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This article is about the arrangement of chairs on the Titanic. For the western 20 states, severe drought is going to affect all 90 million people in the harshest sense. It will cause civil unrest and strife. The wealthiest 15% will not avoid severe repercussions when 85% run out of drinking water and food. Climate change in the Western US is an existential crisis for all of us. It could dislocate 10s of millions of people in the West.
Yes I agree the inequality of the suffering is maybe not the most helpful angle, but climate change is a situation that is going to get much worse and maybe never get better.
What I do know is I built my own solar array and battery backup. Lead acid batteries and solar panels…with the proper stimulus from govt. and a willing population we could make those items sustainably (or at least 1000 times more sustainably than petrochemical pipe/nipple energy). People will be forced to live a much reduced energy existence, if not completely driven back into pre-industrial paradigm. If we want any communication and information and some very basic amenities, producing the power where it is consumed is necessary. Solar provides shade and can cover buildings, depots, stations, and the tops of buses, trains, trucks. No emissions except the manufacture process.
Every process makes heat. No process makes cold.
Every fuel, other than nuclear, consumes vast amounts of oxygen and produces large amounts of emissions. So I do not see hydrogen or natural gas as long-term solutions and it is just as easy to retrofit for renewable electricity as to try to re-fit petrol technology to hydrogen or nat. gas.
We’re just so screwed. There’s another whole story about how trailer parks lock people into a cycle of debt and poverty that they can never escape. Everyone should read the book “Ministry of the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson. It addresses places like Thermal. One of the key concepts is that the super rich are literally making life impossible for everyone else. There’s enough money and energy around for everyone but its so unevenly distributed. One of the characters observes that people are more comfortable contemplating the destruction of the planet than the destruction of Capitalism.
Am I a simpleton for thinking that efficient solar power & support for insulation/weatherization could mitigate (I know, not solve) the immediate crisis?
After 30 years in New England, I returned to my California hometown, surprised and disappointed to find effectively zero weatherization or energy efficiency programs for homeowners and landlords.
I am not totally despairing. I think most people either care about this or can learn to care about it. There is so much DIY and home improvement, etc. Sorry we can’t address all super-wealthy, well-off, middle class, owners, renters, rural, urban, poor in one comprehensive unified solution. But just about everyone has a roof over them, some own them, some have a shared roof, and some own a roof or two (garages), and all our transit buildings, garages, depots, stations etc. have roofs and so do many of the buses, trains, and trucks…and they sit outside most of the daylight hours.
And we are talking about electricity here…something we already have, and have mastered, and have infrastructure for. Electricity which can pretty efficiently handle our power and locomotion needs except heating. Making heat with electricity has usually been frowned on as an efficient use of electricity. Anyways, this isn’t some hyperfuture method…we already are setup for electricity. If the future savior was a complete change for every human…like some kind of plasma or fiber-optic or liquid fuel or pneumatic based system were required then all the infrastructure needs to be invented first.
Geothermal might be best for heating, but at least some electrical heat can be made without necessarily burning up our oxygen and give off emissions which all other furnaces and fuels require. If the solar PV is used to make the electric heat, it is at least emission and O2 neutral.
ETA: Sorry was rushed, wanted to clean this up a bit…I said lots of people care about this or potentially can/will care. I think there is a ton of home improvement and DYI ambition in your avg. person, and if petrol and utility electricity were to get REALLY pricey folks would be motivated. If it only costs them another $30-40 a month to be really wasteful, they will be. And rich people don’t care, at current rates, how much it costs to light and heat and cool their mansions and 2nd homes and commercial buildings. But even they often see the wisdom once they realize they can cut costs 25-75% at their commercial and rental buildings.
Also wanted to add that cooling and heating doesn’t have to be such a horrible thing if the power is carbon and oxygen neutral…like some geothermal, solar PV, wind, tidal, solarthermal, etc. Have to stop burning things, first and foremost.
Something that seems like a no-brainer to me would be to put PV panels in a canopy over existing mobile and small homes. Besides the shade (which is huge for energy costs), they’d be a barrier against leaks and extend the life of the roofing. RVs often have a patio area on their roofs, and this would be another possibility.
Anyway, it seems we could greatly simplify cheap home construction by putting an insulated box underneath a structure that acts as a rain fly and generates solar power. Pole barns are not exactly cutting edge construction technology.
There’s no easy answer. The entire history of the world is of the well off and well connected abusing the vast majority of humanity to sustain elite lifestyles. The expansion of the middle class worldwide represents a huge step forward in ameliorating that abuse, at least for those of us in the middle class. 200 years ago we’d a been serfs and sharecroppers if we were lucky, if unlucky we’d a been slaves and in an early grave. If we could get organized we could rise up and force the wealthy to pay a lot more of their wealth towards the common good, considering they owe their fortunes to the workers that labored to provide their fortunes they should be happy to pitch in. Sadly many of them don’t feel like they owe anything to anybody. How to solve that problem before climate change takes us all out should be a main priority of local governments everywhere.
“Wouldn’t you be living the dream if you had this?”
And then you’ll be burning in hell.
And when I said up above people will have to live on a reduced energy diet, I don’t really mean too much privation. Should still be able to use the regular household appliances, and a lot of electrical work-saving devices (like a woodshop) and power some pretty heavy machinery just using solar panels on a single family home and especially with a garage.
But we can’t be lighting up Las Vegas and every other blazing city of light, have overnight delivery options for every package or commodity, or be able to drive SUVs and pickups that get 12 miles to the gallon.