Transmat World: Climate Change Is Terrible, But Don’t Take it Personally

Unless, of course, you are the CEO of Exxon-Mobil or the climate deniers in the U.S. Senate, Congress, and current administration of the United States government. They and their ilk should take it personally. You, on the other hand, should take a vacation from angst. The guilt and anxiety you feel about climate change is natural because you’re a participant in this drama as is everybody. Those that don’t have such emotions should be suspect as liars or sociopaths. A normal person should feel, at the least, some unease about the future of humankind because of climate change.

One summer morning at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1950, Enrico Fermi, a physicist, and several buddies were discussing the probability of intelligent life in the universe. Everybody was coming up with extraordinary numbers of how many other intelligent beings there had to be because of the number of stars and planets involved.

The subject was dropped. They went to lunch. In the middle of the meal Enrico says, “Where are they?” Several lunch mates knew exactly what he was talking about. Aliens. If the math says they should be there, where is the evidence? They could have crisscrossed the entire galaxy by now even at the slow crawl of our current technology. But there was no evidence of other civilizations that ever made the leap to technology. The question with no answer was named “Fermi’s Paradox.” That was 70 years ago and there is still no evidence, even with our sophisticated orbital instrumentation.

Perhaps climate change is the “Great Filter.” Once the discovery of how to make and control fire is made by an intelligent life form, it is that species death warrant. It may be inevitable that further investigation reveals how this primal element can be harnessed to produce powerful rotating engines. It seems logical, also, that useful technology will blossom and be used planet wide before the technology develops to figure out what it does to the climate. By the time that happens, it is too late.

It may be little solace to think we’ve been had by one of the most sophisticated and dangerous “gotcha’s” in the universe, one that every other race out there fell for. But there it is.

We’re not done for yet. The human race is as resilient and smart as it is greedy and petulant. There are technologies that will help. Some are in their infancy and may become cheap and practical. The political will may yet come around to do something in spite of special interests. This, by the way, is the only power you have over this situation. Your vote for candidates that understand and are concerned about climate change may well determine the future of humankind.

What you shouldn’t do is feel guilty for your lifestyle. It is shaped by your government and society. Who knew there would be a situation where our nationalistic forms of government would be inadequate? Perhaps somebody smart somewhere, but he or she wasn’t loud enough or rich enough to convince anybody.

If you drive an electric car, recycle everything, and compost then God bless you! You’re doing a heck of a job. If you’re doing it to assuage guilt about climate change, take a break. What you are doing has little relevance to the current situation. It will take fifty to a hundred years to stop and reverse the enormous economic, political, and psychological inertia generated by climate deniers and fossil fuel interests. By that time it will be quite obvious to all what is going on, and what will happen to the planet if we continue burning stuff for money. Perhaps we can proceed on a more rational path from then on and survive the Great Filter.

Thousands of years from now perhaps we can make that trek across the galaxy and find what few other races have survived this harrowing trick of nature. At a meeting of such entities we can swap stories of how we made it and how close we came to not being there. I would be willing to bet on one thing. It won’t be around a campfire.