Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "fossil-fuels"

World on the Edge--How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse by Lester R. Brown, WW Norton and Co. N.Y. 2011.

Early studies have concluded that human demands on Earth’s resources exceeded natural systems in 1980. In 2007 they exceeded Earth’s “sustainable yields by 20 percent.” In contrast, economic data in 2010 showed a “10-fold growth in world economy since 1950. The fourfold increase in world income was celebrated.

In 2011 that was good news, Lester Brown tells us. But how is it now? Earth’s recent environmental declines suggest inevitable economic and social collapse following the shrinking of Earth’s forests, soils, aquifers, and fisheries. High temperatures don’t help.

Brown’s Plan B focused on cutting global carbon emissions, stabilizing the human population at 8 billion by 2040, eradicating poverty, and restoring forests, soil, aquifers, and fisheries. Costs, he said, were 1/8 of the 2011 world military spending.

He also predicted that by 2020 up to 60 million people would migrate from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and Europe. CO2 emissions should be cut to 400 ppm by 2020, so we can reduce it to the 350 ppm recommended. In 2020 a worldwide carbon tax of $200 per ton could be offset by reduction in income taxes. An additional $200 billion could restore Earth’s national systems, stabilize population and eradicate poverty--paid for by “updating the concept of national security.” How different are questions for the world now? It’s already 2020.

Brown’s ideas could still help, if we would change our focus. CO2 emissions per passenger mile on high speed trains are about 1/3 those of cars and 1/4 of planes. Must we be slaves to saving time? We have been using more solar and building more efficient buildings, but we need to do more, with simple requirements like rooftop solar, water heaters, and energy efficient building.

The oceans are filling with plastic, People are desperate for food and safety on too many places, for too many wrong reasons. In 2011 government was spending $500 billion per year to subsidize the use of fossil fuels. Oystein Bahle of Exxon Norway noted that “Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the economical truth.”

So, what now? Brown’s ideas are simple once fully realized. They could reverse the overuse trends we have taken on since 2011. Think wind, solar and geothermal, a tax on carbon. Raise gasoline taxes and cut income taxes. We could still do it--build a new economy--carbon free. World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse

How To Give Up Plastic by William McCallum, USA, Penguin Books, 2019

It isn’t easy. It requires minute by minute awareness of how much plastic runs our lives. Photos tell the tale. The oceans are full of it, over 90% gets into birds, and the finest, toughest plastic wraps are choking small ocean dwellers. One third of plastic in the ocean is microfibers released when washing clothes!

The answer is difficult for all of us, since we rely on so many handy items.made of plastic. The hard part is to recognize the plastic item and find a substitute. Ultimately, however, its the manufacturers and waste managers who hold the ultimate keys to saving the oceans

For starters, this small book gives us a very useful list of finding plastic in our houses, room by room.
***


Coming Apart: the State of White America 1960-2010 by Charles Murray, New York, Cox and Murry, 2012-13.

In his crystal clear prologue, author Charles Murray paints a detailed portrait of America before 1963, when President Kennedy was shot. The “civil religion” that held America together after World War II began to “unravel” with rumors of a class with an “independent ethnic heritage” in the country.

Today, in 2020, it is all too clear: “…an evolution of America…has taken place since November 21, 1963, leading to the formation of classes that are different in kind--a separation from anything that the nation has ever known.” The differences “…diverge on core behavior and values.”The whys …involve forces that cannot be changed.”

Examples explored in the book include marriage, “residential segregation,” job types, industriousness, crime, honesty, and religion. After 300 pages we have a long list to support Murray’s theses, with suggestions to compare differences between parents at a school in a median income zip code and from an “elite private elementary school”.

The author suggests that the solutions require the “new upper class” to focus on restoring “what makes America different,”… “ to restore our “precious” and “exceptional…different way for people to live together…”

“A life well lived requires engagement with those around us.”

Yale University Press, New Haven, 2013

Note the publication date! The author explores the pros and cons of geoengineering to “deal with carbon emissions. He asks why we should “construct an immense industrial infrastructure” to correct the carbon problem when “we could just stop burning fossil fuels.”

Professor Hamilton (Public Ethics at Charles Stuart University in Canberra) also looks at three ways of controlling solar radiation problems: “…marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud modification, and …sulphate aerosal sprayings.” The only answer to avoid too rapid warming on Earth is to reduce the level of pollution” until CO2 can be reduced by “natural or artificial means.”

The author looks at current ideas, such as Bill Gates’s “Silver Lining” to brighten marine clouds. He also looks at the politics of geoengineering in 2013. His review of how politics has tarnished science is a scary warning, when he suggests that geoengineering is a necessary global technofix. The “strident tone of environmentalists doesn’t help. The author explores these problems in depth in his chapter “Prometheus Dreams.”

Is engineering the climate inevitable? The author suggests and may believe it is, and that the largest nations will need to act. In 2011 China gave geoengineering priority. Some people suggest that “changing peoples lifestyle” is be a better option.

The author suggests the obvious--international coordination, regulation of climate engineering, and international governing of geoengineering. Is the social change required to solve our problems of overuse ‘utopian?” Are we unwilling today (in 2020) to change the “economic, social and political structures” required for the needed “technofix?” Or is that social change “inconceivable?” Is the only answer to”buy time…to deal with an inevitable climate emergency”?

The author reminds us that the CO2 we put in the atmosphere will…alter the climate of the Earth for thousands of years.” Are we too addicted to “endless expansion?”

Half Earth---Our Planet’s Fight For Life by Edward O. Wilson, W.W. Norton and Co., N.Y., 2016/

The problem is described in Part I. The Earth and its ocean is the focus of Part II, and the solution is made clear in Part III. E.O. Wilson’s message is summarized in his Prologue. Human beings are talented, awesome in some ways, yet “yearning to be more master than steward of a declining planet.”

He suggests we could “…survive and evolve forever if we didn’t favor a short-term future and be “contemptuous toward lower forms of life.” The problems are global: a human population too large, a shortage of free water is coming, the air and seas are polluted, and climate change will do in all but “microbes, jellyfish, and fungi.”

The answer is also clear. We must learn to get along with half the Earth, not use it all up. We must commit “…half of the planet’s surface to nature as quickly as possible. EO Wilson’s argument appeared first in 2002 in the book The Future of Life, then expanded in the book “A Window of Eternity…” in 2014. Preserving half is a real goal. We could save a vast majority of Earth’s species by doing so.