Too Late to Stop Global Warming by Cutting Emissions?
A reader sent me this article that suggests that it’s too late to stop global warming by cutting emissions and writes:
I happen to agree with this guy. Climate change is so far advanced at this point that it makes more sense to me to concentrate our scarce resources on dealing with the effects of climate change rather than the causes, i.e., effects like the impact on agriculture, forestry, flora and fauna, sea levels, etc. Sometimes it seems that our approach to climate change is overly focused on emissions. Kinda like a doctor trying to prevent the patient from getting sick when the patient is already sick and the focus should be on dealing with the symptoms or the general fighting the last war.
I’m not sure. Coincidentally, I just this minute got back from a short but vigorous hike with a friend in which we talked about this very thing. I’m guessing that, if we really had all the information we need at our fingertips, that we’d see the need to cut emissions.
Keep in mind also that CO2 is only one form of emissions coming from coal-fired power plants. 13,200 died this year in the U.S. alone from the aromatics. Cost to our healthcare system: at least $250 billion.
It’s probably too late to prevent serious problems, but not too late to prevent it from becoming far worse than if we did nothing. So, in addition to taking action to reducing CO2 emissions, we will need to take action to deal with the consequences of global warming. Dealing with warming will be a serious political challenge. Doing so adequately without having armed conflicts and people dying from heat, famine, and lack of water will require more global coöperation than has ever occurred before.
Although it’s obviously true that coal-burning power plants emit a variety of harmful substances, ultimately the CO2 will be the most problematic. It just takes longer for the results of CO2 emissions to become manifest.
“13,200 died this year in the U.S. alone from the aromatics. ”
You state that as fact!
Are you sure that these victims did not paint themselves into a closet with a can of paint with lots of V.O.C.s?
Are you treating every coal fired power plant as the dirtiest ones on earth?
A few people die from industrial accidents resulting from the construction and errection of wind turbines and solar panels. I wonder on a gigawatt basis which power form generates the most deaths.
I too am convinced that it is too late to prevent anthropogenic global warming as we are already seeing change.
CO2 in the atmosphere, and existing infrastructure commitments -fossil fuel power plants and vehicles already in the system ensure that warming will continue for some decades, however I strongly disagree with the conclusion that because a significant degree of warming is inevitable, that we need not continue to make efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses.
If we do nothing to slow the growth of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, the degree of warming which will be seen in the future will be substantially larger than it needs to be, and warming will continue for decades longer than necessary.
Where I agree with the writer is in recognising the need to plan for and where possible, mitigate the effects of climate change. This will involve among other things developing and using new crop varieties able to reliably crop in both wet and dry years, developing flood defences, preparing for floods and droughts, and adjusting planning laws to avoid construction in the most vulnerable locations.
I’m just full of questions. I wonder how long it will take for the rising sea level to be identified. Tides cycle daily, but who measures the level of high tide? For example: ‘Will they be able to state conclusively that the high tide is now 6 inches higher than it was 5 years ago?’ How much will the high tide need to rise before the nice folks in Florida notice? Will the tide matter much before it is 5 or 10 feet higher than today? What cities are less than 5 feet above sea level? I think there will be lots of folks moving out of those cities in a few years.
Rising tides aren’t the worst danger either. I think that the big storms we are seeing now are a only a preview of the climate events about to come.
I’m reducing my fossil fuel use. I’m also stocking my basement with food & water. I live above 1,000 feet elevation.