilization. Hundreds of millions of people will face extreme heat, drought, floods, famine, and poverty.

The report is notable for several reasons. For one, the timeline is much shorter than previously thought. Previous research indicated the world was facing serious trouble due to carbon emissions, but that the effects would not kick in for 50 - 100 years. Instead, the recent report finds this will  begin to happen within our lifetimes.

The report also challenged existing climate research by concluding that a much lower degree of warming -- 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit -- would be sufficient to cause damage. This is a lower threshold than previously estimated.

The research is sound, and the conclusions sobering. We have much less time than we thought, and much less margin for error.

I do not believe we will make it.

To date, nearly everything climate researchers have predicted is happening. As individuals, as a nation, as a species, we have demonstrated an inability and unwillingness to change a thing. Instead, we run faster towards the cliff's edge.

For much of human history, the failure to mitigate carbon emissions lay in ignorance. We did not know it was going to be a problem. By the time of the ecology movement of the 1970s and research into the 1980s, smart people began to suspect and figure out what was happening. That was over 30 years ago. This depressing but complete article from the New York Times Magazine covers it well.

We also did not comprehend how much sustained and rapid population growth would compound these climate issues, especially as less-developed nations like China took large and quick steps to modernize.

Now, even in the face of all-but-incontrovertible facts and research, we face self-made obstacles, to say nothing of the megatons of carbon already in the atmosphere.

Our society has tremendous inertia. The rapid changes required to avert catastrophe would be a tough sell under the best of circumstances. Given current realities, I believe it is all but impossible.

The Grid and The System

Massive investment in changing over the power grid is required. Coal has to virtually vanish, replaced by solar, wind, nuclear, and other non-emitting sources. Building new power plants is a glacially slow and excruciatingly expensive process, frequently beset by environmental concerns (think of the owls! think of the waste!) which now seem trivial against the stakes of the problem, NIMBYism, and a general disagreement over what kind of power should go where. Here in the USA, we have been able to coast for nearly 100 years on the massive infrastructure work implemented by the TVA and other huge government projects that wired our nation in the 1920s. It is inconceivable in our current moment that we would have the will to do something similar.

The entirety of the gasoline-powered transportation world must change. People need to drive their gasoline cars, trucks, planes, and boats much, much less. Everyone needs to shift to electric vehicles as quickly as possible, and those vehicles need to get their electricity from non-emitting sources.

We have to get nearly every existing car and truck off the roads within 20 years. We need to change how people think about jets and boats and lawnmowers and chainsaws and dirtbikes and portable generators.

It will be expensive -- the governments will need to subsidize this change, through some combination of vehicle buy-backs, incentives on new cars, and penalties for continuing to drive emitting vehicles. There will need to be credits and incentives to shut down gas stations.

Every single living person will need to change their habits. This may be less of a hit for urbanites in high-density areas with lots of public transportation, but there will still be changes for them, regardless. It will mean a dramatic, profound shift for suburbanites and rural folks, who rely on personal gas-powered vehicles for everything.

Petroleum infrastructure is fundamentally built into and drives our modern society. Gas stations. Gas trucks. Storage. Refineries. Drilling sites. Pipelines. All of that has to be shut down, and replaced by clean power infrastructure.

Even people's diets must change. Production and consumption of meat, particularly beef, has substantial environmental impact. In America, we can't get people to change what they eat, even as it bloats and kills them. Americans aren't going to stop eating cheeseburgers, even if "their" president tells them to.

Perhaps more dramatically, people should stop having so many children, as the absolute population load is a huge contributor and multiplier of existing bad effects, and the Western lifestyle contributes more than anything else.

At a high level, I have long thought that part of the climate change problem was that small, short-term individual actions -- driving to work today, eating a burger for lunch, accepting the power that comes out of your wall without question -- collectively add up to a large, long-term problem. It is extremely difficult to get people to change their behavior under those conditions.

The People and The Governments

Government is not going to save us. Government is us, and we are the problem. Humans are not good at comprehending large numbers, or the idea that the drop they individually contribute becomes to an ocean of trouble. People in the USA do not even believe their vote matters. How can you possibly convince them to take on further inconvenience?

All of that assumes there is political will and force to make these changes happen. Instead, at the present moment, the United States government is some combination of captive to oil-and-gas industry donors like the Koch brothers, short-sightedly stuffing their pockets with money (as though that will hold back the sea) and too afraid or too stupid to understand and accept the truth of the problem. Our representatives don't believe climate change is a real problem, or won't let themselves believe it is a real problem, or are paid by special interests to deny it is a real problem

The United States is one of the top two contributors to greenhouse gases, and has been for decades. And yet we will do nothing to solve this problem, nothing to help. Indeed, we will continue to argue the science is fraudulent or bad, that it isn't real, or that everyone else must go first, or that some yet-to-be-invented magic technology will fix everything, even as apocalyptic storms shred the country and Florida sinks under the sea.

But for a moment, imagine the USA did the right thing. Do we really believe the rest of the world will follow? That China and Russia will sign on, follow the USA, and enact similarly radical changes in their countries?

One might have imagined the EU capable of something like this, but infected with nationalism, it only takes one right-wing ideologue to tell the idiots what they want to hear and prevent it from happening. Success for that destructive model in one nation just makes it difficult for every other nation -- Why should Spain sacrifice when Britain is not doing a thing? Then you must face the Third World and explain to them why they can't have cars and jets and gasoline.

We Are Doomed

There is little to be done. Your individual actions contributed to this problem, but now even the most radical change on your part will do little to halt it, given how easy it is for the rest of the country (if not the world) to undo whatever benefit you are providing.

There are 7.4 billion people in the world.  Your actions do not matter.

Some will argue this post and others like it are a way to continue to do nothing, to justify refusing to change lifestyles. Perhaps. 30 years ago, everyone assumed we would fix the problem later. Now, as the clock runs out, we blame the past for everything -- for making the systems we are trapped in, for not doing anything, for not making gentle turns when they could still be made.

We could have done something, and we chose not to.

We could still do something. We will choose not to.

The most likely scenario is everything the report describes: extreme heat, drought, flooding, famine, and increased poverty, accompanied by nearly endless war (over land, water, food, and resources) as the global economy shrinks in reaction to ecological disaster and mass migration. It will hit the poor hardest, but it will hit all of us.

Every country will go some flavor of authoritarian, China-style, as it is the only way to force the population to do what is required to survive. We will all lose our "freedom" in exchange for "survival". The global order will fray as every nation locks its doors in a futile effort to protect itself, as though tariffs, walls, and guns could stop the carbon-laden air from drifting across their borders.

Recent events have reminded me that nothing lasts forever. Everything dies, including societies. Humanity will likely survive in some form, but it is difficult for me to envision what the other side of this inflection point looks like.

I am afraid I will live long enough to find out.

Who's To Blame For The BP Disaster?

I've posted about oil before, and I've posted a few times about other energy sources. I feel compelled to write about the BP disaster.

It's been over a month since the Deepwater Horizon sank, and oil has been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico non-stop ever since. BP's latest effort ("Top Kill") has failed. It is gradually dawning on people that BP may not be able to stop the leak any time soon.

This will be the largest environmental catastrophe in American history. As much as I hate to prognosticate, I expect in a few weeks the phrase "America's Chernobyl" will make its way into the public dialog. And it should. But in the long term, this is worse than Chernobyl.

While Chernobyl was awful, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, it was dealt with quickly. Chernobyl resulted in a relatively small number of direct human deaths, and a minimal effect on the surrounding ecosystem. Now, 24 years later, nearly all of the area is habitable. Wildlife appears to be making a strong comeback, even with the radiation and inevitable genetic damage.

If BP were to stop the oil right now, the world is still facing the real possibility of the extinction of much of the sea life in the area, and the potential collapse of the ecosystem in the Gulf in both short and long term. Each day that passes increases those odds.

There is a very real possibility the well simply cannot be stopped with the technology we have today. With Chernobyl, relatively simple techniques (dropping tons of concrete) worked, and worked quickly.

There are about 3800 offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico alone. The real surprise for the BP spill isn't that it happened - the real surprises are that it took this long to happen, and that the industry remains able to drill in places where there was not a robust plan for dealing with a "black swan" event or total failure scenario.

If you had been told "hey, there's a chance that offshore drilling will absolutely obliterate the Gulf of Mexico", would it still have been OK?

But that's not the real issue here. Right now, everyone is focused on one question: Who's to blame? So far, I've heard:

• BP
  
• Halliburton
• Transocean
• Big oil
• The Bush Administration featuring Dick Cheney
• The Obama Administration

But this is all distraction and misdirection. Here's who's really at fault:

Us. Me. You.

We ignored the wake-up call of the '70s oil shocks and spent the last 40 years pretending everything was OK
We continued to drive gas-guzzling cars after the oil shocks of the '70s, culminating in the plague of SUVs and The Hummer
We care more about how fast our car gets to 60 than how far it goes on a gallon of gas
We care more about cupholders and DVD players in our cars than emissions
We wanted a ridiculously big, heavy car because it made us feel safer, despite it actually being less safe for everyone else, and occasionally, us.
We knew we'd run out of oil, paper, and fresh water in our lifetimes and we decided somebody else would figure it out
We complain about windmills blocking our view
We fight nuclear power
We are OK with lopping the tops off of mountains and wrecking our landscape for coal, as long as it doesn't happen in our town
We complain every time the price of gas goes up a nickel, despite the fact that we only spend $2400 per year on gas, and the real cost of gas has fallen steadily over the last few years
We couldn't be bothered to bring bags to the grocery store and embraced the plastic grocery bag with open arms
We bought bottled water, buying industry panic and hype while both paying for tap water and infrastructure and not caring about groundwater quality
We leave the lights on
We expect everything to be wrapped and packed in plastic

Most damningly, we feel entitled to a particular way of life: A rich one, where we get to say what changes and what doesn't, when and how. That's delusional. Our way of life is always changing, like it or not.

We should all take a good look in the mirror. Make some changes right now. Find out what you can do. And prepare for a less pleasant way of life in the future.

Coal is still bad

I am saddened by news of the recent coal mining disasters in China and in West Virginia.

Here is a link to my previous post about coal versus nuclear power, written in April 2006.

Car Trouble: 100 Years and Counting

Have you ever had a ride in a light blue car?
Have you ever stopped to think who's the slave and who's the master?
Have you ever had trouble with your automobile?
Have you ever had to push push push push?
Car trouble oh yeah

- "Car Trouble", Adam Ant (from "Dirk Wears White Sox")

The world recently passed the 100th birthday of the Model T - the first mass-produced and successful car. I've been thinking a lot about how quickly the world used up all the gas, and what the car has done to the planet and society.

Depending on how you score and who you believe, the first automobile to run on gasoline (primitive and nasty gasoline at that) appeared in 1875 or 1890, and various European companies were building cars during the last decade of the 19th Century.

By the early 1900s, cars were the fastest-selling transportation. Ford's Model T was the thing that really took off, though (which was a relief, as Ford's previous ventures and efforts had been failures).

Gasoline underwent substantial evolution as well. By the 1920s the world had catalytic "cracking" (which greatly improved distillation yields) and 40-60 octane. Engine technology had advanced and required higher octane and higher quality, which lead to...lead. Leaded gas - gas mixed with tetraethyl lead, some of the most toxic stuff man has ever created intentionally.

By the 1950s, lead levels had increased and octane levels had increased again. Better cracking technology again. In the mid-1970s, just 20 years later, the industry and the world agreed to stop using leaded gas for a variety of reasons (toxicity, the fact that leaded gas destroyed catalytic converters, environmental concerns).

The period from the 1920s to the 1960s also saw massive proliferation and expansion of the gas station. They popped up everywhere, offering more and more services as differentiators. The energy crisis of the 1970s more or less killed momentum here and turned gas stations into the minimal dispensing facilities we know today.

Now it's 2008. There has been minimal consumer-facing innovation in the entire gas-auto ecosystem for the last 20 years, and arguably regression - the biggest-selling American vehicles were basically bimbo trucks - fake off-road "cars" built on profitable but fuel-inefficient truck platforms. Fuel efficiency stagnated.

The world is fast running out of gas, and it's happened relatively quickly. 100 years is not very long.

But it was long enough to define America's cities, its economy, its values (family, environmental, corporate, governing), its architecture, its lifestyle. For most Americans, life without a car isn't just unthinkable, it is impossible. And without cars and trucks (and lately airplanes) today's society would quickly collapse.

Yet it has been so clearly unsustainable for so long. How can the world not be ready to move on?

I am old enough to remember pumps dispensing leaded gas. I remember cars that did not have shoulder seat belts, or had them as add-on/after-market accessories.

I also spent my primary school years during the oil crisis of the 1970s. I remember gas lines, even/odd license plate rationing, and many science classes being told in no uncertain terms that the world was running out of oil, and that was probably good anyhow because cars were poisoning the environment in just about every way one can imagine (it's not just the emissions. Think about the paint, the construction, the batteries - hell, just the tires alone are a nightmare).

My father can remember cars without seatbelts. His generation saw the maturity of the gas-auto ecosystem. That was just 50 years ago.

His father (my grandfather) would remember the first modern gasoline and gas stations, and my great-grandfather would likely have remembered the introduction of the Model T.

And now it's all but gone, in 3 generations. A short period of time in human history, and yet our entire society is dependent on it. Look around you. It's all gasoline, it's all cars and trucks. And it has to stop - there is no choice. It will stop - the gas will run out, and/or the environmental damage will cost too much to continue.

Biofuels aren't the answer. Drilling for more gas and oil isn't the answer. I'm not even sure magic fuel-free cars are the answer, as just having a car-centric society creates so many problems. Carbon emissions need to dramatically decrease. Society has to change.

I think about how much gasoline and the car affected and steered development for 100 years. About how much the Internet has changed society in just 20 years. I have yet to imagine a pleasant post-gasoline society 100 years from now. Or even 20.

It must be possible, right? I suppose (and occasionally fear) I'll be around long enough to see the beginnings of it.

And remember this:
You don't need anything after an ice cream