How To Solve Global Warming

Image borrowed from https://www.joboneforhumanity.org/plan

A little while ago, I wrote an uncharacteristically (for me) pessimistic post about global warming in which I expressed my considered opinion that our species is not going to be able to solve this problem.  Well, as Theodore Roosevelt once said, "complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining."  

I believe that's a fair comment.  The problem is, I have no specific solutions to offer.   If I did, I'd be much richer and more famous than I am.  I only know that what we have done to this point is insufficient and, indeed, what we intend to do, based on the recent COP26 conference in Scotland isn't encouraging either.  I did, however, make what I think is a useful observation that might provide a broad suggestion as to what it will take to solve this crisis.

For example, while it`s clear that the mining and the burning of coal are significant sources of the CO<sup>2</sup> gas being added to the Earth`s atmosphere, neither China nor India, two of the world`s largest coal producers, have expressed a willingness to put an end to its mining.  Instead of agreeing to "phase out" (i.e. gradually end) coal production, they committed only to "phase down" (i.e. reduce) coal production.

Other countries were quick to condemn the two nations for their unwillingness to cooperate.  However, if one realizes that coal powers a significant portion of China's power grid and, indeed, that China needed to increase production after experiencing widespread power shortages in mid to late September, one comes to realize that it's not enough to simply agree to end activities that cause global warming.  We need to understand why those activities are in place and we need a concrete plan for how those needs will be met via alternate, environmental friendly resources.

To put a more personal spin on this, you might decide to commit to stop using natural gas, another source of CO², to heat your house, but first you need to figure out how else you are going to heat it, because you do need heat.  Once you've decided how you're going to heat your home without natural gas, you need a plan for converting to that method and it's going to cost money, so you also need to budget for it.

Another example; lots of people are looking toward replacing gasoline-powered cars with electrical ones as a way to significantly reduce CO² emissions.  After all, electrically-powered cars produce zero emissions.  No-brainer, right?  Except that electrical cars are expensive and not within everybody's budget, and charging stations are arguably still too few and far between, and charging a battery still takes a heck of a lot longer than filling a gas tank.  

 Further, although the electrical power grid can sustain the handful of E.V. (electric vehicle) owners out there to date, could it also support re-charging the literal millions of E.V.s that will flood the streets once we finally do away with gas-powered cars?  I've read stories about brown-outs and black-outs due only to increased air-conditioner usage during the summer months.  Yet we seem to assume that we can support this and recharging millions of electrical cars without a problem?  

The lithium batteries that power these cars don't have an infinite life span.  How are we going to dispose of or recycle them when they start reaching their end of lives in significant numbers?  And can we produce enough lithium to make the millions of batteries required for all those millions of E.V.s in the first place?  It's considered a "rare earth" mineral for a reason, you know.  

And what kind of CO² emissions are generated by the manufacturing process behind a typical E.V. in the first  place?  Will we simply be replacing the CO² emissions that come from driving our cars, with those that come from manufacturing them?  I haven't heard many of the same people that seem eager to embrace replacing gas-powered cars with E.V.s ask any of the above questions, and I sure haven't heard them answer any of them.

Don't misunderstand me.  This is not a defense of fossil fuels nor a denigration of electrical-powered transportation.  It's simply meant to point out the shortsightedness of those who over-simplify the problem of making the very necessary conversion from greenhouse gas-producing technologies to carbon-free or, at least, carbon-neutral ones.  It's not enough to say that we'll do it or even that we'll do it by a given date.  We need a concrete roadmap that lays out how this will happen; one that acknowledges that costs and inconveniences will have to be endured by all. Until we can do that, I say again ... we're doomed!

Tapestry

One of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes is the one entitled Tapestry, which was aired during the show's sixth season.  

This episode begins with the death of captain Jean-Luc Picard, when he is attacked by aliens called the Lenarians while on a diplomatic mission.  He finds himself in the afterlife where he meets the infamous Q; a mischievous, if not malevolent being with almost god-like abilities whose path Picard has crossed before, and who always seems to have a hidden agenda.

Q informs Picard that he is dead, explaining that it needn't have been so if he had possessed a natural heart rather than an artificial one which was surgically installed during Picard's younger (and more reckless) days as a Starfleet ensign after he made the unfortunate decision to pick a fight with a group of very bad-tempered and strong aliens known as Nausicaans, only to be impaled by a Nausicaan spear-like weapon for his trouble.  Q explains that a normal heart would have survived the energy beam that had hit Picard's chest during his recent fracas with the Lenarians, but the artificial heart was, unfortunately, less resilient.

Picard expresses regret over his misadventure with the Nausicaans, not only because it apparently lead indirectly to his untimely death, but because he feels that he acted in a foolish and headstrong manner and he suggests that he might do things differently if given the chance.  On hearing this, Q transports Picard back in time, to two days prior to his tussle with the Nausicaans and challenges him to change the course of events and avoid the fight.  If he can do this, he can avoid getting stabbed through the heart which will mean that he has a normal heart when he is later attacked by the Lenarians, which in turn, will mean that he survives that encounter and regains his life.  In spite of his mistrust of Q, Picard reluctantly agrees to play along, not only for the chance to avoid death but also for the opportunity to change a part of his past of which he is not proud.

As events unfold for the second time, Picard makes every attempt to avoid confrontation with the Nausicaans but doing so requires him to act in an uncharacteristically reserved, at times seemingly cowardly manner, causing his friends from that time to question his motivations and character and, indeed, alienating them in the process.

He ultimately does manage to avoid the skirmish with the Nausicaans and, true to his word, Q returns him to the present day where he finds himself no longer deceased, but back aboard the Enterprise ... but also no longer her captain.  Suddenly he is a lowly assistant astrophysics officer reporting to the Klingon, Lt. Worf.  Through ensuing conversations with the Enterprise's senior officers and also Q, he learns that his cautious, risk-averse approach to the Naussican confrontation set in motion a pattern of similar behavior in all things, causing others to see him as competent, but unimpressive and leaving him a dreary functionary with a tedious job and no prospects for self-improvement.

Naturally, this new development is not at all to Picard's liking and (spoiler alert) he persuades Q to allow him to re-live his youth yet a third time and once again fights the Nausicaans, gets impaled, and is returned to his normal timeline and rank ... still alive.  It seems that Q simply felt that Picard needed a lesson about being true to himself.  The episode title comes from Picard's comment, in the end, that, although he isn't proud of some of the things he has done in his past, he has found that pulling on one of these "loose threads" caused the entire tapestry of his life to unravel.

Canada is, in my opinion, one of the finest countries in the world.  Its people are known to be diverse and accepting of other cultures.  We enjoy a high standard of living, a government that respects individual rights and freedoms, a high calibre of education, a health care system that ensures access to high-quality care for all and a reputation that makes Canadians respected and welcomed by virtually every other nation.  

We also have things in our past that could have been done better and of which we are not proud.  We weren't always as accepting of other cultures as we are today, and there was a time when we segregated indigenous children from their families and tried to assimilate them into the British colonial culture.  There are some who would eradicate anything that reminds them of those unenlightened times.  This ranges from tearing down statues of those who are perceived as the instigators of the segregation to renaming buildings, streets, parks, towns and even entire provinces whose current names seem to glorify the British colonialism that lead our ancestors to act as they did.  

In doing this, we may be making the same mistake as Jean-Luc Picard did, failing to understand that our faults and our virtues both make us what we are, and to alter any one aspect of our identity or our history changes our very essence.  Edmund Burke famously said "Those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it".  If we truly succeed in eradicating all traces of our colonial past, we risk forgetting our past mistakes and, ultimately, repeating them rather than acknowledging them and learning from them.

We must also remember that those whom some would vilify for being the architects of the residential school system which separated indigenous  children from their families were not entirely villainous and, indeed, brought about positive changes as well as negative ones.  For example, Sir John A. Macdonald, who has become the target of scorn for many as the chief architect of the residential school system, was also known to be a drunkard and was embroiled in a scandal for accepting election funds in exchange for awarding a contract to build the Canadian Pacific railway which forced him to resign as Prime Minister.  Yet he was one of the prime architects of Confederation which turned British North America into the nation of Canada.  Canada owes its very existence to this man.  And the Canadian Pacific railway remains an invaluable part of Canada's infrastructure to this very day.  

 If we were to go back in time and erase Sir John A. Macdonald from history, we would very likely return to the present to find that all the provinces and territories north of the 49th parallel are suddenly nothing more than America's 51st to 63rd states. 

We're Doomed!

"The trouble is, you think you have time."    - Confuscious

I'm really worried about global warming.

Yeah, I know, who isn't right?

Well, far too many climate change deniers aren't worried, but I'm not worried about them either.  Happily they're the minority and therefore not really the problem.

See, I don't think that we're going to beat this.  It isn't because we don't have the scientific knowledge or the technical expertise to make the necessary changes.  What makes climate change such an insidious threat is three things:

1. Everybody thinks it's a future problem.

Most people think that climate change is something that's coming in the next decade or two.  Climate change is here now.  Signs of it are everywhere if you only look.  The polar ice caps are receding.  Glaciers are melting.  Average global temperatures are increasing year by year.  Extreme weather events like tornadoes, hurricanes, violent thunderstorms and prolonged droughts are becoming more and more frequent.  It's no longer a question of avoiding the consequences of climate change.  It has now become a question of minimizing the damage.  And yet, still, the nations of the world do nothing substantive beyond setting carbon emission targets for the next decade or two, and then consistently missing them.

2. Everybody thinks it's somebody else's problem

The U.S.A. says that India and China aren't doing their part to reduce carbon emissions.  China and India blame the U.S.A. and each other.  Everybody vilifies Canada for our carbon rich extraction of bitumen from the Athabaska tar sands (and rightly so).  Developing countries argue that they should be exempt from carbon limitations, at least until their economies come closer to parity with those of the developed nations.  In short, everybody points the finger at someone else and cries "They're the problem, not me."

3. The people who understand the scope and urgency of the problem are not the people who make policy

Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for years.  They show us the evidence that climate change is an existential threat.  They urge us to reduce carbon emissions now and give us grim projections of the consequences should we fail to do so,  But they can only inform and warn.  They have no power to affect the drastic changes that are needed to avoid disaster.  That falls to the government leaders and politicians who, unfortunately, consistently prioritize their own short-term goals over the long-term good.  Every politician knows that implementing the necessary changes will mean higher taxes, personal inconvenience and, therefore, a loss of voters.  Yes, you and I are also at fault, my friend because our self-serving leaders only give us that which they perceive that we want, and most of us would balk at the kinds of personal sacrifice and increased costs that real change involves.

And so the human race sleepwalks lemming-like onward toward the precipice, unwilling and unable to change course or to stop. 

Future Shock: Predictable Present

Alvin Toffler was an author and a futurist, best known for two best-seller non-fiction books which he published in 1970 and 1980 entitled "Future Shock" and "The Third Wave", respectively.

"Future Shock" discussed the psychological and sociological impact of the ever-advancing rate of change (due mostly to technology).  It was in this book that Toffler first coined the term "information overload".  The book discussed numerous examples of ways in which the industrial society of the sixties and seventies was morphing into what Toffler called a"post-industrial society" in which disposable goods increasingly replace durable goods (i.e. goods that no longer function properly are simply replaced rather than being repaired), whole industries die out to be replaced by entirely new ones and people change employers and even professions with increasing frequency; in short, everything becomes less permanent and more temporary from goods, to jobs and even human relationships.

Sound familiar?  So far, I'd have to say that Toffler hit the nail right on the head.

"The Third Wave" discussed the transition from the industrial age to the information age and what effect this would have on society and individual lives.   In several ways, "The Third Wave" was more optimistic than "Future Shock" as it actually discussed how the information age might change peoples' lives for the better.  For example, in this book, Toffler predicted that the five-day work week would likely be reduced to a four-day or even three-day work week with no loss of income for the very practical reason that information technology made it possible for people to be just as productive in three days as they used to be in five.

Ah, but Toffler forgot about one thing; corporate greed.  The reality is that, when one demonstrates that one is able to do the same amount of work in three days that formerly took five days, one's employer simply expects that much productivity after five days.  Put another way, rather than being content with the previous level of productivity in less time, the employer expects increased productivity in the same amount of time for the same pay and reaps the cost savings benefit for themselves.  In fact, most companies, on seeing a 40% increase in productivity, will push for 50% or even 60%.  And when that level of productivity is achieved, the company will demand 70%.  Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile, as the old saying goes.

Sorry Dr. Toffler but, had you thought it through, you could have predicted that as well.

A-Nit Pickin' and A-Grinnin'

Out on runway number nine
Big 707 set to go
While I'm stuck here on the ground
With a pain that ever grows

Those lines are from one of Gordon Lightfoot's most famous songs, Early Mornin' Rain.  But did you know that Lightfoot made a technical error when he wrote the lyrics to that song?  A later verse goes like this...

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver bird on high
She's away and westward bound
Far above the clouds she'll fly

Do you see it?  It's such a glaring mistake, it makes you wonder how he could possibly have missed it, doesn't it?

... (Crickets) ...

Okay, for the benefit of those few of you who might not be familiar with the ways of aviation, runway numbers are based on the compass direction in which the runway faces.  Runway 36 would face to a heading of 360 degrees (north).  Runway 27 would face to a heading of 270 degrees (west), but runway number nine faces to a heading of 90 degrees.  That's due east!  Any airplane taking off from runway number nine would be away and eastward bound, not westward.  Apparently, the song's protagonist was cold and drunker than he realized!

What makes it even sadder, is how easily this could have been fixed; just change the word "westward" to "eastward". 

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver bird on high
She's away and eastward bound
Far above the clouds she'll fly

There. Perfect. 

Alternatively, if the airplane really must be going westward for some obscure reason, you could alter the earlier verse instead, like this ...

Out on runway twenty-seven
Big 707 set to go
While I'm stuck here on the ground
With a pain that ever grows

Now the plane can happily be away and westward bound in the other verse.  But, personally, I prefer my first suggestion because, although the first and third lines of the verse don't need to rhyme, Out on runway twenty-seven just doesn't roll off the tongue as effortlessly as Out on runway number nine, does it?

In Lightfoot's defense, he's not alone in making these lyrical faux pas.  In fact, I could point out a few more obvious ones (and you know that I will).

One of Chris de Burgh's best-known classics is a song named A Spaceman Came Traveling.  It starts out...

A spaceman came traveling on his ship from afar
T'was light years of time since his mission did start

D'OH!!!  Only the second line and he's already wrecked the song!  Okay, surely nobody missed that one, right?  Light years is a measure of distance, not of time.  Specifically, a light year measures the distance that light travels in one year.  Who wrote those lyrics, the same guy who said that the Millenium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less that twelve parsecs?

Once again, easy fix...

A spaceman came traveling on his ship from afar
T'was light years away that his mission did start

And .... done.

One more example.  This time, I'll pick on Neil Diamond and his well-known song, Play Me.  (Note that I'm not picking obscure songs that nobody has ever heard of here.  Every single example so far has been taken from one of the singer's best-known songs!)  Consider this verse ...

Songs she sang to me
Songs she brang to me
Words that rang in me
Rhyme that sprang from me

"Brang???"  What the hell is "brang"?  That's not even a word!  If you mean the past tense of "bring", Neil, the word is "brought".  Of course, that doesn't rhyme, so this is a bit trickier to fix.  Hmmm, let's see now ... how about ...

Songs she sought for me
Songs she brought to me ...

No.  That doesn't really work, does it?  What if we change the tense?

Songs she'd sing to me
Songs she'd bring to me
Words would ring in me
Rhyme would spring in me

Yes!  There you are!  So Gord, Chris, Neil, now that I've done the heavy lifting for you, I expect you to use my new and improved lyrics any time you perform these songs from now on.  In fact, maybe you could nip into the studio and record revised versions of all three using the "proper" lyrics.  I don't think that's asking too much.

Cordially, Your Friendly Neighborhood Halmanator

Confessions of a Recluse

I have a confession to make.  I believe that I've weathered this pandemic better than most, because I have certain distinct advantages.  For one thing, I'm not a moron.  This has helped me to avoid getting infected.  Unlike those so-called "anti maskers", I understand that the novel Corona virus does not gave a rat's patootie about my personal rights and freedoms, so I follow the protocols.  I wear a mask when in public spaces, I try to maintain a distance of 2 meters or more from others where possible, I sanitize my hands regularly and I avoid unnecessary outings.

 I'm lucky enough to work for a company that has been designated an essential service, and so has remained both open and profitable, so my earnings have not been affected.  And yet, my job is not the kind of job that potentially puts me in harm's way like our doctors, nurses, personal support workers, truck drivers, grocery store clerks and Wal-Mart greeters.  

I also avoid socializing unnecessarily, and here is where I have another distinct advantage. As I've said more than once in this blog, I'm a natural introvert.  I actually like keeping to myself and staying in most of the time.  My idea of a fun evening is sitting at home in my easy chair watching something on TV - even something I've seen before.  Goodness knows, I have lots of movies and TV shows in my Blu-ray and DVD collection.  I don't even subscribe to Netflix or the Disney Channel.  I do subscribe to Crave TV because I'm apparently not happy unless I'm vastly over-paying for my recreational media (okay, so maybe I am a bit of a moron in some respects).

I have a fairly large music collection and I often enjoy listening to it.  By this I mean really listening.  Not just playing it in the background whilst doing something else.  I mean sitting back in that beloved easy chair of mine, the same one from which I watch TV, turning on some music, closing my eyes and just listening, savouring every note, every lyric, every nuance.   

Before the pandemic hit, I had been invited to a wedding that took place last November.  Because of the pandemic, the newly-weds had to scale back their guest list, so my invitation was revoked with regrets.  Was I offended or even just bummed out?  No sirree!  I felt like I'd been let off the hook.  I don't generally like going to weddings.  I'm not even looking forward to my daughter's this year!  If I could find some way of staying home and playing Duke Nukem Forever instead of attending, I'd do it in a heartbeat!

I don't even have Zoom or Skype chats with my friends and family.  I do use Skype, but just the text messages, no voice or video.  If I want to actually talk to someone (which is rare enough), I use a good old-fashioned telephone.  I don't need to see their faces.  In most cases, I know what they look like.  I don't have all that many friends and those few that I do have, I keep in touch via e-mail (and/or Skype).  I don't even have a Facebook or Twitter account.  Anyone who wants to keep track of me on social media can do so by reading this blog plus they get the added benefit of my wit and wisdom (and humility).

Some have suggested that the isolation forced upon us by the pandemic can be detrimental to mental health (or just detri-mental for short).  I just made up that contraction, but feel free to use it, royalty-free.  Just be sure to always follow it with "(c) Halmanator, 2021".  I think, if anything, the social isolation has improved my mental health (full disclosure: there are those who would note, at this point, that this is no grand claim as it had no-where to go but up anyway).  

Most people think of introverts as socially-handicapped recluses.  I prefer the Myers-Briggs interpretation of the term.  Myers-Briggs defines an introvert as someone who gets his or her energy from solitude rather than social interaction.  Thanks to this pandemic, my batteries are fully-charged!