What Sense of Urgency?

The events of last month with the EPA denying the state of California’s application for a waiver from the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from mobile sources should give pause to anyone interested in quickly implementing solutions to climate change.

The solutions are out there. Sandia National Laboratory is developing the Counter-Rotating Ring Reactor Recuperator (CR5), a device that uses solar energy to break the carbon-oxygen bond in carbon dioxide, forming carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide can then be reacted with oxygen to form methanol. So, this might be a way to create renewable fuels while achieving some carbon sequestration. Sandia calls it the “Sunshine to Petrol” project. Here’s a description of an earlier version of the CR5 for trying to create hydrogen (which has been set aside for the current methanol version, which is apparently more practical). Then, there’s a group at Ohio State University who is developing a bioreactor with algae which uses photosynthesis to trap the carbon dioxide in a gas stream. The algae are then harvested for livestock feed or biodiesel production. A plant the size of a Walmart would be needed to sequester the carbon emissions from a power plant, but it sounds do-able.

However, there’s the tiresome and time-consuming process of overcoming the resistance of entrenched economic interests, of which Charles Stoss says hopefully that “[c]apitalism will clean up its own shit — once it acquires a new set of taste buds and realizes it's delicious,” and which David Brin characterizes not as free-market advocates but rather anti-market kleptocrats. The question which arises is whether or not we have the time for all of the bullshit which is part of the regulatory and political ground-clearing needed prior to actually start engineering changes in consumption patterns, manufacturing processes and infrastructure to achieve a lower carbon footprint, before the life-changing climate-change really kicks in.

New Year’s Resolutions

Here’s my list of resolutions:

Stop reading political blogs. I’ve read a post by David Pollard (“How to Save the World”, in the blogroll) which simultaneously celebrates folks such as the political bloggers, especially the liberal ones, for their ideals and sense of community, while at the same time observing that their zeal for political solutions is a distraction which actually serves “The Man”, the 1% of all of us representing the political and economic elite. I’ve come to agree with him that they’re a distraction from other things I really should be doing. His solution, which is to just walk away and form communities of love and conversation while civilization lasts, sounds beguiling but seems to be an invitation for chaos, conflict and megadeath to join the party early (a bit more about apocalyptic visions in a minute). I’d rather go down fighting for civilization, but I agree with David that fighting doesn’t involve worrying about which presidential candidate is going to win the New Hampshire primary.

Stop paying attention to apocalyptic visions. Most everyone has their own version – for many Christians, it’s the Rapture. Science fiction-reading geeks have the Singularity. Deep Greens have Peak Oil and the ecological footprint. Greenpeacers have “Our Stolen Future”. Neocons have the Long War. I recognize this tendency as identity politics. David Brin points out that human nature always conspires against Enlightenment. Another perspective is that perhaps there is a bit of a human longing for catastrophic events. There is probably a nasty fall of one sort or another waiting for us humans, but hoping for it just to be able to say “I told you so” is the coward’s way out.

Have less stuff. We’re moving soon, and I am in the process of giving away a lot of stuff and hauling away more in the mother of all dump runs (yes, I know that’s a BAD THING; but we might as well get use to the fact that we will be mining landfills for resources some day soon). David Brin, who’s going on the blogroll, had an interesting perspective on our trade deficit and Walmart culture, noting that our penchant for buying stuff may have lifted a chunk of the Third World into the middle class. Still, it’s unsustainable, and as a species, we’re going to need to find a better way to spend our time and to make money beyond making and buying stuff (see below).

Start finding something else to do. I could probably spend the rest of my productive life cleaning up hazardous waste. But over the next few years, I’m going to turn my efforts to working on climate change. Very, very soon, we need to exert an effort reminiscent of the New Deal, the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project combined to reverse the damage, and it’s going to be a better way to spend our time than packing Walmarts with cheap Chinese-made stuff then buying it. So over time, I’ll be taking my existing skills developed from 20 years of hazardous waste investigation and cleanup and applying them to issues such as increasing energy efficiency in buildings and implementing carbon sequestration.

Celebrate the sparks of human ingenuity and initiative when I encounter them. For example, the Z Recommends consumer information site, which published a survey of baby bottle and cup manufacturers, ranking those using polycarbonate which could leach bisphenol-a as opposed to those manufacturers who use other plastics. Or Nanosolar, which manufacturers extremely thin and flexible solar panels. Or MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) program, allowing you to take college-level courses online for free.

Start writing more: more posts to Impact Analysis. I write when I learn about stuff, so perhaps the more I write the more I’ll learn. Look at it as exercise for the brain, and, if you’re going to exercise, pick something that’s strenuous and that you’ll enjoy. “Exercise” and “enjoyment” don’t go together for most people, which might help account for the epidemic of overweight and obese people in the U.S. Also, I’m starting another blog that chronicles my adventures in fitness. Over the past several years, I’ve steadily lost body fat and become stronger. There’s a lot to share about how those things happen. I want to publish something that makes money, perhaps a book or an e-book or an article; I have ideas in all those directions. The wealth-creating aspect is not driving this resolution. Most writers don’t sustain themselves by writing along. But it would be a kick to have people pay to read something I’ve written.