I think that the importance of things like hybrid cars and fluoro lights is not that they will solve the problem, but they will buy us some time to reduce our overall energy consumption, and/or develop new energy sources that don't cause a net increase in CO₂. For instance, if hybrid cars become universal, it won't reduce CO₂ by 70%, but it will reduce it considerably (maybe by 40% or so), presumably delaying catastrophe and giving us a chance to make more substantial changes.

(I imagine the starter uses the beta particles to reduce the current needed to ionize the gas inside your fluorescent tube, which is confirmed by an after-the-fact google search by this article.)

So it's not a given that switching things around necessarily makes things safe, although the fact that no isotope of Promethium has a half-life longer than 17.7 years means that if we quit making the stuff right now, after a couple of decades there would be indeed very little of the stuff left, and none after 100 years.

In the broader picture we indeed need to be careful and considered about what alternatives we use to replace current environmentally-destructive technologies and materials.

For example, Linda McQuaig in her new book writes that auto companies have been directing fuel efficiency gains not into truly more fuel-efficient vehicles, but rather into increased kinetic energy.

That is, for the same displacement engine manufactured today versus 20 years ago, you get more power output, more horsepower, and thus higher velocities and faster accelerations than ever before. This is why SUVs, for all their ungainliness and boxiness, nonetheless are capable of accelerating at respectable rates and can easily maintain a speed of 120 kilometers per hour or more without unduly increasing wear and tear on the engine parts.

However, it is just as equally possible to translate those efficiency gains into extremely fuel-efficient cars which, if they were put into the CAFE regulations adopted by the USA, says McQuaig, result in a 40% drop in the United States gasoline requirement inside of 5 years, and a similar reduction would hold for Canada.

[ 30 October 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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Originally posted by DrConway:
Incidentally, it is my recollection that fluorescent lamps use Promethium starters to help them light up when you flick the switch. Since the most "stable" isotope of Promethium only has a half-life of 17.7 years, after a couple generations your fluorescent bulbs will be useless.

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Let's hope...well, now I'm not sure what to hope for.

I had a conversation with someone the other day about Easter Island. As the island ecology deteriorated, the residents continued carving their stone statues, apparently oblivious to the coming disaster. Or perhaps they thought there statues would save them.

The earth is now an Easter Island, and the future looks grim indeed.

Just like the Easter Islanders, we continue to demand greater and greater levels of consumption, with no thought of the future.

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Originally posted by fuslim:
Right now it's a race between global warming, and burning the last of the fossil fuels.

Let's hope...well, now I'm not sure what to hope for.

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Because if you do, I don't understand why you're politically active. There's no point in trying if there's no hope of success.

And don't promote the view that there's no hope of success unless you're absolutely sure that it's true, because the more people you convince that that's the case, the more people will simply stop trying, as I would if I believed that. This will increase the chance of your being right, of course...

[ 30 October 2004: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

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Do you honestly thing that those are the only two possibilities? That there's no chance of changing the way our society is run before total disaster strikes?

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The only hope would be for governments to take back their power from the greed-machine, get behind the UN, and pursue a concerted, vigorous - indeed, radical - policy of conservation, renewable energy production and population control. They weren't prepared to do that in 1975, when there was still time to reverse to damage, and they're not prepared to do it now, when typhoons and hurricanes are ravaging the planet.
Disaster is inevitable.

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Originally posted by nonesuch:

Disaster is inevitable.

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I agree with you to this extent- an awful lot of really bad stuff is going to happen. We have gone far enough that a lot of people are going to suffer and die horribly, and a lot of species will become extinct.

I am not, however, convinced that it's an all-or-nothing situation. I still think we can mitigate the damage enought that humanity- and civilization- will survive. I'm far from sure of this, of course (if I was sure I'd focus more attention on other issues) but I think it can happen.

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I'm not worried about convincing anyone: i never have before, of anything.

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Originally posted by nonesuch:
How is my personal pessimism more dangerous than, say, president Bush's optimism?
The reason environmentalist organizations have been 'mushy' is precisely that alarmist talk is considered 'not nice' and stamped out. When we're considering global disaster, nothing less than extreme language is appropriate.

Disaster vs total disaster...?
Yeah, okay, something is likely to survive. Human civilization, even. Maybe. I wonder whether that's to be desired or feared. Perhaps starting over from the stone age is a better bet. I don't know.

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Alarmist talk also freezes people into inaction. When people are bombarded with a whole bunch of negative messages all at once, they don't have a clue what to do and their too upset to think straight. I experienced this phenomenon when I first read about the coming oil shortage. I wept over my keyboard. That wasn't terribly useful. It's better to deceive people and have them do something, then confront them with the harsh reality and have an apathetic response.
It's the lesser of two evils.

[ 30 October 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by nonesuch:

Disaster vs total disaster...?
Yeah, okay, something is likely to survive. Human civilization, even. Maybe. I wonder whether that's to be desired or feared. Perhaps starting over from the stone age is a better bet. I don't know.

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Thing is, the only interesting feature of Homo sapiens is our faculty with technology. Here's an analogy. The Monarch butterfly is in no danger of extinction, but the migratory population of Monarchs in North America is at some risk, owing to the fact that their wintering grounds are restricted and vulnerable. Now there are a lot of butterfly species a lot like Monarchs, but they are the only ones that do that. So if the migratory populations die out, something of what makes the species special has been lost, probably forever. That would be a bad thing, in my opinion.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
The author of "boiling point: who is responsible for global warming" was on quarks and quarks last week.

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something special about the species has been lost, as surely as if Monarchs lost their migratory behaviour. That would be a shame too, wouldn't it?

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The kind of disaster we're looking at, no amount of sugar-coating can disguise. You can say: "Buy lots of these stupid plastic things with little fans in to make your house smell like anything but a house, and, by the way, there is a hurricane coming, so it might be a good idea to nail up some plywood window-panes in seven designer colours; no hurry, any time in the next three hours is fine." Or you can say: "Gaaakkk! Hurricane!" Same results.

There are two dynamics at play that ensure any approach to addressing the issue, sugar coated or otherwise, will fail.

The least important dynamic are those who stand to lose profit if we should ever act to curb greenhouse gasses. These are the industry lobbyists and theircollection of useful idiots with talking points who will insist there is really no evidence to support global warming even as sea water climbs up their ankles and submerges thier homes.

More important are those who comprise our consumerist society who simply do not want to hear it. These are the people buying homes in subdivisions with two car garages, driving SUV's to ferry the kids to practise, and who drive to get milk.

They are uninterested. When you explain to them they politely nod as the info enters one ear and leaves the other.

They will not countenance any change to their standard of livng and live in denial about their contribution to global warming and the threat being posed. These are the same people who buy into subdivisons within the greenbelt and then gripe that their "rural" charm and character is being lost when others buy into other subdivisions in the same greenbelt.

These are the same people who easily went from tap water to bottled water and will be willing to buy designer bottled clean air rather than stop driving.

The human race will deny, deny, deny until catastrophe strikes. And by then, it will be too late.

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: WingNut ]

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I will approach this from another tack: it doesn't matter.

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Originally posted by WingNut:
I will approach this from another tack: it doesn't matter.

There are two dynamics at play that ensure any approach to addressing the issue, sugar coated or otherwise, will fail.

The least important dynamic are those who stand to lose profit if we should ever act to curb greenhouse gasses. These are the industry lobbyists and their collection of useful idiots with talking points who will insist there is really no evidence to support global warming even as sea water climbs up their ankles and submerges thier homes.

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More important are those who comprise our consumerist society who simply do not want to hear it. These are the people buying homes in subdivisions with two car garages, driving SUV's to ferry the kids to practise, and who drive to get milk.

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The human race will deny, deny, deny until catastrophe strikes. And by then, it will be too late.

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If you give up prematurely, or, by your cries of despair, cause others to give up, you are CONTRIBUTING TO THE SEVERITY OF THE DISASTER. Think about that.

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]

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Originally posted by fuslim:
Right now it's a race between global warming, and burning the last of the fossil fuels.
Let's hope...well, now I'm not sure what to hope for.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you honestly thing that those are the only two possibilities? That there's no chance of changing the way our society is run before total disaster strikes?

Because if you do, I don't understand why you're politically active. There's no point in trying if there's no hope of success.

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I thought I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek, perhaps not. The remark was made in the context of either fossil fuels running out, or the earth being overtaken by extreme weather change.

Either scenario would have catastrophic results, thus the "...I'm not sure what to hope for."

My hope is that we don't have to deal with either of those lose-lose scenarios. My hope is we take the action necessary to avoid both.

That means we have to find ways to drastically lower our consumption levels of almost everything. This is not possible in capitalist mode.

Capitalism is a system which cannot voluntarily reduce consumption of resources. It requires ever higher levels of consumption, something which we already know is unsustainable.

Extrapolate the consumption levels of Europe and North America to Asia and we begin to get an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

At the same time, who are we to tell the rest of the world they can't consume as much as we do. The bulk of the world's population, having watched our example, are not likely to take kindly to any such suggestion.

On another thread I suggested a letter to the third world something like this:

Dear Third World:

We're sorry we used up all your resources in the attempt to make our world more comfortable. If we had thought it out beforehand we might have behaved differently.

However, we have an economic system in which thinking things out beforehand is forbidden.

Our system is now on the verge of catastrophic failure. Unfortunately, in the meantime, we've pretty much used up all of our stuff, and most of yours.

Oh well, there's still heaven to look forward to...

Your friend,

First World

PS. All those bombs and soldiers and stuff we used to steal your resources, that wasn't personal. Just think of it as a force of nature.

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: fuslim ]

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Originally posted by fuslim:

Of course, my hope is that we don't have to deal with either of these lose-lose scenarios. My hope is that we take the action necessary to avoid both.

Of course that means we have to find ways to drastically lower our consumption levels of almost everything. This is not possible in capitalist mode.

Capitalism is a system which cannot voluntarily reduce consumption of resources. It requires ever higher levels of consumption, something which we already know is unsustainable.

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But it is a system that sometimes involuntarily reduces consumption. The Great Depression of the 1930s was marked by a substantial drop in CO₂ production. And if we're lucky, continued increases in oil prices will have that effect as well. It won't be enough, of course; we also have to continue to be politically active, so for instance if something like this happens and the authorities decide that we need a new "New Deal", we need to be prepared to pressure them towards environmentally friendly make-work projects- wind farms, biomass, that sort of thing. A challenge, but not unsurmountable, I don't think.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
...He said the environmental movement has been sugarcoating the problem of global warming by focusing on tiny improvements like energy-efficient cars and fluorescent light bulbs, when we desperately need to cut our energy consumption by 70% to halt global warming. He insists that fluorescence and smart cars won't be able to prevent a major environmental catastrophe...

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It is not either-or; it's that we need to do both things. We need to think about and talk about major policy changes; but also to pay attention to details. Huge numbers of people produce a huge accumulation of CO2, so small improvements made by huge numbers of people will also have an accumulative effect. The future is unclear; no one can say whether it will be enough.

The thing is that if you can produce small solutions that are relatively cheap and easy to use huge numbers of people will use them. My conservative relatives would probably not call themselves environmentalists, but they looked into setting up a windmill and found it would cost $25,000 or so; too much. They would certainly buy something less expensive if it did cut down their power bill.

I think that if enviromental technology helps people to make small improvements, they will be more open to supporting major policy changes.

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Of course, in the long run capitalism has to be destroyed, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that everything's hopeless if it isn't destroyed right now.

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In the context of history, 14 years (best case projection, 30) is pretty much right now, since a whole economic system and mode of thought doesn't stop and turn in a day.

Of course, the US economy will collapse quite soon, especially if Bush gets another whack at it. But China is all set to take its place as #1 consumer; Europe, Japan, Korea and India are still going strong. No religions are suddenly going to come out in favour of population reduction, especially so long as we have 40-odd wars going on at any given time: nations need fresh cannon-fodder.

I don't normally go around telling people to give up. I still compost, hang my wash on a clothes-line, go into town only once a week and wear second-hand clothes. But i've stopped trying to convince anyone to follow my example.

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]

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Originally posted by nonesuch:

In the context of history, 14 years (best case projection, 30) is pretty much right now, since a whole economic system and mode of thought doesn't stop and turn in a day.

Of course, the US economy will collapse quite soon, especially if Bush gets another whack at it. But China is all set to take its place as #1 consumer; Europe, Japan, Korea and India are still going strong.

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The Queen, in an unprecedented initiative, will this week throw her weight behind international attempts to combat global warming.

This Wednesday during her state visit to Germany she will, for the first time, publicly signal her concern about the possibility of a catastrophic heating of the planet by opening a meeting in Berlin that is planning the next steps in the worldwide effort to head it off.

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Wednesday's meeting of ministers, industrialists, scientists and officials from Britain and Germany could prove to be one of the most important ever held in the battle with climate change. Chaired by Klaus Töpfer, Germany's former environment minister who now runs the UN Environment Programme, it comes at a crucial time...
...But the treaty has always been seen as only a small first step. Tony Blair, who will address the conference by video, has made working out the next international measures a top priority for his presidency of both the EU and the G8 group of the world's most powerful countries next year, and wants Wednesday's meeting to come up with concrete proposals.

Last night sources close to the Palace and to ministers dismissed reports that the Queen has urged Mr Blair to intervene with the US government over its poor environmental record.

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The Queen, in an unprecedented initiative, will this week throw her weight behind international attempts to combat global warming.

This Wednesday during her state visit to Germany she will, for the first time, publicly signal her concern about the possibility of a catastrophic heating of the planet by opening a meeting in Berlin that is planning the next steps in the worldwide effort to head it off.

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Whoops, meant to say that I actually DID read the whole article.

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

More details on the conference in the Guardian.

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...He added: 'From her own observations on the climate she has become worried like the rest of us. She has made it clear she wants to raise the importance of the issue.'

In addition to her own fieldwork, the Queen was inspired by briefing papers supplied by Blair's chief scientist, Sir David King - who has described the threat of climate change as greater than global terrorism - and John Schellnhuber, research director of the Tyndall Centre, where Britain's pioneering work on global warming is conducted...

...Schellnhuber, who this week will receive a CBE from the Queen for his work on climate change, added that the identity of the next President of the US, the planet's biggest polluter, would dominate discussions.

'If John Kerry wins, there might be a better chance of an open dialogue, there might be a feeling we can start again. If Bush wins, then we will have to wait and see,' added the former chief scientist to the German government.

Environmentalists believe that the Queen's intervention is likely to prove crucial, particularly as Blair has promised to make climate change a key issue at the G8 group of major industrial nations next year.

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Besides, I wonder what happens to her old clothes; I think the British aristocrats used to give them to their servants [at least in Wodehouse they did].

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

[ 31 October 2004: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

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Like I said, huge numbers of people are going to suffer and die

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I would prefer to believe we could wake the world up prior to that event but I am afraid we can't.

I will give an example: One thing everyone could do that would save them time and reduce global warming is park their cars and go in for their coffee rather than get into the drive through.

That's it. Just park thier vehicle and walk into the Tim's.

Give it a shot at convincing people and carry health insurance when you do.

My point is, people are unwilling to surrender even the smallest amount of convenience (remianing in your car to get your coffee) to do anything for the earth.

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My point is, people are unwilling to surrender even the smallest amount of convenience (remianing in your car to get your coffee) to do anything for the earth.

Hell, try to have your city council put a freeze on any additional drive throughs. And again, good luck.

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Unfortunately all too true.

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Originally posted by WingNut:

I guess maybe we are seeing things in a matter of degrees. For me, huge numbers of people suffering and dying is too late. You know who those huge numbers are going to be, right?

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
I have to wonder if some decision-makers just look at the high population and decide that if we just let them die, there will be more for us.

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