There Are No Jobs on a Dead Planet
Yes, this statement is true, but it’s sensationalized; nothing is going to “kill” this planet. What we will experience, however, unless we prevent it with thoughtful living or some sort of miracle new technology, are the innumerable consequences of climate change, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, and declining health precipitated by these factors and increasing levels of pollution.
All together, this will cause unprecedented levels of misery among the vast majority of the world’s people in the generations to come. We’ll see shortages of food and potable water, loss of life and property from wildfires, floods, and hurricanes, the exodus of hundreds of millions of refugees from low-lying lands, and the spreading of all manner of new and virulent pandemic diseases.
But again, no dead planet. In particular, there will always be goodies for rich people: juicy steaks, fine champagne, fancy cars, attractive sex partners, superior healthcare, and private aircraft. Of course, how much fun it will be to live on a planet of such grand and ever-expanding misery is another question, but that’s a function of how much compassion we feel for the suffering of others, and that varies from person to person.
Maybe that’s the source of the problem right there: the profound indifference with which we address others’ misery. We’re surrounded by news about the butchering of the Rohingya Muslims, the starving Yemenis, the Syrians, Venezuela’s failed state, the desperate immigrants trying to get into Europe from Northern Africa and into the U.S. from Central America, the disenfranchised Palestinians, the 30 million slaves in the Balkans and Southeast Asia, rampant sex trafficking, the subjugation of women in Central Asia and the Middle East, the rise of right-wing authoritarianism in Europe, the expanding use of torture, and persecution of journalists and dissidents, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the use of the U.S. military around the globe, the 18% of American children living in poverty, U.S. school children gunned down in 288 mass shooting since 2009, the mass incarceration of African-Americans, the melting of our glaciers and increasing frequency of extreme weather events, as well as so many others too numerous to name.
At this point, there is a good chance that Donald Trump will be re-elected, meaning that the American voters will have again signaled that they have exactly zero concern about any of the environmental or humanitarian issues mentioned above.
But, yet again, the planet’s not dying, and the rich will be just fine.
Even the typical Trump supporter in the Midwest will be OK for a while. Sure, his wages have been stagnating since 1980, and his job may wind up in Mexico or Vietnam. But he won’t notice much unless one of his kids winds up coming into contact with AR-15 ordinance in a classroom or an IED on a piece of turf somewhere around the globe that happens to coincide with a threatened American business interest. But as long as it’s someone else’s kid, everything’s good.
Craig,
” there is a good chance that Donald Trump will be re-elected”
Wow, moral that bad among the “true believers” and “Never Trumpers”, eh?
But not to worry, there’s always the old comforting thought of “Armageddon” to fall back upon !
How righteous will you feel when the unbelievers get their comeuppance and you can gloat sanctimoniously.
Except it ain’t gonna happen!
That’s because while you sit around dreaming of a social revolution with gamboling unicorns, the rest of us have been busy introducing practical,non-disruptive clean(er) technology that actually works.
Craig, the are just co many exciting new developments, projects and innovations with amazing potential, but you seem stuck in an Obama era time warp.
It’s time to move on.
(30 million slaves in the Balkans? That’s 3/5ths of the entire population!).
Craig your GHG doom and gloom analysis is wrong.
Marco Polo is correct in saying that the extent of decay and global state of affairs that you present will not happen.
And this will be largely due to the intervention of and mobilising of international technological corporate might (rather than national Governments policy solutions – China being the exception where corporate might and Government are axiomatic and inextricably linked) which through new era clean massive generation technological solutions; arrest the world declining beyond certain limits and reverse GHG to insignificant levels. And it is already underway Craig.
Expanding a bit on this perspective:-
National Governments who espouse that their “reversal of generation GHG solutions policy tool bags” is limited to these two enforceable policy approaches only, illustrates why globally, national Governments policies alone will have no net beneficial influence on increasing GHG trend-lines:
1. Carbon Prices: These discourage the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by charging people who emit them.
2. Taxpayer Subsidies: These can lower the cost of minuscule low density renewable energy or other technologies that emit lower or no GHG emissions compared with traditional fossil fuel generation.
These are national Governments legislative style “great ideas” to help reverse GHG emissions to insignificant levels (in the global context – which of course is what climate change issues refer to) are meaningless and implausible when evaluated against the backdrop of a rapidly developing and increasing population world that we all occupy together.
Seven billion is heading rapidly towards ten billion in 2050. This is a key point and all the more poignant in that over half of the world’s current population survive in “energy starved circumstances” with no prospects of advancing themselves, their families, communities and nations through any doomed to failure attempts at hobbling together current low tech generation technologies to provide more than a very sub-standard basic power source only at best.
Climate change is not a single nation only issue, or one that US (for example) legislative policies can magically solve for all global peoples. It is a global issue that needs to be tackled from an entirely different global perspective and technological initiative (rather than local ideas or initiatives) to that which has been incorrectly promoted worldwide (minuscule scale low density generation technologies implemented at a local level) to such an extent that many ordinary people everywhere are now fixated on the hysteria around these technologies.
And that is why the intervention of and mobilising of international technological corporate might, rather than individual national government policy initiatives will very soon become visible as a mainstream concept. We are seeing strong signs of this already in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative as it unfolds in the African continent.
So let’s add irrefutable clarity to all this from a global technological standpoint.
PV, Wind and Hydro technologies are not capable of being mainstream global generation sciences in perpetuity, and many people mistakenly believe that collectively they are able to provide for the industrialisation of emerging nations (over 130); the modernisation and infrastructure renewal of all nations (195), and the commercialisation of massive energy intensive new era technologies that are critically needed to come on stream everywhere to enable the world to progress towards and maintain new age and modern living standards for all peoples globally, such as new food and water production technologies; mass transit and infrastructure development, material science and health technologies, for example.
What’s absolutely needed globally for all peoples in a rapidly developing and expanding world going forward is predicated on the availability of; reticulated and scalable generation of massive, clean, safe, low cost, enduring, power. Nothing less will cut it. Equally importantly and simultaneously, the cornerstone generation technology that satisfies all of the above attributes in perpetuity must also reverse dangerous GHG’s to insignificant proportions permanently and immediately, thereby halting climate change issues in their tracks. Generation technologies that will satisfy these requirements will therefore be those at or near the pinnacle of the energy density sciences pyramid.
Current and new renewable energy technologies can enjoy for the foreseeable future an important and necessary (horses for courses) future everywhere, but they should not be focused on as having a magical or meaningful role in single handedly mitigating and reversing climate change issues moving forward (with the exception of new age clean nuclear technology) whilst at the same time satisfying a rapidly escalating energy intensive needy world.
Lawrence Coomber
Lawrence,
Nice to hear from you. How is your own project in India working progressing ?
Marco Polo
I first visited India in 1970 as a young weapons engineering artificer and learned a lot about India from that time.
Post Navy in 1984 I started doing a bit of engineering innovation in India (small scale domestic solar thermal water purifier) for the Asian market. In 2010 I mentored a graduate engineer through his PhD “over the wires” and more recently since 2015, have been working on and off in Gujarat and New Delhi.
I started as systems design manager with a New Delhi consortium engaged in solar pumping solutions for Mr Modi’s “Smart Indian Villages Project” and have now moved on to focus on iOT mobile Apps development for Renewable Energy and Water Metering Technologies Solutions, which is cutting edge stuff and globally unique as far as I can ascertain. So everything is going great and I am constantly fueled by garlic and cheese naan.
Some young Indian technocrats are aware of the challenges they face in trying to emulate the astonishing standard of achievements since 1980, of their Chinese technocrat brothers and sisters, but generally they fail badly in expressing any genuine understanding of the underpinnings of how and why it is that they find themselves so far behind China at this point in history, and more importantly what can be done to close the very wide gap. Experienced and wiser heads have the answers; but implementing practical ways forward would require social and educational reforms well beyond unimaginable for India; which is a shame really because China like outcomes would be achievable for India within a very short 2 1/2 generations time line if the will/need for change realization was converted into a “national reform action plan”. Now.
I may make that mission my next challenge?
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/2016/sep/24/A-smart-village-which-runs-on-solar-power-1524416.html
Lawrence Coomber