When Did We First Know?

....of the anthropogenic nature and dangers of "excess carbon in the atmosphere:

1965:

President’s Science Advisory Committee Report on Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide...

...reported to Lyndon Johnson that "By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause significant changes in the temperature and other properties of the stratosphere.”  The report was entitled:

"Restoring the Quality of Our Environment”

"Restoring!"  This term was used 53 years ago; indicating that the level of excessive atmospheric carbon was already past safe levels more than 50 years ago.  It had increased by 7% between 1860 and 1960 (1.3% from 1958 to 1963). The report predicts melting ice caps, rising sea levels, acidification of water sources, and more.  The report links that increase directly to humanity’s behavior:, the Committee reports:

“Carbon dioxide is being added to the earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at the rate of 6 billion tons a year.”

The report recommended: 

“economic incentives to discourage pollution” in which “special taxes would be levied against polluters.”  Think CarboTax Click on the report title above to read the report; or click here.

What Do We Do Now?

It's about "us" not "them"

It always has been,  The largest culprits of excessive are cars and trucks and manufacturing of products we consume.   Besides generating carbon is reducing excess carbon in the atmosphere; a process called "carbon sequestering"  This breaks down to the following action items. 

• Drive less
• Bike
• Public transportation
• Purchase less products in single use packaging that requires manufacturing which in turn generates carbon
• Eat less meat.  The manufacturing of meat generates carbon (Not to mention waste of water which generates more carbon)
• Plant more
• Plants pull carbon out of the air (carbon sequestering) and replace it with fresh oxygenated air
• Leafy plants such as philodendrons and spider plants are good examples.  There are a lot of people on the planet.  If everyone in the U.S. planted the effect would be multiplied by 200 million plus.  It would truly be a "grass roots" solution 

The solution like the problem has always been our responsibility. 

Things Have Changed, Yet Not

Different, Yet Same

Back in 1990 when I first wrote The Council to Save the Planet and the Earth Chronicles (The subtitle was dropped by the publisher), the term Global Warming had been coined, but had not made into the public lexicon and the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change was first convening to study greenhouse gas effects.  It's not like the problem didn't exist. The problem was just viewed differently and other environment threats to the ecological balance of the planet held just as much gravity for the public attention.

Global Warming

At least since the sixties it was common knowledge that if carbon emissions were greater than the planet's ability to exchange carbon for oxygen (the carbon cycle), the whole of the plant would warm to the point of some of the issues we are currently seeing:

• Rising sea levels
• Unpredictable and virulent weather (increase in tornadoes and hurricanes) 
• Droughts
• Increase in Earthquakes

However, the problem was not really seen from the perspective of how much carbon people and industry releases (carbon footprint), but from a perspective of depleting the Earths ability to perform carbon exchange.  Much focus was on depletion of forests, particularly tropical forests.  Solution points appeared to be:

• Lumbering (ironically leading to a movement of fake wood made of plastic)
• Slash and Burn Farming (e.g. Amazon Rain Forest)

Hence the beginnings of the terms Save the Trees --> Save the Planet  Somewhere along the line, after the first few report of the IPCC it became evident that no matter how much of the Earth's jungles and forests were saved, humans were going to overrun the carbon cycle, by the sheer volume of carbon humans release.  

PFCs

Of huge concern in the public media driven attention was fluorocarbons, gasses used to create pressure in aerosol cans and refrigeration.  These gasses attributed to the hole in the ozone layer, which in turn allowed too much ultraviolet light through the hole, contributing to

• Skin Cancer
• Global Warming

The whole cosmetic, home cleaning and refrigeration industry changed drastically as a result of this discovery. People like singular problems requiring single solutions so fluorocarbons got lumped into the category of greenhouse gases under the umbrella of Global Warming

Nuclear Waste

Of huge concern at the time was what to do with radioactive, carcinogenic nuclear waste. People were terrified about meltdowns and hazardous spills of nuclear wast creating mass evacuations and death.  Since then, nuclear has come to be Green or the lesser evil.  However, it is an increasing problem which currently effects people in horrid ways, though they may not know it.  Populations living near nuclear waste dumps suffer cancer rates up to 30% more than people who don't live near nuclear dumps.  People just don't necessarily know that their leukemia or testicular cancer may be related to nearby nuclear waste or a nuclear power plant.  They may not even know a dump is nearby.  In the U.S. there is over 176,000 tons of nuclear waste without any plan for permanent story.  Nuclear waste impact is far more deadly and imminent danger to humans than global warming, but it is off the radar screen. Out of site (oops), out of mind.

Pollution

Awareness and focus on pollution over the years has ebbed and flowed, though it has more ebbed than clean water has flowed. (Sorry, just a bit of eco-humor, there).  Seriously though, when I wrote The Council to Save The Planet I wouldn't think twice about drinking tap water, now I wouldn't think of drinking any water that has not been filtered.  Again, the irony of acquiring fresh water often requires plastic bottles and plastic is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions and pollution. Evidently, a patch of plastic 5,000 sq kilometers in size floats in the Pacific Ocean.  Actually there are two patches (Eastern and Western) called the Great Pacific Garden Patch. By now you have heard about the trillions of microbeads of plastic polluting the Great Lakes and other inland bodies of water.  It's enough to make you want to stop brushing your teeth or washing your face. No?

The One Constant

The one thing remains constant is too much carbon, pollution, energy demand for the Earth to recycle into useful resource, too many people in pursuit of convenience. Often people glibly respond to my "save the planet" messages with retorts that the "planet will take care of itself."  That's true. However, in that humans are dependent upon the planet for survival, saving the planet is tantamount with saving humans. 

Respectfully,
Conrad    

The Struggle For Restraint

An Art. A Discipline: Not Lashing Out

Last night I was subjected to verbal malice barely disguised as humor. It was rancorous teasing that took me back to my teens when I was a very short boy (5'1" when I graduated high school).  I found myself once again being a 16 year old unfairly bullied and I came very close to "bitch slapping" my verbal assailant; ready to escalate to greater physical violence.  I knew from my past experience, I could humiliate and possibly hurt this person. My past experiences at being bullied provided me with what I came to call "some ugly habits."

We have entered into an age of aggression. Stephen Hawking fears that human aggression will destroy us (humanity) all. In an era where aggression is not only accepted, but lauded, it becomes more and more difficult to exercise restraint (i.e. to not lash out at anything that makes us uncomfortable.) Hunter S. Thompson, put it succinctly when he said, "we are a land of [300] million used car salesmen all armed with guns and no compunction to use them against anyone who makes us uncomfortable."

Why Here? What Prompted This?

Why write about restraint and aggression in a blog about global warming and population explosion?  Because aggression may very well be part of the underlying root causes of anthropogenic climate change and aggression certainly threatens the well being of humanity.  The way humans aggressively exploit the planet with little care for the near or far future can only be described as "aggression"

What prompted this now was two things.  An article a friend of mine sent me about remember that the Japanese aggression prior to and during World War II and the above mentioned incident.

Acceptance of Aggression

What is most unsettling were my memories of the positive reinforcement for lashing out with physical violence that accompanied my physical violence.   Physical violence thwarted some of the bullying and some of the girls in school found it attractive.  However, in later years, I would find this behavior hampered my growth as a human being.  As a culture we (The US) are seeing the costs of aggression, though many choose not to see those costs:  A quagmire of violence in the Middle East that is expanding globally; and rising brutal police aggression, etc....

Stewing in the Past

What I know from my own experience last night is that my impulse to throw my fists was rooted deeply in the past, consciously and sub-consciously.   Moving away from being that aggressive teen took a concerted effort to not stew about the mistreatment bestowed up on me years ago; a hard journey though many bottles of Jack Daniels.  This stewing in past memories is rife in most of the acute incidences of world aggression:

• Israel vs Palestine
• Sunni vs Shi'ites
• Russians vs Ukrainians
• ....

Often the past memories are not our own as individuals.  Yet, we as humans seem to cling to them, enjoying the drama of aggression that they bring to us.

Restraint

The time of least global strife came during the years of restraint; those years when we didn't react to the 1st bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.  Or, when we didn't over react to the bombing the Embassy in Libya.  Some were angered that we didn't.  However, note that this epidemic of aggression begin and has been rising since we lashed out at the world with aggression for the second bombing of the World Trade Center.  Since then, aggression has been expanding exponentially.  We frack, pollute, shoot and expect violence to deter violence and forget there was time less than half a century ago when aggression wasn't this rampant.

A time of Restraint

Hoisted On Their Own Pitard

Wake Up Call

At least for the GOP. The study they commissioned to show that human influence over Global Warming was a myth backfired on them when it showed that in fact humans are most likely the reason the reason that the current average temperature of the earth is defying previous climate cycles by getting warmer; not cooler. (Click here for Krugman's Story)

Still, for most the interest in reversing the climate and the implications of a heating up climate engine, is to read about it, and point fingers. That is despite the fact that the U.S. has 3% of the global population it still contributes to over 25% of the carbon footprint. We realize that, yet, continue to demand cars with less emissions output, but few think about driving less. Few will take a reusable bag to shop, preferring the convenience of one of the greatest contributors to carbon emissions (disposable plastic bags). And who weighs the options for carbon footprint when purchasing food? The production of meat contributes more than four times the carbon footprint of vegetables. Buying goods that require shipment of more than 100 miles requires more carbon output. Bananas are the worst and no one considers that you can get more potassium from locally grown avocados, tomatoes or sweet potatoes. How many people remember to turn off lights when they leave a room? A hundred watt bulb left on all night requires 500 lbs of coal. How many use low power fluorescent lights?

No, we prefer convenience, reading about Global Warming and demanding that someone else do something about it.

What No One Will Talk About: The Eco-Elephant in the Global Living Room

Overpopulation! Too many people for the Earth to sustain!

That's right! There are more people generating carbon footprints (greenhouse gas emissions)than the Earth can reconvert into oxygen (Continued below)

The curve of the population growth -- Hell, explosion -- exactly matches the the curve of the increasing global warming. And, no it is not a typical cycle of the planet. In the past temperature changes have related to cooling, not increased temperature (e.g. the ice age and the Dark Age). Neither of those correlate with population change so indentically.

Since the industrial revolution, world population has doubled every 40 years

The Global Warming - Population Connection

To learn more about the connection between population growth and global warming, click here

And we (the U.S.) are the worst contributors to greenhouse emission

Yup. We have less than 4% of the world population, but contribute to over 25% of the greenhouse emissions. But, you may be saying, China contributes more! On a person by person basis, no they don't. Each Chineses person's carbon footprint is 1/4th of each U.S. citizens carbon footprint. It's just that there is more than 4 times as many Chinese (1.6 billion vs 260 million). That means that whatever you do, eco-good or eco-bad, multiply it by 260 million. If you want to find out what simple things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, click here

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Global Warming, Population, Overpopulation, ecology, environment, speculative fiction, science fiction

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