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Climate Change and a Rubber Tree Plant
Ignore the Climate Doomers who say it is too late to make a difference.
When I use the term “Climate Change” I am referring to AWG (Anthropogenic global warming), global warming-induced climate changes caused by human activity. It’s the warming of the atmosphere that causes changes, often dangerous ones. So, I use “Climate Change” as a quick way to refer to AWG.
We’re all familiar with Frank Sinatra 1959classic, High Hopes. It tells a metaphorical story wherein animals attempt impossible feats: an ant goes up against a ‘rubber tree plant’ and a ram tries to punch a hole in a ‘billion-kilowatt dam’. An ant can’t take down a rubber tree plant and a ram can’t punch a hole in a dam. Those goals were unattainable ‘pie in the sky‘ hopes.
It is too late to stop some of the worst effects of global warming; they are ‘baked in,’. Climate change is here and getting worse by the day. If the fossil fuel industry, which accounts for more than seventy percent of all CO2 emissions, loses its multi-trillion-dollar taxpayer subsidies and special regulatory treatment, and is forced to compete with renewable energy sources, the consumer’s cost of electricity would rise in the short-term but then see a decrease in the long-term as economy of scale of reduces the cost of new, clean sources of electrical power. Then the need for fossil fuel sourced electricity will be reduced and eventually eliminated.
And that transition from fossil fuels to renewables is what leads some to say it is too late to stop Climate Change so why bother with individual actions; if the worst contributors are not eliminated, the fight is lost. And that is true. But not the end of the story.
Despite the bleak outlook, don’t simply allow people, I’d call them Doomers, (including several excellent, knowledgeable writers here on Medium) convince you to despair over the accelerating, deadly climate changes, to convince you is too late to stop some of the worst of the predictions (it is, and many of those effects are already being felt, years sooner than expected).
If the main drivers of global warming are not fully addressed, then our future is indeed one of doom and gloom.
Regardless of what is done, we will still have raging wildfires, once in a…
