PERSONAL ACTIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLLUTION

 My FACEBOOK site includes many entries about the current knowledge of climate change and controversies related to it.  Some of the information is depressing including  many predictions.  Is there anything we can do NOW to alter the course?  There are three separate problems that  come together and the solution to each one is different.  At least some of the climate effect is related to human activity,  so at least some of the solution must be changes in human behavior.

The climate problem is dramatic warming of the earth that is the result of the changes in atmosphere.  There is evidence that some of these changes are the result of the dramatic increase in use of fossil fuels that release CO2, methane and other substances into the atmosphere.  The solution to this includes: 1) finding and utilizing alternative energy sources to replace current human fossil fuel demands for energy. 2) Arresting and/or reversing atmospheric changes and their associated temperature effects.  and 3) Human adjustment to the changes already occurring that are not reversible.

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-08-27/worried-about-climate-change-you-can-make-a-difference-heres-how

The things I can do for climate change right now are reducing my "carbon footprint" including using less energy, and sourcing my energy from renewable sources.  A typical example might be using more energy at low usage times of others.   For example, the New Yorker talks about "moving slower" (not typical for New Yorkers) since the rate of speed of all transportation uses more energy.  

( https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/to-save-the-planet-should-we-really-be-moving-slower

This also includes modes of public transportation when many people are moved together at a reduced use of energy. 

( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/climate/buses-trains-ridership-climate-change.html

The idea of lowering your "carbon footprint" is not so clear.  An interactive checklist shows that the data for various personal changes is not always that significant.  It turns out that being "car free" and a diet without meat are more effective than lowering your thermostat, or car pooling.

( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/15/opinion/how-reduce-carbon-footprint-climate-change.html

Installing roof top solar panels on your home will certainly lower your electricity bill,  but it will not, by itself, in aggregate over many homes,  replace other sources of electricity.  Large solar, wind, and other projects must be funded to effectively replace demand,  and deal with storage issues.

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-06-29/can-rooftop-solar-alone-solve-climate-change-heres-the-answer-boiling-point    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/realestate/microgrid-solar-power-energy.html

 Climate changes do not impact all regions of the country equally.  Insurers now are able to rate houses and regions by their climate risk, and either give up writing insurance on risky homes,  or greatly increasing the cost.  This raises the question of why people choose to live in locations with high climate risk.  Some moved there without knowing.  Some cannot afford to move elsewhere.  But the long term consequences will not apply equally.

( https://firststreet.org/

 The following LA Times series addresses many of these and other issues.  Most important it keeps the issue in mind so that people can't use denial and avoidance to not deal with the unpleasant reality.  (People have been ignoring this since the 50s!)

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-08-15/climate-change-challenge

There are changes that must be done by large groups,  and this involves politics and political action.  A group of young people in Montana have sued the state about failing to protect their environment for future generations.

( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/12/young-activists-held-v-montana-climate-change-first-constitutional-trial 

But at the federal level, many groups are in competition with each other for support,  rather than developing a unified voice.  

One of the effects of warming is a rise in sea level,  something that has already begun with the melting of arctic and antarctic ice.  There are two options:  spend impossible amounts of money to enclose shorelines over large areas (as in the Netherlands)  or move back away from the flooding regions.  Here again,  humans must decide what the best solutions are AS A GROUP.

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-09-21/does-california-have-what-it-takes-to-adapt-to-sea-level-rise-new-book-offers-hope-boiling-point

( https://bookshop.org/p/books/california-against-the-sea-visions-for-our-changing-coastline/19407155

 Fire in drying forests is another result.  Here the option is really only to get out of the way,  though some choose to rebuild in fire ravaged places (like Paradise CA).

Climate changes  also figure in increasing drought in sensitive areas, reducing the available water supply as a result.  

( https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03517-0

To complicate things, one scientist points out that the targets and goals set for reducing carbon levels are not realistic and that more gradual changes are all that are possible,  with ongoing problems in climate.  He does not say we should abandon efforts,  but that the magnitude of what is needed is not doable in the current time frames.  The climate will continue to change.

( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/25/magazine/vaclav-smil-interview.html

 The problem of pollution is a separate but related issue.  Human daily activities create extensive waste, both biological,  unused foods,  materials,  and the wastes of industrial production.  These pose problems of 1) magnitude/amount the amounts so great that disposing of them without other disruption is difficult. 2) Persistence: some current waste elements do not degrade back to component natural elements in fractions of human lifetimes,  so there is an untenable accumulation over time. and 3) Toxicity: many substances have long term toxic effects from which humans must be protected.

The simplest answer is don't use things that pollute.  The less you use,  the less goes into landfills or is burned.  Fashionable clothing that is discarded after it goes out of style,  intentionally, to sell more fashion,  is a great example and landfills in Africa no longer accept this waste from developed countries.  Some of the problem is persistence: the manufacture of clothing with fabrics made of artificial fibers does not degrade back to natural substances rapidly, or at all.  So "recycling" is a misnomer for some substances and plastics.  They must be burned or continue to interfere in the soil.

( https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/the-best-eco-friendly-alternatives-for-the-plastic-in-your-life/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/21/climate/plastics-recycling-trash-environment.html

PFAs are toxic long lasting substances involved in production of plastics and other materials that are distributed all over the earth at this point, are toxic to humans, and will not degrade for centuries.  They are slowly being eliminated legally but not yet everywhere.

Oddly, in a world with a high level of food production,  many are starving everyday,  and not just in under developed countries.  The effective and adequate distribution of food to avoid hunger does not occur in the US, the country with the highest GDP and collection of wealthiest persons.   And vast amounts of food are discarded every day both before sale as less desirable,  or after partial consumption.  This is a dramatic offense against nature, farming, and those who are starving everywhere.  And it contributes to pollution!!!

Ocean creatures are increasingly suffering from illnesses and disabilities because humans allow coastal waste to drain into the oceans with poor processing or none.  Making the seas our human toilets is just another form of pollution, with consequences on sea life,  and eventually back on humans.

Hiding behind these two problems is the issue of population: The human population of the earth is expanding at a rate that is not realistic for long term occupancy of the planet.  This problem impacts on the others.  The demand for energy is directly related to the  human activities that require energy input.   The production of pollution is directly related to the number of polluting humans and the types of pollution they create.  But the problem of population has two other features that are unique. The "demographic profile" of numbers against age in different groups is not the same.  Humans have finite productive lives,  so, as the profile ages, the local region of productivity is reduced.  The population becomes, in effect, non-productive and consuming.  The other issue of population is the apparent inability of human populations to adjust their birth-rate to accomodate space for other animals and plants.  The increasing numbers take over more and more earth-space for human needs and leave less for other species.  From the human economic viewpoint,  this is simply "survival of the fittest",  but from an evolutionary perspective,  other species are part of a broad ecologic evolutionary pattern,  and the excessive dominance of humans threatens to distort or damage this pattern.

( https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-4-july-august/mixed-media/human-race-sleepwalking-oblivion-nick-brandt

THE SHORT ANSWER TO THE QUESTION POSED AT THE START IS THAT EACH INDIVIDUAL CAN DO A LOT TO MODIFY CLIMATE CHANGE,  BUT UNLESS ALMOST EVERYONE MAKES THESE CHANGES THE EFFECTS WILL BE NEGLIGIBLE.  AND THE COST OF MAKING THE CHANGES IN ECONOMIC TERMS, AND IN PERSONAL COMFORT AND CONVENIENCE ARE VAST.  IT DOES NOT SEEM POSSIBLE FOR ADULT HUMANS IN DEVELOPED NATIONS TO ACCEPT THE DRASTIC ECONOMIC AND LIFESTYLE CHANGES THAT ARE NEEDED. (The illusion of solving the problem by buying an electric car ignores how the car gets charged!)

OUR ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE

 I have been posting on the environment and climate change on my Facebook site(Ron Milestone) almost daily for the last year. Although the day to day posts cover a range of topics, the basic issues are not complicated or confusing (though they may be difficult to solve!).
1) How do we rein in the use of fossil fuels and other carbon production to slow the climate changes already occurring? How do we do this without totally disrupting the economic balance of separate countries?  The relationship of humans to energy use is a vital concern.  A defined amount of energy arrives at the earth each day as sunlight.  This is converted into various phenomena and may be converted to other forms (solar power, wind turbines).  Residual heat from processes within the earth provides an additional source of energy.  And plants have stored energy in their structures over eons, and continue to do so.  Energy is stored in every molecule and methods of releasing this have been developed (nuclear) but their safety has historically been poorly engineered.  Energy is needed for daily activities and for transportation from place to place.  It is easier to use alternative energy sources converted to electricity for daily activities, and more difficult to use them for transportation.   The reserve of fossil fuels is depleting.  A decision must be made to slow their use and preserve their availability to make the transition to future power needs less drastic.
2) How do we adjust to the climate changes occurring and likely to continue in this century without catastrophic political events? This includes managing the changing distribution of water, intensification of weather events, fires, and the relation of people to the events.  Climate change is already underway.  How rapidly it will occur, and all of its ramifications are not understood.  Some of the effects are clear already.  Major political decisions will be needed to adjust to these changes.  Wars in regions of Africa and the middle east indicate the consequences for failure to make peaceful decisions.
3) How do we reduce the distribution of toxic polluting substances, and clear ones already distributed, to avoid human and animal damage? This includes ending the use of the oceans as toilets.  The manufacture of new materials and electronic devices is associated with the creation of pollution not cycled back to natural substances rapidly.  A similar issue occurs in nuclear production of energy.  The only solution to this problem is the reduction of use of these substances.  This goes in the face of the economic evolution of human consumption and will be difficult to accomplish!
4) How do we balance the distribution of humans to other plant and animal species to retain suitable biological diversity? This must involve changes in human demography, and changes in how humans exploit other species.  Every place where humans sequester land to grow crops  or animals for human consumption creates an opportunity for wild animals to exploit this food supply.  This interferes with human food production, and diverts animals from "natural" food source activities.  Opportunistic animal species also invade human cities and dwellings creating unintended "shared spaces".  THERE IS NO WAY TO COMPLETELY ISOLATE HUMANS AND OTHER SPECIES.  A constant attention to the ecology of sharing is needed,  along with creating "natural spaces" that retain animal species away from human concerns.  This is a decision about use of land, which also involves major economic and political considerations.
Solving these problems without creating chaos requires careful decisions about choices and balancing different goals. The current political process in the US is not capable of this level of careful decision making. Perhaps more mature countries will lead the process.

ENVIRONMENT: TOWARDS A BALANCED VIEW OF CLIMATE CHALLENGES

DAVID WALLACE-WELLS is a scientist-reporter on climate who recently published a summary in the New York Times. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/magazine/climate-change-warming-world.html

His summary  incorporates more recent data showing that climate change has moderated from previous estimates of 4-5 C. to 1-2 degrees.  Over time this will likely result in a "migration" of plant and animal species (including humans) away from equatorial to more polar regions.  "Everything will move — ecosystems, too. At two degrees, according to one study, more than 10,000 plant species would lose half their habitable area. Every place in every part of the world would essentially trade its current climate for a hotter one" The effect is to alter climate to more (current) equatorial by roughly 12 miles per year or about 600 miles is half a century.  Though measured in European studies, similar effects can be expected in the US,  where more "heat waves" and increased temperatures are expected.  While these are called "heat waves" right now,  they are more properly understood as variations in climate that make previously temperate climates more tropical and equatorial.  The transient high temperatures are the newsmedia's "heat waves".  These temperature shifts will mean enormous relocations of animal life, mostly away from the Equator and toward the poles because animals and especially humans have more limited resources for tolerating extreme heat than extreme cold.
    The changes in temperature are a "fact",  not the reported dramatic changes,  but the gradual shift in averages.  How humans respond to this is unknown.  Predictions of migrations and chaos reflect current events, and short term adjustments.  How many will move,  or use new adaptations, or simply not reproduce in those regions,  is unknown.  His statement: "Regardless of the figure, mass climate migrations will become a fact of life." is not a fact but a reflection of current trends,  which does not include factors his summary discusses. (Gaia Vince has written the book “Nomad Century.” describing climate migration that doesn’t have to look like refugee camps and border walls.)  

The ability of different regions to adapt is complex.  Wallace-Wells emphasizes the economic capacity of developed nations to create infrastructure that modifies climate effects,  giving them an advantage. "wealth will enable many places to adapt."  And most developed nations are already in temperate zones.  But less developed regions have less commitment to high consumption and energy demand lifestyles,  and might be able to accommodate to more modest changes.  And the evidence of current lifestyles suggests that affluent people are less able to adapt their lifestyles.

Some obvious changes include turning away from cars and toward biking and green space, but also public transportation with low carbon methods.  Major reconstruction of buildings will be needed to adjust to environmental change.  This is both a dramatic expense and a giant infusion of capital into the economy.  How it is paid for (charging the present or future generations) is unknown.

The differential impact on temperate and equitorial regions is inherent in world geography, but how different regions manage change is not.  And the costs of adaptation may remain local or be more globally distributed. Statements like "the continent (Africa) is already losing up to 15 percent of its economic growth because of climate change" should be viewed with caution as they are based on current economic systems,  and do not account for changes.

The changes to the ocean, including coral reefs,  will be dramatic,  but here too the question is relocation of species as much as loss of species.  The greater risk of overfishing, and other human activities,  should be addressed as part of the danger to the oceans.

The rise of sea level, (and how fast) has varied predictions.  The I.P.C.C. has given a median projection of just 47 centimeters, though other estimates are several multiples of that. And scientists worry about “tipping points” — that just two degrees of warming might trigger a feedback loop in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that can’t be reversed.  But these are worries not observations. "Greenland alone contains enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 20 feet; the Antarctic, considerably more. But little of that melt would come this century."  The emphasis on sea level rise is the result of the concentration of urban centers of population along coasts,  which will continue but shift inland with the rise.  These changes will have dramatic infrastructure expenses,  again with unknown methods of payment,  but they are issues of population movement and engineering, at relatively slow speed, and could be easily accommodated if individuals respond.

The issue of food is an example of not just climate but economic inequality.  Different regions of the world already have very different capacity for food production,  and people continue to live and reproduce in regions with poor and diminishing capacity.  Sending food supplies to sustain living in unsustainable places is stupid.  A global effort is needed to facilitate migration to realistic regions of food production, and accept that persons who don't move will not survive.
New agricultural methods are likely to moderate climate change impact,  and reduced consumption of certain foods would also help. Pongamia grows beans similar to soy, producing protein and oil, a company based in Alameda, Calif., has begun to plant it widely for the first time in the United States. But this does not address the unrealistic distribution of humans to limited regions of production.

Much has been made of increasing "Weather disasters". These are both "events" and "news stories".  The occurrence of fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and sustained high temperatures are measurable time limited events.  They only become "disasters" when news media report the effects on humans living in regions that are vulnerable to them.  Here too, as in the situation of food, human decisions impact the role of weather and climate, and must be adjusted to accept the changes.  "Weather events that impact humans" only increase if humans continue to stay in places where they occur, thinking they can overcome Nature.   “return time,” the period between catastrophes like hurricanes and heat waves should be understood as human decisions,  not definable weather events.  The events do become more frequent as in heat waves,  or the Australian fires,  mega-storms, and severe hurricanes, but infrastructure changes and human relocation can deal with the impact of most of them.

Wallace-Wells gives special attention to the need to alter electric power generation to replace fossil fuels.  No one seems to consider the possibility that usage of electric power might change.  It helps to realize that the US was not completely wired for electricity until after WWII, that people lived by limited light sources and the sun until then,  and still do in some regions.  That the surge toward "electric cars" and transportation increases the power demand,  while decreasing the transportation load of carbon fuels, and the overall impact is not known.  Human based transportation power is only realistic if the distances are smaller,  i.e. residential/commercial relationships are closer.  This can be facilitated by internet communication,  and work-from-home activities,  especially if servers and other electronic infrastructure becomes less energy intensive.  (Bitcoin mining shows that some solutions generate more problems.)   The emphasis is on finding ways to reduce consumption of electric power and especially avoid using electric power to offset the increased heat of climate,  by construction and other techniques.  No one seems to realize that the dependence on increased use of electric power is not inevitable,  and meaningful lifestyles can occur with reductions.

It is in this framework that the goals to increase production of renewable energy sources should be viewed.  One can envision "zero balance energy accounting":  the amount of energy received on earth from the sun and gravitational forces is utilized by various techniques to provide the energy needs of the population, with minimal use of nuclear, or fossil fuel sources in special situations.  This is a fantasy,  but it illustrates the need to consider both sides of the equation:

energy demand  =  energy sources

The importance of emphasizing energy sources that do not depend on fossil fuels is not disputed.  Fossil fuels created a convenient transitional method for accessing more energy for development,  and will remain important for certain tasks.  But at the same time,  an overall strategy for reduced use of energy is needed.  Is being awake after the sun goes down an important contribution to human life and productivity?  The failure to consider lifestyle adjustment is typical of a society driven to excess.

Events like deforestation of the Amazon, melting of carbon-rich permafrost in the northern latitudes and the instability of the ice sheets might represent accelerated effects on change and must not be ignored (but are not controllable by known human interventions).   But his conclusion is balanced: "A lot, then, depends on perspective: The climate future looks darker than today but brighter than many expected not that long ago. The world is moving faster to decarbonize than it once seemed responsible to imagine, and yet not nearly fast enough to avert real turbulence. Even the straightest path to two degrees looks tumultuous, with disruptions from the natural world sufficient to call into question many of the social and political continuities that have been taken for granted for generations. "

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/magazine/visualization-climate-change-future.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/magazine/climate-change-warming-world.html