He is covering a lot of climate change lately and he had someone one on that made me feel practically positive. The show (and article) is called How to Solve Climate Change and Make Life More Awesome. Link
I must say it was the first thing that has made me feel better in a while. Ezra talks with Saul Griffith. He is a really smart guy (genius grant winner) that the US Government hired to “track and visualize” America’s entire energy flow. Really. He can tell you how much of our energy is used in Airport Runway lights (~0.008), or energy generation or anything.
And he has figured out a couple of things. First, and most importantly, we could go completely renewable pretty easily. He thinks the way to fix this is to de-carbon our economy. That is switch to electric manufacturing, transportation, use heat sinks to heat our homes and limit fossil fuels almost totally. AND he thinks it is relatively easy - at least compared to other things we have done.
Economic choices will not do it. He compares it to the US Highway system, or the Apollo project or the WWII economy. He doesn’t understand how, starting in the 1980s, we forgot how to dream big.
And the tools are here. If we would put solar panels on roofs of buildings and parking lots, plus along the freeways, we could generate as much power as we do now. Adding wind just makes that easier.
He knows there are dense urban areas (New York, Singapore) that may still have to use some fossil fuels, but we can recapture their carbon. It is a longer, more complex topic, but the just is good news. If we have the leaders that demand it. (So, given our current situation, bad news.)
Read it, you might feel better too.
... that is until you read that the current administration is going the other way totally.
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| Because forestry in the Alaskan panhandle is just what we need! |
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