It is time to get serious about Global Climate
Change by looking at the root cause: GROWTH. Global climate change/Warming has
been the focus of world wide demonstrations primarily by the youth kickstarted
by Times’s person of the year, Gretta Thunberg. Children will inherit this mess. Most adults
don’t get it, especially my baby boomer generation. Almost no politicians get
it and most don’t even understand it with many including our president calling climate change, the consequence of growth a “hoax”. 37% of adults in a recent
poll said the warming came from
increased solar radiation! In this short essay my goal is to show that climate
change is merely the symptom. The root cause is
exponential increases of population and material consumption what we call
GROWTH which has altered the climate. This growth
of the economy accelerated exponentially with the onset of the industrial
revolution which began two centuries ago and really took off within the past
150 years. This growth was fueled by the discovery and utilization of fossil
energy, initially coal followed by oil and gas.
The unprecedented economic boom
after WW 2 in the US was the poster child for this massive transformation in
living standards. The ditty at the time urged us to buy and consume, to see the
USA in our Chevrolet flying on newly constructed smooth glossy highways linking
the shining new sprawling suburbs. All
of the energy for this growth powered by virtually free fossil fuels pouring
gasses into the air. Virtually no one then paid attention to the “externalities”
of air pollution, loss of farmland, and certainly CO2 emissions which to many
of us was just vapor from dry ice in a high school science lab. Initially, few were
talking about any negatives to this newly discovered nirvana. Incomes were
rising lifting all boats. Income inequality was minimal and except for the
beginning of smog in Southern California, what was there not to like about life
in America? We were the model and the envy of the world with expanding
opportunities, universal education and improving public health. Atmospheric CO2
measured at Mauna Loa was 320 ppm in 1972.. It is important to note that Ice core
samples now go back almost 3 million years and no readings exceeded that number.(Ed
note: today it is 413 ppm)There were a few brilliant minds who began to
question this economic model including a group in Italy called the club of Rome
started by David
Rockefeller, Aurelio Peccei, and Alexander King and a group of scientists at MIT led by Jay
Forester. There was a growing awareness in the scientific community that
unlimited growth on a limited planet was unsustainable. Using the newly
developed science of System Dynamics and early modeling on freezer sized IBM
computers, the group attempted to explain the likely trajectory of 13 different
scenarios of growth examining five different factors which allowed or limited
growth: population, pollution, industrial production, agricultural production
and natural resources. In 1972 they
published their results in a book called The limits to Growth. It was a an environmental blockbuster hailed by many,
assailed by others.The books central conclusion was that a finite world could not support infinite
growth and expansion without collapse.
The different scenarios’ model runs looked at outcomes when sustainable
development was instituted and compared it to outcomes where current
development remained unchanged. Now almost 50 years later we can see that the
world has followed the unsustainable version and we are entering a period of
decline which will result in a collapse of growth this century. It is too late
to institute a” sustainable” growth program to prevent collapse. That is not to
say that policies to reduce greenhouse gasses shouldn’t be enacted to reduce
impacts of climate change. They absolutely should! But to reemphasize my
original statement:Global climate change is the symptom of unlimited growth, not the
cause. The lag periods inherent in the
biophysics of these myriad feedback
loops guarantee that climate change will continue the rest of this century. If
nothing is done to arrest the process, the ultimate outcome could be far worse
for the world’s climate. Every ecosystem has a carrying capacity for its members and when that carrying capacity
is exceeded there continues to be overshoot of the population followed by collapse. This is the period we are
entering based upon this 50 year old model. Critics of the original model then
as well as today refuse to believe the model. As Gore said, it is an inconvenient truth. One group doesn’t
want to believe that there are limits to the human experience. Many believe that
technology can extend or abrogate these limits if they in fact even exist. Another group simply doesn’t care and think
there is still time to party and loot the environment for profit heedless of
the consequences. Some of the rapacious “one percenters” do get it and are
fleeing to their fortified island sanctuaries to save themselves leaving the
rest of us to our fate.
It is a mistake that just climate change has been the sole focus in
worldwide demonstrations. Gretta Thunberg
is exceedingly bright and and must certainly grasp that climate change is the
symptom and not the cause. In her direct and forceful voice she utilizes shame to try to force emission reductions as way of reducing
GROWTH, which is the cause. The recently
concluded COP25 in Madrid was yet
another doomed conference focusing on a
symptom of the problem because at this point
the world is not ready for a conference limiting growth because limiting
growth could shrink living standards, cause a depression, shrink the wealth of
many countries, corporations, and powerful individuals. I get it that this is a hot potato so she has
attacked the problem indirectly through the back door by seeking to limit
greenhouse gas emissions. Green house gas concentrations are increasing because
of increasing population, increasing production leading to increasing material
consumption fostered by burning fossil fuels to support that consumption. It’s
as simple as that. But the growth and “Progress” model is baked into the world’s
economic, social and political cake and that is why absolutely nothing has
happened to reduce emissions or growth. Bill Clinton once said “no one was ever
elected promising less.”
I am pessimistic that there is any hope
that our globalized industrial system will ever reach a consensus on limiting
growth or industrial emissions. For one,
the human race has a short discount rate baked into our genes and our brain. We
have a short time horizon. We focus on the immediate and discount the distant .
The economy and political system operates exactly the same way. Corporate CEOs
are rewarded not by the long term success of their companies but by quarterly increases
in the stock price or profits. This is greed at work and not a strategy to grow
the company long term. Political decisions have followed that paradigm. We may know that
upfront costs might promote benefits down the line to our descendents but up
front costs are too expensive costing jobs or profits or increased taxes so the
proposals wither and die. That is exactly what has happened with for example
the Kyoto accords which were tepid, mild and minimal to begin with. Almost no
countries have come close to meeting their obligations and some countries like
the US and Canada have scorned the accords and exited in high dudgeon. My
pessimism has an important theoretical basis. We now have a complex globalized interconnected economic system and not just a disparate
collection of independent countries and the world economic system is like some
giant single organism. It is self regulating , and beyond any national control.
It is like a shifting amoeba controlled by central banks and mysterious algorithms
utilizing incomprehensible derivatives constructed by unknown viziers behind
the curtain, like the wizard in the Wizzard of Oz. If Gretta and her supporters
want to find where the pressure points
or leverage points are to enact change, where would they look? They are
desperately trying to start a worldwide revolution by forcing major change on
the entire world. I am afraid this movement will fail just like the Occupy Wall
Street movement failed 8 years ago. If she just stuck with trying to enact
simple measures to limit greenhouse gas increases it might be possible for the
movement to have some impact. I have some
limited simple measures that could be enacted as possible partial solutions.
Simply put, my first proposal is to increase the cost of fossil energy. Reduce emitting carbon from all fossil fuels. Forget carbon offsets. The second is: soak up this carbon. The first way to reduce
emissions is to borrow from Donald Trump’s playbook and put tariffs on fossil
fuels. Trump is threatening to put a tariff of 100% on French wines. A federal tariff
of 100% on oil gas and coal would be a minimal first start. For example the tax
on aviation gas is 19 cents and only 24 cents on commercial jet fuel. State
taxes on diesel and gasoline are a fraction of the per gallon cost in the US. Even with a
minimal 100% tariff on fuel, the per gallon cost would still be under
$5/gallon. The tariff should be raised in stages but it can and should be done
immediately .Fuel surcharges in this range have been the rule in European
countries for many decades and their energy use per capita is about ½ of
Americans as a consequence. The second and more effective way to cut worldwide
emissions is to soak it up in plants and soil. A professor at the University of
New Mexico in an article a year ago estimated that human generated emissions
only account for about 8% of the world wide CO2 rise. This was an astounding
assertion. This is a potential solution
big enough to have real impact and yet right now nations are still removing
mangroves, draining swamps and marshes and clear cutting forests. These
activities must cease and pressure brought to bear on those individuals,
companies and nations engaging in these destructive practices to world health.
Degradation of the soil by industrial agriculture also contributes mightily to
emissions by the application of chemical agents which sterilize the soil,
reduce tilth, increase compaction, decrease the percolation and promote wind
and water erosion. For example Roundup the most popular herbicide is a potent
antibiotic and kills bacteria and fungi in tiny concentrations. Trees and
plants not only pull CO2 out of the air to build their stems , roots and leaves
and fruits. They pass carbon- rich root exudates which nourish the bacteria,
fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and worms in
a healthy humus rich soil. Roundup stops this process cold by sterilizing soil
and thereby blocking this carbon transfer. Ban roundup and related herbicides.
Simple, Just a stroke of the pen.
There. I have laid out two possible concrete
proposals entirely absent from COP25. What do you think the chances of my
proposals being enacted even if proposed by Gretta Thunberg?
I
have explained why I think the world is going to ride this horse into the ground
because the individual has little impact on the globalized system. That doesn’t
mean that there is nothing that an individual can do this century. I have no
doubt that this is the century of decline and collapse. All civilizations have collapsed
but after collapse there will be a chance of rebirth of new ones. Collapse will
not be uniform and some regions may experience only mild forms while others
experience Armageddon. What we can do is to build resilience into our physical environment and our cultural
and social systems. Build resilience into our consumption patterns by buying
only things of high repairable quality that we absolutely need. Don’t buy new when
serviceable used products are available. Build resilience into our soils by organic
permaculture practices and consume only locally produced foods cooked in our home kitchens. Limit our
travel to essential trips. Avoid flying on the aluminum bird. Build walkable communities with mixed use downtowns.
Make sure all new structures are insulated heavily and oriented properly to the
sun to allow solar heating of the interiors and the hot water. This is truly
making use of sustainable renewable energy. Forget government subsidized giant windmills and
massive solar farms which have been a failure worldwide delivering only a
fraction of their nameplate output to electrical grids not designed for their erratic
input. Since 2014, the amount of new “renewable” electric
energy has lagged the annual increases in electric consumption. In other words,
renewables are not replacing fossil
energy. They are not even keeping up! Emissions are continuing to increase. There is nothing green about most forms of this new “green” energy. All of it is built , transported and maintained using only fossil energy to generate only electricity which is merely an evanescent carrier of energy.
Build resilience into the social and cultural fabric by paying attention to
neighbors and family needs. Real happiness is getting what you want. If you’re
not happy you are not getting what you want. Don’t confuse needs with wants.
These simple aphorisms have been the basis of civilizations and religions long
before we started burning coal and oil and should form the basis for a new
society.
I am a student of energy and I am well
aware of the consequences of my recommendations. The industrial revolution was
launched by the sudden one time availability of a new form of concentrated
energy which has generated vast increases in wealth, amazing tools and machines,
new professions, improvements in public health and education and vast
enlargement of commerce and trade worldwide.It is now cooking the planet. In a
very real sense, Energy IS the economy. There will be no equivalent substitute
for this fossil energy. Implementation of Gretta’s recommendations
would face an array of powerful interests and nations who like the way things
are and will fight to keep their wealth and power enabled by cheap energy.
I just reread Limits to Growth after 48 years and
the accuracy of its World Model predictions is stunning. Read it.
