Yuge failure

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We have 12 years left to change

Donald Trump and the fossil fuels industry are leading humanity on a deadly path to the extinction of life on Earth. This is a huge failure.

Don’t count on divine intervention, this is a man-made problem. With courage, determination, and honesty we will find man-made solutions. This is a final call to protect your family. Everyone needs to get onboard.

There are two types of planets. Some support life, most don’t. Venus, the second rock from the Sun, is similar in size and mass to Earth, but its atmosphere is 96.5 percent carbon dioxide. Venus’s temperature is over 860°F. Unless we act now, Earth will become uninhabitable. Cultural changes take time!

Code Red

Last Sunday, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released the findings at their annual summit. Unless we change our behavior immediately, a “social and technological change on a scale for which there is no historic precedent,” life on Earth will be unbearable by 2030.

Here is the bad news – unlike the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and most forms of life approximately 66 million years ago, we have very difficult challenges ahead. The day the dinosaurs died, everyone was having a good time and the sun was shining, until the last second.

The 2017 superstorms, the September Florence massive floods, and other catastrophes around the world show what is to come. Survival is a numbers game. There are 7.6 billion people on Earth, what we do every day will make a difference. It is up to us, everyone.

Cut your carbon footprint in half

Reducing your carbon footprint is a process similar to losing weight. Make a list of your daily greenhouse emissions, rank them in order of difficulty, start with the easy steps, and measure your progress every couple of weeks on a wall calendar. Then, try again. Just do it.

A lasting cultural change often starts with a shift in our relationship with nature. Some land used for agriculture will be needed to plant trees. We need a sustainable culture moving from consumption to conservation. Quick, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in individual lifestyle and consumption are essential. Everything from transportation, homes, appliances, and your diet may have to change.

The Code Red alert has gone worldwide. For inspiration, please Google “Seven easy ways to live a more environmentally friendly life, from veganism to LED lights.”

Energy resiliency

Richard Heinberg and the experts at the Post Carbon Institute say system thinking is required to deal with today’s challenges. Runaway climate change, economic inequality, and resource depletion are at the top of the list. Our energy, economy, ecology, and equity systems are not resilient, they were designed to perform under benign conditions. Resilient systems can cope with stress from severe floods, droughts, fires and maintain their identity. Puerto Rico, for example, has failed to recover from the 2017 flooding, and may never be the same again.

To “keep the lights on” around the clock, utilities have traditionally used additional capacity and stand-by generators to meet customer demand. “All charged up!” by Duane Highley, president and CEO, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, and Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc., explains why and how Arkansas cooperatives are using grid energy power storage to keep rates affordable, the cooperative difference!

Power storage is the secret sauce for resilient distributed solar systems. New digital power inverters, the brains of home solar systems, and higher storage, low-cost solar batteries will provide 24-hour power. Distributed architecture is a core concept for systems resiliency, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Solar panels don’t fly away when heavy rains like Florence come uninvited, as the North Carolina experience proves.

Make Earth habitable again

Get ready to learn how to survive, in a resilient community. Please visit www.resilience.org and visit one of the National Solar Tours sites on Saturday, Oct. 20 from 10 a.m. – noon, www.nationalsolartour.org/tour-locations.

Dr. Luis Contreras

7 COMMENTS

  1. Please look for details on the next edition, “A path to survival”

    There is hope if we act. Why would we wait – as Donald Trump has decided?

  2. This was very difficult and painful to write, I believe every word, except for a few typos, most revised in the online post.

    Hopefully the main message is clear. There are 3 related words, habitable, uninhabitable, and inhabitable. The first two have a clear meaning. Inhabitable has the same meaning as habitable, which is confusing.

    “Unless we act now, Earth will become inhabitable,” should read ““Unless we act now, Earth will become uninhabitable,” hence the urgency to act now.

    Planting trees to capture CO2, for example, needs to be done in 2018. Seedlings take time to grow and are easily lost with severe floods.

    Deforestation must stop, and arson should be a serious criminal act.

    Most wildfires are not accidental, there are many circumstances leading to a particular wildfire. The 2018 California Carr wildfire, said to be caused by a van with flat tire, was later explained by a hot catalytic converter. What an irony, the one piece designed to reduce pollution, was involved. The Carr fire was preventable.

  3. Michael is clear evidence we are living in a hot world we can’t control. Last year, Harvey, Maria, Jose and other severe floods may have seen to some as a fluke, what insurance companies used to call Acts of Nature, Acts of God, or something similar. The insurance industry willl change their business model.

    When there is a pattern of events there is a root cause. Greed can’t be ignored, fossil fuel companies and their investors have known the consequences of burning fuels.

    Why is this happening?
    My mother would have said “Only God knows why” or “We are in God’s hands,” but she is long gone. She was a loving mom with a deep faith. She was 92 when she took her last breath. Sadly, her last years were painful suffering from emphysema. The cause, second-hand smoking.

    We are looking at a similar ordeal if we waste time blaming others or feeling sorry for ourselves.

    There are many solutions, if we act quickly. We, the people, have the numbers and the power to act.

    Physics and related sciences explain clearly the climate emergency: astrophysicists have long appreciated the important contribution of greenhouse gases in the warming of planetary atmospheres, the scientific basis for this warming is firmly established in the science of molecular physics.

    This challenge is unprescedented, but we have brains in our heads and feet in our shoes. We will prevail.

    Please share your thoughts.

    http://www.insuranceclarity.com/homeowners/act-of-god

  4. The title changed from Yuge Failure …

    Some people are claiming China is responsible for this massive problem. I don’t agree:

    1. The atmospheric CO2 todya, dates back to 1950. That is what makes CO2 so deadly. At that time, China was a poor agricultural country.

    2. The US industrial production after WW2 helped rebuild Europe, 1945 Marshall plan. The electric energy came from coal-fired power plants. Making steel and concrete has massive emissions.

    3. The tons of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere have to be reduced, it does not matter where they came from

    4. The answer will have to come frome everyone

    5. The US should provide financial help to other countries.

    https://permaculturenews.org/2013/10/11/u-s-carbon-dioxide-emissions-11-percent-since-2007/

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