I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: This is why I think we cannot deal with climate change in any meaningful way. Not “will not,” “cannot.”
We have the technologies and some of them, like nuclear power, have been available for more than 50 years. Others, like residential construction for passive heating and cooling, have been developed and proven at least 40 years ago, and still aren’t found anywhere in our building codes. “But wait,” you say, “we didn’t know about climate change 40 or 50 years ago!” Well, maybe you, personally, didn’t know about it. Maybe you missed the articles in the back pages of the newspaper. Maybe you weren’t even born yet. Maybe your governments, like mine, have never seen fit to ensure that this stuff was incorporated into the curriculum. But I was reading about “the greenhouse effect” and likely consequences and possible timelines c. 1970. You can be sure that scientists were sharing what they knew with the economists and governments of the day.
We have the techniques and some of them, like high density housing and public transit and walkable cities, have not just been available for 100 years, but have actively been dismantled after having been part of the urban lifestyle for decades. “But wait,” you say, “we didn’t know about climate change 100 years ago!” Well, quite apart from the work being done 150 years ago that raised the possibility, we did have experience with fossil fuel pollution and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that limiting the demand for fossil fuels would be just a generally good idea.
So what’s stopping us? The same thing that has always stopped us: A combination of territorialism, greed, fear of change, and the inability to process large numbers, small growth over long periods of time, and compounding effects. These are all innate human weaknesses that seem to be our evolutionary heritage.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: This is why I think we cannot deal with climate change in any meaningful way. Not “will not,” “cannot.”
We have the technologies and some of them, like nuclear power, have been available for more than 50 years. Others, like residential construction for passive heating and cooling, have been developed and proven at least 40 years ago, and still aren’t found anywhere in our building codes. “But wait,” you say, “we didn’t know about climate change 40 or 50 years ago!” Well, maybe you, personally, didn’t know about it. Maybe you missed the articles in the back pages of the newspaper. Maybe you weren’t even born yet. Maybe your governments, like mine, have never seen fit to ensure that this stuff was incorporated into the curriculum. But I was reading about “the greenhouse effect” and likely consequences and possible timelines c. 1970. You can be sure that scientists were sharing what they knew with the economists and governments of the day.
We have the techniques and some of them, like high density housing and public transit and walkable cities, have not just been available for 100 years, but have actively been dismantled after having been part of the urban lifestyle for decades. “But wait,” you say, “we didn’t know about climate change 100 years ago!” Well, quite apart from the work being done 150 years ago that raised the possibility, we did have experience with fossil fuel pollution and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that limiting the demand for fossil fuels would be just a generally good idea.
So what’s stopping us? The same thing that has always stopped us: A combination of territorialism, greed, fear of change, and the inability to process large numbers, small growth over long periods of time, and compounding effects. These are all innate human weaknesses that seem to be our evolutionary heritage.