ECO Solutions with Sara Troy and her guest Craig Hover, on air from January 31st
Can we keep turning a blind eye to global warming? The facts are abundant and if we want a future here we must do our part, however, small, tune in and here what you can do to save this planet that sustains us so well.
Craig was a SKEPTIC
A 2oC temperature rise is going to be “catastrophic?”
- Problem seems counterintuitive
- Temperatures can vary 40 to 60oF (22 to 33oC) in any given day
- What’s another couple of degrees?
- At first blush it seems not credible that such a small variation can have such a large effect
- Some people may want to “bury head in sand” (the problem, if true, is so scary don’t want to look at).
- Some don’t want to “sacrifice” their lifestyle to “save the planet,” particularly if it’s perceived that that “sacrifice” is part of someone else’s “agenda” (e.g., battery-electric cars). (With my proposed solution sacrificing lifestyle isn’t necessary.)
CLIMATE
“Climate Change”
- The term is a milquetoast, politically-correct, overworked cliché
- The climate is changing all the time
- This cliché equivocates about what’s really happening
- The term global warming is much more accurate
- There are 14 climate drivers; effects are from days to 100s of millions of years
- There’s only one that can produce the kinds of changes in the time frame we’re seeing
- The greenhouse effect; need the greenhouse effect; too much CO2 in the air; trapping more heat on the surface than can escape back into space; every 3 weeks the thermal energy accumulation on the surface is equivalent to annual global energy production
- Blew through the safe upper limit of 350 ppm in 1988; now at 408 ppm and rising fast.
POLITICAL
Concern about global warming perceived/perpetrated as a “liberal vs. conservative” construct
- Global warming is NOT a political issue – though it has been politicized.
- Frank Luntz in 2003; created the illusion there is no scientific consensus
- 97 to 99% of scientific community agree; it’s scientific fact – like gravity; the “uncertainty” comes from scientist types always wanting to give themselves some “wiggle room,” just in case there is some unknown data “out there.”
- The unthinking, knee-jerk reaction is that if you are concerned about global warming you’re automatically assumed to be a Democrat; if you’re a Republican, it’s automatically assumed that you’re not concerned.
- Kept politics out of the book on purpose – would immediately alienate 50% of the potential audience regardless of what my personal political viewpoints are; it’s just physics.
- Reality: Climate Resolve; 3 out of 8 attendees Republican; recent poll – 90% Dem & 74% Reply favor climate-related measures (that’s over 80% of population)
- Problem is state- and federal-level party posturing (the warring teams)
- Despite grandiose noises by politicians, big business, and the COP21 Accord – ALL proposed measures to date are much too little way too late.
- Entrenched power structure doesn’t want to fix global warming (i.e., abandon fossil fuels) – results in loss of control over people (this is the real issue)
IMMEDIATE
Media persistently alludes to solving global warming “someday,” like we have generations to solve this problem [they use words like gradually, ultimately, and eventually]
- Global warming is real, imminent, and severe – far more so than is being portrayed in the mainstream media.
- Don’t have generations to fix this.
- Need to achieve 80 to 90% CO2 emission reductions globally in next 5 years – 10 years tops.
- Must mount an all-out WWII-style war on global warming in the next few years if we are to have any hope of surviving as a global civilization.
- We are fast approaching a Point of No Return – which will be induced by an ice-free Arctic; ice-free Arctic will be created by the 2oC temperature rise
- Passing this Point of No Return will unleash an irreversible, methane-driven, runaway global warming phenomenon; it’s not the 2oC that will wreck the planet, it’s what gets unleashed that will wreck the planet.
- By the next century, much of the planet will experience summertime peak temperatures of 125 to 157oF (52 to 70oC)
- Our children and grandchildren all dead; 90% of the population will perish; end of civilization as we know it.
TUNE IN HERE FOR ON-DEMAND LISTENING OF MORE INFORMED INFORMATION WITH CRAIG
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FIXING IT
Well-regarded business leaders assert we need an “energy miracle” to “tackle” global warming
- This is flat-out false and is extremely damaging; it is almost criminal to make such statements
- The truth is that we have ALL the technology needed to end global warming right now. All we need to do is implement it.
- In my Perpetual Abundance Engine model, ALL our power for our entire global civilization can be provided by the three natural forces of sunlight (solar), air moving across the planet’s surface (wind), and gravity (hydro). These forces are inexhaustible, unlimited in supply, and are free for use by anyone.
- We can create as much electricity, water, and fuel (motive and heating) as we wish for any purpose we wish
- We can live an abundant, free-flowing life without damaging the planet
- No scrimping, shrinking, or living small will be needed
- Our energy sources (solar, wind, hydro) and water sources (desalination) are already “handled”
- Energy storage and conveyances are the challenges
- Forget batteries for energy storage ($47 trillion per day) and battery-electric cars (unsolvable limitations in range, recharge rate, and scale, among others)
- Energy storage – CAES
- Replacing the ICEV – FCEVs
- WWII-scale level of effort
- Large-scale deployment; unprecedented 6 to 12% annual economic growth rate for an entire generation
WHAT TO DO?
One of the standard mantras is to “Reduce our carbon footprint”
- While well-meaning, this intimates shrinking and trying to live in a smaller and smaller box.
- I know 3 people (out of 100s) who have almost “eliminated” their “carbon footprint” (so they say). What about the energy needed for creating their houses, clothes, furniture, cars, electronic devices, food, etc, etc, etc?
- Reality: most people won’t do that. Don’t try to make fixing global warming dependent on these – it won’t work, by a long shot.
- Reality: we can’t “shrink” small enough to fix the global warming problem
- We need to rethink what we’re doing from the ground, up.
- Individual actions (Chapter 40) are useful – help to retrain our outlook and thinking
- Non-typical individual actions; Ex., unplug from your devices, think, read a book – one printed on paper, buy quality over quantity, open a credit union account, buy locally, feel good, pay attention, laugh, etc, etc.
- Collective actions; 10%; critical mass; entrenched power structure has an Achilles’ Heel
- Activist groups
- Our emotional state is critical; from powerlessness to empowerment
- Raise thinking – most important part; Einstein
- At least 83 different topics in the book to get us to think; break out of our non-thinking media-induced trance
- Action at local level (examples); women’s suffrage movement
- “Vibrate” at a high level; think in terms of a positive outcome
BOOK
What makes this book different from others?
- I’ve had more than one reader tell me this was the one book on global warming they’d always been looking for, but thought they would never find.
- Half the book is about the global warming problem and the technology that can fix it. The other half of the book is about the human element – how we think (or don’t think, as the case may be), feel, and relate to others. This is the most important part and is what makes this book different from other books on global warming.
- People don’t think they can understand the global warming problem – it’s too scientific and complicated; not true
- Scientific community keeps throwing more facts and data at people
- It’s not about the facts; we’re drowning in facts
- Scientists are lousy salespeople – that’s because they don’t understand that most people don’t make decisions based solely on facts; they make decisions based on their emotions, and then select facts to justify those decisions
- My book is written for the general public in terms that are easy to understand
- I reduce the entire global warming problem down to basic fundamentals – Ex., a pot of ice on the stove
- I paint the picture of what “catastrophic” really looks like (the disaster movie)
- I then show how we can actually fix it – if we get busy
- Most important – how we think
- Global warming is actually our greatest opportunity; if we can learn to cooperate to fix this thing – open a whole new era for mankind.
