Why are we in such a rush?
Do you worry about climate change?
I do. Not for myself but for my grandkids and the world’s poor. They’re the ones who will suffer most and worst if we mess up.
Some think we’ve already have, that even if we quit burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the CO2 we’ve already pumped into Earth’s wafer-thin atmosphere will linger for decades. Worse, that some unknown tipping point will trigger unstoppable climate catastrophe. Others think we’ll find a fix, in time.
Me, I trawl the news for signs of hope. On good days I think, maybe alternate energy – wind turbines, solar panels, tidal power, hydrogen cells – will save the ship after all.
On bad days I think, are we nuts? Yes, alt-energy is great, but so far it only works when the wind blows or the sun shines. Tidal? Anyone’s guess. Yes, fracked natural gas is cleaner but fracking causes local earthquakes, leaks methane (30 times more potent than CO2 while it lasts) and may poison well water. Electric cars sound nice but will recharging millions of them each night – never mind billions of laptops, smart phones, etc., 24/7 – overtax our mostly oil-fired grids?
I realize many doubt climate change is real. Fortunately, most climate scientists disagree, citing facts like:
100,000-year-old ice cores prove human-caused (non-volcanic) atmospheric CO2 started climbing during Europe’s coalbased, late-1700s Industrial Revolution;
Polar ice and mountain glaciers are melting at unheard-of rates, raising sea levels;
Worldwide, 2010-15 were the hottest years since weather recording began in 1881 and 2016 may top 2015.
The carbon overhead doesn’t lie. This gas, like a solar greenhouse’s ultra-thin plastic film, does trap heat, especially when mixed with methane from now rapidly thawing arctic permafrost.
The upshot, to paraphrase Canadian activist Naomi Klein, isn’t some minor issue like the price of beer. It’s a global tragedy spoken in the language of floods, cold snaps, drought, epic snowfalls, killer heat and cold waves, hurricanes, dying reefs, extinctions, massive wildfires and rising seas.
Don’t we get it? It’s Mother Earth kicking back. But we, like the Titanic’s wealthy waltzers, deem the ship unsinkable. It is – but we aren’t. Earth can manage fine without us – again.
Nowhere is this disconnect more stark than on our highways. Drive Hwy 102 between here and Halifax and it’s like a stampede of paramedics rushing to some disaster.
The speed limit is still 110 km/h but try obeying it! To clock the speedsters I sometimes speed up, join the main herd at 125 – only to be passed by those pushing 150.
Fun, risky, illegal; but what’s that got to do with climate change?
Plenty. Above 90 km/h or so, wind drag and road friction mostly cancel the benefits of aerodynamic car design and smarter engines. Even ultra-streamlined aircraft suffer from wind drag; half the cost of flying is fuel.
Fuel-wise, at 150 km/h you might as well be driving a 1950s clunker.
And while today’s chief culprits are fuel-guzzling RVs and tractortrailers, you and I, by sheer numbers, share the blame. Though road traffic accounts for only 25 per cent of overall CO2 emissions – agri-business alone is higher – the toll is still substantial.
What to do? Lowering the national speed limit, as U.S. President Nixon did during the 1973 OPEC oil boycott, would likely cause riots and roadblocks. Higher emission standards? President Carter tried that but unwisely exempted commercial vans and trucks, leaving Detroit a loophole to breed today’s profitable horde of thirsty SUVs and pickups.
No, today’s first priority is to re-educate drivers by fining and shaming those foolhardy roadrunners. Second, stop widening highways. Sure more paving means more votes, and four-laners are safer, up to a point. Beyond that, they just spawn more traffic, more speed and more deadly pileups.
Finally, let’s all drive less and slower, carpool more, opt for public transit, fly less (a loaded 747 emits one tonne of CO2 /passenger-mile), ride to work more, walk more. We’ll be safer, healthier, calmer and richer for it.
Otherwise we’ll keep on ramping up velocity until our once-peaceful highways feel like Ontario’s roaring 401 or America’s dire 95. Let’s not be like the nutbar at a climate summit who got up and asked, “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?” .