We know we are altering the planet in ways that are to fast for anything ( including ourselves ) to adapt to.
But we do not except it.
Like a child that refuses to except something because they just do not like the answer.
On a societal level we are a children ( even if the most clinical of us see the problem for what it is and try to change ).
Group think abounds…
But it exists with self doubt and denial and truth all locked together preventing us from doing anything until something ( usually external ) comes to break the dead lock.
Edits…
I am just going to trim all the fat out of this post and leave it at point.
Recreational vehicles have always concered me. Just turn on one of the Saturday morning fishing shows, all you see are grossly overpowered boats flying over the water at 40 mph. Just kicking up a damaging wake, and frightening every living thing within a mile, including any peaceful paddlers. People are unconscious worshipers of anything in excess. If you examine a lake with much boat activity, loons and other water birds tend to be scarce.
Another issue with recreational motoring is that it allows people without skill or respect for nature to get into places they would otherwise never bother to go. Sometimes they get stuck in bad situations requiring rescue. Generally if you can get somewhere under your own physical power you can also get out.
Regarding ATV’s, I see them causing heavy damage. The mentality of most users has no respect for the natural world, except as a setting for ripping and roaring, the favourite activity being finding mud holes in trails, then making them worse in the hopes of taking turns getting stuck. Over time the trails become so damaged as to be impassable, then the drivers continually branch out causing greater damage. I feel this is unacceptable given that much of this occurs on public lands.
But in reality it’s personal automobiles that account for nearly all vehicle environmental damage around the globe. Paving (ribbons of petroleum), and destruction of habitat for roads, and all the emissions and energy inputs to produce and run personal automobiles are a very heavy cost to the planet and mostly a needless waste of very valuable resources. Truth be told, much personal driving is discretionary and convenience or entertainment motivated. The trends of development of personal vehicle design seem to have far more to do with bragging rights and social measuring than practical need. We have built our entire society around the assumption of personal vehicles and near free energy to drive them.
We live in cottage country where the jet ski power boat atv and snowmobile are worshipped. On top of that is the inevitable large truck to pull toys. They add dollars to the area but I dislike them intensely. The bright spot I see is that should we ever figure out how much trouble we are in they represent an incredible amount of low hanging fruit for trimming our energy needs. Every tended lawn is a garden, every hobby horse farm is pasture that can be converting sun into meat, every doubled up car is 50%less fossil fuels consumed. Every toy garaged is one less source of entropy…
It is typically those same people that are like WTF we can’t go all electric which is true at this point. It is hard to explain stuff that is a 20-30 year plan at best to begin with. The main focus is simply reduction right now while we figure out how to cost effectively broaden the market with workable solutions.
Apparently there is a lot of work being done on electric powered boats. I don’t know if they will make it to residential speed boating anytime soon though.
I’m sorry but as Koen says this is just talk and I will add going no where. The “age of the human” on this earth will just be a little blip in the historical time line of the earth. The other day I saw where a BILLION years ago, the American continent was attached to the African continent. The historians break everything up into “ages”. The one that I have any familiarity with is the Ice Age when North America was covered by ice all the way to the north pole. The Great Lakes remain as a sign of the ice age. Thousands of years have melted that ice until now there is barely enough room for the polar bear to live on. This was before humans started climate change. Humans have been on earth for maybe 5000 years and with a little luck we might be here for another 5000, but the earth on it’s own is changing and we will become extinct. The 10,000 years of our existence will as I say be just a small point of the earths Billion year history.
I enjoy driving on wood and thinking that maybe I am doing something good, but in honesty, I have no thought of me or this earth existing in the form it is forever. TomC
I just read an article in the Guardian where the finger of blame was pointed at wood burning.
The killer smogs of the past are in peoples minds these days because of declining air quality in many places.
We can not blame VW for everything though.
The types of stoves might be the same old coal stoves that caused the great smogs of the 50s.
Housing in the UK is old, poorly insulated and likely people are using those old coal burners again only this time fueled with wood.
The standard of living in the UK has been falling fast and I would not be surprised to find out wood burning to save money is the problem.
Tom, whether we belive in the 5000 year or the one million year period of humanity doesn’t matter when we’re talking climate change. It’s about our grandchildren who we already know by names.
Yes, earth will probably still be spinning around the sun in a million years whatever we do, but we can’t poo while in the tub just because it doesn’t matter in a 100 years.
They didn’t exactly point all the blame at wood. They acknowledged several different possibilities, which all contribute. The one that is the hardest to fix, beyond getting the jetstream to blow air, is building efficiency or home insulation. It is pretty easy to regulate the sale of wood burning stoves, or cars, but getting people to insulate their houses, install windows, or seal up air leaks tends to be a hard sell even in the US unless energy costs skyrocket, but then they don’t have the money to do it.
Sean that hurts you are right though I need to remove 116 year old windows and insulate this farm house. But I don’t have the money trying to get the farm to return an income. Both my wood stoves do have the EPA cat setup and one of them still works… That is on my list of things to fix this summer it was working in the fall but the stove needs some repairs. It all comes down to money if I had more i would fix things but you can’t send what you don’t have.
India is doing a lot and fast. They are trying to bring electric to their whole country, and they figured out it was cheaper to run solar/wind and microgrids, then to run the big power lines required for central generation. In fact, a lot of developing and 3rd world countries are going the same route.
I think it is Kenya that has like 200k residences using pay as you go solar plus storage. They install solar, and then people pay for the use of it, and they get to keep it after it is paid off (The company doing it makes a bit of a profit too.), but it is less then they were paying for like kerosene to run their lamps at night. Granted the systems are like an led light bulbs and a small battery pack and like 1-2 panels, and a cell phone charger. it isn’t much but it is an improvement.
Sean what is most important is that it gets solar out there and they think this is how you get electricity. I was told my a teenager the other day that she didn’t need to know how to drive between the ride share programs and the fact that cars are almost self driving she doesn’t want to ever drive a car. This is a 19 year old girl. At that age you couldn’t keep me from my car. One generation later and there are people who don’t want to own a car and she is 30 minutes from a city. Blew my mind. The point is in just a short time people can change their minds if they grow up seeing something it is normal to them. This is how I see the small scale solar projects it makes a generation that grows up seeing alternative energy as normal not alternative.
The hardest part for people who are newly off grid to accept is that they have to use power when its available not when its most convenient for them, especially on a cloudy day. A lot of generators have died because of that. I guess what I mean is that people who are not used to having unlimited grid power available, like most people in undeveloped parts of the world adjust to limited power usage easily, but for some one who has grown up with our gird, it may be a hardship at first.
A lot of people in big cities don’t want one. It is hard to understand growing up in rural america or suburbia, but if you live in a big city, you can do a lot with mass trans, and if that fails, then you use a cab. You really don’t need a car everyday. They are expensive to park, gas stations can be backed up, traffic is bad, and insurance is expensive. You actually might see an increase in single car families.
Well when I said she lives 30 minutes from a city you have to remember this is NH what we call a city is just an oversized town which is the capital you can’t walk to much of anything if you are in the city proper. That is why it surprised me.
A friends late 70s father came back from a trip to Alaska last summer and was amazed at how far a glacier he had seen 20 years ago had receded. He still couldn’t believe any thing we had done could have caused it though. Generations and attitudes.
I was there maybe 30 years ago. The building for the park was right by the ice. I saw a photo of it recently and couldn’t believe how far back it is now truly amazing.
