{"id":18777,"date":"2017-07-15T20:42:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-16T00:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=18777"},"modified":"2017-07-16T14:30:35","modified_gmt":"2017-07-16T18:30:35","slug":"the-real-worst-and-best-cases-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/the-real-worst-and-best-cases-of-climate-change.html","title":{"rendered":"The real worst and best cases of climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n†<\/a>What do you want? The planet Venus<\/a>? The current degraded Earth<\/a>? Or a better world<\/a> we know how to create<\/a>?\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"What<\/a>\r\n
\r\n†<\/a>Joel Pett, Lexington Herald Leader, 18 March 2012,\r\nThe cartoon seen ’round the world<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMostly I post about solar and wind power winning, which is what I think is happening.\r\nBut sometimes it’s worth a reminder of what could happen if we do nothing about\r\nclimate change, and I posted on my facebook page a story about that.\r\nWhich actually didn’t go far enough to the real worst case.\r\nNonetheless, that story has been attacked by numerous parties of all political\r\nand scientific and unscientific stripes for being too doom and gloom.\r\nYet none of the attackers bothered to mention a best case beyond\r\n“the same world we have now”.\r\nI have news for you: the world we have now is an ecological catastrophe,\r\nand we can do a lot better.\r\nSo here’s the real worst case<\/a>,\r\nthe current case<\/a>, which is far from the best of\r\nall possible worlds,\r\nand the real best case<\/a>, as I see it.\r\nPlus\r\nwhat we can do<\/a> to head for the best case.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"grinning<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFirst, the story I posted:\r\nDavid Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine, 9 July 2017,\r\n\r\nThe Uninhabitable Earth:\r\nFamine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change\r\ncould wreak — sooner than you think.<\/a>\r\nNotice that word “could”, which a lot of his critics seem to have ignored.\r\nHe didn’t say “will”, and he clearly labeled what he was presenting\r\nas worst case scenarios.\r\n

\r\nIn case anybody thinks he was making any of that stuff up,\r\nWallace-Wells has also linked to an annotated version<\/a>\r\nwith footnotes for every substantial assertion.\r\nThe annotated version notes at the top:\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWe published “The Uninhabitable Earth” on Sunday night,\r\nand the response since has been extraordinary — both in volume\r\n(it is already the most-read article in New York Magazine’s history)\r\nand in kind. Within hours, the article spawned a fleet of commentary\r\nacross newspapers, magazines, blogs, and Twitter, much of which came\r\nfrom climate scientists and the journalists who cover them.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWell, it looks like the article has served its purpose, to get people\r\ntalking about climate change and why we need to do something about it!\r\n

\r\nOf the attacks I’ve seen, most of them did not bother to challenge any\r\nof the factual statements in his article nor did they try to deny\r\nthat he was presenting real worst cases.\r\nWallace-Wells says he has made four corrections or adjustments, which he \r\nsummarized in a note added to the end of the original article:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n*This article has been updated to provide context for the recent\r\nnews reports about revisions to a satellite data set, to more\r\naccurately reflect the rate of warming during the\r\nPaleocene—Eocene Thermal Maximum, to clarify a reference to\r\nPeter Brannen’s The Ends of the World<\/em>, and to make clear that James\r\nHansen still supports a carbon-tax based approach to emissions.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nA few critics tried to undermine a few statements,\r\nsuch as the one about the satellite data.\r\nWallace-Wells has now reworded that as\r\n

\r\n

\r\n…there are alarming stories in the news every day, like those, last\r\nmonth, that seemed to suggest satellite data showed the globe\r\nwarming since 1998 more than twice as fast as scientists had thought\r\n(in fact, the underlying story was considerably less alarming than\r\nthe headlines).\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIn a footnote he also provides a link to the news story he originally\r\nreferenced.\r\n

\r\nAt least one attacker attempted to debunk this sentence by exaggerating it\r\nas prophesying imminent demise through all the permafrost melting real soon now:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn other words, we have, trapped in Arctic permafrost, twice as much\r\ncarbon as is currently wrecking the atmosphere of the planet, all of\r\nit scheduled to be released at a date that keeps getting moved up,\r\npartially in the form of a gas that multiplies its warming power 86\r\ntimes over.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHe didn’t say when<\/em>, just “at a date that keeps getting moved up”.\r\n

\r\nWallace-Wells responds in a footnote to his annotated version:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThere has been a fair amount of criticism of my use of this\r\nmaterial. Michael Mann in particular has faulted me for it; in his\r\n\r\ninitial Facebook post<\/a> about the story, he wrote that “the\r\nscience doesn’t support the notion of a game-changing,\r\nplanet-melting methane bomb.” At Climate Feedback,\r\n\r\nseveral other scientists<\/a> took issue with various aspects of my\r\ncharacterization as well.\r\n

\r\nThere is little doubt that this\r\npermafrost is melting quickly.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAccording to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment, by 2100, “it is\r\nvirtually certain that near-surface permafrost extent at high\r\nnorthern latitudes will be reduced as global mean surface\r\ntemperature increases, with the area of permafrost near the surface\r\n(upper 3.5 m) projected to decrease by 37% (RCP2.6) to 81% (RCP8.5)\r\nfor the multi-model average.” But there is some important\r\ncontext I did not include here: Few scientists believe there is a\r\nsubstantial risk of methane release from permafrost happening\r\nsuddenly, or all at once.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAlso, most of the carbon will likely escape as C02, not methane. In\r\nretrospect, I sympathize with those who find misleading the phrase\r\n“all of it scheduled to be released at a date that keeps\r\ngetting moved up.” The schedule I was referring to was the\r\nmelting, which will take decades; the thawing is a process, not an\r\nevent.\r\n

\r\nI believe that my original description of the possibility\r\nof the methane release lacked some relevant (reassuring) context.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nBut I do not believe the science was fundamentally misrepresented\r\nhere: There is that much carbon in the permafrost; the permafrost is\r\nmelting at accelerating rates; some of the carbon will be released\r\nas methane; and methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon\r\ndioxide.\r\n

\r\nMy intention in referencing the permafrost was to\r\nillustrate, for readers unfamiliar with the particulars of\r\nprojection models, how many uncertain factors were at play —\r\nhow many forces we don’t understand, and how possibly significant\r\nthose forces could be in the warming of the planet. As Joseph Romm\r\nwrites, “The thawing tundra or permafrost may well be the\r\nsingle most important amplifying carbon-cycle feedback. Yet, none of\r\nthe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s climate models\r\ninclude carbon dioxide or methane emissions from warming tundra as a\r\nfeedback.” He also writes, “A 2011 study by the U.S.\r\nNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National\r\nSnow and Ice Data Center found that thawing permafrost will turn the\r\nArctic from a place that stores carbon (a sink) to a place that\r\ngenerates carbon (a source) in the 2020s—and release a hundred\r\nbillion tons of carbon by 2100.” That study, he says, assumes\r\nnone of the carbon will be released as methane, and yet still\r\npredicts a release “equivalent to half the amount of carbon\r\nthat has been released into the atmosphere since the dawn of the\r\nindustrial age.”\r\n

\r\nTo be additionally clear, none of the\r\nwarming scenarios described in the remainder of this article are\r\nbuilt on the premise of a methane release from permafrost. They all\r\nextrapolate from the median and high-end IPCC projections for\r\nbusiness-as-usual warming.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEven if you take issue with my characterization of the threat from\r\npermafrost melt, it does not affect my discussion of any of the\r\nrisks that follow. The permafrost melt is a wild card which could\r\nadd to those IPCC projections. (Romm calculates it could add a\r\ndegree of warming by 2100 all on its own.)\r\n

\r\nFor those who are\r\nreally interested in reading about methane, there are also the\r\nclathrates to consider — bubbles of methane at the bottom of\r\nthe ocean, which\r\n\r\nmany energy companies are now hoping to mine<\/a>.\r\nSpeaking about those with me, Lee Kump, a Penn State geoscientist,\r\nhad this to say: “We haven’t really anticipated these positive\r\nfeedbacks — for instance, these pockets of methane. That\r\nmethane starts bubbling out, that’s a potent greenhouse gas. As that\r\nspreads throughout the globe, there’s a tremendous potential there\r\nfor methane hydrates release.” He went on: “As you move\r\ntowards the poles, we’re already seeing the consequences of warming\r\nthere in terms of methane release.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe point in quoting this lengthy response from the original author\r\nis to show his worst case scenarios are based on sober science,\r\nand are in harmony with the scientific consensus on climate change.\r\nHe’s just talking about what climate scientists usually don’t\r\ntalk about much in public: the worse case scenario, not their\r\nbest case nor even the median case.\r\n

The Real Worst Case<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nTo talk about the real worst case we need someone who is not a climate scientist:\r\nTia Ghose, LiveScience, 5 July 2017, \r\nStephen Hawking: Earth Could Turn Into Hothouse Planet Like Venus<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nEarth could turn into a hothouse planet like Venus, with boiling\r\noceans and acid rain, if humans don’t curb irreversible climate\r\nchange, physicist Stephen Hawking claimed in a recent interview.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Earth<\/a>\r\n
\r\nWhy we live on Earth and not Venus<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We are close to the tipping point, where\r\n\r\nglobal warming<\/a> becomes\r\nirreversible. Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to\r\nbecome like Venus<\/a>,\r\nwith a temperature of 250 degrees [Celsius], and\r\nraining sulfuric acid,”\r\n\r\nhe told BBC News<\/a>, referring to the\r\npresident’s decision\r\n\r\nto pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe critic David Wallace-Wells quoted first above, none other than\r\nDr. Michael Mann, responded in the same article:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“Hawking is taking some rhetorical license here,” Michael Mann, a\r\nclimate scientist at the Pennsylvania State University, told Live\r\nScience in an email. “Earth is further away from the sun than Venus\r\nand likely cannot experience a runaway greenhouse effect in the same\r\nsense as Venus — i.e. a literal boiling away of the oceans.\r\nHowever Hawking’s larger point — that we could render the\r\nplanet largely uninhabitable for human civilization if we do not act\r\nto avert dangerous climate change — is certainly valid.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIn that response Mann admits that Wallace-Wells’ main point is\r\nvalid, which of course all climate scientists or anyone else who has\r\nread the IPCC reports knows.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAs for Hawking’s point, Mann doesn’t address what might happen\r\nif major countries deliberately were to increase<\/em> burning of fossil fuels\r\nbeyond previous rates of increase,\r\na scenario I’m not sure has been addressed directly by the IPCC.\r\nMeanwhile, right here in our solar system we have an example of an\r\nearth-sized planet far too hot to be habitable (Venus) and\r\na smaller planet that recent evidence shows probably once was habitable\r\nbut now is too cold and otherwise not very hospitable (Mars).\r\n

\r\nI wouldn’t put it past the ability of humans to turn Earth into Venus.\r\nNot that humans would care by that time; Earth would be uninhabitable\r\nby humans long before that.\r\n

\r\nIs Earth turning into Venus likely? Not at all. But it is the real worst case scenario.\r\n

\r\nWell, that and thermonuclear war, which wouldn’t make Earth Venus\r\nbut could destroy human civilization as we know it.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

The Current Case<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nVarious critics have claimed that the best case scenario is for the world\r\nto remain more or less what it is today.\r\nThe current case is far from the best case.\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n†<\/a>Longleaf Alliance: Cutover Longleaf Pine Forest<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPerhaps they forget that global average temperature has already increased\r\n\r\naround 1° C (1.8° F) since 1800<\/a>.\r\nCarbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere\r\n\r\nis already above 400 parts per million (ppm)<\/a>\r\nwhen\r\n\r\nit has never been above 300 ppm in the past 650,000 years<\/a>.\r\nThat’s back several ice ages and intervening warm interglacial periods.\r\nThat’s\r\n\r\nmore than three times as long as modern humans, Homo sapiens<\/em>,\r\nhave existed on this planet<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nAt the beginning of human civilization around 7,000 years ago there were\r\n\r\nabout 5 million humans on the planet<\/a>.\r\nWhen the Egyptians built the Pyramids, there were maybe 20 million.\r\nWhen the Roman Empire ruled a quarter of the people in the world,\r\nthere were somewhere between 150 and 225 million total worldwide.\r\nIn 1800 there were about a billion.\r\nNow there are 7.5 billion.\r\n

\r\n\r\nEven the lowest U.N. projections<\/a> show world population peaking\r\naround 8.5 billion around the year 2050.\r\nThe median U.N. projection exceeds 11 billion people by 2100.\r\nThe highest U.N. projections reaches about 10.5 billion by 2050 and 16.5 billion by 2100.\r\nThat highest projection is almost certainly unsustainable,\r\nand would very likely cause accelerated climate change.\r\nEven the median projection would be problematical.\r\nThe lowest projection still requires getting on with stopping fossil fuel emissions.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"world<\/a>\r\n
\r\nU.N.: World population<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWhat have all we people done to this earth?\r\n

\r\nAsk any Floridian about algae blooms on both coasts and\r\nin springs.\r\nLook up the recent Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs)<\/a>\r\nthat say\r\nnitrate runoff has to be reduced by 83 to 92% in the Suwannee River Basin.\r\n

\r\nLook up the history of forests in North America,\r\nand you’ll find in the last part of the 1800s into the early 1900s\r\nwe cut down more than 90% of the longleaf pine forest that used\r\nto run from southern Virginia across the entire coastal plain to east Texas,\r\nwith an intermission at the Mississippi River.\r\nThat was the most diverse ecosystem outside of a tropical rain forest.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
†<\/a>Longleaf Alliance,\r\nHistory of Longleaf<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n†<\/a>We in south Georgia and north Florida live in an ecological disaster zone. To feel this for yourself, go to Fort Stewart near Savannah (that’s right: much of the surviving few percent of longleaf pine forest is on military bases; some of the same bases that feature below<\/a>) and drive among the hundred-foot-tall longleaf as far as the eye can see with the red-cockaded woodpeckers laughing at you.\r\nThen drive west out of the woods, and it will feel like entering a desert.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n†<\/a>Albert Way, Chris Dobbs, New Georgia Encyclopedia, 2006 and 2017,\r\nLongleaf Pine Ecosystem<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nInstead we have monoculture crops (trees and row crops) doused in pesticides\r\nand fertilizers that run off into our streams and groundwater (see above\r\nabout BMAPs).\r\nAnd we have too much poorly-planned impermeable surface (roads, parking lots, etc.)\r\nthat produces floods like we had here in 2009 and 2013.\r\n

\r\nProbably I don’t have to remind anyone what we’ve done and are doing\r\nto tropical rain forests.\r\nOr the Pacific Garbage Patch, or….\r\n

\r\nThis is not the best of all possible worlds.\r\n

The Real Best Case<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nTo start with, thanks to Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson and his research team,\r\n\r\nwe know how to convert each and every U.S. state and most\r\ncountries to sun, wind, and water power by 2050<\/a>,\r\n90% by 2035, 80% by 2030, and 25% by 2025.\r\nConvert as in completely, everything, including transportation, heating, and cooling, with zero use of coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, or biomass.\r\nThe U.S. electrical grid will be converted much earlier than 2050\r\nto sun, wind, and water power.\r\nThe harder parts like air transportation would take the longest.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"600x339<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nHow important is it to do that conversion from fossil fuels to renewable\r\nenergy by 2050?\r\nFor comparison, Susan Joy Hassol, Presidential Climate Report, August 2011,\r\n\r\nQuesions and Answers: Emissions Reductions Needed to Stabilize Climate<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn order to stabilize CO2 concentrations at about 450 ppm by 2050,\r\nglobal emissions would have to decline by about 60% by 2050.\r\nIndustrialized countries greenhouse gas emissions would have to\r\ndecline by about 80% by 2050.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHow about 100% by 2050?\r\n

\r\nWe are on track to do that.\r\nLast year, in 2016, more new U.S. electricity came from solar power than any other source<\/a>.\r\nSolar power deployed in the U.S. continues to more than double every two years,\r\nwhich puts us\r\non track for most U.S. electricity to come from solar power by 2023<\/a>,\r\nwhich is in line with Jacobson’s 2050 scenario.\r\n

\r\nAnd what would we get for reducing emissions to zero by 2050?\r\nMore jobs than would be lost from dirty energy: solar power already employs\r\nmore people in electrical generation than coal, oil, and gas combined,\r\nand is creating new jobs 17 times faster than the rest of the economy.\r\nAnd thousands fewer premature death from polution,\r\nsaving about 4% of U.S. GDP, plus saving $3.3 trillion worldwide climate change costs.\r\n†<\/a>Plus solar prosperity will help reduce population growth.\r\n

\r\nDid I mention no more wars for oil or gas?\r\nNo more mountain-top removal or open-pit mining for coal?\r\nNo more pipeline boondoggles drilling under our rivers and taking our lands?\r\n

\r\nOh yes: at some point in emissions reductions, the amount of CO2 in the\r\natmosphere will start to decrease.\r\nEventually it will return to pre-industrial levels.\r\n

\r\nUnfortunately, ice is already melting, and sea level rise is already happening.\r\nMaybe we won’t lose Miami, but then again with groundwater salination we may.\r\nBangladesh and Himalayan glaciers may be goners.\r\nOr maybe not, if we get on with it fast enough.\r\n

\r\nThere has already been and will be more massive species loss,\r\nand unfortunately nothing we can do will bring all the dead back to life,\r\nnot the animals, not the plants, not the humans dead from pollution\r\nor unnecessary wars.\r\n

\r\nBut getting on with converting to renewable energy as fast as possible\r\nwill reduce deaths and extinctions and can end up with a world significantly\r\nbetter than the one we’ve got now.\r\n

\r\nThere is even some evidence that we may be starting to head towards the\r\nbest case scenario:\r\nMajor climate change victory in U.S. House on Bastille Day 2017-07-14<\/a>,\r\nin which the U.S. military is directed to do what it wants to do anyway,\r\nwhich is a major study of effects of climate change.\r\n

\r\nAnd of course Jacobson’s 2050 scenario isn’t even the best possible case.\r\nWe can do it faster if we grow the political will to do it.\r\nConvert all those fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies into clean energy\r\nand smart grid subsidies.\r\nOr just phase them out and let the ever-decreasing price of solar and wind\r\npower accelerate the sea change already happening.\r\nSolar power will win like the Internet did<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"sun<\/a>\r\n

\r\nMeanwhile, we can start reforestation and promote non-polluting agriculture, †<\/a>both of which will help ameliorate climate change, because trees and crops are mostly CO2 from the atmosphere.\r\n

\r\nDon’t say it can’t happen.\r\nNew York State Department of Environmental Conservation,\r\n\r\nHistory Of State Forest Program<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBy the 1880s, less than 25% of New York State remained forested.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAt the turn of the 20th century, New York State’s remaining forests\r\nwere spread thin and losing stock. The New York Forest, Fish and\r\nGame Conservation Commission warned that the state would run out of\r\ntimber within 50 years. The commission had reason to be alarmed.\r\nTimber companies were cutting the remaining trees at an alarming\r\nrate, leaving bare hillsides to be stripped of soil by erosion.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nForests in all the northeastern states were disappearing fast, but\r\nNew York was the first to reverse this seemingly inexorable process\r\nby beginning to plant seedlings to replace trees that had been cut.\r\nThe commission believed in using the latest science: sustainable\r\nforestry, the concept of managing forests for long-term productivity\r\nrather than short term profitability. Gifford Pinchot, who later\r\nfounded the U.S. Forest Service, introduced this new forest\r\nmanagement concept to the United States in the early part of the\r\n20th century. He had studied forestry in Europe where timber was\r\ngrown as a renewable resource on carefully managed plantation\r\nforests. In 1901, the commission planted the first tree plantation\r\non state land in the Catskills to replace trees that had been\r\nlogged….\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThere’s a lot more in there about what they did and how they did it.\r\nBut I think you’ll agree this map of current forests in New York State\r\nshow pretty much the opposite of the 1880s:\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Forests<\/a>\r\n
\r\nNYDEP: Map of NY State showing forested areas of 5 acres and larger\r\n<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGifford Pinchot didn’t understand diddly about longleaf pine forests,\r\nand not many people did until decades into the twentieth century.\r\nYet now we know how to plant longleaf seedlings and get them to\r\nstart growing quickly, and the state of Georgia (and others)\r\nencourages doing so, along with some of the original ground cover plants\r\nsuch as wiregrass and partridge pea.\r\n

\r\nWe’re already doing some other things that are needed.\r\nWhile impervious surface is still a problem, most local land development codes\r\nnow require retention ponds and other methods of greately reducing runoff.\r\n

\r\nWe can proceed to make a better world, starting with the sea change\r\nfrom fossil fuels and nuclear to renewable sun, wind, and water power,\r\nwhich is already under way, driving by sheer economics.\r\nAnd continuing with fixing some of the other things we’ve broken in recent centuries.\r\n

What we can do<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nTo make this happen the biggest thing we can do is to get our local, state,\r\nand national governments and companies to get on with solar power.\r\nIn the southeast, that’s solar power on land and wind power offshore.\r\n

\r\nLobby Southern Company\r\nand Georgia Power<\/a> and all the other utilities.\r\nLobby the state Public Service Commissions and legislatures.\r\nLobby Congress.\r\nLobby your local county and city governments and state agencies.\r\nTalk to your Chamber of Commerce and Development Authority:\r\nyou may be surprised to find they’re already on board.\r\n

\r\nLobby your bank or mutual fund or retirement account manager to\r\ndivest from fossil fuels.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Divest<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThat’s one of the most effective ways to deal with\r\nthe 100 companies worldwide that produce 71% of global emissions<\/a>.\r\nInvestors shouldn’t be risking their investors’ funds in stranded assets,\r\nwhich is what stocks or loans to those fossil fuel companies will be \r\nas solar and wind power take over.\r\nSome of those companies won’t be able to convert their businesses,\r\nand their corporate lives will be “nasty, brutish and short”<\/a> going defunct within about a decade.\r\nOthers maybe be able to turn their considerable assets to renewable energy.\r\nAnd utility companies certainly can do that.\r\n

\r\nDo what you can<\/a> to stop any new pipelines, or fracking, or LNG export,\r\nincluding lobbying Congress to stop FERC nominations.\r\nAlready in the United Kingdom: Ian Johnston, The Independent, 14 July 2017,\r\n\r\nFracking firms struggling to raise money from UK banks amid environment protests:\r\n‘Fracking is a failed industry in the UK. The sooner our Government\r\nacknowledges that and throws its weight behind the booming renewable\r\nenergy sector, the better for us all,’ says Greenpeace<\/a>.\r\nRichard Anderson, Greenpeace, 14 July 2017,\r\n\r\nFracking firms tell government the industry is ‘struggling’ as\r\nfinance dries up<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n†<\/a>And in the U.S. and Canada: Christopher M. Matthews and Bradley Olson, Wall Street Journal, 29 June 2017,\r\n\r\nA New Problem for Keystone XL: Oil Companies Don’t Want It:\r\nAfter weathering years of protests, pipeline operator TransCanada is struggling to attract customers amid low crude prices and competing oil-transportation options<\/a>.\r\nProtests matter. Investors don’t like to invest in projects or companies that people protest. And writing directly to the investors can be more effective than waving a sign.\r\n

\r\nMultiple countries and U.S. states (New York, Vermont, and Maryland)\r\nhave outright banned fracking<\/a>.\r\nNext year there will be a bill for that in the Florida legislature again:\r\nyou can help it pass.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nDon’t be distracted by articles recommending you should drive less,\r\neat less meat, or even not have children.\r\nSure, maybe you should do many of those things.\r\nAlthough if you’re\r\nreading this you’re probably not one of the people who is having too many children.\r\n

\r\nThe most effective ways to reduce the number of children per couple are\r\nwell known: increase per capita income, and even more importantly educate girls and women<\/a>.\r\nNotice that’s a collective goal, not something you as an individual alone\r\nshould do.\r\n

\r\nWhich is my point: articles recommending you should do this or that in your\r\npersonal life are maybe helpful as tips, but if they don’t include\r\nthe real actions that need to be done, most importantly stopping the\r\nhundred big company polluters, such articles are just distractions.\r\n

\r\nYou did not personally cause global warming: big corporate greed did.\r\nAnd it’s those hundred big companies (and the utilities and banks that feed them) that we must stop.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n†<\/a>Added 2014-07-16.\r\n

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today<\/a>!<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"†What do you want? The planet Venus? The current degraded Earth? Or a better world we know how to create? †Joel Pett, Lexington Herald Leader, 18 March 2012, The cartoon seen ’round the world Mostly I post about solar and wind power winning, which is what I think is happening. But sometimes it’s worth a […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,216,14,740,19,6124,104,559,6687,24,36],"tags":[2153,8719,8753,9859,5277,8704,8751,767,8801,9865,8701,5929,3391,8709,8702,9864,12,7,1706,9862,562,9860,8550,8737,8782,6076,1017,7857,8714,108,9861,62,6,9863,8716],"class_list":["post-18777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-coal","category-economy","category-forestry","category-history","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-oil","category-pipeline-2","category-solar","category-wind","tag-children","tag-climate-change","tag-coal","tag-david-wallace-wells","tag-earth","tag-economy","tag-florida","tag-forest","tag-forestry","tag-fossil-fuel-companies","tag-georgia","tag-global-warming","tag-greed","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-longleaf-pine","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mark-z-jacobson","tag-michael-mann","tag-natural-gas","tag-new-york-magazine","tag-new-york-state","tag-nuclear","tag-oil","tag-pipeline","tag-population","tag-silviculture","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-stephen-hawking","tag-utilities","tag-valdosta","tag-venus","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4SR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18777"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18786,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18777\/revisions\/18786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}