I hadn't expected to let this blog go to seed for over a year - sorry about that! A thesis got in the way. My thesis. Which I wrote all through last Spring and Summer, finally turning it in in September. The Danish title of my thesis is Et mærkbart klima - Affekt og politik i klimakultur. Roughly - A Climate of Emotion - Affect and Politics in Climate Culture, dealing with examples of emotions and feelings in culture relating to climate change. It was an interesting ride, and might actually have helped me quite a bit in gaining some of that elusive distance to climate change. The distance I didn't have before, the lack of which kept the threat and fear of climate change on my sleeve as it were.
Anyway, I'm back, I've written more posts than I can remember, up in my head of course, goodness knows where they are now. Something that I do keep thinking about, and answering in my head, is a question that a friend asked me over a year ago. I imagine I was on one of my many Twitter rants about the climate, having just read some dire report, eyes freshly salted, sad and angry. He asked - "what is this really all about"? And I was kind of stumped to be honest. Who couldn't see what this was about?
I'm guessing what my friend was asking, in essence, was "Why are you so afraid of death?". Isn't that, after all, the inner core driving humanity? We do everything we can to survive as far as immediate, primary needs go (food, sleep, shelter). And we create secondary needs to hide the fact that fear is what drives the primary needs. But still - it's much bigger than death, isn't it?
It's the largest collective human existential crisis since the Cold War, except for the fact that the button has been pushed, is still being pushed (long before the Cold War actually), and we seem to be crying in one voice: "Push harder! Push harder!", even though we know what that means. Well....
Not to mention, this is about more than humanity, since we're taking more than ourselves down with us. Prognoses have given the impression that we'll be pretty much wiping Earth's slate clean, leaving it to need more than just a few million years to reboot life that resembles anything we know. Not exactly fair of us, I'd say.
But on the human side of things, it bothers me that we're wiping out human potential. We're a mixed bag as far as species go, I know that. Good, bad, ugly, and all that. But damn, the good things have been really really good. Art alone can be enough to make me cry with joy, such a shame to see it go to waste. Not a soul in the universe to appreciate it after we're gone (as far as we know of course). Have we even neared the height of what we can do? Is there time to prove it? I suppose it's all these unknowns that bug me. For - even if one human dies, it's in the cards that someone else will pick up the slack, carry on where s/he left off, add to it even, make it better, bring humanity forth...We take solace in that when we leave this place individually.
Climate change is a serious threat to that, the ultimate effect being....absolutely nothing.
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Monday, 23 January 2012
Interview - This is What Love Looks Like
I'm not sure if I should keep linking to my podcasts here, since you probably know where to find them. Or? What say ye?
I really urge you to click on this link and read this article, or rather, interview with Tim DeChristopher. It's beautiful and scary. But so necessary. Tim is what I'd call a hero.
I really urge you to click on this link and read this article, or rather, interview with Tim DeChristopher. It's beautiful and scary. But so necessary. Tim is what I'd call a hero.
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Podcast!
I have no intention of neglecting this blog, but I will be supplementing it, and taking it to another level by the addition of the Climate Worrier podcast. The message is the same, but I hope to be more personal, and reach more people with this more emotional side of climate change put forward.
Climate Worrier Podcast Inaugural Episode by ClimateWorrier
And a happy New Year, of course!
Climate Worrier Podcast Inaugural Episode by ClimateWorrier
And a happy New Year, of course!
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Right Here, Right Now
It sometimes seems a wonder that the human race is, at this point in time, at this very juncture, with this very dilemma. Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late.
Imagine if the grand ecosystem of the planet had been much less adaptable, much more delicate, and people in the early 20th century were already getting the hems of their petticoats and coattails wet in rising tides from melting poles. The technology being that less advanced back then would certainly have meant our demise, not being able to save us from ourselves.
The fact that our own technology today is evolving practically exponentially is a comfort. Do we have a chance to technologize ourselves out of this? It's kind of the only hope, isn't it?
It also seems...planned. I'm not going theistic on your ass, don't worry, after all, I do rely on science and healthy scepticism to keep this very physical problem in the physical paradigm wherein it presides. But really, how lucky are we that this is all happening at precisely this moment in time?
Look how far we've come. We're more co-operative and peaceful than we've ever been in our entire history. I have faith in the human race. Technology is bringing movements together. Can it also geo-engineer us out of catastrophe? If anyone in the history of time has the chance to find out, we're it.
Imagine if the grand ecosystem of the planet had been much less adaptable, much more delicate, and people in the early 20th century were already getting the hems of their petticoats and coattails wet in rising tides from melting poles. The technology being that less advanced back then would certainly have meant our demise, not being able to save us from ourselves.
The fact that our own technology today is evolving practically exponentially is a comfort. Do we have a chance to technologize ourselves out of this? It's kind of the only hope, isn't it?
It also seems...planned. I'm not going theistic on your ass, don't worry, after all, I do rely on science and healthy scepticism to keep this very physical problem in the physical paradigm wherein it presides. But really, how lucky are we that this is all happening at precisely this moment in time?
Look how far we've come. We're more co-operative and peaceful than we've ever been in our entire history. I have faith in the human race. Technology is bringing movements together. Can it also geo-engineer us out of catastrophe? If anyone in the history of time has the chance to find out, we're it.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Climate and Aviation - The Flying Post
I got myself into a Twitter discussion about flying's impact on the environment last week. Twitter has a 140 character limit, which isn't exactly conducive to a good debate about this. I could've just copy/pasted some links, but it's just not enough. So, now I find myself writing a whole post about it. This blog is intended to be about the emotional side of AGW, but for this rare occasion, I'll be dealing with figures.
First off, I have to get a few things out of the way. I conscientiously do not fly, and I haven't flown for 4 years for several reasons.
1) Not flying is one of the single easiest things to do to lower your emissions (going vegetarian and cutting consumption right behind it).
2) Flying uses mind boggling amounts of fuel, fuel which preferably should be used on food production instead of vacations, since, according to the IEA, oil production already peaked, back in 2006. If you haven't thought about what that means for the world, you, or your children, run along and google "peak oil", freak out a bit, then come back.
3) I am not interested in checking out of society to curb my emissions, so I find alternatives. In the past 4 years, my family and I have been to Morocco twice, Finland, Sweden, Southern France and Spain, all without flying. People colonized the globe before air travel, c'mon, it's not the only way to get around.
4) In a few years, my kids will learn about climate change in school. When they ask me what I did, knowing the existential ground below our feet was disappearing, I will not look them in the eyes and tell them that I just pretended everything was going to be okay, and kept doing everything as per usual.
5) Science tells us that we should aim to bring carbon levels down to 350 ppm to avoid catastrophe. We're already way beyond that, at 391 (look at the bar of stats at the top). I don't feel a need to make that number a lot worse just so I can have a vacation.
Now that I got that off my chest, some sources.
My main go-to person on the issue of flying and carbon emissions is environmental journalist, George Monbiot. Anyone can go to any number of websites and have their carbon emissions figured out for certain activities. But as Monbiot points out, in the case of flying, this method isn't applicable. One must take the resulting number and multiply it with IPCC figure of 2.7, to get the true impact (the Tyndall Centre of Climate Change uses a more conservative estimate of 1.9, still more that your usual carbon footptint equation), owing to atmospheric impact. Here's an article of his, where I have highlighted the important details on this. So remember, when calculating flights on an internet service such as this, the results are unfortunately only applicable for a plane flying at ground level, usually not the case.
Here's another sobering Monbiot article about flying with a moral twist, if you're up for it.
There are many variables to calculating the effects of air travel, distance, plane model, etc. For sure though, a long haul flight easily doubles the average person's annual emissions in one go (indeed, I've seen higher estimates still), as illustrated in this extensive paper, on page 7. We already need to eat, use electricity, and travel locally on our carbon budgets - would we rather eat or go on vacation, given a certain amount of carbon to use annually?
Biofuels were cited during my Twitter debate as being a viable fuel alternative, ergo my non-flying stance was "hogwash". For one, biofuel technology is out there, great, but it's not in aviation use (oh, apart from that one time Richard Branson powered one short Virgin flight with 20% nut oil. Can you imagine how many people those nuts could have fed instead?). Even then, biofuels have a lot against them still (see pages 5-7).
I've opted for train travel instead of flying. Certainly, it takes longer. As it happens, one of our favorite destinations at my house is Morocco. in theory, we could board a plane in Copenhagen and arrive in Morocco 5-6 hours later. If it weren't for environmental impact and fuel use, awesome. Especially if it's for a shorter trip. As it were, it takes 3 days in all from Copenhagen to Tangier, with stops in Paris and Madrid. We've had time to visit friends, drink wine, eat tapas and be merry en route. Point being, the extended travel time has been a joy, not a chore. And while train travel isn't pristine emissions-wise, it certainly figures more climate friendly than flying.
I do also have family in the States I haven't visited for a while, and it doesn't look like I'll visit them any time soon. Does that bother me? Yes and no. My mother flies here to visit us (1 person's emissions to visit 4 people is still better than 4 people's emissions to visit 1 person), so my children know their grandmother, and we Skype, which is like being in the same room. The thing that does hurt most, for both of us, is the fact that I won't fly over to take care of her estate when she goes. The thought does sadden me, but it's been arranged that someone stateside will take care of that, and my mother is donating her body to science. But to be honest, my mother has many years left in her, I'm pretty sure that peak oil will prevent most air travel before her time is up, at any rate. But not seeing family in the flesh bothers me a lot less than knowingly contributing to ruining my children's future. Sounds pretty heavy, I know - it is!
To sum up - I appreciate the cultural impact that aviation has had on the world- We're closer, more connected, and as a result more peaceful and able to cooperate. I live where I do today because of air travel. That said, flying is a bad habit that we have to stop. The fact that technology for alternatives to conventional aviation is out there and not in use? A travesty. And that's exactly why I will not aid and abet the aviation industry's detrimental effect on the climate, nor should anyone else who is truly concerned about it (there, I said it!).
What flying did to encourage positive socio-anthropological changes in the past 100 years, the internet does now. We're still connected, more so even. We've come a long way, now let's take another road that's not as destructive. Internet use isn't a climate saint, but I'll save that for another post. Now, go no-fly!
First off, I have to get a few things out of the way. I conscientiously do not fly, and I haven't flown for 4 years for several reasons.
1) Not flying is one of the single easiest things to do to lower your emissions (going vegetarian and cutting consumption right behind it).
2) Flying uses mind boggling amounts of fuel, fuel which preferably should be used on food production instead of vacations, since, according to the IEA, oil production already peaked, back in 2006. If you haven't thought about what that means for the world, you, or your children, run along and google "peak oil", freak out a bit, then come back.
3) I am not interested in checking out of society to curb my emissions, so I find alternatives. In the past 4 years, my family and I have been to Morocco twice, Finland, Sweden, Southern France and Spain, all without flying. People colonized the globe before air travel, c'mon, it's not the only way to get around.
4) In a few years, my kids will learn about climate change in school. When they ask me what I did, knowing the existential ground below our feet was disappearing, I will not look them in the eyes and tell them that I just pretended everything was going to be okay, and kept doing everything as per usual.
5) Science tells us that we should aim to bring carbon levels down to 350 ppm to avoid catastrophe. We're already way beyond that, at 391 (look at the bar of stats at the top). I don't feel a need to make that number a lot worse just so I can have a vacation.
Now that I got that off my chest, some sources.
My main go-to person on the issue of flying and carbon emissions is environmental journalist, George Monbiot. Anyone can go to any number of websites and have their carbon emissions figured out for certain activities. But as Monbiot points out, in the case of flying, this method isn't applicable. One must take the resulting number and multiply it with IPCC figure of 2.7, to get the true impact (the Tyndall Centre of Climate Change uses a more conservative estimate of 1.9, still more that your usual carbon footptint equation), owing to atmospheric impact. Here's an article of his, where I have highlighted the important details on this. So remember, when calculating flights on an internet service such as this, the results are unfortunately only applicable for a plane flying at ground level, usually not the case.
Here's another sobering Monbiot article about flying with a moral twist, if you're up for it.
There are many variables to calculating the effects of air travel, distance, plane model, etc. For sure though, a long haul flight easily doubles the average person's annual emissions in one go (indeed, I've seen higher estimates still), as illustrated in this extensive paper, on page 7. We already need to eat, use electricity, and travel locally on our carbon budgets - would we rather eat or go on vacation, given a certain amount of carbon to use annually?
Biofuels were cited during my Twitter debate as being a viable fuel alternative, ergo my non-flying stance was "hogwash". For one, biofuel technology is out there, great, but it's not in aviation use (oh, apart from that one time Richard Branson powered one short Virgin flight with 20% nut oil. Can you imagine how many people those nuts could have fed instead?). Even then, biofuels have a lot against them still (see pages 5-7).
I've opted for train travel instead of flying. Certainly, it takes longer. As it happens, one of our favorite destinations at my house is Morocco. in theory, we could board a plane in Copenhagen and arrive in Morocco 5-6 hours later. If it weren't for environmental impact and fuel use, awesome. Especially if it's for a shorter trip. As it were, it takes 3 days in all from Copenhagen to Tangier, with stops in Paris and Madrid. We've had time to visit friends, drink wine, eat tapas and be merry en route. Point being, the extended travel time has been a joy, not a chore. And while train travel isn't pristine emissions-wise, it certainly figures more climate friendly than flying.
I do also have family in the States I haven't visited for a while, and it doesn't look like I'll visit them any time soon. Does that bother me? Yes and no. My mother flies here to visit us (1 person's emissions to visit 4 people is still better than 4 people's emissions to visit 1 person), so my children know their grandmother, and we Skype, which is like being in the same room. The thing that does hurt most, for both of us, is the fact that I won't fly over to take care of her estate when she goes. The thought does sadden me, but it's been arranged that someone stateside will take care of that, and my mother is donating her body to science. But to be honest, my mother has many years left in her, I'm pretty sure that peak oil will prevent most air travel before her time is up, at any rate. But not seeing family in the flesh bothers me a lot less than knowingly contributing to ruining my children's future. Sounds pretty heavy, I know - it is!
To sum up - I appreciate the cultural impact that aviation has had on the world- We're closer, more connected, and as a result more peaceful and able to cooperate. I live where I do today because of air travel. That said, flying is a bad habit that we have to stop. The fact that technology for alternatives to conventional aviation is out there and not in use? A travesty. And that's exactly why I will not aid and abet the aviation industry's detrimental effect on the climate, nor should anyone else who is truly concerned about it (there, I said it!).
What flying did to encourage positive socio-anthropological changes in the past 100 years, the internet does now. We're still connected, more so even. We've come a long way, now let's take another road that's not as destructive. Internet use isn't a climate saint, but I'll save that for another post. Now, go no-fly!
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Albert
Albert is my cousin, the youngest son of my dad's older brother Albert (known as Uncle Al), but a significant age difference was between us. So when I was up north in Illinois around the age of 10 or so, visiting my Uncle Al and Aunt Gertrude (you couldn't make this stuff up) with my dad, Albert would sometimes drop by to say hi.
This one visit sticks out, and I've only just recalled it within the past year or so. But I remember my dad and Albert talking about the world's state of affairs, as men of a certain age do, talking with some authority that they somehow are steering the world away from catastrophe with every sentence. I was sitting a few feet away, at the dining room table, drawing freehand interpretations of works in Al and Gertrude's huge book of Leonardo da Vinci. I loved that book. At any rate, at one point Albert said something that caught my attention, I can't remember what, but I do remember that I looked up from my drawing and asked him what he meant.
He was standing by the table, and he turned to me, put his hands on the table, and shaking his head ever so slightly in a resigned way, he looked me square in the eyes and told me that the world wouldn't last another 50 years at the rate we were going. I remember being shocked and scared. What did he mean? The words he used escape me, but it was clear he was talking about pollution, which was a big deal in the 80s, and also excessive use of the earth's resources. How fast the world would use available resources has always been to debate. People in the 80s, or before even, thought they'd be gone by 2000. That was wrong, obviously, but on the grand scale of things, not completely off the mark. We're closing in on something called "Peak Everything", where demand of all resources exceeds supply (Peak Everything does though fall under the current paradigm, and only worries me insomuch that we don't collectively stage a revolution and change everything about the way we do things, creating a new paradigm, which I think we just might will).
I've seen Albert many times since, latest at my dad's funeral in 2001. He'd gotten married, and had a kid since that episode I mentioned. But the weird thing, looking back, is that he hadn't changed anything. He flew in to the funeral, showed off his new wife and her expensive purse and shoes, bragged about his latest automobile purchase, you know, just went along with the business as usual model. So despite him prophesying the end of all things because of the way we do things, he does nothing, save adding to the problem, and even having a kid who will be alive when it all happens.
I'd love to retrospectively take it all with a grain of salt. Partially because Albert wasn't probably any more well-read on the subject than my dad, gleaning only from what mass media fed him, possibly drawing the odd conclusion from it all once in a blue moon. But at the same time, it really pisses me off that an adult, arguably a role model for the generation after him, shows so little interest and action in changing "The Way Things Are". And despite him being a harbinger of things to come himself.
As I mentioned, I was around 10 at the time. Albert gave us another 50 years. I'm 33 now. That leaves around 27 years left, according to him. And depending on how you look at it, that's not quite wrong. I'll leave you to go google about ice caps melting, peak oil, etc., but we're hardly going to enjoy our lifestyles as they are now for another 27 years before things go awry.
Admittedly, I haven't seen Albert since 2001, so I don't know if he's changed his lifestyle accordingly, or does anything to actively change things aside from that. But I'm reaching the conclusion that if you identify a glitch between the way you live your life, and the way your own life is supported by our ecosystems, I strongly suggest you heed that conclusion, instead of merely identifying it.
In conclusion, I'm angry at an entire generation for having latently harbored the knowledge that is scaring the wits out of my generation and the ones after this. I'm angry for the inaction of thousands, millions even. I think life was too comfortable for them to question, or change. And those who did were probably just deemed hippie dissidents. I'm angry that my kids are footing the ultimate bill for a party they're not going to enjoy. I'm not just scared of the future. I'm angry about it.
This one visit sticks out, and I've only just recalled it within the past year or so. But I remember my dad and Albert talking about the world's state of affairs, as men of a certain age do, talking with some authority that they somehow are steering the world away from catastrophe with every sentence. I was sitting a few feet away, at the dining room table, drawing freehand interpretations of works in Al and Gertrude's huge book of Leonardo da Vinci. I loved that book. At any rate, at one point Albert said something that caught my attention, I can't remember what, but I do remember that I looked up from my drawing and asked him what he meant.
He was standing by the table, and he turned to me, put his hands on the table, and shaking his head ever so slightly in a resigned way, he looked me square in the eyes and told me that the world wouldn't last another 50 years at the rate we were going. I remember being shocked and scared. What did he mean? The words he used escape me, but it was clear he was talking about pollution, which was a big deal in the 80s, and also excessive use of the earth's resources. How fast the world would use available resources has always been to debate. People in the 80s, or before even, thought they'd be gone by 2000. That was wrong, obviously, but on the grand scale of things, not completely off the mark. We're closing in on something called "Peak Everything", where demand of all resources exceeds supply (Peak Everything does though fall under the current paradigm, and only worries me insomuch that we don't collectively stage a revolution and change everything about the way we do things, creating a new paradigm, which I think we just might will).
I've seen Albert many times since, latest at my dad's funeral in 2001. He'd gotten married, and had a kid since that episode I mentioned. But the weird thing, looking back, is that he hadn't changed anything. He flew in to the funeral, showed off his new wife and her expensive purse and shoes, bragged about his latest automobile purchase, you know, just went along with the business as usual model. So despite him prophesying the end of all things because of the way we do things, he does nothing, save adding to the problem, and even having a kid who will be alive when it all happens.
I'd love to retrospectively take it all with a grain of salt. Partially because Albert wasn't probably any more well-read on the subject than my dad, gleaning only from what mass media fed him, possibly drawing the odd conclusion from it all once in a blue moon. But at the same time, it really pisses me off that an adult, arguably a role model for the generation after him, shows so little interest and action in changing "The Way Things Are". And despite him being a harbinger of things to come himself.
As I mentioned, I was around 10 at the time. Albert gave us another 50 years. I'm 33 now. That leaves around 27 years left, according to him. And depending on how you look at it, that's not quite wrong. I'll leave you to go google about ice caps melting, peak oil, etc., but we're hardly going to enjoy our lifestyles as they are now for another 27 years before things go awry.
Admittedly, I haven't seen Albert since 2001, so I don't know if he's changed his lifestyle accordingly, or does anything to actively change things aside from that. But I'm reaching the conclusion that if you identify a glitch between the way you live your life, and the way your own life is supported by our ecosystems, I strongly suggest you heed that conclusion, instead of merely identifying it.
In conclusion, I'm angry at an entire generation for having latently harbored the knowledge that is scaring the wits out of my generation and the ones after this. I'm angry for the inaction of thousands, millions even. I think life was too comfortable for them to question, or change. And those who did were probably just deemed hippie dissidents. I'm angry that my kids are footing the ultimate bill for a party they're not going to enjoy. I'm not just scared of the future. I'm angry about it.
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