It’s happening again
Remember the tobacco industry and their denials or the fertilizer companies that told us their products were safe?
How about our governments that told us air pollution in our cities was just harmless haze and now we have our president telling us climate change is just a big hoax and the thousands of scientific studies giving evidence to our warming earth are just make believe.
For decades the oil companies have denied any harm and have been friendly to the political process to keep doing what they have been doing.
An article in the Herald-Standard on Sept. 10 entitled “How to waste $9 trillion to not ‘save the planet'” written by a former Trump economic adviser did bring out some good points. The main theme was the amount of money we will need to combat the climate problem and I agree that a warming climate will cost money, lots of it.
When thinking about costs, ask the owners of the buildings and homes being washed into the seas as the rising waters knock on their doors. How about the hundreds of thousands who die each year from heat or the thousands of homes and buildings burned to the ground as the fires rage through their neighborhoods.
What about the buildings swept away each year in hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and relentless storms? How much is a life worth? What does a funeral cost for those who are killed in these events and what about the rising cost of insurance to protect our properties in these hazard prone areas?
And then there are the emotional costs associated with these losses, rebuilding, moving, jobs, starting over.
Here is what we do know.
Every storm is not caused by our warming climate but many of these storms are worse because of the increased energy in our atmosphere.
It’s a rather simple equation. When the Industrial revolution began our CO2 level was 280 ppm. Today it is 415 ppm. A warmer atmosphere produces warmers waters and warmer waters are the fuel for more frequent and stronger storms.
It’s happening again, however this time we humans have been able to accomplish what Mother Nature used to take millions of years to bring about. Don’t forget at one time dinosaurs roamed our neighborhoods and during the cold phase of Mother Earth the ice sheets were as far south as Moraine State Park, just 40 miles north of Pittsburgh. The ice at Hudson Bay was two miles thick.
I am a strong believer that mankind will find the answers and the mitigation endeavors to protect humans from the wrath of our warming climate. One must also factor in new areas being made available to humanity from new farming techniques and new lands that were not available before a warmer climate.
New and improved buildings are possible and use of good, old, human common sense may help us to keep ourselves and our structures out of harm’s way.
AI will surely play a big role. Yes, it will cost more but in the long run humanity will benefit from getting the politics out of the equation and figuring out how to survive and prosper.
We owe it to our children and future generations.