The good news is we have technical solutions for our climate crisis, the bad news is maintaining our lifestyle is preventing us from implementing these solutions
I hope this post finds you well.
Follow these guidelines; in 2020, our go to term Climate Change was replaced with Climate Crisis and rightfully so. After years of effort and millions spent, we are no better off than when we started. I have come up with some guidelines that will help you to plan and implement mitigation efforts.
First: Don’t follow a leader. We have been doing this for decades. It doesn’t work. Our previous leaders have steered us down the wrong paths.
- Al Gore; One year prior to his movie launch “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al with a former CEO asset manager at Goldman Sachs, David Blood, set up a fund (a green fund) to address the Climate Crisis. The Bio-fuel and Biomass industry is one of their investments. Do we really need to cut down the forest?. NO! Don’t follow him. It’s all about profit for him.
- Michael Bloomberg; bio energy investor, Let’s cut some trees down. More green profit motive. See “Planet of the humans”
- Bill McKibbon, a climate change scientist; Later partnered with David Blood.
- David Blood; Along with Bloomberg pushed the biomass and bio-fuels industry.
- Watch Jeff Gibbs “Planet of the humans”, executive producer Michael Moore. In this documentary you will see how we are being misled.
We all know a leader can be compromised. Money, power, free this, free that, etc. can be used to sabotage our efforts to replace oil as the primary energy source. Let’s remember our past. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” By George Santayana. Heed this warning and be cautious of one who promises too much. “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it” by Robert Swan. Following a single person is analogous to putting all your eggs in one basket. I know, I know, that was corny, but I had to say it.
Second: Follow many leaders. The more leaders there are the better. This way if one has ulterior motives other than mitigation, it won’t affect all of us. However, never follow one for more than 24 hours. Taking turns being leaders will improve the odds of success for your group’s efforts. A single person can’t possibly know everything in each state and geographic region with its specific needs.
During the 1700’s they had no single leader. Just 13 colonies with many leaders, composed of business people, statesmen, and farmers. Essentially, it was a union of leaders and informed citizens that banded together and declared independence. However, there were skeptics, spies and nefarious citizens working for the British. No doubt, hoping to improve their livelihoods or maintain healthy relations to the empire. Tumultuous, distrustful times, they were. In the end common sense succeeded.
Third: Communicate: The old fashion way, that is. No internet, chat, email, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, portable phones, etc. You don’t need this stuff. It just creates division in us. Also, half of it is misinformation and fake news anyways. Undoubtedly dividing us.
Communication between humans is approximately 60% visual, 30% auditory, and 10% words. It’s hard to believe this, but it’s true and this is what we do:
- Tell Stories
- Tell Jokes
- Make analogies
- Metaphors
This is how it is done and has worked for millennia. The internet, with email, social media, chat and other tools are meant to supplement your social lives, not replace it. You are not truly communicating on the internet.
Note: There are 7 million men between the ages of 25 and 54 that are not looking for work. They’re not just out of work, they’re not even looking for work. What are they doing, I’m not sure. There probably on the web, observing the world go by.
Paul Coelho said, “The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.” Think outside the box. What we are doing now, is not working. Engage with people outside your friends and age group. Of course, you know about the baby boomers. Our leaders in the recent past and still are. How did that go? Be careful with them. However, don’t shy away from them, because they have vast knowledge on how the government works, of course they do, they changed it.
Do this Instead:
Arrange to meet locally, several times a week. Go often and plan.
Fourth: Don’t do anything by yourself, always in numbers. More is safe. Don’t fall into the Hollywood manipulation trap, you can’t fight your way out of this alone, it’s a myth. These Hollywood movies are just appealing to your inner psyche and desire to do this yourself. Don’t be a hero. No, you are not Tom Cruise and unlike his fictional characters, you will fail.
This is not going to be a 2-hour movie with a happy ending. In fact, in your lifetime, there will be no happy ending. The conversion to an emission free world with clean skies will take many decades. Most likely, the 20 something may experience it but, the rest of us won’t.
Fifth: Don’t leave anyone behind. Always address the whole, not the part. Recognize there are many parts to any issue of a mitigation plan. Big and small businesses could be affected. So, most importantly, don’t leave anybody behind.
Our greatest threat to Climate Crisis mitigation planning and execution is each citizen’s desire to maintain their livelihood and dignity. Here in the US, change means people will get left behind and each of us fear this. It’s all about maintaining the livelihood and dignity of those affected by the plan. Address the whole in your legislation, not just the part. A successful plan for change will not leave anybody behind. ANYBODY. It’s not the change, it’s how we are making the change that I am worried about. We are constantly leaving people behind. This has got to stop.
There is a YouTube video titled “This is why we can’t have nice things”, from a channel called Veritasium. A video about how on certain occasions people will prevent new technologies or improved products from entering the market place because they feel they will lose their jobs and livelihoods. The YouTube video mentions to watching an Oscar nominated film titled “The Man in the White Suit.” (1951). Directed by Alexander Mackendrick. It is available for free viewing and download at the internet archive. https://archive.org/.
An example of a recent change that occurred which left many families and people behind was the agricultural shift from family based to big agribusiness methods, requiring large amounts of land to be profitable. With the advent of fertilizer from oil we have enabled a farming practice called high intensity farming, delivering more crops per area.
Before 1900, approximately 43% of the people were associated with food, like planting, harvesting, processing, distribution, etc. Today it’s far less at approximately 1.2%.[1] You could easily say that this was one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. This frees up vast numbers of people to do other things. However, another alternative view is, it was a financial disaster for many families. The peak occurred in 1985 with 5,000 farm foreclosures reported. Essentially the property was taken from the families. Some saw it coming and sold, while others were forced to sell their homes or go into bankruptcy.
The worst part is not necessarily losing their money and property but their essence of being and dignity. Losing their sense of belonging to the American economy. Thousands of families dropped from the middle class. For the bankruptcy cases you pushed them right out of our economy. We must draft legislation which insures financial, health and food security and prevents massive livelihood and dignity losses.
Those that will be negatively affected by any Climate Crisis mitigation plans will do just about anything for their family. They would divert, slow, interfere, and even sabotage Climate Crisis mitigation efforts. I believe this is the reason why we are unable to make changes today.
Other reasons to prevent Change:
Medical Cost: There are approximately 600,000 individual and family bankruptcies each year. The majority are due to the high cost of medical care. Miss a few paychecks and we can’t make our ever-increasing cost of living. It’s no wonder why people will do anything to maintain their livelihood.
Geographic Empathy Bias: There is a human behavior phenomenon that we must overcome, it is called spatial or geographic empathy bias. There is a tendency for people to feel less empathetic from the suffering of others when they are geographically far away from them. It would be pretty emotionally exhausting especially when there are many around the world. However, we are emotionally connected when they are close by, like family, friends and neighbors. We are quick to help them. Some examples are, The Irish Potato Famine 1845 – 1852, The Great Chinese Famine, 1959 – 1961, Bangladesh genocide 1971, Rwandan genocide 1994.
Places with extreme climates are seeing the greatest climate changes. We need to understand this and promote empathy and compassion no matter their geographic location. So, I would say in your meeting You should take some time to discuss and inform others of humanitarian crisis around the world.
Time Empathy Bias: Past and future; this is not widely recognized and I could not find this online, so I am creating this. Societies have failed in the past, due to climatic changes. It has been proposed that the collapse of the Maya civilization may be due to a long drought. Also, Indus Valley civilization, Chaco Canyon civilization and the Angkor civilization. It is hard to imagine what they went through. Our climate change is happening so slowly, it’s hard to understand it. Also, we just don’t see that far into the future. It seems current livelihood is more important, even if your children will be immensely affected.
Summary:
With the high medical cost, living cost, government policies leaving people behind, geographic empathy bias, time empathy bias, and the desire to maintain our livelihoods, all clouding our reasoning faculties, it is no wonder we are not able to make change. To me, maintaining the business, families and individual’s livelihood and dignity is our greatest asset, that can guide us in creating our legislation. This would allow us to implement changes necessary to mitigate the Climate Crisis we face today.
The good news is, we have solutions today; it involves thorium nuclear energy. It will take many years to implement and most people’s livelihood would be affected. So, let’s not leave people behind.
- https://www.copenhagenatomics.com
- https://www.terrapower.com/about/
Example plans:
Electric Buses: Let’s say you propose to convert all diesel-powered buses to battery powered electric buses in your community, then you must think about all those that will be negatively affected by this plan. What about the mechanics that maintain and repair the diesels engines. They would have to get another job or lose their livelihood. This is extremely stressful, even just thinking about it. Your plans should include assistance in the form of financial, job search help, etc. I would require large company executives to lead courses to assist in their transition into other jobs. They are more experienced and knowledgeable in the economy.
The most important aspect of a Climate Crisis mitigation plan, is to maintain families, individuals and businesses livelihoods. Leaving people behind is really stupid. It damages our economy. I don’t understand why business people don’t help. Imagine making a widget and looking out at the vast ever-increasing number of displaced, bankrupt, disillusioned people and realizing they are not going to be able to afford your product. A real American businessman would get out there and try to change things.
15 Minute City: You might want to turn your city into a 15-minute city or change our public transportation system here in the US to the envy of the world. Let’s remake ours with beautifully designed buildings, smooth rides, safe environments. If President Kennedy were in office today, he would have implemented a transportation shot. Let’s follow President Kennedy’s lead. Here is a diagram drawn up by the Institute for Sensible Transportation to give you help and ideas. I added this image without permission of course. Below is a CO2 emission versus transportation method chart.
Quotes:
Robert Swan, “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”
Kurt Vonnegut, “We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective.”
George Bernard Shaw, “Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” Some accept the status quo while others strive to bring about change.
George Bernard Shaw, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw, “Success does not consist, in never making mistakes, but in never making the same one a second time.”
Paul Lee Maxwell, “We will be the first species on earth that extinguishes itself, because our livelihood is more important.”
[1] Elvery, Joel A., 2019. “Changes in the Occupational Structure of the United States: 1860 to 2015.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 2019-09. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-ec-201909