From The Middle

Environment/Global Warming

I have had had a hard time accepting the concept of global warming since it was first proposed years ago.  The main reason I had a problem was because I then worked for an airline – at an airport.  This is where the official thermometers for the National Weather Service are located – giant concrete fields, giant “heat sinks”!  Driving home after work I could clearly feel the temperature drop as I got about 3 miles from the airport.  My home, about 5 miles from the airport as the crow flies, was consistently 6-10 degrees cooler than the official temperature.

Despite the popular success of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth with all it’s emotional scenes, the science is not confirmed.  See http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ from a respected former NOAA (National Oceanic/Atmospheric Association) official.  Research the “Climategate” hacked e-mails from the supposed scientists championing the human-global warming connection.  The question of whether our climate is changing any more or less than what it has done for thousands of years, and, if so, what is the cause, is not determined.

This is why I feel that the politicians, Hollywood and the media are, as usual, focusing in the wrong direction.  What we should be focusing on is the simple answers instead of the complex.

While our Industrial Age has helped mankind, particularly the United States, to develop more new products, chemicals and processes in the last 60 years than in all of the history of mankind combined, we have not taken a long term view of any of it.  Instead, we only looked at the short term – can we make money off this now.

When we found oil and then developed the internal combustion engine (and the electric starter), it was cheap and could be sold to the masses at large profits.  How much research was done on the long-term effects of this?  Little or none.  Why?  Because that is not how Americans think.  Because no one then envisioned just how many millions of vehicles would be using these in the next 50 years, therefore, no one thought about the consequences.

So what is the answer?  It is two-fold: First we must begin to think longer term – we must wean ourselves of the instant gratification that has overtaken our society.  There is the story (I can not confirm if it is true) of the delegation of American business executives who visited Japan in the late 1960’s and had the then unique opportunity to ask questions of a senior Japanese business executive.  One question asked was what period of time does the Japanese business plan cover?  The answer, 300 years!  I know of no major American business that can think beyond the next dividend date (90 days).  If you remember, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, the Japanese started beating American businesses at their own games.

Second, we must adopt the Native American approach of revering and protecting “Mother Earth”.  Unfortunately, Americans, and most humans, only react to what they are able to see, touch, hear, feel, or smell.  When our rivers and lakes started to look bad and smell bad we reacted by enacting legislation to protect them – the key word being REACT.  We can’t sense CO2.  But intuitively we know that pumping millions of tons of what comes out of our tailpipes and smokestacks into our atmosphere is not a good thing. So why not adopt the Socratic Oath of “Do No Harm” when developing new products, chemicals, and processes?

If every company would do an Earth Impact Analysis (EIA) on every new product that looks at the total impact on the Earth from raw material acquisition through manufacturing and distribution to disposal for at least 50 years out, I believe our environment will last a lot longer.  I am a very strong proponent of electric vehicles.  But, has anyone looked at the Earth Impact of substituting lithium for oil?  Where does it come from?  What do we have to do to the earth to get it?  Is it recyclable?  If not, how will we dispose of it?

Take another example – hydrogen cars.  I spent 20 years in Minnesota.  Apparently no one working on this concept is north of the Mason-Dixon line, because the only by-product of a hydrogen car is water vapor!  Has anyone thought through the impact of putting thousands of gallons of water vapor on Minnesota roads in winter will be?

If every consumer makes their buying decisions based on the same approach, the pollutants will disappear.  However, this will require a massive cultural and educational change from our “Instant Gratification” culture of today.

If we can stop acting like Chicken Little, and start acting like responsible stewards of our air, land and water by looking at long term consequences, we can solve our environmental problems.  What would happen if each of us was required to bury all our non-recyclable trash in our own back yards?  If you parked all the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles in your city or town next to each other and turned them all on, would you stand in the middle and breathe the air?

We do not know all the causes of environmental change.  But, we do know that we can be better stewards of Mother Earth.