

EXTINCTION REBELLION

FIGHT with FACTS

Dr. Bob O'Connor

Total Health Publications

Smashwords Edition

2020

# DEDICATION

\--To the thousands of scientists who have warned us about the dangers of climate change,

and those working for solutions

\--To Al Gore who vividly brought it to our attention

\--To Greta Thunberg who is today the leader of the people who want change NOW.

RECENT BOOKS BY \DR. O'CONNOR

Make America Great Again—Like Norway

Abortion—Dissecting the Old and NEW Arguments

Abortion is Good for America and the World

—Why the Opposition--

Revitalizing Democracy—After Trump, Brexit and Bush

LOVE—The You, The Me, The Us

Extinction Revolution—Fight with Facts

# THINK ABOUT IT

  * Intelligent people know that global warming causes climate change.

  * Intelligent people know that people are the major reason.

  * Intelligent people know that greenhouse gases cause it.

  * Intelligent people know that people are already sick and dying from it.

  * Intelligent people know that we may be too late to save our home.

  * What they may not know is that there are many greenhouse gases.

  * What they may not know is that overpopulation is the major cause, as more people use more fossil fuels and eat more methane producing animals and fruits and vegetables that used N2O producing fertilizers. They move to cities built on fertile soil and move into and work in concrete buildings that emitted a great deal of CO2 in their production.

  * What they may not have thought about is that fossil fuel producing and using industries have the backing of the governments their finances have put in office.

  * Reducing overpopulation will be fought by some powerful religions and by reactionary forces in society that back the long-held traditions.

But the essential changes can be made through the democratic process—however they will be major inconveniences for all—citizens, legislators and businesses.

ARE YOU STILL INTERESTED IN MAKING THE PLANET HABITABLE?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

# Table of Contents

DEDICATION

THINK ABOUT IT

CHAPTER 1 WHY NOT BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND?

THE HOT--SNOWBALL EFFECT

THE MENTIONED AND UNMENTIONED CAUSES

WE MUST NOT CONFUSE WEATHER AND CLIMATE

WHAT ABOUT THE SKEPTICS?

CHAPTER 2 PROBLEMS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE

SOCIETAL PROBLEMS

MORE DRY LAND AND DROUGHTS

FOOD SHORTAGES AND FAMINES

FAMINES

HIGHER OCEANS

TIDAL FLOODING FROM HIGHER OCEANS

TIDES

WATER LEVEL

MORE ACIDIC OCEANS

STRONGER STORMS

INCREASE IN THE NUMBER AND INTENSITY OF FOREST FIRES

FOOD AND MEAT PRODUCTION

EMPLOYMENT ISSUES

INCREASED MIGRATION

PERSONAL ISSUES

PERSONAL FINANCIAL COSTS

WATER SUPPLIES

SOME POSITIVES

YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH

COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

ALLERGIES

MORE HURRICANES AND RAIN

COST OF GLOBAL WARMING TO BUSINESSES AND TO INDIVIDUALS

THE WORLD'S ECONOMY

DEFENSE

ELECTRICITY GENERATION

COAL

CHAPTER 3 THE CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

PLANETARY CAUSES

GREENHOUSE GASES

SO WHY IS IT HAPPENING?

LOOKING AT OUR CLIMATE HISTORY

CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2)

CARBON MONOXIDE (CO)

WATER VAPOR (H2O)

METHANE (NH3)

OZONE (O3)

NITROUS OXIDE (N2O)

SULPHUR DIOXIDE (SO2)

FLUORINATED GASES

CHAPTER 4 THE MAJOR POLLUTERS

POLLUTANTS

AND A NEW CONCERN!

CHAPTER 5 UNDER

STANDING OUR VALUES AND ETHICAL POSITIONS—AND CONFLICTS

SELF-CENTERED VALUES

GOD-BASED VALUES

SOCIETY-BASED VALUES

CONFLICTS IN VALUES

THE ASSUMPTIONS WE USE MAY VARY WITH THE VALUE WE ARE CONSIDERING

Let's Look at Another Value Question in American Society

CHAPTER 6 THE DENIERS

CONFRONTING YOUR DENYING FRIENDS

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE REALITY?

ENERGY LOBBYIST CONTRIBUTIONS 2019

SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVESWHO TAKE LOBBYIST MONEY?

CHAPTER 7 FINDING SOLUTIONS

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ALTERNATE ENERGY SOURCES

SPEEDING THE INTELLIGENT PROCESS TO SAVE THE PLANET

THERE WILL BE INCONVENIENCES

INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS YOU CAN DO

WORKING IN GROUPS TO INFLUENCE BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT

BUSINESS

GOVERNMENT REGULATION

INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE

UNITED NATIONS

PROGRESS AND INITIATIVES

PROGRESS AND REGRESS

PROGRESS

TAXES ON GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS

REGRESS

CHAPTER 8 WHERE IS THE BEST USE OF YOUR TIME

DEMONSTRATING YOUR DISPLEASURE ON THE STREETS OR KNOCKING ON DOORS TO CONVINCE VOTERS TO VOTE FOR A GREEN CANDIDATE?

PRESSURING POLITICIANS

PRESSURING GOVERNMENTS TO CURB THE EXCESSES

CHAPTER 9 CARBON SINKS

CREATE SINKS

TREES TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

CHAPTER 10 OVERPOPULATION—THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

DON'T READ THIS CHAPTER IF YOU ARE BOUND BY TRADITIONS

CHAPTER 11 ONWARD!

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# CHAPTER 1 WHY NOT BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND?

Why the Extinction Rebellion? British politicians realize that Brexit is more important than addressing our path to extinction. The American President, Donald Trump, knows there is no climate change. The thousand thermometers around the world, that have measured global temperatures for the last 100 years, are wrong— because today's American economy is more important.

Intelligent and informed people all know that climate change is seriously threatening our human race, our planet, and our ecological neighbors--both animal and vegetable. We know that:

## THE HOT--SNOWBALL EFFECT

  * More people in our overpopulated world use more fossil fuels and produce more greenhouse gases

  * These gases warm the air and increase water vapor

  * This heats the air even more since water vapor is a greenhouse gas

  * Less arable land

  * More famines

  * More forest fires

  * More violent storms as upper air cools—releasing the water vapor as rain and snow

  * Oceans warm and become more acidic—reducing shellfish

  * Permafrost thaws releasing more methane

  * Ground-level heat and air pollution sicken and kill millions

  * Air and ocean warm more—glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets melt

  * Sea levels rise-- less living area and less farmland for a growing population

  * Under-sea reservoirs of CO2 and methane are released

  * River transportation of goods severely reduced due to reduction of glacier volume

  * Less fresh water due to glacier melting (higher costs for desalinization)

  * Water wars—migration wars

  * Severely reduced population survives in the far north and far south of the hemispheres

BUT WHY WORRY? SOME HOMO SAPIENS MAY SURVIVE!

# THE MENTIONED AND UNMENTIONED CAUSES

Technology, based on fossil fuel use, is the obvious cause of global warming and climate change. The obvious cause is greenhouse gases from fossil fuels-- the hidden cause is overpopulation.

We expect our politicians to create laws to force a reduction of greenhouse gases. We expect scientists to aid in this effort. But to reduce population???

  * I want children.

  * It is a God-given right and obligation.

  * We need more consumers for the things we produce.

  * We need more soldiers to protect us from: the Russians, the Americans, the Chinese, and the Lilliputians!

And does overpopulation create other social problems? YES!

So let's look at all the issues, from fossil fuels and technology to overpopulation--and suggest some possible solutions.

If we want to slow these effects--controlling climate change depends on reducing greenhouse gases and increasing sinks--like vegetation. We have practically used up our major sink—our oceans.

The higher the income, the more CO2 is produced because of the amenities of money: driving, air conditioning, consuming food requiring more energy to produce, living in bigger houses (energy cost of building materials), air travel, etc.

#### WE MUST NOT CONFUSE WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Weather is the day to day experience of heat, rain and other factors of nature that we will encounter over a short period of time, like a day, week, or month. Climate is the long-term averages of weather—usually a term of at least 25 years.

## WHAT ABOUT THE SKEPTICS?

Global warming skeptics often argue that the rise in temperatures is a phenomenon of nature like the warm period from about 800 to 1200 AD or the little Ice Age, from about 1300 to 1850. But these were geographically limited areas that were affected. Today the temperature change affects the whole planet. They may argue that it is a result of a shifting polar vortex--a low pressure cold area near the poles. They generally don't think that carbon dioxide can cause it all. But coring into the deep Antarctic ice, yielding 800,000 years of climatic evidence, shows no rapid increase in temperature like we see today. And the burning of fossil fuels during the last 270 years gives us a strong case to explain the rapid rise in the world's temperature.

**History of global surface temperature since 1850**

Factors such as volcanic eruption, have in the past, increased the Earth's cooling.

# CHAPTER 2 PROBLEMS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE

What effects will global warming have on our lives?

The ramifications of global warming are vast. Many species will disappear. That may not be so bad as long as it is flies and mosquitoes, and maybe rattlers, but I hope it's not pandas and porpoises.

# SOCIETAL PROBLEMS

### MORE DRY LAND AND DROUGHTS

While increased rain and storms will affect parts of the world, increased heat and dryness will affect other parts. Lands affected by drought have doubled since 1970.

Southern Europe is predicted to warm considerably as the century stumbles along under the burden of global warming. While we saw temperatures rise significantly in the early years of this century, we also saw the water tables dropping as less rain cooled the summer swelter. Forest fires from Portugal to Greece, and in the U.S. and Australia, warned us of the parching earth, which was becoming less friendly to the farmer.

Is the Sahara leaping over the Mediterranean? The mounting evidence is that it is more than a momentary flight of the Fahrenheit—it is the result of the increased global warming. It is the desertification of the fertile lands that gave us the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. By century's end Italy's average temperature is predicted to rise by 8 degrees—ten times the last century's temperature rise. The number of uncomfortably hot days of 35 degrees Celsius, 95 Fahrenheit, should increase tenfold. Rainfall is predicted to drop 15%. Farming will be decimated.

Tourism will drop as people leave the beaches of Spain for those of Denmark and Norway. Emigration from southern Europe will increase and the northern EU countries will be the destinations.

Portugal has experienced severe drought, their worst in history. Crops have died as have their farm animals. Another problem is that as the rivers carry less water, hydroelectric plants cannot put out the electricity of which they are capable.

In China, sub-Saharan Africa, and Kazakhstan the deserts are expanding--sometimes because of poor farming methods and sometimes because of diverting the water that is upstream, which makes the downstream communities waterless. A related problem is that when lakes, rivers and seas dry up, the fish will die. The Aral Sea in central Asia, which once supplied a million pounds of fish yearly, had practically dried up. Thanks to a World Bank loan to Kazakhstan for a dam, the north side of the sea is being filled. The south side, in Uzbekistan it is still dry. Lake Chad, in Africa, once the continent's largest body of water, has been reduced to 5% of its former girth. Diseases like malaria have increased in the higher altitudes, such as in Kenya, which used to be too cold for mosquitoes. There will be more pressure for North Africans to emigrate northward. It's not fair, but the countries that cause most of the global warming are not suffering from it as much as many of the Third World countries.

### FOOD SHORTAGES AND FAMINES

As the heat rises and the humidity drops progressively in the areas north and south of the equator, farmland in the temperate zones is becoming less productive. As heat and arid conditions chase the farmers towards the poles, water for irrigation is becoming less plentiful. As the needs of the human and animal populations compete with the needs of industry, farmers often hold the last tickets for water rights. In California's great central valley on less that 1% of America's farmland, farmers produce 8% of the nation's agricultural production. More than 230 crops are grown, including 60% of the world's supply of almonds. About 16% of the nation's irrigated land is here. In the north, the American River brings water from the Sierra snowpack near lake Tahoe. But in the central and southern parts of the valley, pumped groundwater supplies much of the H2O. In some areas, so much has been pumped from the ground that the farms are sinking. State authorities forecast eliminating 800 to 1300 square miles of farmland from the state's water supply. What will this do to the agricultural employment sector and to food prices.

Mass extinction has already hurt agriculture. Bats and birds that pollinate plants are down 17%. A United Nations report estimates that 75% of the world's food crops rely on pollinators to some extent. If these species go extinct, so does almost 8% of the world's food species. A third of the fishing areas are already overharvested. Everyone will be affected in ways that are difficult to imagine now.

### FAMINES

Famines in the last 20 years have occurred mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. In Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, and similar countries. But who cares if millions of people starve to death because of climate change and war, when we are comfortable in our well-nourished northern hemisphere. The Economist has called this the "forever famine." The main hospital in Niger treats hundreds of malnourished children every week. Part of the problem is that there are few dams to store needed water for homes, farms, and herders.

### HIGHER OCEANS

18,000 years ago, at the peak of the ice age, the sea level was 120 meters lower than it is today. For the last 3,000 years, the ocean has risen only a foot or two, that's less than a half inch (1 cm) per 100 years. But the predictions now are that warming will increase the sea level over a meter this century. That's more than 3 feet. But, and it's a big 'but', three million years ago when the temperature rose 2 to 3 degrees above today's temperature, the sea level rose by 80 feet, not 3 feet. The ice sheets at that time melted much faster when the temperature changed than we have been predicting today. And you know that the rise in the oceans is caused by both the melting of glaciers and ice sheets that are over land, and the increased volume of the ocean due to its warming—water expands as it warms.

Satellite surveys show that arctic ice is melting faster than we thought it would. Snowfall will increase in the polar areas because of the increased water vapor in the air, but not enough to make up for the loss of ice through the warming of the air and sea. The biggest ice losses will be from Antarctica—about 4 to 6 times more per year than the arctic.

Scientists predict that by 2050 temperatures will have caught up with today's level of CO2. That's when there will be no Arctic ice in the summer. The dark ocean that replaces it will absorb even more heat. It will create a chain reaction that will further heat the earth's temperature even if we stop emitting additional greenhouse gases.

This doesn't even consider the worst-case scenario, which has only a 5% chance of happening—that would be a rise of 6 feet in the sea level by 2100—with 1.78 meters (5 feet, 10 inches) of that coming from melting ice sheets and 22 centimeters (nearly 9 inches) from the warming of the oceans.

Researchers tell us that if the rise of greenhouse gases is not stopped, the glacial melting can add as much as 24 feet (7.5 meters) to the level of the oceans in 200 years.

### TIDAL FLOODING FROM HIGHER OCEANS

Flooding from the ocean is a combination of the mean water level (caused by glacial ice-melt and the expansion of the ocean because of warming), the high tide, and the size of the waves.

The Union for Concerned Scientists, looked at 52 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide gauges in coastal cities in Florida, Maryland, Georgia, Virginia and other states. The UCS analyzed the states' flooding risk under mid-range sea level rise predictions taken from the White House's National Climate Assessment — an estimate of 5 inches of sea level rise by 2030, and 11 inches by 2045. It found that tidal flooding could triple in some cities in 15 years and occur 10 times as often in most cities in the next 30 years.

This are not the type of flooding that kills people, but rather the type that does damage to homes and businesses. A rise of 11 inches in the water level by 2045 would increase the high tide by that much. To tell you what this means, if there was a slope of 1 foot per 30 feet of beach, the high tide would reach about 30 feet farther towards the land, in 2045, than it does today. Then combine that with any higher than normal waves and you have a problem. Then, of course, if the waves are much higher because of the storms that global warming often increases, you have a multiple problem.

### TIDES

If you are not familiar with how tides work, here is a brief description. The sun and the moon pull on the oceans. The moon is more important. As the moon circles around the earth it pulls the water towards it. The water nearest the moon and on the other side of the earth will be in high tides, so we can say that if the moon is at 0° and the other side of the earth is 180°, the water at 90° and 270° would be lower, so low tide. When the sun and moon are in line (either on the same side of the Earth, or at exact opposite sides) the tide is highest because of their combined gravitational pull. There are approximately two high and two low tides in a day.

When I was working my way through college as a beach lifeguard at Venice Beach (Ya! "Baywatch") we always had tide books, the same as the fishermen use, to predict the tides. These books tell us to the minute exactly how high the tide would be. In mid-July we had the highest tides of the year, about 7.2 feet above the mean. If we happened to get big surf at the same time, as sometimes happened, we often got water all the way to the back of the beach in pools and several times the door of my lifeguard tower was beaten in by the surf. Sometimes I had to wade to my tower through the 2 foot deep pools created when the big surf crashed over the berm, where the beach begins sloping towards the sea, and flowed deep into the beach. So the tide just tells how high the water level will be then the size of the waves will indicate how much damage will be felt. Both high waves and a high tide can bring water well past what is normal.

At Venice Beach the difference between the highest and lowest tides of the year were about 8 feet. The average difference in the world is 3 feet (1 meter), but in Anchorage Alaska it can be 40 feet, and at the Bay of Fundy in Canada it can be 53 feet (16 meters).

On November 13, 2019 Venice, Italy experienced one of its highest tides, 7 fee,4 inches (187 cm) above the mean. 85% of the city was underwater, The mayor reported that the daage incurred will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to repair.

Doge's Palace and the St. Mark's Cathedral were damaged

### WATER LEVEL

The following chart shows how the ocean water level has fluctuated in the last 2000 years. You notice that it goes down during cold periods and up during warm periods. It is far higher today than at any time in the past two millennia.

Here is a chart of the last 25 years showing a rise of sea level of nearly 100 millimeters (4 inches). The rise from 1900 to 1990 was between 1.2 and 1.7 millimeters (about 1/20th of an inch) per year. It is now between 3.3 and 4.0 mm per year (about 1/7 to 1/8 of an inch) per year.

The sea level rise increases in speed as the warmer water expands and as glaciers melt more rapidly.

Since cities are often built by the oceans, because of trade access and more pleasant temperatures, between a half and three-quarters of a billion people (1 in 10 to 1 in 15) can be displaced. This would also affect industries near the ocean.

Look at how many cities are built right next to the ocean: New York City, Alexandria, Rio, Shanghai, Norfolk, Boston, Charleston, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, Baltimore. It has already had a significant impact on the coastal cities of China. Naturally the Netherlands is in real trouble—as is Venice, Italy.

Some of the effects will depend on where you live. Oceans will rise, so coastal living will be destroyed. In less than a hundred years the seas could rise 20 feet, but the projections now are for only a couple of feet. But even this could wipe out costal living from Bangladesh to Malibu. Venice, Italy already has severe problems. And the Netherlands will have to build their dikes much higher, but it's doubtful that the country can survive without periscopes. They'll have to raise seaweed rather than tulips, and cod rather than cows.

High water level caused problems are already evident in some Pacific islands where the inhabitants have had to be relocated because the island was submerging. It has also been true in northeast China where the ocean has encroached on the low-lying land near the ocean. Where this happens, it also makes the ground incapable of growing food because the saltwater changes the chemical makeup of the topsoil.

### MORE ACIDIC OCEANS

When you understand that almost 94% of the warming gases have gone into the oceans you can see how it can affect our seas and sea life. So far only about 2.4% percent have gone into the atmosphere. That has warmed our land about 2.1%, and the ice sheets have absorbed the rest – – Arctic sea ice has absorbed 0.8%, the Greenland ice sheet has absorbed 0.9%, Antarctica about 0.2% and the rest by other glaciers. I wonder just how much more the ocean can handle and when the percentage of CO2 will rise past that 2,1 level. Just look at the havoc that 2.1 level has had on droughts, floods, hurricanes and water evaporation.

Along with more water, the CO2 absorbed in the water has made the surface water 30% more acidic than it was in the pre-industrial age. Acids, like the weak carbonic acid, H2CO3, comes from water vapor and CO2, nitric acid comes from the nitrogen compounds, and the strong sulfuric acid H2SO4 is formed by water and sulfur oxides. The sulfur comes primarily from coal burning. The absorption of the greenhouse gases by the ocean reduces the amount of global warming at a cost of increased ocean acidity. But the oceans should be a bit alkaline. The acidity is reducing the ocean animals' abilities to form shells and coral reefs. It is also bleaching the coral—as shown in these photos of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The top photo shows how it was some years ago, the bottom photo shows how it was two years ago.

Well over a third of China has been dampened by acid rain from the 25 million tons of sulfur dioxide emitted from their coal and oil burning factories. The Chinese output of sulfur dioxides is increasing almost 10% per year. While the cheaper energy sources are good for business they harm the soil and vegetation. Sulfur dioxide is not a greenhouse gas but it is certainly an air pollutant. But it's not only China. The eastern U.S. and eastern Europe have also had problems.

At the current level fish are not generally affected but their eggs may well be. Also as the lower-level animals like brittle stars are reduced there is less food for sea mammals like seals. So by affecting lower level sea life, the food chain can be disrupted severely.

### STRONGER STORMS

The stronger hurricanes and storms will decimate large areas. This has recently been shown in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. The stronger hurricanes are, of course, the result of extra water vapor being absorbed into the atmosphere, then dropped on the land through storms. This increases the number of famines and the reduction of communicational level of many people on the plan.

A result of the 2018 hurricane in Bermuda

Rainstorm-caused flooding

Droughts and flooding will damage large areas of the earth. Texas has experienced some of this, as have several European countries.

Wind storms can also blow topsoil from farm lands away—often ending in oceans, rivers and lakes.

### INCREASE IN THE NUMBER AND INTENSITY OF FOREST FIRES

But people are not the only contributors to the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Nature does its part! Often, we work together to destroy our planet. Our human contributions include drying the air and vegetation so that forest fires are more easily increased in number and severity, In California, sparking wire from power companies have started the fires. In Brazil farmers and miners have started the fires to expose the land for their economic desires. For centuries farmers have used fires to nourish their lands.

Records show that in warmer years you can almost always expect more forest fires. Estimates of carbon dioxide emission from forest fires are as high as 20% of the total. And, with the trees and other vegetation being destroyed, there are fewer carbon sinks to capture the CO2 in the atmosphere.

And there are life and property dangers. In 2018 the forest fires in Greece killed 91 people. Those in Spain and Portugal killed 70. In the U.S. an average of about 12 people per year are killed in forest fires.

Nearly 23,000 buildings were lost in the California wildfires of 2018. But expenses for fires goes well beyond the losses incurred.

Costs of forest fires are difficult to pinpoint and they vary considerably from year to year. As an example, for 2014, the last year for which total figures are available, we find a loss of $328.5 billion—1.9% of the year's total economic output (GDP). This is broken down into: expenses $273.1 billion and losses from the fires $55.4 billion. Building construction is 17.5% of the total ($57.4 billion). So the preparation to prevent and fight the fires is a large, but hidden, expense.

### FOOD AND MEAT PRODUCTION

Rice production contributes about 12% of the methane, and grass or grain eating meat, such as cattle, add another 5%. The increased desire for meat in the richer countries increases the methane production and its absorption into the atmosphere. Approximately one to 1.4 billion cows exist on the planet. They each produce between 70 and 120 kilograms of methane per year. So that is about a trillion kilograms or 1.1 billion tons.

One way that greenhouse gases are often measured is in carbon dioxide equivalents—considering the long-term greenhouse effect. Here are some CO2 kilogram equivalents relative to producing one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of:

  * Beef 18 to 34.6 depending on the country (U.S. is lower, Brasil and Japan are higher)

  * lamb 17.4

  * pork 6.35

  * chicken 4.57

Different studies include different variables. The variable may include: CO2, methane, manure, cost of slaughter, transportation, electricity used, loss of CO2 absorption from the grass consumed, food grain factors, etc.

An extensive cattle farm

### EMPLOYMENT ISSUES

As electric cars and trucks are produced to fight climate change, oil industry jobs will be lost. As self-driving cars and trucks are developed, truck and taxi drivers will not be needed.

While reductions in coal mining and oil refining may decrease employment in some regions, possibly more people will be employed in the areas of: solar power, hydroelectric power, tidal power, and wind power.

### INCREASED MIGRATION

Climate change caused migration has already begun. As heat and flooding continue to make life unsustainable and unbearable, climate migration will continue. In 80 years it is estimated that one in seven people worldwide will become environmental migrants. Other estimates put it at twice that number. According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, an estimated 22 million people have been displaced since 2008 because of extreme weather. By 2050 that number is expected to be 700 million.

The World Bank estimates that nearly one and a half million people will head to the United States because of climate change in the next 30 years. The World Food Program reported that nearly half of Central America emigrants left because of food scarcities.

This immigration is likely to meet heavy resistance in the U.S. and the E.U. The economic immigrants and the refugees of the various wars (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan) have tested the empathy and the economic costs of many of the accepting countries.

# PERSONAL ISSUES

### PERSONAL FINANCIAL COSTS

There will be huge economic effects. Insurance premiums will rise because there will be more forest fires and more hurricanes and cyclones. The risk of natural disasters has more than tripled in the last fifty years. Over a third of these have been climate related. The $15 billion a year increase in insurance payouts has to be covered by increased premiums for fire and flood insurance. More deaths occur during heat spells. This will affect health-insurance premiums. National security will be affected because people will be forced to migrate from parched lands and eventually from submerged lands.

People in hurricane zones will have more and stronger storms. People inland from warmer oceans can expect more tornadoes and much more rain and flooding, such as we have seen in China, Pakistan, India and Europe. People in north and east Africa and southern Europe can expect less rainfall and hotter temperatures, so their agricultural output will drop. In Africa, this will lead to more famines. Africa's population, growing at about 7% a year, will be hard-hit by droughts. Warming and the lack of water will force migration north. And if the will of Allah or God decrees, northern hemisphere countries will allow for immigration. But the immigrants will bring with them their traditions of family fecundity and the white nations will grey as they continue their socialistic support of siring. We need only look at Darfur to see the conflict caused by the desertification of large areas causing migration. We already have increasing numbers of global warming refugees to add to those fleeing violence. Then there will be the reduction in income from tourism around the Mediterranean because of too much heat and too little water.

Taxes will increase to pay for the damage done to cities flooded, wind damaged through hurricanes and cyclones, or fire-damaged through forest fires.

Food costs may rise as farmland is rendered too dry for crops, as winds blow away topsoil, and as available water dwindles.

### WATER SUPPLIES

There is not enough fresh water today to supply our needs. More people require more water to drink, bathe, and cook with. They require more food which needs water to be produced. Just about everything we need takes water to produce. Even biofuel, made from corn or switch grass uses between 290 and 2100 gallons of water to produce and deliver a gallon of the fuel. (The large variation of water needed depends on the area in which it is produced,) With today's annual production of nine billion gallons, which is expected to rise, some are questioning its relative value as an energy aid.

Fire retardants used in fighting forest fires are finding their way into ground water—and severely polluting it.

Desalinization of ocean water is a possible answer to the problem of the lack of fresh water. It costs about fifty cents to a dollar to desalinate a cubic meter of seawater. Using the one dollar figure, it would cost 38 cents a day to provide the 92 gallons (378 liters) of water that the average American uses, 19 cents a day for the average European (22 gallons/189 liters), and 6 cents a day for the average African to use 6.5 gallons (57 liters). Some countries are totally dependent on desalinized water, others are largely dependent on it.

### SOME POSITIVES

But there are some positives. Because of Arctic warming, the Northwest Passage will open up and reduce the shipping costs and the CO2 emissions from ships going between Europe and Asia. The supertankers that now must travel south of South America, because they are too big for the Panama Canal, will save huge amounts of money in fuel and will be able to make more trips during the summer months. Russia may also gain as Siberia warms. It may open vast areas for agriculture. But then the planet will lose as the Siberian peat bogs release the carbon that they have sequestered since the last ice age.

But we could replace the energy of all the world's power plants if we could just use effective solar collectors in a small area of the Sahara. An area the size of Portugal would probably do it.

### YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH

Your body temperature is about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. At around 104 degrees organ damage can begin. You can imagine the damage. Heat can kill people directly and indirectly. On May 28, 2019 Turbat, Pakistan recorded a temperature of 129.2 degrees F (54 C)—and I understand that not a lot of people have air conditioning there! In July of 2019, in Phoenix, Arizona it was 112 F (44.4 C) . Not a record for Phoenix—but they have air conditioning. The highest temperature recorded in the UK was in Faversham, Kent, on August 10, 2003. It was 48 C (118.4 F) High temperatures have been recorded in the last 100 years at various places, but not nearly as often as they are today, with the whole earth and its oceans warming at levels never before experienced in such a short time period.

In October of 2019 in the Sacramento area of California, a seven-day rolling blackout was done to inspect the power company's electrical transmission lines—they had been found responsible for one of the major forest fires the year before. Other California power companies followed suit. More than a million people were affected. So you may not be able to count on electrical power for your AC in times of extreme heat.

Heat can raise people's blood pressure leading to heart disease deaths. Heat waves can therefore raise death rates. One in 2003 in Paris killed 4,870 people, and one in 2010 in Moscow killed 10,860. A recent study in New England found that a one degree Celsius raise in the summer temperature increased the death rate by 1%.

Painful  kidney stones can increase if people do not increase their hydration because the increased temperatures increase our perspiration. Solid materials, which should be dissolved and passed in the urine and calcify and become solid "stones" that can become painful blockages in the tubes leading from the kidney to the bladder or from the bladder to the ureter.

According to an OECD report in October of 2019, 40 per 100,000 people worldwide have died because of air pollution, the number was 140 in China and India.

### COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

The increased length of the summer season and the increased temperature can increase the number of disease-carrying insects, such as mosquitos, ticks, fleas, and flies. The CDC (Center for Disease Control of the U.S.) reports that diseases from bites from these creatures have quadrupled in the last 15 years, to over 100,000. These diseases include: malaria, dengue fever, Lyme disease, birth-defect causing Zika, encephalitis, and yellow fever — and warmer winters may fail to kill off populations of these insects.

Alaska's warming has found a six-fold increase in stings from wasps, yellow jackets, and bees.

Algae-related complaints. Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, thrive and bloom in the rising temperatures of bodies of water, from municipal water systems to the Great Lakes and Florida's Lake Okeechobee. The algae have been linked to digestive, neurological,  liver, and  dermatological diseases.

### ALLERGIES

Allergy seasons—from ragweed in the fall to tree pollen in the spring—are lengthened because of less frost and earlier blooming. Fungal spores (those outdoors and in moist basements) will most likely thrive, tickling the throats of many.

###  MORE HURRICANES AND RAIN

Why have we had increased rains, hurricanes and tornadoes? The ocean absorbs most of the heat from the global warming. This heat leads to the increased evaporation of the water. The warmer air can hold more water vapor. But when the air cools at the higher altitudes it can't hold all the excess water. This gives us increased rain inland from the oceans. The northern plains area of the U.S.A. has had heavy rains from water that had been evaporated from the Pacific. And the inland countries of Europe get what was evaporated from the north Atlantic.

The torrential summer rains have inundated central Europe and caused devastating floods. Prague, my favorite city, was partially under water in both 2002 and 2018.

Prague theater during 2018 flood

Floods are normally much more common in the winter from rain and snow melting. There is little doubt that the recent summer floods are caused by global warming.

With warmer oceans, the hurricanes get stronger. The average hurricane has winds 50% stronger today than they had 40 years ago and the number of the strongest hurricanes has doubled. A rise in the world's sea surface temperatures is the primary contributor to the formation of stronger hurricanes. Since 1970 the average temperature of the ocean has risen 0.5 degrees. In the Gulf of Mexico it has risen 3 degrees recently. In the 1970s, the average number of intense Category 4 and 5 hurricanes occurring globally was about 10 per year. Since then it has more than doubled.

Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds from 131 to 155 mph. Category 5 systems, such as Hurricane Katrina that destroyed New Orleans, had winds of 156 mph or more. Another recent hurricane set a record with winds at 175 mph.

## COST OF GLOBAL WARMING TO BUSINESSES AND TO INDIVIDUALS

Insurance costs will go up. Damage costs from the three most expensive types of storms--hurricanes in the United States, typhoons in Japan, and rainstorms in Europe will nearly double if carbon dioxide emissions double their current rate. If we do nothing, increased hurricanes in the US will increase hurricane insurance premiums to nearly double, to $150 billion. Japanese typhoon costs would nearly double to $34 billion. Flood insurance in Europe will rise significantly to about $150 billion. Fire insurance costs will rise significantly in fire prone areas.

The consumer will pay the costs in increased prices. And, taxes will increase for a number of expenses such as: preventative measures for fire, wind and flood control; aid to victims; low interest loans; and clean up. Fire insurance premiums have risen annually in areas where forest fires are possible. Carbon taxes, where applied, increase the costs of goods. Costs of living due to climate change is definitely increasing!

For businesses, production and transportation will be disrupted. Disruption of workers availability can be due to: storms, flooding, fire, disease, and water shortages. Transportation on many European rivers, such as the Rhine, were diminished, then halted at times in both 2018 and 2019. Severe drought was the major cause. Shipping up-river from the port of Rotterdam 760 miles to Switzerland, including the major cities: Cologne, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Bonn and Koblenz. These cities are major only because they are on the Rhine River.

The Rhine provides for commercial transportation of industrial goods, for power generation, for power and transportation for industrial production, for drinking water for 25 million people, in addition water for agriculture, the transportation of agricultural produce, and for tourism, including the expensive river cruises. Plants could not get the needed raw materials for their production, nor could they ship them out on the river. When you have 30 million tons of material and goods being shipped from Rotterdam in a year you can understand the problem. If there is enough water for some shipping, the barges cannot carry as much tonnage. So more barges are needed—and more fossil fuels to power the additional barges. So the problems caused by global warming require more fossil fuels to solve the problem—then more warming is produced. As often happens, the solution causes more problems.

The Bloomberg chart below indicates the continued drop in water levels at Kaub, a critical are on the Rhine.

The low water level of the Rhine in the third quarter of 2018 was estimated to have cut German industrial production by 0.8%, or $2.14 billion. (Central Commission on Navigation of the Rhine) Freight rates were raised by both the Rhine and Danube shipping companies because of the low water. You, of course, pay for this in the increased prices of the cars, wine, and other products that use these rivers for transport.

The global warming is melting the glaciers and snowpack faster than normal. Half of the Alps' glaciers are expected to melt within 30 years. This is happening in mountains across the northern hemisphere. This can have major effects on many of the hemisphere's rivers, from the Colorado to the Yangtze.

### THE WORLD'S ECONOMY

It has been estimated that if the global temperature rises 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) the global economy would suffer a 15% drop, and at 3 degrees C (5.4o F) it would fall 25%, matching the Great Depression of 1929.

1.2 billion jobs are threatened—particularly in fishing, farming and forestry. But jobs in the area of preventing climate change, like solar engineering, could create 24 million jobs.

### DEFENSE

Nearly 130 military bases of the U.S. Armed Forces, including the Naval Academy, have either suffered damage from climate change or are imminently in danger of being damaged. Because of these and other factors, the  U.S. Department of Defense reported in 2017 that climate change is a "direct threat" to U.S. national security. But their Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump, does not believe it-- because the energy industries, that give him millions of dollars, have told him that climate change and the human causes of it are merely a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. And if you can't believe capitalist energy billionaires, who CAN you trust???

IT IS AN UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM UNLESS WE TAKE DRASTIC ACTION  
So while the Earth has been able to handle the natural amounts of carbon in the oceans and on the land, we have added to the problem by going deep into the ground for more sources of carbon in coal, oil and gas –then burned them. We have gone far past what nature can handle. The carbon is here to stay. It is picked up by trees and other plants while they grow, then released when they die. It is picked up in the oceans in plankton and in shellfish then released when they die and decompose. So, the carbon that has always been a part of the life of the Earth-- just re-circulating from air to water to plants to the soil – it is never removed. But the carbon that has been in a long sleep, far below the Earth's surface, has been awakened and threatens us as a malevolent ghost of our evolutionary past. Even if we added more trees to the land and clams to the ocean, we won't be able to exorcise this carbonic ghost.

Maybe we can build a huge exhaust pipe into outer space and get rid of it that way. It's certainly not practical to send one or two thousand rocket ships full of carbon into space every day. We had better find practical solutions fast.

## ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Let's look at the major pollution cause, power generation.

On average, about 1400 pounds of CO2 is created for every million kilowatts of electricity produced. Of course it varies from source to source. The different types of energy sources-- coal, oil, water power, wind, natural gas-- all have quite different polluting effects. Only about 4% of electricity in the U.S. and the world is generated by renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power. Another 7% comes from water power.You can see from the chart that the percentage of biofuel use is declining somewhat, but it is still at the level of 1990—and that's not good.

As shown in the chart below, oil and coal are still over 60% of our energy sources.

Water power generates only about 7% of the world and US electrical power. Water power generation is, of course, subject to how much rain a watershed gets—and that can vary from year to year. Throughout the world coal, oil and gas provide most of the power for the generation of electricity. They, of course, are the great polluters. With China building nearly 600 coal burning power stations we can expect things to get worse. Although there have been some proposals for building cleaner Chinese power plants they would be quite expensive.

## COAL

The quality of coal is determined by its carbon content. High quality anthracite coal is about 95% carbon and yields about 12,000 British thermal units per pound. Lower grade coals generally contain more than 55% carbon and yield about 7,000 BTUs per pound. In the USA about a billion tons of coal are used every year to produce about half of the country's electricity needs. But of the total power generated, coal is responsible for 80% of the CO2 formed. With every American using over 12,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each day, that's 4½ million kilowatts a year, so you can see the problems. The average American uses about 2½ times the energy that the average European uses and ten times what the average Central or South American uses. The American also uses 20 times what the typical Far Eastern person uses and 40 times what the African uses. No wonder the US produces so much CO2.

There's another source. As I mentioned, much carbon is trapped by nature under the permafrost in Russia and Canada. Decayed, but frozen, trees and other vegetation are releasing their stored CO2. Estimates are that 200 to 800 billion tons of carbon would be released to the atmosphere if the permafrost thaws. So we have a doubly negative effect of our fuel burning. Human yearly output of carbon is 'only' about 7 billion tons of carbon—and look at the mess that has gotten us into. Our increased carbon dioxide in the air warms it so that frozen life in the tundra becomes thawed and releases its carbon. This in turn increases the warming even more. It is estimated that one gigaton of methane will be released in the next 80 years as the permafrost thaws. It is just another illustration that warming increases warming.

Right now, there are more roadblocks than solutions. While any legislator who is not illiterate knows about the global warming problem, they are afraid to address many of the causes of it and would never address our population increase and its negative climate changing effects. But as political pragmatists, they seek to make life sound easier for the electorate. Otherwise they won't get re-elected.

You may have noticed that there is traffic on the roads. All those cars are driven by somebody else's children! Gridlock is the curse of the car. So, the U.S. government plans to spend about $48 billion dollars a year on highways. That should reduce gridlock costs, but it won't if it increases car buying and gasoline usage? And the $48 billion is not enough money to really solve the problems of traffic for 300 million Americans each driving their own car--alone. I read that they would have to spend $70 billion a year to solve the major problems with traffic. After all, the number of vehicle miles traveled has increased by 100% in the last 30 years, but roads have only increased about 10%.

Don't forget commercial trucks that produce about 13% of the CO2 and they need more roads. Then airplanes add another 4% and that increases yearly.

It's obvious to all that there is too much traffic on the roads. To stop it we must stop people from living modern lives. Would we use our cars if public transportation got us there faster, more comfortably, safer and cheaper? And we should certainly plant more trees.

# CHAPTER 3 THE CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The world does go through periodic heating and cooling cycles. The skeptics are quite ready to attribute todays temperatures to those multi-millennial planetary causes. So, we will take a quick look at them. But today warming problems are chemical, so we will spend much more time on them.

## PLANETARY CAUSES

Our world goes through warming and cooling cycles about every hundred thousand years. We should now be entering a cooling cycle which would've started in about 1970. From 1940 through 1970 our Earth had cooled about 3/10 of a degree Celsius.

The hundred thousand year cycles are divided into approximately 80,000 to 90,000 years of ice age and 10,000 to 20,000 years of warming. Normally the warming comes before the CO2 is increased. The last 50 years it is CO2 that is leading the climate change warming.

The last cycle of warmth ended around 10,000 years ago. So we have had a cooling trend since then. This cooling trend would have continued for thousands of years if there were no people. But since 1750 the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has deviated from the normal cycle. Instead of the temperature decreasing as expected, it increased because of fossil fuel burning. Methane and nitrous oxide have also increased because of agriculture, with methane being produced by cattle and fertilizer.

The climate change denying politicians have told us that for millions of years the Earth's temperature has risen and reduced. This is true but what they do not tell us, in fact it is doubtful that they even know, that we should be in a cooling period but our temperatures are spiking giving us record-breaking hot years nearly every year. Here is what the politicians do not tell us, either because of ignorance or deception.

Evidence from the last 5 million years of coring into the sediments of the oceans and the polar regions shows that, prior to 3 million years ago, even with the hundred thousand year variations, the average temperatures were higher than during the last 3 million years. They were higher still in the previous 60 million years. And now we are entering another cooling period but our temperatures are increasing faster than any time in the past. And CO2 is leading the way.

The previously mentioned hundred-thousand year cycle is due to the fact that the Earth's orbit around the sun is elliptical, not circular, and the orbit is elongated about every hundred thousand years. This makes the time that the Earth is near the sun shorter and the huge distances from the sun longer, resulting in longer cold periods.

But there are other cycles within this hundred-thousand year cycle. About every 41,000 years the landmass of the northern hemisphere tilts more toward the sun then more away from the sun. Every 26,000 years there is a polar wobble that also exposes the landmass to or away from the sun. So we have a number of factors that change the climate that increases or decreases the amount of landmass that faces the sun or is farther from the sun. Then within these cycles the sun often gives off extra heat through sunspots or irradiance. This can cause more heat to reach the earth. So there is more to explain warming and cooling than just looking at a single temperature chart showing the last 60 million years.

# GREENHOUSE GASES

We need some! Without a desirable amount of greenhouse gases our planet's temperature would be about 60 degrees Fahrenheit (33° Celsius) colder. Where would we go for a summer vacation? But we have fattened up our atmosphere with too many and too much of these good things. Just as on a vacation we may eat too much and fatten our bellies, our modern lifestyles have gorged our skies with gases to the point where we may become extinct. We should have listened to Aristotle, who advised us to take everything in moderation!

But our pursuit of the good life needs: bigger houses, more comfort producing gadgets, fossil fueled cars for every family member, more barbequed steaks, a television in every room, and—but you get the point! Then there are our distant vacations, international business travel, and all the other realities that make the good life possible.

### SO WHY IS IT HAPPENING?

The sun heats the earth every day. Every night the heat escapes into our atmosphere. It should rise through the various levels of atmosphere and escape into space. Some gases reflect that heat back toward the Earth. This is good, or we would freeze every night. But if there is too much reflecting gas, the Earth will get warmer and warmer. That is the situation we find ourselves in today. We are living in a planetary greenhouse.

The name "greenhouse" comes from the greenhouses that are often used by farmers and horticulturists to speed the growth of plants by providing heat for more hours in a day. Below are photos of a home greenhouse and a commercial greenhouse. But, to get a similar effect, poorer farmers may use canvas, metal, or plastic roofing held up by wooden stakes to reduce the loss of the daytime heat at night.

Home greenhouse for flowers, herbs, or vegetables.

Large commercial greenhouse for vegetables

There are a number of gases in our atmosphere that reflect heat back to the earth. The most plentiful are: carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor (H2O), methane (NH3), nitrous oxide (N2O), and ozone (O3). On earth we have many uses for these compounds and molecules, among them are: carbon dioxide in carbonated drinks, ozone for cleaning our water, methane powering vehicles, and nitrous oxide as laughing gas.

A number of natural gases and solid particles, like soot, can escape the ground level and begin reflecting back the Earth's stored heat. This has resulted in a 45% increase in carbon dioxide in the last 270 years—since the Industrial Revolution began. In that period of time the carbon dioxide gas increased from 280 parts per million (ppm) of air, which had been the level for centuries, to 415 ppm in 2019. Most of this increase has been caused by burning fossil fuels—such as coal, oil, gasoline, and natural gas. To this has been added methane, from biomass decomposition and the flatulence of cows and other animals. Ozone (O3) is a byproduct of the combustion of fuels from autos and industry. It is irritating to our mucous membranes at ground level and is a greenhouse gas at higher levels. There are also many man-made compounds including fluorine and the other elements that make the major greenhouse gases—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen.

These greenhouse gases warm the air which makes it drier. Water vapor is evaporated from the oceans, lakes, and damp ground. This water vapor becomes the most potent greenhouse gas. It is short-lived, but easily replaced after it has been released as rain, snow, fog, or other moisture.

## LOOKING AT OUR CLIMATE HISTORY

Ice-core analyses have extended the record back to 800,000 years with the same conclusion that the concentrations of these greenhouse gases were always lower before industrialization.

Carbon dioxide, CO2 (the top line) is measured in parts per million in the air.

Nitrous oxide N2O (middle line) and methane CH4 (bottom line) are measured in parts per billion in the air. Values in the above figure for the past several decades are direct measurements of atmospheric composition. Earlier values are from ice-core analyses. Should greenhouse gas emissions continue at their rate from 2019, global warming could cause Earth's surface temperature to exceed historical values as early as 2047, with potentially harmful  effects on ecosystems, biodiversity and human livelihoods. At current emission rates, temperatures could increase by 2°C, which the United Nations'  IPCC designated as the upper limit to avoid "dangerous" levels, by 2036.Aside from water vapor, as mentioned, the four principal  greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and the halocarbons or CFCs (gases containing fluorine, chlorine and bromine). These gases can remain in the atmosphere for different amounts of ime, from months to millennia, and affect the climate on very different timescales. Some are measured in parts per million (ppm), some in parts per billion (ppb).

Gas Atmospheric Contribution

concentration to warming

Water vapor (incl. clouds) 10 to 50,000 ppm 36-72%

Carbon dioxide 400 ppm 9-26%

Methane 1.8 ppb 4-9%

Ozone 2-8 ppb 3-7%

The following chart shows some greenhouse gases, the amount of time they will remain in the atmosphere, and how much more harmful they are than carbon dioxide—which is given the value of 1.

_Lifetime in years Multiple of CO_ 2 _Damage_

in atmosphere 20 yrs and 100 yrs

Carbon dioxide CO2 30-95 1 1

Methane CH4 10-12 84 28

Nitrous oxide N2O 121 264 265

Various fluorine compounds 1 to 50,000 450-16.000 150- 24,000

Many fluoride compounds are no longer used or being phased out because of the Montreal Accord, which found universal agreement that it was depleting the ozone layer. The other fluoride containing HCFC gases are to be phased out by 2030.

## CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2)

Carbon dioxide is the major long-lasting gas in the atmosphere. The most common estimate of its half-lifetime is 38 tears, but some estimate it to be as long as 200 years. The atmospheric CO2 concentrations are now 395.3 ppm and sometimes exceed 400 parts per million.

Although in itself not the most potent of the greenhouse gases, it is the gas that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has rated it as having the most warming effect therefore it's effects are the most damaging. Carbon dioxide is also the standard against which other gases are rated in the comparisons over a 100-year scale. (other gases are often measured on a scale of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents.) The lifetime in the air of  CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between  65% and 80%.pdf) of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years.

Once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect the climate for many years.

In the economic realm, the estimates of economic costs of every ton of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere or the oceans average $12 a ton, but the range of predictions is from $3 to $95 a ton. We know it's bad, but we don't know how bad.

Another area of economic estimates indicates that to stem the dangers of CO2 it would take 1% of the gross domestic product to be invested in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and if they are not sufficiently reduced a global recession of up to 20% of the world's gross domestic product will occur.

What about the carbon dioxide we exhale? The estimates are that humans exhale about 2 tons of carbon dioxide a year. That would be about 15 billion tons of CO2 for the planet's population.

## CARBON MONOXIDE (CO)

Of course, carbon monoxide is a byproduct of anything that is burned that contains carbon. That includes about every kind of combustion from candles and home fireplaces to cars and rockets. It's a deadly poison, which is why people often commit suicide by running the car in a locked garage and breathing in the fumes. Your red blood cells prefer carbon monoxide to oxygen, but your tissues need oxygen, and the oxygen in the carbon monoxide cannot be released into the blood. So if there is carbon monoxide in the air your blood cells latch on to it and your blood becomes oxygen starved. At 50 to 70 parts per million you can begin being poisoned and at two or three times that level you will probably be on your way to meeting your Maker.

In the atmosphere carbon monoxide will eventually combine with oxygen and become carbon dioxide. So whether you are burning wood in a fireplace or candles on your dinner table, you are contributing carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide to our atmosphere.

## WATER VAPOR (H2O)

Water vapor accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect, between 36% and 66% if the sky is clear and between 66% and 85% when clouds dot or cover the sky. Water vapor concentration Is somewhat dependent on where one measures it in the world. Lakes, rivers and irrigated farmland will increase the potential that water vapor will be a warming factor. Air temperature is another variable. The warmer it is, the more water vapor the air can hold. At 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) the air can hold only 3% of water vapor.

You have probably heard the saying, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

Humans don't contribute much to the production of water vapor, but they do contribute directly to the warning that makes the air capable of absorbing the water.

The average residence time of a water molecule in the atmosphere is only about nine days, compared to years or centuries for other greenhouse gases such as CH4 and CO2.

## METHANE (NH3)

After carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas is methane. It accounts for 4 to 9% of the greenhouse effect. It has doubled in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Its major source is natural gas fields because natural gas is 97% methane. The oil and gas industries actually contribute 30% of the methane released into the atmosphere. When it is burned we produce more CO2. About 10% of methane comes from biomass burning. Methane is also derived from things like rice paddies, bovine flatulence, bacteria in bogs, the thawing of the arctic tundra in Russia and Canada, the decomposition of garbage, and from fossil fuel production. Most of the world's rice, and all of the rice in the United States, is grown on flooded fields. When fields are flooded, anaerobic conditions develop and the organic matter in the soil decomposes, releasing methane, CH4, into the atmosphere.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reports that 14% of human related emissions come from livestock—about 7.1 billion tons (gigatons) of CO2 equivalents come from livestock—41% from beef and 20% from milk cows. This does not include the emissions from their manure. Pigs contribute another 9% and chickens and eggs 8%. Then we would need to add in: the sheep and goats, dogs and cats, giraffes and zebras,--and don't forget the elephants! All are adding methane and CO2.

A surprising study from Hawaii has found that plastic, like plastic bags—especially those made from polyethylene, like grocery bags—decompose and give off methane when in sunlight or seawater. It took about 152 days in seawater before the methane began to be released.

Although methane is about 200 times less abundant than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, molecule for molecule methane is 25 times more effective at trapping heat. It has a half-life of about ten to twelve years in the atmosphere. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, methane has more than doubled in the troposphere. Additionally, its concentration has been increasing at about 1% per year.

Methane is mostly removed from the atmosphere by chemical reaction, which takes about 12 years. Thus although methane is a potent greenhouse gas, its effect is relatively short-lived.

As the oceans warm we can expect methane, which has been trapped in the ice under the ocean's sediment, to be released. It is estimated that there are ten trillion tons which could be released. If they were all released at once we might expect another 5 degree increase in global temperature. More likely, is the release of methane from the peat bogs of the world where about 70 billion tons are stored.

## OZONE (O3)

Ozone is a relatively unstable molecule of three oxygen atoms. At ground level (tropospheric ozone) it is an air pollutant that is toxic to the respiratory system. At high altitudes, (upper tropospheric or stratosphere) 15 to 30 kilometers, it acts as a filter of harmful ultraviolet rays, reducing the number that reach the earth. But it also acts as a greenhouse gas trapping infrared rays reflected from the Earth. It accounts for 3 to 7% of the greenhouse effect.

## NITROUS OXIDE (N2O)

Then there's nitrous oxide, N2O. You may have heard of the anesthetic called 'laughing gas', that's nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is naturally produced by oceans and rainforests. Man-made sources of nitrous oxide include nylon and nitric acid production, the use of fertilizers in agriculture, fossil fuel use, cars with catalytic converters, and the burning of organic matter—biomass burning. Agriculture is responsible for four and a half million tons per year. It is nearly 50% more prevalent now than before the industrial revolution.

Nitrous oxide is broken down in the atmosphere by chemical reactions that involve sunlight. Its concentrations have been increasing at about 0.3 percent per year for the last several decades. Yet, nitrous oxide has a lifetime of 150 years in the atmosphere, which contrasts sharply with the 10-year lifetime of methane. A single nitrous oxide molecule is the equivalent of 200 to 300 carbon dioxide molecules in terms of its greenhouse gas effect. Biomass burning accounts for about 2 to 3 percent of the total amount of troposphere nitrous oxide.

Emissions of nitrous oxides and methane are further associated with the production of tropospheric ozone. Unlike "good" ozone in the stratosphere that acts as a shield to screen out the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, ozone close to the earth is a pollutant that, when breathed, damages lung tissue and is also harmful to plants. It is also one of the compounds that can contribute to acid rain.

Nitrous oxide is destroyed in the stratosphere and removed from the atmosphere more slowly than methane, persisting for around  114 years.

## SULPHUR DIOXIDE (SO2)

Acid rain is a major effect of excessive oxides of sulfur. Well over a third of China has been dampened by acid rain from the 25 million tons of sulfur dioxide emitted from their coal and oil burning factories. The Chinese output of sulfur dioxides is increasing at almost 10% per year. While the cheaper energy sources are good for business they harm the soil and vegetation. It's not a greenhouse gas, but it is certainly an air pollutant.

## FLUORINATED GASES

Gases containing fluorine and carbon, sulfur, nitrogen or other elements, are man-made. They can last for thousands of years in the atmosphere, but at this time are a very small percentage of greenhouse gases.

# 

# CHAPTER 4 THE MAJOR POLLUTERS

How do various countries rank, per capita, in terms of CO2 output?

The U.S.A. and China produce more CO2 from fossil fuels and cement manufacturing than any other country—about 6 billion tons a year each. But China has more than three times as many people. Maybe we should look at it from a per capita output. When we do that we find that oil producing countries, like Qatar which heads the list with more than 40 metric tons per year, per-person. The smaller Arab Mideast states are also high, in the 20 plus metric ton range. But the US is right up there at over 16 metric tons per person. Canada is pretty high too, at about 15. Most of the European countries are in the 5 to 9 metric ton range. Mexico averages 4 tons per person which is below the world average of 5. Naturally the undeveloped countries range down to 0. Here are the 2014 World Bank ratings for some countries.

OIL PRODUCERS AND REFINERS

Bahrain 23.5, Brunei Darussalam 22.2, Oman 15.2, Qatar 43.9, Saudi Arabia 19.4,

United Arab Emirates 22.9

**HIGH POLLUTING COUNTRIES** (Over 10 metric tons per person)

Australia 15.4, Canada 15.2, Estonia 14.8, South Korea 11.6, Russian Federation 11.9,

Singapore 10.3, United States 16.5

MEDIUM PRODUCING COUNTRIES

Argentina 4.8, China 7.5, Czech Republic 9.2, Denmark 5.9, Finland 8.7, France 4.6,

Germany 8.9, Iran 8.4, Iraq 4.9, Ireland 7.3, Israel 7.9

Italy 5.3, Japan 9.5, Mexico 4.0, Netherlands 9.9, New Zealand 7.7, Norway 9.3,

South Africa 9.0, Spain 5.0, Sweden 4.5, Switzerland 4.3, United Kingdom 6.5

**LOW PRODUCING COUNTRIES** (Primarily Sub-Saharan and other undeveloped countries)

Afghanistan 0.3, Cambodia 0.4, Cameroon 0.3, Central African Republic 0.1,

Ethiopia 0.1, India 1.7, North Korea 1.6, Rwanda 0.1, Somalia 0.0

What the list does not show is the contribution of each country from burning wood for cooking or heating, or the pollutants produced from forest fires or volcanoes.

## POLLUTANTS

Looking at the amount of CO2 produced in generating one kilowatt hour of power from one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fuel, we find that natural gas is the least polluting and burning wood is the most polluting.

While writing this chapter in early October of 2019 I read an article in the Norwegian newspaper _Dagsavisen_. In an interview with the head of a wood consultancy, he was clear that burning wood was the least polluting fuel. Most homes in Norway have wood-burning fireplaces, In fact they are a "must" in every expensive home and every inexpensive cabin. Norwegians are leaders in fighting climate change. They allowed electric cars to be sold without the very high taxes on new cars. They allowed electric cars to park free when others had to pay for parking. They have companies selling solar power plants around the world. But how can burning wood cause pollution? "We have always done it." It's like Californians driving their cars 30 to 50 miles each way to work, with only the driver. "We've always done it!" But if we don't change our traditional habits, our children and grandchildren will be living in a far less hospitable world.

It goes without saying that the carbon that the trees capture for photosynthesis is reintroduced into the atmosphere. Then, as the charred remains decompose methane and oxides of nitrogen are released.

Approximate natural and human contributions to greenhouse gases in billions of tons per year.

Greenhouse Warming Potential in grams CO2-equivalent per passenger-kilometer

---

 | Urban | Rural | Highway

Car - driving solo | 310 | 180 | 220

Motorcycles & Scooters | 260 | 190 | 330

Car - driving with one passenger | 155 | 90 | 110

Car - driving with three passengers | 78 | 45 | 55

### AND A NEW CONCERN!

---

In an international study headed by the University of Southern California, and reported in Science Daily in February 2019, found that there are carbon and methane reservoirs on the ocean floor that can release the gases they harbor. These reservoirs are from undersea volcanoes and changes in the planetary crust. They are found in all oceans and they can be destabilized with increasing ocean temperature. One near Taiwan, is only a few degrees from destabilizing and releasing its gases.

These situations have been found in the Gulf of California, off the west coast of Canada, in the Aegean Sea, and other places around the Pacific rim. We don't know yet how many of these are vulnerable to destabilization because of ocean temperature rises. A newly found concern is that ocean heat has increased rapidly over the last 50 years. The oceans have retained 60% more heat than scientists had predicted.

History has shown that such destabilization's have occurred throughout history, the last was about 17,000 years ago. The undersea heating may have been responsible, in large part, for the ending of the last ice age. About 55 million years ago there was a huge jump in global temperatures, about 8°C higher than today.

Scientists have not yet mapped all the potential reservoirs and they do not know exactly how much warming will trigger the release of each of them. Additionally, the oceans are not equally warm in each geographic area nor at any particular depth.

#

# CHAPTER 5 UNDER

# STANDING OUR VALUES AND ETHICAL POSITIONS—AND CONFLICTS

The problems related to climate change, caused by global warming, should be obvious to everyone. Why aren't they? They are for most informed people, but even informed people may be more concerned with making money or being elected. So, let's look briefly at the kinds of values we may hold—and how important they are to us. The more important they are, the harder we will work to achieve them.

Our values come from three sources: self-centered values, what we believe are God based values, and what we believe are values for the best society. We can further understand them in terms of whether we are concerned with satisfying that value now or in the future.

### SELF-CENTERED VALUES

  * It is cold today so I buy a warm coat, that is self-centered with the present time as my major concern.

  * If it is a warm July day and winter coats are on sale for half-price and I buy one, it is self-centered with the future in mind. I will use the coat when it is cold, and I will have more money in the future because I saved half of the winter price.

  * Tomorrow I have a very important test in my ecology class, but there is an interesting party to which I have been invited. I choose to go to the party. This is self-centered with the present time as my major concern.

  * I choose to study for the test. I want to learn more about ecology, and I might want to become an environmental engineer. So my actions were self-centered, with the future as my concern.

When we hear of scientists who are on the payroll of energy companies or politicians who accept lobbyist contributions or who have financial interest in energy countries, like

### GOD-BASED VALUES

In the early verses of the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament, this commandment appears, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Mormons add another reason for having children. They believe that at creation God created many souls. These need to be born so that they can be saved for eternal life.

The Qu'ran, of the Muslims, does not give such a command. Neither do Hindu scriptures.

When Mother Theresa was ministering to the abandoned street children in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India—was she doing it out of a powerful feeling of empathy for them, a need to treat people as Jesus preached, or to get to heaven? You can see how her actions could be done with the "present" or her future in mind.

### SOCIETY-BASED VALUES

People living in Sweden are not immediately affected by climate change, but the major leader today in pushing for a change is a young Swede, Greta Thunberg. She is concerned for her future (self-centered value) and the future of the planet (a societal value).

Many people are concerned about climate change because it is causing the extinction of many species, destroying coral reefs, and negatively affecting our oceans and other bodies of water. These are purely societal values.

### CONFLICTS IN VALUES

Obviously, in combatting climate change we are looking at what is good for society, however many, if not most, are concerned with themselves in their futures and for their children and grandchildren. So for most, it is a self-centered value with the future being of major concern.

Greta has been criticized for not knowing what she is talking about. She is, after all, a young girl being criticized by rich old men. Anyone with a basic knowledge of philosophy knows that this is a logical fallacy called _Argumentum ad hominem_ —criticizing the person, rather than what is said.

If an idiot in a mental institution says that the Earth is round, or more correctly an "oblate spheroid' (a slightly flattened sphere) but the president of your country says that "the world is flat," it is the idiot, not the leader, who is correct! We see such fallacious argument continually in politics, especially by the uninformed. (If you would like a more complete list of commonly used fallacious arguments, logical fallacies, see: "Revitalizing Democracy," a print book, or "Dumbing Down Democracy," an e-book—by the author.)

## THE ASSUMPTIONS WE USE MAY VARY WITH THE VALUE WE ARE CONSIDERING

We all may hold values in each of these three different assumptions depending on the issue. Perhaps, when it is cold, I want to wear my mink coat-- even though many people believe that raising animals for their skins is immoral. I would be using a self-centered value. I may be a Catholic, so I am against abortion. This is obviously a God basis. At the same time, I may be working for the Green Party to reduce carbon dioxide pollution. This would be a society-based value. But it could also be a God-based value. Looking at a few verses from Genesis we can see some "God assumptions" implied:

  * 1:26 "And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

  * 1:28 "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

If God gave dominion "over all the earth," and commanded us to "subdue" the earth, we could certainly make a case for a God basis here. But Genesis does not specifically mention climate change.

### Let's Look at Another Value Question in American Society

Let us look briefly at what may be America's major health problem-- the opioid addiction levels. What if we have a person we do not know who is a fentanyl addict, and has been for five years. He has been in treatment centers three times, but does not want to give up his habit because it feels so good. Should we just let him die on his next overdose?

His sister and mother want to protect him and hope he will give up his habit. Their desires are self-centered.

We have some people in the Salvation Army who have taken him into their shelters and fed him. Since all people are created in the image of God, all of us are equally valuable and the Salvation Army follows this ethical God-based idea.

On the other hand, there are people who believe that anyone who chooses to use addicting drugs is not worthy of the society. Why should our society spend police time, ambulance driver time, doctor and nurse time, on this derelict? We would be better off spending the money on schools and scholarships for people who have a good chance of helping society. After all, there is only so much money for society to use. So, where are the best places to put our tax dollars for the betterment of our society?

Is working to reduce climate change a goal for you? How much time and money are you willing to spend to make this value a reality? Are you willing to run for public office? Are you willing to spend time working for politicians who are honestly seeking to reverse climate change

# CHAPTER 6 THE DENIERS

The evidence is so clear, and is affirmed by at least 97% of scientists who study the environment. Monitoring the air temperatures, the water temperature and the ocean acidity, the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the increase in forest fires and strong storms—all predictable—prove beyond a doubt that climate change is with us—and the evidence is, as scientists say, is highly probable. Probable like, the sun will come up in the east tomorrow morning or my mother-in-law will congratulate me tomorrow for being her daughter's best choice for a husband!

It may surprise a few to realize that most of the climate deniers are funded by fossil fuel interests. Can you believe that if we went totally green tomorrow the ExxonMobil, Chevron and Koch Industries would have no income. And we all know that there is nothing more important in life than money. Money gives us the best schools for our children, the best Scotch for our toddies, and the best politicians that money can buy.

The "Institute for Energy Research" is a scientifically sounding name. It does its best, without sound evidence, to downplay, not only climate change, but also solar and wind power. I wonder who finances this non-profit group? Oh my goodness! The early funding came from the oil billionaire Koch brothers. Exxon-Mobil was another funder that deducted its contributions to this anti-citizen pro-oil group. Some might wonder how its charitable non-profit status was approved!

It's about freedom. Why should you worry? We're all going to die eventually, as David Koch did recently.

The Kochs have given over $1.2 billion to libertarian causes. And we would have to agree with them and the Libertarian Party. Why should we have taxes, especially income taxes. And, as you would probably agree with them that we should eliminate: the I.R.S., the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the S.E.C. And who needs public education? Medicare and Social Security cost the billionaires way too much money in taxes. And who needs child labor laws or minimum wages?

When the brothers have $120 billion, after taking out lunch money, there is enough left over to convince or bribe people to see their position—that it is good to let them keep their fortunes.

Of course, the Kochs, other oil billionaires, and companies with fortunes, are perfectly entitled to have their desires. Climate change will not affect them as much as it does us! They can always stay ahead of the problem. I understand that they are now buying beachfront property in Greenland.

### CONFRONTING YOUR DENYING FRIENDS

How many temperature measuring stations do they have on land and in the oceans?

Those of us who believe in warming, base our evidence on over 1000 reporting stations on land and sea that have been recording temperatures for 50 to 100 or more years.

There are today 31,000 weather stations.

The Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University in the UK has charted the major reporting stations used by the IPCC.

Temperatures from many years ago are only estimates deduced from ice cores and tree rings. With the invention of a thermometer with a scale was accomplished by Daniel Fahrenheit in 1714. Anders Celsius invented his 100 degree scale in 1742. These allowed for accurate temperature measuring.

In 1880, about 140 years ago, America began a more comprehensive recording of temperatures in the U.S. There had already been records kept. England also had been keeping records of land and sea temperatures throughout their Commonwealth.

A bit over ten years ago it was publicized that some thermometers were located in areas that would register a higher than actual temperature for the location. Being placed by an air conditioning outlet that was exhausting the warm air from a building, or placing it near a black asphalt parking area that radiates daytime absorbed temperatures into the nighttime air—raising the average temperature for the location. These poorly placed thermometers have been relocated to register true temperatures. The deniers made the few poorly-placed thermometers a very big deal. They really didn't inflate the mean temperatures, but now after their removal, the 1,000+ thermometers still show the steep increase of yearly temperatures.

### WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE REALITY?

In 1824, French scientist Joseph Fourier found that the planet was warmer than it should be based on its distance from the sun. This was called the "greenhouse effect." He hypothesized that the atmosphere must be retaining some of the sun's heat. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius realized that CO2 from coal burning was increasing considerably and was warning the world. So, if in 1900 we would have projected the warming, we might have done something then. But it was seen, by those few who noticed it, that it would be an advantage for crop production.

In 1938, British scientist Guy Callendar found that in the previous 45 years, the Earth had warmed 0.5o Celsius (nearly one degree F). He noted that in that time, carbon dioxide had increased 10% during that period. He assumed that it was the product of the Industrial Revolution. So what! No politician would bring up scare mongering—even if he knew it existed.

In 1957, American scientist Roger Revelle found that the ocean was becoming more acidic due to its absorption of carbon dioxide. The population was exploding and each person was using more carbon dioxide producing energy. Then a colleague at Scripps, Charles Keeling, began monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He found that the gas had increased from 280 parts per million to 315. It is near 415 ppm today.

By the 1960s scientific voices were raising concerns of warming. Research into the area multiplied. In the 70s more scientific voices were raised with concern. But who could believe such scare tactics. We certainly don't want to tamper with our economy or raise our taxes!

As the research deepened, more greenhouse gases were discovered.

People started to become aware when Al Gore started his speaking tours and released his Academy Award winning film, "Inconvenient Truth."

But money is more important than fact for legislators. And money does buy politicians. This reality is not lost on the energy companies.

### ENERGY LOBBYIST CONTRIBUTIONS 2019

###

---

Contributor | Amount

Koch Industries |       $1,943,933

Marathon Petroleum |       $1,939,982

Chevron Corp |       $1,459,904

Midland Energy |       $1,322,678

Energy Transfer Partners |       $1,265,269

Energy Transfer Equity |       $1,100,000

Walter Oil & Gas |       $1,037,900

National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn |       $847,001

Parman Capital Group |       $820,669

Nextera Energy |       $738,686

Exelon Corp |       $710,268

Otis Eastern |       $704,297

Exxon Mobil |       $554,463

Red Apple Group |       $538,596

Occidental Petroleum |       $502,493

Petroplex Energy |       $500,000

Valero Services |       $500,000

Hilcorp Energy |       $497,684

Berexco Inc |       $496,000

Hunt Companies |       $413,640

Contributions to:  
Democrats     
Republicans     
Liberal Groups    
Conservative Groups     
Nonpartisan

Koch gave all the money to Republicans, as did several other energy companies. 13 gave 90 to 100% to Republicans. None gave more to the Democrats. Does this tell you anything about how our "democratic" system works?

In case you are interested, energy lobbyists are not the most generous in Washington. You might wonder why business, real estate, and social media get the tax breaks they do. Without their taxes the government has less money to spend on greenhouse gas reduction and research on renewable energy. Climate change spending, as you can see, is not a "one issue" factor.

Highest lobbying spenders.

 US Chamber of Commerce | $94,800,000

---|---

 National Assn of Realtors | $72,808,648

 Open Society Policy Center | $31,520,000

 Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America | $27,989,250

 American Hospital Assn | $23,937,842

 Blue Cross/Blue Shield | $23,884,221

 Business Roundtable | $23,160,000

 Alphabet Inc | $21,770,000

 American Medical Assn | $20,427,000

 AT&T Inc | $18,529,000

 Boeing Co | $15,120,000

 Comcast Corp | $15,072,000

 Amazon.com | $14,400,000

 Northrop Grumman | $14,390,000

 National Assn of Broadcasters | $14,170,000

 NCTA The Internet & Television Assn | $13,240,000

 Lockheed Martin | $13,205,502

 Facebook Inc | $12,620,000

 Bayer AG | $12,310,000

 Southern Co | $12,300,000

And you wondered why we don't have less expensive and better health care

### SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVESWHO TAKE LOBBYIST MONEY?

Bottom of Form

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Recipient | From Lobbyists | From Lobbyists and Family Members

---|---|---

 Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) | $364,055 | $364,055

 Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) | $235,868 | $262,068

 Cory Gardner (R-Colo) | $220,475 | $234,825

 Gary Peters (D-Mich) | $214,590 | $229,690

 Steve Scalise (R-La) | $209,749 | $210,249

 Thom Tillis (R-NC) | $206,099 | $219,449

 John Cornyn (R-Texas) | $197,606 | $201,356

 Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) | $192,055 | $198,155

 Doug Jones (D-Ala) | $181,161 | $189,561

 Richard E Neal (D-Mass) | $173,310 | $179,310

 Mark Warner (D-Va) | $164,998 | $174,638

 Ed Markey (D-Mass) | $148,997 | $168,497

 Susan Collins (R-Maine) | $105,276 | $112,486

 Lindsey Graham (R-SC) | $101,775 | $101,975

 Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) | $97,458 | $100,083

 Greg Walden (R-Ore) | $95,286 | $96,786

 Steven Daines (R-Mont) | $90,733 | $93,233

 David Perdue (R-Ga) | $85,295 | $85,545

 Tina Smith (D-Minn) | $85,050 | $87,850

 Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) | $84,971 | $87,671

 Dick Durbin (D-Ill) | $81,770 | $82,770

 Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) | $81,265 | $91,665

 Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) | $81,100 | $81,100

 Bradley Byrne (R-Ala) | $79,000 | $79,000

 Chris Coons (D-Del) | $78,500 | $80,950

 Steny H Hoyer (D-Md) | $77,600 | $78,600

 Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) | $77,250 | $77,250

 Martha McSally (R-Ariz) | $73,833 | $79,433

 Amanda Makki (R-Fla) | $73,108 | $75,608

 Darin LaHood (R-Ill) | $71,450 | $71,450

 James M Inhofe (R-Okla) | $70,433 | $73,983

 George Holding (R-NC) | $68,621 | $68,621

 Jack Reed (D-RI) | $66,263 | $67,263

 Kevin Brady (R-Texas) | $61,502 | $64,302

 Steve Bullock (D) | $61,391 | $63,416

 Drew Ferguson (R-Ga) | $61,300 | $61,300

 Patrick McHenry (R-NC) | $60,950 | $60,950

 Ken Calvert (R-Calif) | $60,938 | $60,938

 Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) | $60,079 | $60,079

 Pat Toomey (R-Pa) | $58,482 | $59,982

 Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) | $58,449 | $58,949

 Vernon Buchanan (R-Fla) | $57,121 | $57,121

 Devin Nunes (R-Calif) | $56,821 | $56,821

 Liz Cheney (R-Wyo) | $56,800 | $56,800

#

#

# CHAPTER 7 FINDING SOLUTIONS

It goes without saying that increasing the economic output of a nation and a higher standard of living for more people are the causes of much of climate change. Cheap coal fuels are developing energy for countries like India and China. And the oil producing countries meet the desires of the richer countries for more of the comforts of life, for the people with money, around the world. But why live if we can't have a car for every member of our family? Why live if we can't have heating and air conditioning, steaks and Big Macs, five bedroom homes and luxury travel?

Scientists will find a way to eliminate greenhouse gases and the nearly 8 billion people who produce them. And if they don't find solutions fast enough, Mother Nature will handle it with floods, famines, hurricanes, forest fires, wars, pestilences, terrorism, or other troubles that she and Pandora have in their bag of tricks.

The higher the income, the more CO2 is produced because of the amenities of money; driving, air conditioning, consuming food requiring more energy to produce, living in bigger houses (energy cost of building materials), air travel, etc. A 2017 study from the London School of Economics reported that rich households in the United States in 2009, on average, created 12 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year just from driving their cars and a total of 59 tons of CO2 for the entire household. A poor U.S. household creates about 18 metric tons in a whole year, including 3.6 metric tons from driving. So, the rich household is three times as much of a polluter than the poor family. During the period of the study, 1996 to 2009, the average household emissions dropped 10%, to 40 metric tons annually. This was attributed to more fuel-efficient cars and cleaner power generation.

# THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ALTERNATE ENERGY SOURCES

Energy obviously costs money. There are the costs to build: the mines, the nuclear reactors, the wind turbines, the solar panels, etc. Then there are the salaries of: the miners, the inspectors, the assemblers, the researchers, and the maintenance personnel. Taking all of these into consideration in determining the cost of a kilowatt or megawatt hour, is called the "levelized cost of energy" (LCOE). Below is a graph showing the rapidly reducing cost of wind energy.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (2019) estimated that photovoltaic solar power had decreased in price 81% in ten years, to $57 per megawatt hour (MWh). During the same period, land based turbines had fallen 46% to $50 per MWh and ocean based turbines had dropped 44% to $89 per MWh.

It is easy to see why photovoltaic energy is rapidly reducing in price. This Bloomberg chart shows the unbelievable decrease in the cost of the solar cells.

In spite of the probable cost of battery storage for the energy from the intermittent energy sources of the wind and the sunlight, batteries are being developed to handle them. The generated electricity may be stored many ways. For example, The electricity can power a pump to bring water uphill. Then when power is needed the water can flow downhill and turn a turbine to create electricity. Batteries use chemicals to store potential energy. They generally work with a DC output, but can be charged with AV current. (Thomas Edison wanted to use only direct current for all uses but Nicola Tesla and George Westinghouse won the major battle for universal electricity, using alternating current.)

In October of 2018 the president of the World Bank said, "We are required by our by-laws to go with the lowest cost option, and renewables have now come below the cost of [fossil fuels]."

# SPEEDING THE INTELLIGENT PROCESS TO SAVE THE PLANET

With these factors in mind, we know that renewable sources for energy cost less than fossil fuel produced energy. Then when we factor in the additional costs of fossil fuels, like the:

  * Damage done to agriculture from acid rain,

  * Damage to cities, farmland, and low lying islands from the rising oceans,

  * Increasingly non-livable heat of lands closer to the equator,

  * Increased storms (rain, snow, and wind) caused by the increased greenhouse gases,

  * Increased forest fire danger

We have trillions of dollars in past and future expenses. Demonstrations for renewable energy should be easily mounted and easily accepted by the governments—BUT:

  * Fossil fuel billionaires and industries have more money to influence legislators than do student and citizen protesters,

  * The multi-million dollar lobbyist contributions to political parties and candidates is a formidable foe—It is a matter of educating citizens to do the things that will benefit them, rather than the things that will benefit non-caring billionaires and politicians.

  * We must be prepared for the illogical warfare of propaganda, lies and other fake news, and the charges that we are: anti-capitalistic, anti-democratic, socialistic or other epithets that are born of the financially fueled fossil fuel spokespeople.

  * We must therefore:

  * Find intelligent, well-educated, globally concerned people to run for legislative and executive positions around the world,

  * Be knowledgeable about the facts,

  * Organize the masses of concerned citizens to educate the voters in door-to-door encounters,

  * If you believe that this book will aid in people's education, it will always be available free, as an e-book, through channels that accept free books, such as: Apple, Google, Smashwords, Kobo—and through the publisher totalhealthpublications.com.

  * Print copies are available through all distributers.

## THERE WILL BE INCONVENIENCES

As it stands now, controlling climate change will require inconveniences that many do not like—and will not accept! But which is the greater inconvenience, taking public transportation or dying??

The solutions range from individual and societal changes, which are achievable, and to population reduction, which is probably not achievable.

  * INDIVIDUAL CHANGES—Can be done immediately

  * SOCIETAL CHANGES—Can be done in a few years—but not fast enough to save all of us

  * POPULATION REDUCTION—Too much resistance to this—Solution is likely to be total or extensive annihilation.

The first two can be started now.

# INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS YOU CAN DO

Let first look at personal changes we can make immediately. Then we will look at international and national efforts and how near term economic issues inhibit the life or death issues of climate change. After we have done this we will look at the realities of the elephant in the room—overpopulation--and suggest some long-term solutions. However, traditions, both religious and societal, cannot be made fast enough to prevent the billions of deaths that could have been prevented if we had acted forcefully and decisively when we were first made aware of global warming.

People don't realize the environmental costs of the energy they use. For example, to burn a 100 watt bulb for a year, day and night, would use 714 pounds of coal or 143 pounds of natural gas or 32 hours of solar power from a 100 square meters of solar panels.

If every American would replace just one 100 watt light bulb with an energy saving bulb it would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year and would save nearly $700 million in annual energy bills. It would also reduce the greenhouse gas output by 4,500,000 tons about the equivalent of 800,000 cars. But we Americans are too self-centered, I'm afraid.

YOU CAN:

  * Buy products with minimal packaging.

  * Recycle paper, glass and other recyclables.

  * Wash clothes in cold or warm water—saving up to 500 pounds of carbon dioxide.

  * Turn off lights and appliances, TV, etc. when not in use.

  * Conserve water by: taking shorter showers, using less water to water lawns, wash cars, etc.

  * Start a plant-based diet with less meat. Reducing beef and dairy products and lamb, in favor of fish and chicken, not only helps the environment—it also gives you a much higher quality of protein. (Proteins are rated according to the amount of the various amino acids available. Egg whites are 96% perfect. Skim milk is 92, fish in the high 80s, chicken in the mid-80s, then organ meats, then steak in the high 70s. Beans come below that. But by combining some vegetables, such as wheat and peanuts (ie, peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread) or rice and beans (a Mexican tradition) high levels of protein can be achieved.

  *     * Avoid palm oil and generic vegetable oils. Palm oil not only is high in the unhealthy saturated fats, but it is generally grown in areas of Malaysia and Indonesia where carbon sink forests have been burned down to clear the area for palm orchards where the oil is produced.

    * Reduce food waste. Wasted food used water and fertilizer to produce. Estimates are that the power to produce that wasted food resulted in more than 50 gigatons (50 million tons) of carbon dioxide.

  * Buy tax credits for their own emissions.

  * Plant trees and other vegetation.

  * You can also donate to charities that plant trees. For example, Eden Reforestation hires local residents to plant trees in Madagascar and Africa for $0.10 a tree. It also gives the very poor people an income, rehabilitates their habitat, and saves species from mass extinction. They report that they have planted 242 million trees and created two and a half million days of work,

100 mangrove trees can absorb 2.18 metric tons of CO2 annually. The average American would need to plant 734 mangrove trees to offset one year's worth of CO2. At $0.10 a tree, that would cost $73.

Depending on the size of the tree, a proportional amount of carbon dioxide will be absorbed. Also, trees don't seem to have their growth enhanced if there is more CO2 in the air, according to a major Swiss study.

YOUR HOME

  * Check to see if solar water heaters would be helpful in your area.

  * Check to see if photovoltaic panels are appropriate for your area.

  * If your power company offers an energy audit—take them up om it.

  * Turn your heating thermostat so that the heater comes on at a lower temperature. (Just find a sweater!) Turn it down at night. A 2o change saves about a ton of carbon dioxide per year.

  * Turn your air conditioning thermostat so that it comes on at a higher temperature.

  * Use solar or wind power for your home. Depending on the cost of the panels and installation and the cost of electricity from the local utility—the 20 year savings should be between $10,000 and $40,000.

  * Insulate the walls.

  * Caulk the exterior doors, windows, and any spaces that may let in outside air.

  * Use double or triple paned windows.

  * Install a programmable thermostat.

  * Use florescent or LED light bulbs. Each will save energy and save you about $30 during its lifetime.

  * When buying appliances, buy the energy efficient ones.

  * Set your water heater thermostat at 120o.

  * Wrap insulation around older water heaters.

  * Buy low flow shower heads and water conserving toilets.

TRANPORTATION (Every gallon of gasoline not used saves 20 pounds of CO2, so cut gasoline usage.

  * Cycle when you can—without music in your ears.

  * Use public transportation.

  * Carpool

  * Keep tires inflated properly

  * Change the carburetor air filter often.

  * Walk.

## WORKING IN GROUPS TO INFLUENCE BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT

Demonstrations do help to force business and governmental leaders to take a look at the problem. The weekly Hong Kong demonstrations, protesting the possible extradition of Hong Kong citizens to China, did not gain the withdrawal of the bill until the demonstrations had continued every weekend for three months. They became violent occasionally. The violence was probably a political mistake.

Continued demonstrations around the world this year have had some effect, especially in Lebanon where they were protesting a 20 cent tax on What's Ap calls. They were also protesting corruption. (If the world's citizens wanted to protest corruption, we would have more that 7 billion protesters on the streets every day!)

Youth street protests, like those in the Arab Spring, and more recently in Lebanon, Chile, Venezuela and Hong Kong, sometimes get results. With all the Arab Spring protests, it seems that only those in Tunisia were really fruitful. In Palermo, Sicily, one judge who ruled against the mafia was murdered, another has been threatened with death. Huge groups of citizens held mass demonstrations against the mafia, and some volunteered as citizen bodyguards for the threatened judge.

So to be effective today, the protests need to be organized, continual, peaceful, and have leaders who really understand the problems and have realistic solutions. Legislators and presidents in democratic countries want to be re-elected—and most of them want more money in their pockets. Demonstrations and door-to-door voter re-education should be a goal. But then, how will you take on the energy companies and their millionaire and billionaire owners who are likely to oppose you with data-mining, social media, propaganda, and media ads?

Adult revolutionary actions, like the American and French revolutions, had major results. But today's governments have far more firepower than any revolutionary forces can muster. So the "free India" marches of Gandhi and the "free the Blacks" marches of Martin Luther King accomplished, peacefully, the objectives of the people.

In our modern democratic republics, it is possible to re-educate or replace representatives. But since they are often in the pockets of oil producers or energy-using industrialists, powerful grassroots green-advocates must use their time, and personal contact with voters, to counteract the data-mining and advertising of the opposition—those putting THEIR PROFITS over OUR LIVES.

So what might we ask for?

  * Tax the rich-- but don't tax me! Is that really fair? In 2018-19 the President of France enacted a tax on vehicle fuel to tax the polluters. A grassroots "Yellow Vest" movement started in many cities. 500,000 people are saif to have been involved. The tac was withdrawn. As President Macron said, "The end of the month bills won over the end of the world reality."

  * Impose very high carbon taxes on products manufactured with energy from fossil fuels, such as in India and China. Since the taxes will actually be paid by the consumer because the taxes or tariffs are merely added to the price of the goods, are you willing to pay those taxes?

  * Require individuals to buy tax credits for their own emissions---gasoline and utility taxes could handle this.

  * 100% tax on inheritance for rich and poor, with free education for all in state universities. It is certainly possible that some poor kids might find some solutions for global warming—they might be more motivated to find some answers since they didn't have air conditioning in their homes—or tents!

Higher taxes to pay for research into alternate energy and water sources,

All countries, except the U.S., must make changes, but we don't want to burden the U.S. economy with carbon taxes, or the cost of using cleaner energy—and we can't use taxpayer money to pay for planting trees, in fact we should open more national forests for logging! Cutting down large carbon-absorbing trees must be good for the environment—or for some millionaires! At the same time, the developed world still gives China and India leeway in allowing their economic needs to use coal fired energy. Certainly, the economic development of most countries is more important than the lives of the people in all countries—and their progeny!

# BUSINESS

Businesses sometimes take the responsible path on becoming carbon neutral, but the selfishness of both sole proprietors and stockholders generally require government regulation.

The United Nations program "Climate Neutral Now" allows businesses and individuals to offset their emissions by purchasing credits. These credits fund green initiatives, such as  wind energy or solar power plants in developing countries.

# GOVERNMENT REGULATION

Pressure for governmental action may be the major potential outcome of the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations. The ideal, of course, would be to have legislators and executives who understand the risks of climate change, are not beholden to the energy industries, and who have no financial interests, such as stocks, in energy companies.

Pressure corporations to disclose and act on their climate-related risks. 100 companies are responsible for more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. The worst are: ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron. The necessary solutions require that the profits of companies and countries be required to bow to the necessity of self-preservation. While Genesis 1:28 tells us to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. God was obviously talking to Wall Street. But then Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. But Jesus was not an entrepreneurial capitalist. If he had been, he would have started IKEA on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Energy and fossil fuel companies often pay no taxes because of the extensive deductions available, like depletion allowances and the ability to defer taxes, deductions often based on laws enacted over 100 years ago—and protected by lobbyist bribery today. For a list of 60 major companies, including 30 energy companies, that paid no taxes and usually had carryover deductions see: <https://itep.org/notadime/>

As examples: Chevron had a U.S. income of over $5.5 billion and had a carryover loss of $142 million. Duke Energy had a U.S. income of over $3 billion and had a carryover of almost $650 million.

From 2014 to 2017 CO2 emissions were relatively stable, but they began to rise again in 2017. And, it seems that the American government is aiding in that rise by tax breaks and subsidies to the worst polluters in the nation. Ain't capitalism wonderful? But it seems to be intent on killing its future customers!

# INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE

### UNITED NATIONS

The UN has been the major leader in this battle, but its members often become deserters when it is time to pick up a weapon! Here are some UN attempts to lead.

1987. Montreal Protocol to limit man-made aerosols that were depleting the ozone layer that filters out the harmful ultra-violet B rays that increased skin cancers. This protocol has been amended several times. It was the first UN treaty to be signed by all members.

1992. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was formed.

1997. The Kyoto Protocol was a major governmental step in recognizing and fighting global warming. The European Community and 37 industrialized countries promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012. The first commitment was to 5% below 1990 levels. The second commitment period was from 2013 to 2020. They agreed to reduce emissions by 18% below 1990 levels. The United States never ratified it. 100 developing countries, including China and India, were exempted. China has planted a lot of trees and coal burning power plants to feed the trees. I don't know why our country couldn't at least have gone on a tree planting binge. Probably because trees don't produce oil—or maybe the major manufacturers can't make artificial trees that would undersell the nurseries.

2009. Copenhagen Accord. Countries pledged to limit global temperature increases to 2oC (about 3o F) over the pre-industrial level. The developed countries agreed to pay $100 billion a year by 2020 to assist poor countries affected most by climate change, including: relocating communities hit by floods and droughts and protecting water supplies. The countries agreed to provide $30 billion for three years.

Some countries refused to sign the agreement because the United States refused to cut more than 4% of its emissions by 2020. While the Republicans have a poorer record on climate change than the Democrats, both focus on the economy and the financial support of their parties from the contributions of business. And who can blame them, it is certainly more important to be elected than to live!

2015-16. The Paris Climate Accord was signed by 195 countries. They pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. They also committed $3 billion in aid for poorer countries by 2020. These countries are the most likely to suffer damage from rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change. November 4, 2016. The Paris Agreement went into force as 55 members ratified the agreement. They make up 55% of global emissions.

The Accord's goal was to keep global warming from rising more than 2o C (3.6o F) above pre-industrial levels and to work to keep the rise to under 1.5o C (2.7o F). Many experts consider that the tipping point. Beyond that, and climate change becomes unstoppable. And we know that President Trump promised to take the U.S. out of it as soon as legally possible.

Even if all countries follow the Accord, temperatures will continue to rise. The atmosphere is still reacting to the CO2 that's already been pumped into it. Greenhouse gases have been added so quickly that temperatures haven't caught up yet.

### PROGRESS AND INITIATIVES

December 12, 2017 **.** One Planet Summit was called by French President Macron. He convened 50 world leaders to the One Planet Summit. Trump was not invited because he withdrew from the Accord. The summit focused on how to finance the global transition away from fossil fuels.

Twelve commitments were made--12 commitments to be kept. Emmanuel Macron warned the One Planet Summit participants: "Think long and hard, if you make a commitment, we will hold you to it." They thought long and hard... and decided to commit. These are more than commitments,-- they are actions. Here they are.:

  1. Responding to extreme events in island states

  2. Protecting land and water against climate change

  3. Mobilizing researchers and young people to work for the climate

  4. Public procurement and access to green financing for local governments

  5. Zero emissions target

  6. Sectoral shifts towards a decarbonized economy

  7. Zero pollution transport

  8. Toward a carbon price compatible with the Paris Agreement

  9. Actions of central banks and businesses

  10. International mobilization of development banks

  11. Commitment by sovereign funds

  12. Mobilizing institutional investors

As an example of commitments, in number 9 'Actions of central banks and businesses" regarding how convergence can be created between the public- and private-sector work for the climate? Central banks and businesses have answered the One Planet Summit's call and have committed together to take significant steps to redirect financial flows towards the low-carbon economy. 424 companies and organizations and three nations (France, UK and Sweden) support the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) recommendations. The commitment includes 8 out of the 10 of the largest asset managers, leading insurance companies, pension funds, and accounting organizations.

## PROGRESS AND REGRESS

Global energy demand grew by 2.3 percent in 2018, nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010, driven by a strong global economy and higher heating and cooling demand in some parts of the world. China, the United States, and India together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of the rise in the demand for energy.

In 2017, the U.S increased its GDP (the dollar value of all goods and services) by 2.2% and its CO2 emissions increased by 2.5%. In the EU, the GDP increased 2.5%, while CO2 emissions increased by 1.8%.

In 2018, the US increased its GDP 2.9% and had a 3.1% increase in CO2 emissions. The European Union had a 2% increase in GDP while it decreased its CO2 emissions by 0.7%. It should be remembered that the European Union, with its 27 countries, has a greater gross domestic product than does the United States.

### PROGRESS

Europe's emissions fell by 1.3 percent and Japan's fell for the fifth year running. The European Union will cut carbon-dioxide emissions of new vehicles by 30% between 2021 and 2030. The following diagram indicates the progress of the European Union compared to the rest of the world.

All countries should keep their commitments to pursue aggressive cuts to carbon dioxide under the Paris Agreement. Yet even if all commitments are met, global temperatures will increase between about 4.5 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 to 4o C).

In May of 2018 Alaska started its own plan to stop climate change. Although it is a major oil producer, it is experiencing the effects of global warming. The permafrost is thawing, destabilizing roads, and the buildings that sit by them. Protective sea ice is melting, allowing the ocean to erode Alaskan shores. As a result, 31 coastal towns may need to relocate.

The world's 1,000 biggest corporations contribute 12% of greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2017, 89% had plans to cut those emissions. But that's not enough to reach the U.N.'s target of 2 degrees Celsius. So far, 14% of the companies have goals that align with the target. Another 30% pledge do so in the next two years. Investment firms, such as HSBC Holdings and Goldman Sachs, have begun targeting more low-carbon businesses.

China produces twice as much CO2 as the US, but has almost 4 times as many people. In 2010, China promised it would reach four climate goals by 2020.

  1. Reduce CO2 emissions by 40% below 2005 levels. (97% achieved in 2017.)

  2. Increase renewable energy consumption from 9.4% to 15%. (60% achieved.)

  3. Increase forest stock by 1.3 billion cubic meters. (Exceeded as of 2017.)

  4. Increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares relative to 2005. (60% achieved.)

In addition, China is leading the world in electric vehicles. Almost half of the world's all-electric vehicles are sold in China. Its regulations and subsidies encourage consumers to buy them.

### TAXES ON GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS

Sixty areas around the world have  carbon taxes. China, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark are considering a tax on beef. Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock contribute 14.5% of the world's total.

### REGRESS

The United States is responsible for 20% of the world's carbon emissions even though they have only 4.4% of the world's population.. It would be difficult for the other signatories to reach the accord's goal without U.S. participation. But they are trying.

As an American citizen, it puzzles me why Americans don't elect people who are concerned about the future of their country and the world.

Is it their inferior knowledge of the facts, as shown in their low PISA scores? We are 38st internationally in math and 24th in science for 15 year-olds?

Is it that they trust their elected representatives even if they are indebted to special interests?

  * Is it our very high level of adult illiteracy? 32 million US adults can't read.

  * Of those who can read, 72% have read a book this year—mainly fiction.

  * Of the young (18 to 28) about 10% watch national and international TV news

  * Of those with a high school education about 30% (all ages) watch TV news.

About 40 to 50% of Americans vote. Where do they get the facts on which to make informed decisions?

  * Friends and neighbors

  * Social media—possibly influenced by Russian trolls

  * Their political party or their representatives

  * Impartial news sources

  * Authoritative non-fiction books and Internet source

Emissions were up for the first time since 2015. The major reasons were increased electricity demand and the growth in trucking and aviation. In the United States' CO2 emissions grew by 3.1 percent in 2018, reversing a decline a year earlier, while China's emissions rose by 2.5 percent and India's by 4.5 percent.

China is still building coal-fired power plants, as is India. Since 2000 the number of coal plants in the world has doubled to about 2000 gigawatts, that's 2,000,000, megawatts To use solar power to replace these coal-fired plants it would take six and a quarter billion (6,250,000,000) photovoltaic solar panels. This would cover 12,500 square miles—about half the size of West Virginia. Meanwhile, other 550 gigawatt producing plants are being built or are planned. On the other hand, more than 225 coal-fired energy plants have been closed in the U.S. and EU.

But there is another area to be considered. Some people want to boycott decorative woods like teak and mahogany that are used in fine furniture and as walls and other appointments in homes and offices. These woods have come from the trees of the rainforest that eat so much of the air's carbon. So that sounds like a noble gesture. But often they don't consider that the wood they burn in their fireplaces not only came from CO2 breathing trees, but burning them released the carbon back into the air. So they decry the cutting of trees in which the carbon is preserved in the wood, but applaud the burning of other trees because it may save on electricity, which may have been produced by coal. We need much more comprehensive thinking about how to most effectively conserve!

But back to Kyoto. It was predicted that by 2080 there would be an 11% decrease in rainfall for farmland in developed countries due to climate change. And 65 developing countries might lose 280 million tons of cereal production. One of the objectives was to have developed countries buy carbon emission credits from countries that had more forests and plants. That money could then be used to help underdeveloped countries develop more effective agricultural techniques and to aid them in developing bioenergy. Bioenergy is a real alternative to fossil fuels and could include fuel from animal and plant waste and alcohol developed from plants. It was hoped that by using biofuels carbon emissions could be reduced by between 5 and 25 percent of projected fossil fuel emissions for the year 2050. But it has got to become more pollution free in its development.

Then the protocol looked to developing carbon sinks, places where carbon could be stored—like forests. It also stated that the destruction of forests was responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gases. By encouraging forest growth in undeveloped countries the polluting countries could buy credits from the people with the forests to offset the carbon they were releasing. So for example, if the U.S. was told that its carbon dioxide target was 4 billion tons by 2030 and it was putting out 5 billion tons, it could buy credits for the extra billion tons from countries with forests, like Brazil or some undeveloped country that had planted a lot of trees.

# CHAPTER 8 WHERE IS THE BEST USE OF YOUR TIME

# DEMONSTRATING YOUR DISPLEASURE ON THE STREETS OR KNOCKING ON DOORS TO CONVINCE VOTERS TO VOTE FOR A GREEN CANDIDATE?

Youth street protests, like those in the Arab Spring, and more recently in Lebanon and Hong Kong, sometimes get results. Adult revolutionary actions, like the American and French revolutions, had major results. But today's governments have far more firepower than any revolutionary forces can muster. So the "free India" marches of Gandhi and the "free the Blacks" marches of Martin Luther King accomplished, peacefully, the objectives of the people.

In our modern democratic republics, it is possible to re-educate or replace representatives. But since they are often in the pockets of oil producers or energy using industrialists, powerful grassroots green-advocates must use their time, and personal contact with voters, to counteract the data-mining and advertising of the opposition—those putting their profits over our lives.

With these facts and factors in mind, the deeply committed people SHOULD consider active participation in government at both the state and the national levels. If they choose not to participate personally in the functions of government, they MUST work to elect legislators by demonstrating, contributing financially, volunteering their time, and knocking on voters' doors to educate and encourage them to vote. That education must not only include the scientific facts but also must include countering the propaganda that is certain to appear in newspapers, radio, television, Facebook and other social media. A thorough and effective program will need a group of advocates monitoring the various propaganda containing media and developing truthful and effective answers to the untruthful propaganda.

Among the actions that might be advocated:

  * Pressure corporations to disclose and act on their climate-related risks.

  * Require industries to buy tax credits to cover their greenhouse gas emissions.

  * Eliminate tax breaks for energy companies—in fact all companies.

  * Eliminate subsidies to companies and industries that emit greenhouse gases.

  * Ratify United Nations and other international protocols that deal with preventing and reversing climate change.

### PRESSURING POLITICIANS

The electorate CAN, but seldom will, pressure their elected officials to do intelligent things for the citizens, rather than catering to the wishes of the elites. In the 2018 elections in the U.S. several "anti-elite" representatives were elected. Bernie Sanders in the presidential primaries of 2015-16 and 2019 and Elizabeth Warren in 2019-20 were anti-establishment candidates. Both refused to take political contributions from special interests.

In the UK, try to tax the royal family or the hundreds of dukes and barons out of their riches and land holdings—land given four or five hundred years ago by King "what's his name."

The elites are the leaders in: business, labor, religions, government, royal families, and the military. They have the power to influence people with their words and actions. They can buy radio and television stations, put ads or propaganda on YouTube or Facebook, or use troll accounts like Russia and other countries, and many people, have done. They can influence us to vote, or not to vote, through any of the many data-mining programs.

When the UK is 23rd and the U.S. is 31st on the international PISA scores for educational achievement (behind: Singapore at number 1, Estonia 5th, China 10th, Vietnam at 22—and straddling Russia at 28) you can understand how easy it is to hoodwink us—the supposedly superior Anglos.

# PRESSURING GOVERNMENTS TO CURB THE EXCESSES

Since national economies and personal tax increases are the major impediments to effective climate change, maybe they should be the targets for significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. And, REMEMBER, reduction of greenhouse gases will be painful for all of us.

  * Driving your car should be much more expensive.

  * Solar, wind and tidal power will cost much more to install for individuals and industries—but will be cheaper in the long run.

  * Governments could make laws to forbid trading with countries who are not meeting the goals set by the most recent scientific findings for a realistic and meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases and a drastic cut in fossil fuel use.

  * Or apply very high tariffs to goods and services sold by countries that are not meeting realistic goals in reducing greenhouse gases.

  * Overpopulation must be quickly reversed, preferably voluntarily rather than through starvation, drowning, terrorism or war.

  * Richer countries might pay people to be sterilized—so that the action is voluntary.

The costs will have to borne by you, the consumer. Although pressure might be brought, through changing corporate stock-purchasing options, reducing stockholder payouts and reducing CEO salaries. Such an economic onslaught would require a major overhaul of the self-centered thinking of most of us and our leaders.

  * The price to save the planet will be high—it is, after all, a large planet.

  * Realistically, we can pray—but the responsibility is ours.

  * We can complain and demonstrate—but we must physically DO!

What else can we do?

  * Require industries to buy tax credits to cover their greenhouse gas emissions.

  * Pressure corporations to disclose and act on their climate-related risks. 100 companies are responsible for more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. The worst are ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron. These four companies contribute 6.49% alone.

  * Require individuals to buy tax credits for their own emissions---gasoline and utility taxes could handle much of this.

  * Vote for candidates who promise a solution to climate change. The Sunrise Movement is pressuring candidates to adopt a Green New Deal. There are 500 candidates who have vowed not to accept campaign contributions from the oil industry.

# CHAPTER 9 CARBON SINKS

Ultimately, trees of any shape, size, or genetic origin help absorb CO2. Most scientists agree that the least expensive and perhaps the easiest way for individuals to help offset the CO2 that they generate in their everyday lives is to plant a tree...any tree, as long as it is appropriate for the given region and climate.

Those who wish to help larger tree planting efforts can donate money or time to the National Arbor Day Foundation or American Forests in the U.S., or to the Tree Canada Foundation in Canada.

But it depends on such things as the number of trees and other plants in the world and how much more CO2 the ocean can absorb. It has been absorbing about half of the human produced CO2 up to now. But as the ocean warms the CO2 is held closer to the surface and the amount of gas that can be absorbed by the whole ocean is reduced.

Then there is the fact that when the climate warms, the plants don't absorb as much carbon dioxide, probably because they reduce their growing rate so that they can conserve water. So CO2 emissions are not being handled as well as they were a hundred years ago. But there's more to the mix. As the world warms, there is some evidence that the tree line is rising in the northern latitudes and in the higher altitudes. But then there are some other negatives, like tree damaging insects that increase as the climate warms. The average temperature is expected to increase by almost one and a half degrees Celsius by 2050. It may not sound like much but on a global scale it is immense. If we do nothing, the Earth's temperature will probably rise 4 degrees Celsius this century.

### CREATE SINKS

Sinks may be long or short term possibilities; For example, if you plant a tree it will help for the life of the tree. But, when it dies or is burned for cooking or for a decorative cozy atmosphere, the carbon it had captured is released to the atmosphere it once called home!

### TREES TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

Dave Nowak, a researcher at the U.S. Forest Service's Northern Research Station in Syracuse, New York, has studied the use of trees for carbon sequestration in urban settings across the United States. A 2002 study he co-authored lists the common horse-chestnut, Douglas fir,  black walnut, American sweetgum, ponderosa pine, red pine, white pine, London plane, Hispaniolan pine,  scarlet oak, red oak, Virginia live oak, and  bald cypress as examples of trees especially good at absorbing and storing CO2. Avoid planting trees that require a lot of maintenance, since the burning of fossil fuels to power trucks and chainsaws. A ten year old eucalyptus or pine tree would sequester about 70 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year.

A trillion trees can be planted on the 1.7 billion hectares (4.2 billion acres or 6.5 million square miles—an area the size if the U.S. and China) that are available and not being used for agriculture.

Anyway!, chopping down that fir tree for your traditional holiday decoration has some negative consequences for your children and grandchildren. Maybe you should leave a bottle of oxygen in their Christmas stocking!

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# CHAPTER 10 OVERPOPULATION—THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

# DON'T READ THIS CHAPTER IF YOU ARE BOUND BY TRADITIONS

You are already protesting against many traditions that our economic system and our technologically pampering that has given us undreamed of comforts and conveniences. We no longer have to walk great distances to talk to a friend. We don't have to send smoke signals either. We can e-mail, Skype, Facetime, Facebook, Whats Ap or even drive to see each other. We don't have to work 10 or 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, to make a living. There are more ways to kill a night than just playing cards. We had radio, then television, the Internet—and now video games. Life keeps getting easier, with more free time and more enjoyable ways to spend it. How come? More fossil fuel is available for our transportation needs. There is more electrical power for our air conditioning, heating, TVs, and for research to make life even easier.

So, our long-held traditions, and even our recently acquired traditions, must be adjusted as climate change heats our air, increases the intensity of our storms, and makes forest fires more likely and more damaging.

We must expect more atmospheric comfort problems—both heat and cold as well as wet and dry. Our taxes will rise. Our national debts will increase—if we can still find people to lend to us! We may even find it necessary to change our economic system. Governments rely on two or three sources for the money that fuels them.

  * Taxes

  * Borrowing, and

  * Government ownership of part or all of some industries.

The U.S. relies on the first two, although it does own the Postal System, the Tennessee Valley Authority, mortgage and load companies (Freddie Mac, Fannie May) and a number of other businesses.

Except for Bernie Sanders, Americans decry socialism. Few see that their sacred Social Security System as communistic ("as Karl Marx wrote, "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs."). Medicaid is equally communistic, being based on need. Medicare is more socialistic since it only covers those who paid in. (Lenin said that "Socialism is from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.") Even the government-paid educational systems, which are becoming more common around the world, can be considered to be communist since they are available to all for a certain number of years.

So our anti-communist and anti-socialist traditions are overlooked when something, we see as good, sneaks into our capitalist global view. The U.S. didn't have Social Security until the mid-30s. Thirty years later President Lyndon Johnson began the enactment of laws that eventually led to Medicaid and Medicare—and more traditions were absorbed into the abyss of tradition.

What next?—Eu-genics (reducing potential genetic or epigenetic problems, such as genes related to violence, psychosis, low intelligence, etc.), eu-parenting (parent licensing—to ascertain potential parent's abilities and aptitudes for financial and psychological caretaking), required sterilization, voluntary sterilization, taxing children, etc. Or should we allow, or encourage, the unrestricted increase of population.

The reality of unrestricted family size will certainly increase ecological problems such as: decrease of natural resources, decreasing fresh water available, increasing air and water pollution, increased greenhouse gases, increasing northward and westward migration, with the strong possibility of more wars (water-wars and wars for more territory), and more terrorism.

BUT—a voyage into the possibilities and problems of overpopulation must wait for the next edition, probably to be completed in early 2020. I'm eager to finish—but it is essential to get this information to the demonstrators NOW!

# CHAPTER 11 ONWARD!

If it's true, like Toynbee said, that 'civilizations don't have to die—because they are not organisms, but rather products of wills'—then we have a chance.

– But the civilizations that he studied died, that was his life mission—to study 'why.'

But no civilization of the past has faced the threat that our whole species faces today. Maybe a few can realize that many people are living beyond the means that the planet can support but can enough of the world's population see it, believe it, and start to do the drastic things needed to make it happen?

— Nature won't clear up the mess we have caused. We have to do it. We must find ways to reduce the greenhouse gases we produce and somehow store those we have produced.

— I think you guys should do it. I still want my Humvee with its 6 miles to the gallon. I want speed and power. I want air conditioning in my twelve room house and in my car.

— I know that you are saying that, somewhat tongue in cheek, but the realities are that most people don't want to sacrifice. Just look at the American personal debt. The average American not only wants to have everything he or she already has, they want every one of the latest gadgets, cars, video games and home appliances that is advertised. And they want it now!

— Heck, they want the homes they can't afford—and the second home they can't afford. They want the boat they can't afford and the vacation they can't afford. There are so many living in a plastic card dream world—and it usually becomes a nightmare. Do you think that these people are willing to sacrifice anything? No matter how minor?

— It's a self-centered morality that generally predominates over what's good for society or even what's good for themselves in the future. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die—or go bankrupt. Look at the number of bankruptcies and home mortgage foreclosures of a few years ago. Home owners couldn't make their house payments. The mortgage lenders went bankrupt. The stock market dropped. Everything financially is inter-related. Our planet is in a worse condition than the home mortgage lenders. But the world can't declare bankruptcy. Either we live or we die. We won't get a second chance like an over-mortgaged home owner has.

But it depends on such things as the number of trees and other plants in the world and how much more CO2 the ocean can absorb. It has been absorbing about half of the human produced CO2 up to now. But as the ocean warms the CO2 is held closer to the surface and the amount of gas that can be absorbed by the whole ocean is reduced.

Then there is the fact that when the climate warms, the plants don't absorb as much carbon dioxide, probably because they reduce their growing rate so that they can conserve water. So, CO2 emissions are not being handled as well as they were a hundred years ago. But there's more to the mix. As the world warms, there is some evidence that the tree line is rising in the northern latitudes and in the higher altitudes. But then there are some other negatives like tree damaging insects that increase as the climate warms. The average temperature is expected to increase by almost one and a half degrees Celsius by 2050. It may not sound like much but on a global scale it is immense. If we do nothing, the Earth's temperature will probably rise 4 degrees Celsius this century.

ARE WE UP TO THE CHALLENGE?

