Climate Change Essay
George Carlin said in one of his shows: “The planet is fine; the people are f**d”. He was talking about climate activism. There seems to be a lot of concern about the earth, and we are constanly hearing a lot about climate change. Before that it was global warming, and before that global cooling. Let’s see if we can set the record straight. The biggest institution promoting the concerns about climate change is the United Nations. The issue is defined as the changes in shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, and since the industrial revolution [we are lead to believe] the primary cause is the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Huge efforts are made to try to control the temperature of the planet. This is mainly done by controlling carbon. So what is carbon dioxide? A trace element of the atmosphere, right now the measurement is 0.042%. It is what we and animals exhale and what plants need to live. Of course, most of it is naturally made by plants, animals, oceans, etc. and about 3% is man-made. That is to say the amoount of 0.00126% is causing all these troubles! Water vapor is a more important greenhouse gas [meaning it create the warming effect]. It varies from 0.01 to over 4% depending on the temperature.
Now, when it comes to energy, “fossil fuel” is what allowed first world countries to develop; a cheap source of energy in combination with ingenuity in production lead the world into prosperity, then two war worlds and now various conflicts with oil rich countries. Wars against Arab countries have calmed down (except in Gaza); now, it is the war with Russia in Ukraine. A possible future war is against China, as she is the largest consumers of energy. What once was great for western countries is now being demonized and attempts are made to right out do away with it by 2050, all in the name of saving the world. Our earth is being polluted by all sort of industrial chemicals, natural environments destroyed in many way, but that doesn’t seem to be much of a concern. Just to give an example, gold mining is vary destructive to the environment and populations living close to the mines, but that’s not a big deal, so long as the gold is sent to western countries.
A recent factor affecting energy is the implementation of AI into everything. To train the machines a huge amount of energy is used. The demand is so big that the largest tech companies are starting to embrace nuclear energy to keep up with demand. Governments are aiding tech companies in the ever increasing numbers of data centers training the AI models. Isn’t there a double standard when it comes to energy use? Well, there are always double standards, but our news media fail to inform us about them.
But what is really the problem? Will 1 or 2 degrees in higher temperature really be that bad? It will probably be just fine for most of all, if it even comes to that (maybe it never happens). We can adapt easily to big temperature changes, but propaganda is very effective, and so common sense is left behind. We hear a lot about the prefabricated solutions like carbon tax, carbon credits etc. Not even “green” alternatives are appealing to people. Despite being highly promoted, people just don’t like electric cars. We can be certain those solution seek to control through higher prices.
Going back to what Carlin said. We haven’t even learned to take care of each other, we most certainly don’t know how to save the earth. In Germany, they stopped buying gas from Russia, and they are now buying more expensive gas from other countries. A big strain for most of people of that country. The result will be the same (or worst still) for billions of people around the world with climate policies. There are many pollution problems affecting not only the environment but human health, but we hear little about it. The climate issue is more about competition and control. Little to no concern about the earth or human wellness. It is business as usual disguised in altruistic rhetoric.