Transmat World

Monday, December 6, 2021

What Do We Do Now That We Know Climate Change is Inevitable?

Climate change experts say global emissions of CO2 must be reduced to 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. It must reach a “net” zero” level by 2050 in order to limit warming to 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees centigrade). The goal was originally set at 2 degrees centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), but the Paris negotiations changed it to 1.5 degrees C. to appeal to a broader base of nations. This half degree means 10 million fewer people are displaced by the ocean’s rising, a 50% reduction of people experiencing water shortages around the globe, 50% reduction in species losing half their habitat, and a 80–90% destruction of coral reefs instead of 100%. The level of atmospheric CO2, however, has risen from 387 ppm in 2010 to 413 ppm in 2019, a 6.7% increase.

For the first time, Saudi Aramco revealed its finances publicly. Although it was April 1, this was no April Fool’s prank. The company made $111 billion last year, twice as much as Apple, the most profitable public company in the world. ExxonMobil made $20.8 billion. Royal Dutch Shell made $23.4 billion. The financial inertia of the fossil fuel industry is making a mockery of world climate goals. It is not just the fossil fuel industry but the industries it fuels as well. Trucking, shipping, airlines, auto, steel and concrete industries must all switch to electric or hydrogen by 2050 for “net zero” to happen. That’s 31 years away. Can you see all of these industries making the staggering commitments necessary to switch over without laws in place to make them? Can you see all 195 countries on Earth passing laws to force them to do this? It is not going to happen.

If CO2 levels rose 6.7% from 2010 to early 2019, it’s safe to say that by sometime in 2020 it will be an even 7% for the decade and the CO2 level in Jan. 2020 will be 420 ppm, 449.4 ppm in 2030, 480.9 in 2040 and 514.6 ppm by 2050. This does not take into consideration the positive feedback loops evaporating mass quantities of natural gas (methane) into the atmosphere from melting permafrost. Methane is 21 times better at warming the atmosphere than CO2. The hotter it gets, the more methane injected into the atmosphere and so on.

So what would more than 2 degrees centigrade do in terms of damage to the world? It could kill 50–80% of the fish in the oceans. Ice melting could raise sea levels by more than three feet by the end of the century. If Greenland and Antarctic ice eventually melts, it could raise oceans 230 feet. While it is doubtful this could happen on Earth, positive feedback loops and runaway greenhouse gasses created the hellish conditions seen on Venus.

That is not going to happen on Earth. As soon as the general population realizes fossil fuel companies have been gas lighting (no pun intended) them for decades, it will become possible to overcome their propaganda efforts and the legalized bribery our congressmen and senators disingenuously call lobbying. By 2050, strict environmental laws will force the fossil fuel industry to change or die. Don’t feel sorry for them. They will build a lot of renewable energy plants and CO2 sequestration plants and still be making money. Taxes will have to go up to pay for research on how to do this. The U.S. saw marginal rates of around 70% to 92% from 1950 to 1981. When you hear rich people complaining nowadays about taxes, take it with a grain of salt. They will be bitching until it’s zero.

The political process will be too slow to mediate the effects of climate change. We must develop a slew of technologies and social standards to counter this lack of social progress.

1. Carbon dioxide sequestration and other technologies actively removing CO2 must be developed and implemented. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies are already being developed, but more work must be done to make it economically viable.

2. Reforestation must take place on a grand scale. This will assist in carbon capture and restore habitats to insects and animals.

3. Cheap water technology will need to be implemented to offset the increasing scarcity of potable water.

4. We must find a way to capture energy from low temperature heat from industrial processes and server farms. This is a huge inefficiency in our global society.

5. Grants and prizes must be increased for the development of new technologies to mediate and reverse greenhouse gas levels.

6. Products will have to be designed to be recycled with the least amount of energy possible.

Our social evolution must strive to keep up with technology. Stringent laws concerning carbon output must be enacted on industry and society. One half of the population acting as if nothing is wrong and living a huge carbon footprint is not going to work.

It is a sad commentary on humanity that the captains of the industries that have taken us so far so fast would play chicken with a world threatening event. It is our responsibility as citizens of this world to reign them in and redirect their efforts to the common good. The only way to do this is to change our leadership by any means, preferably democratic, to people that are clear-headed, logical, moral, and responsible enough to lead us successfully through this age of salvation and into a brave new society of technological marvels in balance with the natural world.

For more articles by Glen Hendrix, browse them on Medium.

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Quit Obsessing About Climate Change. What You Do or Don’t Do No Longer Matters.

by Glen Hendrix

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

Quit worrying about going vegan, or recycling, or riding a bicycle to work, or buying a Tesla instead of that Ford F-650 pickup you’ve always wanted in order to save the planet. You’re off the hook. It’s out of your hands. You can do these things if it makes you feel better, but they are not going to change the big picture. Whatever you do does not matter. Unless you are a head of state, king, president, prime minister, or other grand poobah, it is above your pay grade. If you are able to vote for people of power, that is what is left for you to do. Other than that …. nothing.

According to scientists, the only way to keep the planet’s temperature from increasing 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit is to immediately phase out all fossil fuel infrastructure and devices. As soon as existing coal, oil, or gas plants reach their engineered lifespans, instead of refurbishing we must shut them down. If we don’t, the estimates for increasing temperatures start going up. At 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, positive feedback loops of evaporating Arctic methane could kick in. Methane is 21 times better at warming the atmosphere than CO2. The warmer temps evaporate the methane. The methane makes the atmosphere warmer. It evaporates more methane …. you get the picture.

I don’t want to be a Donny Downer or a Cassandra but how likely do you think shutting down the fossil fuel industry is? The industry has just invested billions upon billions on natural gas liquefaction plants to easily transport this fuel around the world. They are not giving that up without a tooth and nail, knock down drag out; and they have the money to do it. There are 25 countries whose oil percentage of exports range from Malaysia’s 22.3% to Iraq’s 99.8%. The trucking, railways, shipping, and airline industries would have to be completely transformed to electric or hydrogen propulsion. They will be as reluctant as oil and gas to give it up. All 195 countries would require state-ordained laws banning the use of fossil fuels entirely. There are still vast numbers of people in Africa that gather around campfires and stoves burning wood or coal just like they did thousands of years ago. What are they going to use?

This is the most pivotal point in the history of man. We only get one shot at this. If we blow it, we won’t get a comparable situation for millions of years, if ever. If mankind does have a world-wide civilization by then, we will have forgotten all of this — this choice we had. Save the planet or just get along and ignore it until it is too late. Scientists are saying our planet is doomed and all I hear on the news is everything but that. We are a society in denial, trying to collectively whistle past the graveyard. Our weather men won’t even talk about it on the local news. It might be construed as political. It might upset people. We are so polite and civilized in our denouement.

Since it is off our individual shoulders now, maybe we should give more thought about how we tell our children what’s happening and what to expect in the future. Hopefully, they won’t kick you in the shins when they finally understand what you are talking about. How do we look someone like Greta Thunberg in the face and tell her we screwed up in the worst possible way. This Swedish teen will probably spit in your eye and tell you to fuck off and keep riding that bike to work. She is up for a Nobel Prize for her admonitions to do something about climate change. In reality, she should be voted Queen of the World, because that is exactly what is needed right now; some central, charismatic figure with smarts and determination to do what is right, what is required.

It is not really our fault. Besides being stupid and greedy, we are genetically handicapped to deal with this situation. We simply don’t live long enough to plan ahead. By “planning ahead” I don’t mean decades. I mean centuries. The reason is that people with money and power, the people with the means to do something, just don’t care. They would have to give up some of that money and power to change things. They figure they won’t be around to suffer the consequences of climate change anyway, so they just don’t give a damn. It would require Biblically long lifetimes to plan ahead for the human race. For now and the near future we can, at most, hope to live to a hundred, not the 969 years of Methuselah. If you were going to be around for the consequence of your actions or inaction for as long as he was, you would care.

Our one ray of hope is artificial intelligence. Pundits say a generalized AI, the singularity, will be here within 20 years. It will have the lifetime and the smarts to rationally plan ahead for a viable future for the Earth. Maybe, by the grace of God, it will take over and guide the human race rationally into the future instead of selling us as cheap, world-wrecking slaves to the first aliens that drop by.

So tell your children you are sorry for what is going on with the climate, but it’s not their fault or yours. Tell them some bad people made it too hard to do anything until it was too late. Tell them you will vote for people that might help with the problem. Maybe if we elect the right leaders, and they do the right things there is still time. Tell them to study science and engineering so that someday they might help with a solution or figure out adaptations to deal with it. Or you can put that whole talk off for later. I won’t blame you. You are only human.

Read more great articles on this blog and on Medium.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Real Wealth Inequality Is at It’s Worst Since the Beginning of Civilization, Not the Roaring Twenties

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Articles on wealth inequality written in 2019 say it is the worst since before the Great Depression—the Roaring Twenties, The Jazz Age. These same articles say it’s getting worse.

Here is a statistic to better describe the situation. The top 1% possess 40% of the nation’s wealth, the bottom 80% own 7%.

I say it is much worse than anybody lets on. In fact, it is worse than it's ever been. Let me explain why.

First, let’s have a short discussion about what defines wealth. Some of the poorest citizens in the United Sates possess things that no ancient king or ruler, even Mansa Musa the King of Timbuktu with his estimated $400 billion dollars, could ever have.

This lower economic class citizen might have at their beck and call a carriage with the power of 200 galloping horses beneath its hood, an air conditioned and heated dwelling that maintains a reasonable temperature no matter the outdoor temp, a fridge to preserve food, a TV for entertainment, a phone to call anyone in the world anywhere, a device to surf the internet or access most of the knowledge of mankind, a pill to make pain or infection go away. The list is long.

Realistically speaking, this person has a lot of lifestyle advantages over Mansa Musa, or King Solomon, or any number of historic billionaires right up to the twentieth century. Because of technology, one’s quality of life may be equal or better than the wealthy of yesteryear.

As a side note: Keep in mind the 2010 census describes half the population of the United States as “poor or low income”. Extreme poverty afflicts 1.5 million households which live on less than $2 a day before government assistance. Some of these people don’t have cars, clean running water, indoor toilets, refrigerators, or any health care.

Technology is also the reason a current billionaire’s life has changed by an order of magnitude over those of the past, leapfrogging even an upper middle class person’s lifestyle, choices, and power.

It turns out that a billion dollars now is not the same as a billion dollars back then, and it all revolves around what a billion dollars can currently buy. Once again we turn to the last century as a time when things began to get weird in a science fiction kind of way.

World War II spawned a slew of technologies that forced the expansion and advancement of knowledge resulting in today’s panoply of technological marvels and cleverness.

For instance, propaganda is a very old practice, but the war forced changes. Film and radio were the added dimensions that made propaganda so effective for both sides during the war. Since that time, it has been an axiom that any new technology that can be used will be used for propaganda.

Social media has allowed propaganda to take on a sinister disguise to sway the unwary. Propaganda campaigns on social media and in other venues is something the wealthy can now buy that was not available in the past. Back then, the rich could possess the bodies of a population but not their hearts and minds. Things are different now.

Propaganda has been honed, tweaked, and optimized by Madison Avenue and corporate America to power the advertising technologies that create so much angst in American society by having people desire things they can’t afford. We are a society inundated by constant, unrelenting waves of commercial propaganda. They don't just tell us what to buy. They tell us how we should think and act. I hate to break this to you, although you may have suspected, we are not a normal society.

The overt and subliminal pressure is so much for some they have turned to drugs for relief. The wealthy, for the most part, are sheltered from this constant pressure. Even if they succumb and buy that Lamborghini, what does it matter? They can afford it.

About the same time as the Second World War, wealthy individuals started taking advantage of a quirk in the American political structure. They were allowed to give Senators and Congressmen money in exchange for favorable business environments through legislation in a process benignly labeled “lobbying”. In other parts of the world it is called bribery. While bribery has been around for a long time, past billionaires still had to worry about getting caught, unlike their modern American counterparts.

In 2010, the Supreme Court case of Citizens United vs FEC allowed corporations the First Amendment political right to buy ads in any and all American elections. Since that time the floodgates have opened for money to flow into the coffers of political campaigns and super pacs to be used for ... you guessed it, propaganda.

Having legislators sponsor bills in exchange for campaign money is one way wealthy people and large corporations control enactment of laws to favor themselves, including purchasing monopolies and lowering taxes. This process perverts the idea held by ordinary citizens that our elected officials are working for the good of the general populace instead of certain individuals.

Another area where the current crop of wealthy have an advantage over their predecessors is medical technology. The fact is that the ultra-wealthy don’t really need health insurance, although they probably have the best money can buy.

There are many hospitals that now practice what is commonly called “wealthcare” where the wealthy are ushered to the heads of lines for procedures that may very well save their lives. This is in exchange for large donations to go to expansion or equipment. All well and good you say until the realization occurs that someone back in that line was nearing their expiration date and might not make it now.

The technical advance of weaponry and the art of war has been prodigious. Body armor, fully automatic 12 gauge shotguns, sniper rifles accurate up to a mile away, spy drones—these are just a few examples. Some of the best stuff we’re probably not even aware of.

A small, well-trained, and properly outfitted army would be unstoppable in most areas of the world. They could be used for security or for much more nefarious reasons. Imagine Seal Team 6 times ten and you have some idea of the sheer physicality of force affordable to some now.

Don’t get me wrong. Billionaires should be highly compensated for their innovation and job creation. But please don’t buy into the myth that their money is a huge source of innovation and job creation. It’s just money. They may or may not put it to good use.

For every Elon Musk there are probably a hundred billionaires who are using these absurdly effective tools and technologies I’ve been describing to hang on to or increase their existing fortunes instead of spending money on building new companies and new technologies that create jobs.

What is so very wrong about the current situation is that the tools, the privilege, and the technology available to this elite group of people allow them to keep increasing this disparity of wealth between the one tenth of one percent and everybody else. It is an unfair advantage that the wealthy of generations past did not have.

We may nearing a tipping point beyond which there is no way to regulate this historical anomaly.

And these are the “good” billionaires. There is another group of billionaires that are the bad actors of the wealthy set. These are people like the heads of Mexican cartels. Once these people fully realize what is possible with their money, this world will become a much more dangerous place.

The marginal tax rate for the poor is approaching 90% in many cases while that of a lot of corporations and wealthy individuals is at or getting close to zero. It used to be the other way around. Even some billionaires, notably Warren Buffet, are embarrassed by the low taxation on the wealthy and want it changed.

It is time for the United States of America to just say “no” to the continuing trend of lowering taxes for the rich and corporations and penalizing the poor for being poor. We can only do it at the ballot box. Vote for those who want to increase the tax on the wealthy and change the lobbying and campaign finance laws. No matter what our economic status is, we can still wield that small amount of power left to us to send a message to the ultra wealthy, “We’re on to you! Pay your fair share!”

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The Wonderful, Unsung World of Traveling Museum Exhibitions

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash - cropped

Big museums, in general, have a lot of money. They use it to acquire more stuff, not to keep down the price of admissions, which has soared over the past few years so that many major museums charge between $15 and $30 for adult admissions. And yet, people still come. Why? Much of it has to do with the traveling exhibitions that camp out at museums for three months or more and entice you with something different. After you’ve seen the Tyrannosaurus Rex or whale skeleton for the fourth or fifth time, you and (more importantly) the kiddos are ready for something new.

It just so happens there is a whole industry that hardly anyone thinks, writes, or talks about that provides traveling exhibitions to museums. It runs the gamut from a nicely done set of placards with art and text dealing with a number of subjects that rent for modest sums up to $3000 for three months to an extravaganza taking up 8,000 square feet or more and costing upwards of $400,000. It can be an individual with a focus on one thing, like Christopher Marley’s Biophilia, or Da Vinci: the Exhibition, one of twenty-some-odd large exhibits dealing with space, dinosaurs, art, and the human body from Imagine Exhibitions. At the stratospheric range of traveling exhibitions is Harry Potter: the Exhibition using 12 semi truck trailers to deliver 15,000 square feet of show for an estimated two million dollars.

The inspiration for this article was, in fact, Christopher Marley’s Biophilia which I saw in Houston. Christoper collects his specimens “…in an environmentally sensitive manner from a world wide network of people and institutions that share his passion for nature.” Basically, they are deceased birds, bugs, and snakes. What he does with those specimens will blow your mind. His sense of design to accentuate the qualities of his subject is superb. The beauty he portrays of things we might ordinarily think squeamishly of is an unexpected and very welcome gift to the soul. His show got me to thinking about how one gets their work into a museum. He doesn’t work for the Houston Museum of Natural Science so how did his exhibition get there.

It sounds trite, but first you have to have a museum quality product and display. Also, there are publications and organizations you can join and advertise in that are devoted to nothing but supporting the traveling museum exhibit and exhibition industry. Yes, many exhibitions are of some thing or collection of things; but many more are gems of the mind—beautiful coherent thoughts and knowledge brought to existence for other people to examine.

This is an industry that has a bright future. Museum revenues are down despite the rise in ticket prices, and traveling exhibitions are one way museums can reverse that trend as far as ticket sales go. About half of European museums and 80 percent of North American museums use traveling exhibitions developed by others.

This is one of those industries limited only by imagination. In general, however, it is not a solo endeavor. I don't want to denigrate genius solo polymaths; but teachers, designers, artists, technicians, and code writers are also needed to weave their skills together for an effective communication interface that also happens to be a traveling exhibition.

There is competition. Many major museums have used their most valuable assets as the basis for traveling exhibitions. King Tut, Terracotta Warriors, and the like are things you can’t compete with. There are, however, at least four big exhibition companies with their own version of Leonardo da Vinci’s invention sketchbook come to life, and they are all doing well. Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of different versions based on Da Vinci and his drawings.

Here are a few examples of what's out there:

Grande Exhibitions has developed a system "that combines multichannel motion graphics, cinema quality surround sound and up to forty high-definition projectors to provide one of the most exciting multiscreen environments in the world." Grande has produced several amazing traveling exhibitions including Van Gogh Alive, Planet Shark: Predator or Prey, 101 Inventions That Changed the World, The French Impressionists - Monet to Cezanne, and Alice - A Wonderland Adventure.

Fulldome.pro provides prefabricated domes 1.5 to 35 meters in diameter with projectors and a library of 90 shows to go with them.

Flexhibit makes modules that demonstrate various STEM oriented subjects.

A couple of great things about this niche industry is that the surface has only been scratched for both subject matter and the use of modern digital tools to display and interact with databases on science, art, health, and history. It would be nice to have artifacts to base a show on—I just saw the Art of the Gunsmith Exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science—but not everyone has a collection of fifty or so rifles and pistols in nearly perfect condition from the three centuries spanning Columbus to Napoleon. You don’t have to. You can create your own like Luke Jerram's Moon, a 23 foot diameter replica of the Moon lit from inside. If you have a niche knowledge to teach, a secret curiosity itch to scratch, a different take on things, an artistic view, inquisitive intelligence, or a dogged determination to find out about things, you have what it takes to make a splash in traveling museum exhibitions.

Coral inlaid pistol. Photo by Glen Hendrix.

Even if you don’t know people with the right skills, some of these exhibition companies are willing partners to help you get started. EDG, with dozens of large exhibitions already developed, is willing to listen to your ideas. ExhibitsUSA specializes in photo exhibitions and wants to hear your take on the next great one. You can even find recommendations for producing small, interactive exhibitions for children online.

That is really where the heart of the matter lies. There is so much room out there for exhibitions that teach our kids, as well as most adults, what they need to know to navigate this strange new world we live in. They need to know about the nitty gritty stuff like climate change and racism as well as the cool stuff like dinosaurs and butterflies. We don’t know what will trigger an idea in the brains of our next Einsteins or Newtons so we have to strive to give them the basic thinking tools and knowledge they need as well as something extra. It is up to us to teach them, and what better way than an inspiring personal experience at the museum.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Houses Will Be Different in the Future Because of Climate Change

Photo by Victor Garcia on Unsplash

It’s pretty obvious climate change will affect where future housing will be built. In general, housing will creep away from shorelines and toward the poles as the Earth warms up. Oddly enough, it will force some into the ocean where there is a tremendous supply of cold water just a few hundred feet below the surface. It will also force housing to be tougher and stronger to withstand high winds, more fire and water resistant, and smarter. Homes will be better insulated and sealed, not just for energy efficiency but to keep out bugs carrying tropical diseases.

As climate change progresses, more houses will be built underground. These will have to be located carefully to avoid flooding, but they take advantage of the constant 50 to 60 degrees F. about 20 feet down from the surface. While an f5 tornado could suck it out of the ground, normally winds cannot damage such a home easily.

While not all homes will be underground, many will take advantage of this very same temperature sink that exists year round. Geothermal heat pumps will heat and cool many more homes. Not only is geothermal more efficient and costs less to operate than compressor driven ACs, it does not use refrigerant gasses that are very efficient greenhouse gasses should they escape the system.

As weather becomes more severe, houses in flood prone areas will increasingly be raised on columns, surrounded by berms, or have automatic flood control dykes that inflate or fill with water. Sheetrock will be made waterproof and detach from studs easily to vacuum out and dry inside walls. Studs will be water resistant recycled plastic.

The volume of food storage area will increase as food shortages become an issue. We will see the return of the root cellar to store food and the cistern to collect and use water. Built-in terraces for home gardening and walk-in freezers may be common. By necessity houses will become more and more off-grid to eliminate the interruption of services once supplied by municipalities. Coastal areas sometimes see electrical outages lasting a month, typically at the hottest time of the year. As that happens more and more often, people will install solar panels and big lithium ion batteries. Automatic generators running on natural gas are already common in such areas.

As homes become more complicated, combining these heating and cooling systems with things like fire sprinkler systems hooked to cisterns and flood warning sensors along with security and energy availability, they will be run by sophisticated AI systems.

Housing will evolve in many different directions exploring the various ways modern technology can provide us shelter, but one thing will remain the same. It will cost a lot of money. America, in particular, will be affected by the worsening inequality of wealth regarding the economics of housing in the era of climate change. Many will have no option but to abandon their smashed, burned, or flooded homes and sell the land, rent an apartment, or buy a recreational vehicle and hit the road seeking areas less affected by climate change.

It will be a time of tumult and movement. For that reason, homes will become fortresses against not only the elements but invasions of fellow human beings. Security systems will become intricate and sophisticated and may be linked to quick response military type teams that can handle any situation. Climate change is bringing a world that is very different. We should begin planning and preparing ourselves for it now.

A Timeline for Climate Change

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

Human Climate Change Migration Has Already Begun

Lag in Sociological Evolution Has Become an Existential Problem

Your Property Value Is Dependent on Climate Change Whether You Believe in it or Not

Movable Housing Will Increase With Climate Change

Climate Change Should Make Planned Obsolescence Obsolete

Would-Be Asteroid Miners Should Consider What’s in Orbit Around the Earth First

Can Rideshare Change the Real Estate Market and the Economy?

What Will Happen When Genetic Manipulation of Human DNA Becomes the Norm?

Outfitting a Mined Asteroid Into a Luxury Solar System Shuttle

I Am a Witness to Climate Change—You Should Be, Too

The Environmental Advantage of a Space Elevator

The U.S. Must Recycle Recycling

Climate Change Will Herald the Age of Island Cities

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS): The Existential Technology We Are Ignoring

Nations at Risk of Becoming Psychological Echo Chambers: China Sets Worrisome Precedent

Climate Change Will Alter The Way We Think About Energy

What Do We Do Now That We Know Climate Change is Inevitable?

Are You Susceptible to Digitally Induced Cognitive Karma

Why the Oceans Will Be Humanity’s Life Raft

There May Be a Quadrillion Dollars Lying About on the Moon

Mining That First Asteroid - Manned Mission or AI?

A Convergence of Technologies Will Create a New Age of Space Exploration

Steampunk Meets Star Wars: A Harrowing Micro-Tale of Future Spacefarers

The Space Habitat Revisited and Revised

Are Seeds of Conflict Brewing Over the Moon?

Just What Are NASA’s Plans Under Trump

Thruster On a Chip: An Alternative Rocket Science That Could Revolutionize Space Travel

Oumuamua: Alien Probe or Asteroid? It Could Be Both

Cryptocurrency Is Going Into Space

Going Back To the Moon Is Not Just for Governments Anymore

Why It Is a Certainty We Will Become a Space-Based Civilization

Asteroid Mining - How to Pick the Right Asteroid

Recycling Asteroids For Fun and Profit

Taking the 06-03-25 Asteroid Shuttle to Mars - An Alternative to Planned Mars Missions

A Heavy Metal, Cannibalistic Asteroid Propulsion System

Sticking the Landing On Your Billion Dollar Asteroid

Artificial Intelligence and Asteroid Mining Will Be a (Necessary) Match Made In the Heavens

The Weapon of Mass Destruction Nobody Is Talking About

How We Can Diminish the Possibility of Water Wars

There's An Asteroid Out There With All of Our Names On It

What Will Be the Most Common Currency In a Future Space-Based Society?

Workers In Space Will Live In Igloos

How We Will Get Asteroid Material Back To Earth

The Military Values High Ground - Space Is the Highest

Very Large Scale 3D Printing In Space

Energy and Space; Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

Sunday, July 28, 2019

A Timeline for Climate Change

Photo by Marcelo Novais on Unsplash

Climate change does not seem apocalyptic to the people currently living through it. Although it is happening much faster than other climate changes in Earth’s history, our lives are too short to appreciate the extreme differences that will occur. For instance, a person in their 60s now is not experiencing weather all that different from when they were growing up. Yes, it may be hotter in the summer time, but there were hot days when they were kids. More storms and stronger storms occur but not so different that you could call it apocalyptic. Those really bad weather events from our past become inflated by our imagination over time and thus ameliorate our perception of how bad current events are.

What we currently call climate change will happen over several centuries; seas rising a hundred feet, the increase of temperatures on average by 9 degrees Fahrenheit, increasing numbers of Category Four and Five hurricanes, and tropical diseases in Nebraska and Illinois. And, if we don't fix it, it could last for thousands of years. I’m sure eventually it will be called something a bit more dire than climate change—something more on the order of “The Great Reckoning”, "The Big Meltdown" or some such thing taken from the headlines of an article about a particularly nasty weather event.

We should keep in mind that the last time atmospheric CO2 was this high was about 15 million years ago during the Miocene. Estimates are CO2 was between 475 and 665 ppm. Before that it was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 56 million years ago. Average temperatures during that time period were about 13 degrees Fahrenheit above today’s average. The rate at which we are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere is 9-10 times the rate during the PETM. Whereas the injection of CO2 during PETM was spread over 20,000 years and the warm period lasted 200,000 years; human civilization is on track to do the same thing in only three or four hundred years.

And that is the problem for setting a timeline. We don't really have any historical comparisons. We are in uncharted waters at the edge of the map where it says "Here Be Dragons." We are pouring CO2 into the atmosphere much faster than nature has been able to for at least the past 50 million years. Ultimately, equatorial regions may become nearly uninhabitable. At just a 2 degree Celsius increase in temperature, the oceans will rise 5 to 10 meters. According to predictions from the IPCC, a 1.5 degree C. rise will occur by 2035 if nothing is done to curtail emissions.

Although migration due to climate change has already begun, most people will not be affected for another generation. Here is a link to determine your city’s average temperature in 2050. After 2050, though, it is very speculative with one side promising annihilation and the other shrugging their shoulders and saying “Hey, it won’t be that bad.” Never in the history of mankind has an event of this magnitude been met with so little information about what will really happen.

Humans will adapt. We’ve already begun. As mentioned, some are already moving. Some are changing political affiliations to more climate conscious candidates. Some are changing what they study in school so they can help with the technical stuff. Governments will adapt as well. As it gets worse they will investigate terraforming as an alternative. Giant orbiting shields or massive injections of reflective aerosols into the atmosphere will block the Sun’s rays, bringing temperatures back down. Then it will get too cold and, just like at the office, people will start complaining about the temperature. The next world war may well be over control of the Earth’s thermostat.

Other articles you may enjoy:

Lag in Sociological Evolution Has Become an Existential Problem

Your Property Value Is Dependent on Climate Change Whether You Believe in it or Not

Movable Housing Will Increase With Climate Change

Climate Change Should Make Planned Obsolescence Obsolete

Would-Be Asteroid Miners Should Consider What’s in Orbit Around the Earth First

Can Rideshare Change the Real Estate Market and the Economy?

What Will Happen When Genetic Manipulation of Human DNA Becomes the Norm?

Outfitting a Mined Asteroid Into a Luxury Solar System Shuttle

I Am a Witness to Climate Change—You Should Be, Too