Scientists have understood the energy capturing nature of airborne carbon (i.e. emissions driven climate change) since at least the 1890s. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Ar…
The first World Meteorological Conference on Climate came some 80+ years later. google.com/url?q=https://…
If you observe that chart above, you'll notice it measures, not rates of emissions, but cumulative buildup of atmospheric CO2.
Emissions rates look different. But they're not laid out on parallel year scales so it's hard to form a clear mental picture.
As of this past week, President Biden hosted a virtual gathering of world leaders at which he promised ("pledged", which may be different, I'm not sure) to reduce the US rates of emissions by 50% of the 2005 rate by 2030.
In English this means, we will continue to add carbon to the atmosphere every minute of every day, but we will add it slower.
But more, more, more every day.
So theoretically, if we do this, this curve will slope down at some point.
But this one will continue to slope upwards.
Because adding is adding.
Here's another historic curve to observe.
Temperature.
As long as the above curve slopes up, so will this one.
I'll be turning 74 this summer, so if the Biden Pledge comes true, in 2030 I'll turn 83, assuming I'm still alive.
At that time, 9 years from today, if everything goes according to plan, this curve will continue to slope upwards.
This is known, in media terms, as aggressive action to curb climate change.
I'm not convinced.
But y'all go ahead on.
At least Americans can have more high-tech jobs.
And in the short run, that's all that matters.
Right?
I used to write about climate change. I went about 5 years, writing a thread at least 5 days a week.
Although the global ecosystem is massively degraded and losing functions, I believe it still would act towards a restoration of a livable climate for the current biosphere if.
2. If, that is, we would let it.
If we would quit degrading it.
Yes, I am aware that there are over 8 billion of us. As it is today, roughly two billion of us extract and reduce to trash at least 8 to 10 times more resources per unit of time, per person, than the other 6 billion.
3. We have all these excuses. People would starve if they couldn't get from zero to 60 mph in under ten seconds, people would starve if we couldn't commute by personal jet, a thousand miles one way.
It's all bullshit.
The other 6 billion aren't starving. Lots of them are hungry,
So ...
What have I been doing in the earth shattered heat wave?
I bought a new guitar. New to me. Made in 1956. It's a ten string non-pedal steel guitar, and the most fascinating instrument I've ever encountered.
2. I'm consuming resources to operate it.
It's electric.
I have an 8 watt (maximum) Boss Katana Mini amplifier which runs on 6 AA batteries. My Peterson tuner is lithium ion rechargeable.
As kilowatts go it's a fairly low end consumer, but it's all energy.
4. This thing was designed by a man named Elbern H. Alkire, known professionally as Eddie.
Eddie's objective was to create a non-pedal steel guitar which addressed the same playability issues that pedal steels were invented for.
The Alkire Eharp was Betamax to pedal steel's VHS.
Good evening, my friends. Tonight, if you'll tolerate a garrulous old man, I'll tell you a story from my life.
As of today I have been drawing breath, air of Earth, for 77 years. As some of you know, I have spent the past 6 or so of those years writing about an alternative life,
2. a life in which humans, yes over 8 billion humans, could live reasonably comfortably, warm, dressed, well fed, hois d, and gainfully employing our hands and brains to making the ecosystem which supports us better, not better than we found it but better than we have made it.
(that mystery word is "housed.") 3. We could do this by eliminating wasted energy in the forms of speed and resultant wasted motion.
It would look a lot different. It would not satisfy our current demands for speed and stimulation.
But that's for another day if ever. Done that.
I've met some of the best people in the world on here.
I met Cindy my wife on here. Susan, below, has been my friend over a decade.
I'm going to write a thread tonight. Here. I've been thinking it all day.
May take a while to get it done.
1. What I wish would happen, next, in the real world.
As always, I write from the perspective that there is no thing more important to humans than a living ecosystem able to support humans.
As it turns out, humans have the exact same requirements as a vast swath of the biosphere.
2. I also write from the perspective that the living ecosystem which we require is undergoing rapid degradation, and that if it has to drop to a lower productivity level we will have far less resources available to us than we do now.
I think that's on the road we're traveling.
I posted this recently.
You can see from the comments how much people hate me for it.
I'm used to it.
I'm going to tell a story here, about my past.
I sincerely hope this will be my last ever Xcreet.
I keep checking back to suck up all the hate, but it's obviously stupid.
I was born in Kansas City, MO, in 1947, to a WWII non-combat veteran and his wife.
My dad had an LLB, a type of law degree which no longer exists. Before the war he had been an attorney in private practice in Council Bluffs, IA. The war left him in KC.
3. After the war my dad took his degree and went to work for the VA, administering the newly passed Veterans' Bill. He was a mid-level federal bureaucrat. We weren't rich but we were comfortable. One older sister, standard Ozzie and Harriet family.
Much - probably most - of the increasing ecosystem catastrophe often referred to as climate change is a result of the exhaust gases which come from burning fossil fuels.
But.
Talking about halting fossil fuels is the stupidest and most useless topic in the world.
I'll explain.
2. We do not have any means except fossil fuels to do most of the things we do.
We can do less than 20% of all our activities as developed societies, modern societies, first world societies, without fossil fuels.
This is an absolute fact.
That's why we burn them. To do things.
3. There is, and has been for over 40 years, the pretense that "we have the technology" to do all the things we do without fossil fuels.
This is a lie.
We have designed technology which, if we had it, if it had been built and installed, would let us do about half of what we do.