We’ve been conditioned to believe the government can offer solutions (i.e. Magic Pills) promising to make our lives perfect. It’s been my impression these cure-all's rarely perform as we would want them to, and too often lead to requiring other pills to fix the problems created by the first magic pill. Climate science seems to me like a big campaign to sell such a magic pill.
As I understand the whole issue of climate science it is a bunch of scientists feeding data into a bunch of computers and super-computers in an effort to solve the question “what came first the chicken or the egg.” Just kidding. They are trying to determine the causes of our on-going changes in climate and what politicians can do to stop them. On the surface this seems a lot like asking Deep Thought for the answer to “life, the universe and everything.” I guess we should consider ourselves lucky it hasn’t taken 7-million years to come up with the answer.[1]
In the Paris Climate Accords[2], signed by the US under the Obama administration and later rejected by the Trump administration, the whole purpose was to:
a) Hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
b) Increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
c) Make finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.
At the end of the day it was that last statement that was most significant. The industrial nations are supposed to send money through the UN to the poor nations (with the usual pass through and handling graft) so they can improve their lot in life and the industrial nations feel good about what they’ve done to pollute the earth. The rich can still fly their planes and sail their yachts but they have to pay some poor slob to use his/her “carbon credits.” (e.g. Sir Elton John flies Prince Henry and Meagan to France)
As in all things – once the political is introduced into the scientific equation everyone is forced to take a side. We are no longer capable of finding a moderate solution, it becomes an all or nothing choice. On the one side are all those people who know they are smarter than everyone else because they are rich, highly educated, are paid to play sports or entertain us, or are just plain famous. On the other side are all those who want to be left alone to live their lives as they’ve grown accustom to. Caught in the middle are all those who would like to do the right thing, but can’t decide on what opinions to believe and fear the costs of those choices. Against this background we have the politicians who seek to become rich and powerful themselves by controlling the spending of our tax dollars.
Today we see the world differently than our ancestors, and in my opinion that is a good thing, the question is does it matter? If we each took the time to pick up after ourselves, reduce the use of plastics and shift from societies that take convenience over sustainment we would all be better off, but ask yourself, is that likely to happen? Is there some magic pill we could take the make everyone a little less entitled or more sensitive to the world around them? From my perspective it seems unlikely. We need only look at the climate activists who stage demonstrations against the fossil fuel industry to see the mess they leave behind them as they return to their entitled lives. If these people can’t pick up after themselves then what are the chances the rest of us will. Everyone seems to believe it’s someone else’s job to pick up after they’ve saved the planet.
Now we have a debate about the number of fires in the western United States. Of course, those who accept climate science think it is the sole reason for the fires, and the choices of their politicians seem irrelevant. Those who question the modeling reject that notion and place all the blame of the ineptitude of the politicians. Neither side is willing to accept that maybe it is some of both, and God forbid a politician ever admit he/she may have a wrong position. The real question for the climate science crowd is what actual short-term solutions do you offer for reducing the burning of the western United States? As far as I can tell it all hinges on giant fans and solar panels to power electric cars which would require more electricity across an aging grid, which would start more fires.
Then we have arsonists. Arson seems to be an increasingly fun way to express your displeasure with something. Unfortunately, it also tends to start massive wild fires during the season when the west coast is mostly tinder. Is there some climate change magic pill solution for those folks?
How about Hurricanes? I’m told there are more Hurricanes in the Atlantic than any time in the last 100 years, but if one of them comes ashore at the exact same place one did about 16 years ago does that mean the climate hasn’t changed in 16 years?
All this reminds me of the big environmental disasters of the last century.
For example, I remember that time we were creating a hole in the ozone because too many women were using hair spray. Back in the olden days we were able to reach an agreement that women would abandon the big bouffant styles of the ’70 and ‘80s and save the world. Thanks to the courageous decisions of women worldwide, and the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons as a propellant we’ve at least stabilized and are (perhaps) reducing the size of the hole over the Antarctic.
Even before that we were using dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or DDT to kill insects to, seemingly, make life better for all mankind by eliminating one of the leading causes of malaria (the lowly mosquito). Unfortunately, for the larger birds of prey like the Bald Eagle there was an unanticipated side effect. It caused the shells of their eggs to weaken and dramatically increased infant mortality, a leading cause of extinction. Again, fortunately, we were able to agree we could live better with a few bugs than we could without eagles.
Nuclear power is clean energy, but we seem unwilling to really discuss that as a favored choice. There are some really good reasons most of us tend to shy away from that discussion, at least right now. Us older folks remember Three Mile Island in PA, and Chernobyl in the Ukraine where the reactors failed. In the case of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl disaster created a contamination zone of about 162,150 km2. More recently we had the disaster in Japan, where a tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Diichi nuclear plant. Of course, scientists promise us new reactors will be much safer than those old reactors, but until we come up with a way to dispose of all the nuclear waste, we still have a potential environmental catastrophe just waiting to happen.
Finally, as we move on to the “environmentally friendly” solutions of wind and solar power I wonder how we will deal with the unanticipated side effects of that magic pill. As I understand the manufacturing of these miracles of modern science all require exotic materials and metals to function properly. As we dispose of the aging and no longer effective solar panels what environmental pitfalls await us?
· “The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.”
· “The reality is that there is a problem now, and it’s only going to get larger, expanding as rapidly as the PV industry expanded 10 years ago.”
· The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in 2016 estimated there was about 250,000 metric tonnes of solar panel waste in the world at the end of that year. IRENA projected that this amount could reach 78 million metric tonnes by 2050.”[3]
While we are talking about solar panels lets talk about some other environmental issues. When assessing solar panels as a key energy resource, it is important to weigh up any concerns. One of the issues confronting the solar industry is that many of the materials used to produce solar panels can be hazardous. Some potential issues include:
· Sawing silicon into discs for use creates silicon dust called kerf, with up to 50% waste. Kerf can be inhaled by workers, causing severe respiratory problems.
· Silica gas is highly explosive, and has been known to spontaneously combust.
· Silicon production reactors are cleaned with sulfur hexafluoride, which is the most potent greenhouse gas per molecule according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It also can react with other chemicals to produce sulfur dioxide, which is responsible for acid rain.[4]
Then there is the question of what the heavy metals used in the batteries required of many of these systems will actually do as they are disposed of, or even the cost to the individuals who have to dig those metals out of the earth. I’ll leave that discussion for another day.
[1] The answer is 42. (From “A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”)
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