Climate Disasters Are Here, and Worse Predicted to Come

I was fishing in Canada, and took a lunch break in a lodge where I sat beside two men in heated conversation. I wrote about this in my September 6, 2018 post. One was jilted by an attractive woman, and ranted about the injustice. The other listened awhile then said, "Look around!" In other words, "Notice reality around you." Similarly, fossil fuels have been attractive, yet deadly. I mean, "Look around!" at recent climate-related events: Maui, California, Washington State, Florida, Vermont, Phoenix, Kelowna B.C., Indonesia, Slovenia, Tenerife, Beijing, Niger, Algeria, Morocco, Norway, Chile and Argentina. 

What should one do? I like Joanna Macy's story about Thich Nhat Hanh at the start of this video, "When he was asked, 'What's the most important thing we can do for the sake of life on Earth?' And I think his questioners were asking, you know, should we work in the system, or sit on a zafu, or meditate, or climb the barricades? [ . . . . ] He said, 'What we most need to do is to hear within ourselves the sounds of the Earth crying.'"

Nhat Hanh's advice seems like a good first step to help people know where to go, and what to do.

Al Gore "Hot and Bothered" About Big Oil's "Carbon Capture and Storage" and "Direct Air Capture" Plans

August 17, 2023 Update -- CBS News anchor Errol Barnett interviewed Washington Post reporter Evan Halper about the multibillion dollar "Giant Direct Air Capture Vacuums" being built in Texas and Louisiana, and planned for other states. Halper said, "You just need to look outside to know the situation is desperate, and [ . . . ] we're way behind where we need to be in terms of cutting emissions, in terms of transitioning away from fossil fuels, and so we're looking at these other kind of moonshot ideas [ . . . . ] There is a case to be made that they can be part of a solution, but [ . . . ] on the flip side there is worry [ . . . ] these technologies that don't really even work yet are going to give people a sense of complacency that [ . . . ] there is a technological solution to this, and lifestyles don't need to be changed, and this is getting figured out when it really isn't." In response, I agree with Al Gore and former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao below. Tao said, "Any form of direct air capture by industrial method will not be able to work at scale, and to make a measurable impact to the climate crisis in less than several centuries of time. The basic reason is the process of demixing the air is a highly energy-intensive process. Just imagine if you had to separate a pile of well-mixed salt and pepper [ . . . . ]"

In other words, the Vacuums seem as crazy as the "BASH operation fails" scene in the film Don't Look Up -- except this time the stakes are real life. It was amusing/terrifying, in a tragicomedy-way, when Barnett asked Halper in the CBS News Vacuum story above, "This is the kind of thing that sounds like a joke, right? Is this a parody? I'm wondering are we out of ideas as far as just putting less CO2 into the atmosphere?"

Similarly, in Gore's TED Talk above at 14:05, he shows what looks like long pillow cases behind a Direct Air Capture Vacuum. Gore says, "This is state of the art. Looks pretty impressive, doesn't it?" Audience laughter can be heard, to which Gore replies, "I had the same thought. [ . . . . ] They're improving this, and [in] the new model seven years from now each of these machines is going to be able to capture 27 seconds worth of annual emissions."

President Biden should have listened to Gore's recent angry TED Talk before Biden continued to support "$1.2 billion to help build the nation’s first two commercial-scale plants to vacuum carbon dioxide pollution" as quoted by New York Times reporter Coral Davenport August 11, 2023. She added, "The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law included $3.5 billion to fund the construction of four commercial-scale direct air capture plants. Friday’s announcement covered the first two." Davenport summarized Gore's above TED Talk, "Gore gave a blistering critique of direct air capture technology, calling its use a 'moral hazard' that would enable fossil fuel producers to continue to pollute. [par break] 'It’s useful to give them an excuse for not ever stopping oil,' he said. 'That gives them a license to continue producing more and more oil and gas.' [par break] Mr. Gore noted that the current cost of direct air capture technology was extraordinarily high and that the process required so much energy that it would make more sense to prevent carbon emissions in the first place rather than try to clean them up after the fact. Oil and gas companies say that the costs will fall and that the processes will improve in the coming years."

Regarding that last sentence above, in my February 19, 2022 post, I quoted former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao, "Any form of direct air capture by industrial method will not be able to work at scale, and to make a measurable impact to the climate crisis in less than several centuries of time. The basic reason is the process of demixing the air is a highly energy-intensive process. Just imagine if you had to separate a pile of well-mixed salt and pepper. So to create order out of disorder takes a lot of energy, and that is guaranteed by the laws of thermodynamics. So it doesn't really matter how much engineering you put onto it. We need an operation the size of the U. S. Military six thousand years [ . . . ] to really achieve what these companies are calling for."

Al Gore should have ended his TED Talk with a more angry, "DIVEST NOW!" He should have mentioned the need to "Dynamite The Energy Charter Treaty" noted by Dr Julia Steinberger July 9, 2023 at Nick Breeze ClimateGenn. Steinberger noted, "[Big Oil companies] have been acting in such a way that their social license should be removed." Céline Keller's comic book Dawn Of The ECT, available in multiple languages, was highlighted.

President Biden must listen to former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao.

Last week I told a professor about Michael Mann's October 2020 claim, as noted 24:35 in Gore's TED Talk, "Once the world reaches net zero CO2 emissions global temperatures will stop increasing in as soon as three to five years." Crossing tipping points, it seems, may make this a missed opportunity. 

Regarding level of crisis, writer/editor Jeff Goodell said in a Jul 21, 2023 Ten Across video at 40:47 geoengineering is "a very dangerous idea [ . . . ] a lot of people tell me personally I should not be talking about, and [ . . . . ] we don't know how things will go, if this will mess up the monsoons that bring water for millions of people in Asia. It could have all kinds of unexpected consequences, but I think that it's an important thing to talk about openly because we are moving in that direction. I think it's an important thing to have good legitimate scientists really looking at it so we understand better what the risks are, and I think it's emblematic of the really dumb stuff we may be doing as this emergency gets deeper and deeper, and clearer and clearer. And we're going in that direction. It's a doable thing, and I kind of think, to be honest, it's inevitable for better or for worse. And that's a very scary thought."

It was reported by DW News, August 24, 2022, China used geoengineering, as the country said it would, in a desperate effort to save it's 2022 fall harvest.

I'm grateful The Washington Post reporter Kate Selig wrote August 14, 2023, "Judge rules in favor of Montana youths in landmark climate decision." She noted, it's "the first ruling of its kind nationwide," and "The ruling could influence how judges handle similar cases in other states." My June 5, 2023 post noted, "Juliana v. United States filed by Our Children’s Trust is back on. According to a June 1, 2023 Associated Press article at columbian.com, the 2015 suit was heard by 'A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [that] dismissed the case in 2020 after finding that [U.S. District Court Judge] Aiken lacked the power to order or design a climate recovery plan sought in the lawsuit. [par break] The plaintiffs then filed an amended complaint asking to change their lawsuit to seek a ruling that the nation’s fossil fuel-based energy system is unconstitutional.'"

Amazon Rainforest, Global Coral Reefs, and Bukowski

May 11, 2023, NASA scientist Peter Kalmus wrote, "I was just at a NASA team meeting for 3 days in DC. The scientific findings are so fucked up. Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know." I thought, In addition to loss of all those animal, bird, fish, plant, and insect species, all those gorgeous living colors, unknown-by-us medicines and foods, what are the estimated 400 Amazon rainforest tribes supposed to do?

This reminds me of when the very conservative IPCC reported October 8, 2018, in section B.4.2. of its SPECIAL REPORT: GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5 ºC -- Summary for Policymakers, "Coral reefs, for example, are projected to decline [ . . . ] (>99%) at 2°C (very high confidence)." I wrote in my November 24, 2019 post, "I have seen pushback claiming humanity is not in a climate crisis, but tell that to the estimated 500 million to 1 billion people depending on those coral reefs for food and/or jobs that will clearly be lost unless some miracle science, not yet invented, saves them." 

In my April 12, 2023 post I quoted former Harvard Fellow Ye Tao, "two degrees is already passed [no matter what we do]" and "At three degrees C [above year 1850 baseline] we're talking about planetary scale biological annihilation of any multicellular species [ . . . ]"

Raised in Oregon, I have a strong emotional connection to nature as in the Amazon rainforest and coral reefs. I could sit in a corner and cry for a thousand years, but I don't think that would help. In one of my most-visted posts, "PLAYA Climate Change Discussion July 7, 2016," I imagined the Ghost of Bukowski saying near an Eastern Oregon stream, "we must find/some way//to make joy/no matter what."

One writer said to me something like, "Okay, so maybe we will lose many things, but we will adapt. Life goes on. Get over it."  It seems cruel to say those things to Amazon tribes, island nations, Oregonians, and all those living close to nature. I recall poet Ted Hughes described the silvery side of a steelhead trout he had just caught as "metabolism of stars." Contrast this with blind pale fish in caves. What kind of world are we leaving for the newly born and yet unborn? What, if anything, can be saved? How do we "make joy/no matter what"? Rumi said, "Look for the answer inside your question."

Climate Resilience Hubs, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Abrahm Lustgarten Reports "present pathway [ . . . . ] could lead to 2 billion people falling outside of the climate niche within just the next eight years, and 3.7 billion doing so by 2090"

Erin Stone reported July 31, 2023, at laist.com/news "How Resilience Hubs Can Help Communities Face The Heat And The Climate Emergency." Her article noted, "In 2021, the state [of California] launched the Community Resilience Centers program to support and speed up resilience hub efforts [ . . . . ] [It was] originally allocated $160 million, [but] has already seen significant cuts — the first round makes $98 million available and there’s no guarantee the program will continue, said Amar Azucena Cid, a deputy director with the Strategic Growth Council."

Stone added, "These are buildings that are already well-used and trusted in a community, that can provide helpful resources outside of air conditioning, water and some board games to play. They’re retrofitted with solar panels and battery power so they can ride out a disaster." Climate Resolve Resilience Coordinator Andres Rodriguez was quoted about one hub, "It's a cooling space, but it's also a healing space."

In my September 9, 2022 letter about preparing for climate refugees at The Columbian, the main newspaper for Vancouver, Washington, I wrote, "Some things to consider: cooling centers, vacant lots into gardens, community-building workshops." Resilience hubs Stone noted have the first, third, and more.

Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental reporter Abrahm Lustgarten wrote June 6, 2023, at propublica.org, "Climate change is remapping where humans can exist on the planet. As optimum conditions shift away from the equator and toward the poles, more than 600 million people have already been stranded outside of a crucial environmental niche that scientists say best supports life. By late this century, according to a study published last month in the journal Nature Sustainability, 3 to 6 billion people, or between a third and a half of humanity, could be trapped outside of that zone, facing extreme heat, food scarcity and higher death rates, unless emissions are sharply curtailed or mass migration is accommodated." 

Lustgarten added, "According to the study, India will have, by far, the greatest population outside of the climate niche. At current rates of warming, the researchers estimate that more than 600 million Indians will be affected, six times more than if the Paris targets were achieved. In Nigeria, more than 300 million citizens will be exposed, seven times more than if emissions were steeply cut. Indonesia could see 100 million people fall out of a secure and predictable environment, the Philippines and Pakistan 80 million people each, and so on. Brazil, Australia and India would see the greatest area of land become less habitable. But in many smaller countries, all or nearly all the land would become nearly unlivable by traditional measures: Burkina Faso, Mali, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Niger. Although facing far more modest impacts, even the United States will see its South and Southwest fall toward the hottest end of the niche, leading to higher mortality and driving internal migration northward."

My May 10, 2023 post, "1939 'Voyage of the Damned' and Climate Migration," included Lustgarten's interview in the May 24, 2021 video The Great Climate Migration Has Begun | Amanpour and Company.

You may have heard, according to Graham Readfearn at The Guardian, July 29, 2023, and others, "[In Antarctica] an area bigger than Mexico has failed to freeze, worrying scientists." Jess Thomson reported at newsweek.com July 26, 2023, "Eliot Jacobson, a retired professor of mathematics and computer science, using data from Japan's National Institute of Polar Research" noted, the recent Antarctic melt is "about a 1-in-2.7[million] year event."

Antarctic melt, Arctic melt, Greenland melt, North Atlantic heat, and the AMOC possibly stopping "between 2025 and 2095, with a central estimate of 2050," according to The Guardian's Damian Carrington, July 25, 2023, make "Strange days indeed,"as John Lennon sang in "Nobody Told Me." 

It is sad global leaders are not focused on immediate solutions. Instead, the COP process and U.S. Congress seem to be missing an area "bigger than Mexico" from their consciousness, and text in official decisions. Increasing fears abound about Artifical Intelligence, but it is this Artifical Stupidity for short-term profit that concerns me. It reminds me of resistance to reality of THE VERY OLD CARDINAL in Bertolt Brecht's 1938 play Life of Galileo: "I am not just any old creature on any insignificant star briefly circling in no particular place. I am walking, with a firm step, on a fixed earth, it is motionless, it is the centre of the universe, I am at the centre and the eye of the Creator falls upon me and me alone. Round about me, attached to eight crystal spheres, revolve the fixed stars and the mighty sun which has been created to light my surroundings. And myself too, that God may see me. In this way everything comes visibly and incontrovertibly to depend on me, mankind, God's great effort, the creature on whom it all centres, made in God's own image, indestructible and . . . He collapses."

I'm grateful The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) supported my new book BRIDGE AT THE END OF THE WORLD, San Diego Reader posted five poems from the book August 4, 2023, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Masters of Advanced Studies Program in Climate Science and Policy invited me to teach an ecopoetry workshop a fifth year. Here is a post about a workshop there in 2019.

Given recent climate news, I will repost a quote from Oregon author Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion) in a 1993 letter to Allen Ginsberg: "Ancient Advice Left in cave by Wise French Caveman: 'When Bigbad Shit come, no run scream hide. Try paint picture of it on wall. Drum to it. Sing to it. Dance to it. This give you handle on it.' So Twister is my try."