Climate Change, Part 3: It’s All About the Straws, Isn’t It?

Posted by: GreenCE Sustainable Design and Construction // Sustainable Content Creator at GreenCE

I used to love reading dystopian fiction, particularly when the fall of humanity could be attributed mostly to climate change or a weather catastrophe. I think this was because of all the possibilities for a fallen world, this one was the least realistic for me. The natural world existed long before we ever did, before I ever did, and it was much bigger than us. We could never ruin it, or be ruined by it, in my mind. It was unconquerable. But these climate-based novels like McCarthy’s The Road or Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy came to mind as I protested Black Friday consumerism by staying home and, while reading the news, discovered the Fourth National Climate Assessment release by US Congress. This non-partisan report is the second of four similar annual studies commissioned by Congress and is basically a research report on the state of the climate. It’s not for the weak of heart, as it’s a scary read, and it squashed any hope I held onto from my voracious reading that climate change would never be a big enough problem to cause the down fall of humanity (yes, that’s a bit hyperbolic, but I am a creative writer at my core!)...

A Catch-22

A 2017 Forbes article states that scientists first issued warnings about the greenhouse effect of electricity production in 1968. Dr. Donald F. Hornig, energy advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, told the crowd at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual convention that global warming could lead to erratic weather behavior, crop erosion, and melting ice caps, leading to major climate consequences and potential catastrophes larger than seen in the past. Three years later, that limited data was expanded to conclude that burning fossil fuels led to global warming. By 1985, the Edison Electric Institute state that climate change would have a significant impact on electricity production and use. Over 30 years later, and the impact is now at crisis level.

Read the whole blog post here.