A Quick Fix for Climate Change (Vegan Gains, "Goodbye World")
07 October 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
hey guys I'm going to ask you a
hypothetical question and then things are going to get less and less hypothetical pretty quickly what if there was a simple brutally effective technology that we could use today to mitigate the impact of climate change what if it was ugly what if it created a shadow in the sky hanging over Greenland hanging over northern Canada but it reflected away the sun's light allowed us to control how much solar radiation the planet was receiving as a whole but specifically allowed us to mitigate the effects of the warming of the Arctic Ocean allowed us to slow down or stop entirely the breakup of the Arctic ice pack it allowed us to stop the breakup of the mass of ice in the far north that so crucially involves the release of methane into the atmosphere from permafrost in Siberia to a lesser extent in Alaska and in northern Canada what if that technology already existed wouldn't we all be talking about it maybe maybe not one of the reasons why I think that technology is not being discussed right now is that we have a broad-based commitment completely understandable towards encouraging a kind of virtue amongst national governments and even industries even city governments around the world where we try to tell people make the small changes do your part for example we encourage many governments try to get rid of coal power plants which very very difficult for governments to do even a wealthy country like Australia Australia has some of the most polluting the most terrible coal power plants in the world but Australia with all its millions with its bottomless annual budget for the government finds it very very difficult to stop using coal or even to reduce its use of coal currently international organizations some national governments and diplomatic cores are trying to talk to very poor governments about reducing their use of coal for the greater good for the cause of climate change etc etc it's difficult to have those conversations if you have this type of brutally effective technology sitting on the table as an option and if the cost for employing that technology is going to fall entirely on wealthy nations such as the United States Canada Russia possibly England ok what's the technology I'm talking about it's been around since the 1950s people near-earth orbit satellites you can very easily have an array of near-earth orbit satellites that are used as a so-called geoengineering space mirror fancy term but the reality is not fancy to deflect away or control as much of the sun's radiation as you like does that solve the problem no not entirely it mitigates the problem it would crucially help us control and sustain the presence of ice in the Arctic Ocean the existence of the North Pole the you would let us maintain ice on crucial coastlines to prevent the breakup of permafrost and with the breakup of permafrost lets us stop releasing enormous amounts of methane into the atmosphere I'm not talking about industrial production of methane here this is methane that already exists in the soil in permafrost soil whatever whatever you want to say it's locked currently under ice and frozen sludge in the world's permafrost and when the warming of the water and the breakup of that ice releases that methane in the atmosphere it has a tremendously as a feedback loop effect accelerating global warming it's tremendously dangerous but as solutions go near-earth orbit satellites are not elegant it's not science fiction and I think it's very interesting that when this problem has been discussed in newspapers and mainstream sources they've always focused on the most outlandish the most grandiose the most science fiction like versions of this strategy such as not having the array in near-earth orbit but instead having it out at Lagrange point l1 you don't know this but having a set of mirrors very very far from the earth further away than the moon the moon is very far from the earth you may think it's close but compared to near-earth orbit compared to the saddle that give you your TV signal every day that's very very far away as much more expensive they tend to think about enormous networks that would in a diaphanous way filter the light coming to the earth so that we wouldn't even notice this was happening very elegant very science fiction what I'm talking about is ugly it's practical we can do it now it's much much simpler than the type of technology that already exists for the weaponization of a near-earth orbit you know the use of missiles etc by orbital platforms we already do tremendously complex and sophisticated things in space not going to bother giving you examples compared to sending a unmanned exploration vehicle to Mars this is dirt simple you're talking about unfolding a metal tine that is itself much simpler than even having them you know the solar wings as we call them generating electricity for other satellites and the best thing about near-earth orbit is that if something goes wrong you can fix it it's close it's quick if you need to take any of the satellites down if you to repair them if you need to replace them you can do it you can get it done but the result would not be invisible it would mean that a boat going past the coast of Greenland going through the Arctic Ocean we do actually have a lot of trade now now there's less and less ice believe it or not Arctic Ocean trade has been increasing because those waters are more and more navigable now than they ever have been in history or some of our remote Arctic people's in northern Canada certainly Siberia sub-areas relatively densely populated compared to northern Canada there would be people every day would see the strange shadow interfering with the sun's rays they would be able to observe this technology as ugly and brutal as it is and that technology would hang in the sky as a constant reminder of our shame and of our guilt that we had to do this that we had to put pieces of metal in orbit to reflect away the sun's radiation because we could not take responsibility we could not make better use of the resources that we had we could not make decisions such as becoming vegan stopping eating meat stopping wasting enormous amounts of resources on torturing animals to death for food that is unhealthy unnecessary etc it would be a constant reminder of the immaturity and irresponsibility of humanity itself and that may be one of the reasons why this option is so rarely discussed but if you google a little bit you will find there of in both academic conferences and government meetings discussing this it is an option that I think all of the world's major governments are aware of that there have been conferences on etc and that within the next 30 years we're going to have to discuss and decisively deploy and it cuts counter to our sense of global responsibility because it won't be all the world's governments doing it it may just be the United States and Canada or just the US and Canada England I don't know I mean in terms of political science relate cooperation with Russia is not at an all-time high lately but obviously Russia and Siberia or a really special concern we're talking about controlling you know maintaining ice mass and avoiding Arctic methane from escaping etc but it would be a small number of wealthy countries taking on a budget of many billions of dollars because everything in orbit costs money and this doesn't generate any money unlike bringing your TV signals every day scientific knowledge is one thing the social conditions for the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge or another it is not with any sense of a conspiracy theory that I just want to close this video by emphasizing the people who are involved with climate science are human all too human I met some of them one in particular I knew at some depth and some length I knew her I met her mom I met her sister I'm not even gonna mention what country this came in I want this to remain anonymous but I did know personally one scientist she was a real scientist but she was engaged full-time in the politics of climate change he was one of the people in the small elite who attend the United Nations meetings that you read about in the newspaper and there are global conferences where the idea of a carbon tax gets debated where different government resolutions to have targets for reducing you know carbon emissions get debated and also where plans to try to save specific endangered species get debated those things and through her I really had a sense of the social conditions of these scientists who live this life I met her I met some of her colleagues but really it was from her talking about her work life and talking with her colleagues and talking about their social lives these people all ate meat I didn't hear but even one of them who is vegetarian even though they know that meet you know it's the easiest it's the most important thing you can do to show you care about the world's environment is to eliminate meat dairy and eggs from your diet to become vegan none of them were vegan um they're all taking flights ten flights a year partly because they're attending these political events I understand it's part of their job but they all knew that the specific type of upper atmosphere air pollution from airplanes is of such importance compared to other forms of pollution for climate change and they're doing it anyway they're living with these contradictions wearing leather eating meat taking flights driving cars owning multiple cars owning SUVs and in terms of their lives you know they're human all too human it seemed to me all of them were drinking alcohol it seemed to be most of them if you know them were using marijuana if not other drugs like ecstasy in their spare time scientists are not angels there are human beings and it seemed to me like so much of the talk was about who was cheating on their wife with whom who were they gonna sleep with next after they were done cheating on their wife with her husband with this person or that person and you know who was falling in love with and getting married with the soap opera element of who these scientists were and what have you and you know I don't hold any of that against them I really don't I've worked in many diverse fields of human endeavor I've met Buddhist monks and you know professors of philosophy and you know political activists at different levels they're all human beings you know and they all have these these problems the in art but I it is peculiar that this issue of such tremendous importance has relied on people who are not politicians and you don't understand politics very well taking a set of scientific anecdotes and trying to package them into a political program and you could see I mean even my discussions with her with just that one scientist you know okay here's an animal that's going to go extinct because of climate change is it cute enough that we can take this and make this into a news story or make this into a political cause the attempt to try to package a factoid into something okay the acidification of the world's oceans do you think we can get that on the front cover of National Geographic magazine that is like the change in the acidity of the oceans is linked to the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere it's a fascinating issue do you think we can take that get it on the cover of a major magazine and then once it's on the cover the majors matter is what can we do with this in terms of international politicking in terms of negotiating agreements and so on we're all at a tremendous disadvantage in part because those people those scientists they're not army generals they're not elected politicians they're not career bureaucrats even in some ways I think they they're also not media personalities or masters of you know manipulating the press or what have you in some ways they're the worst prepared people to shoulder the burden of the task they have and that task is of trying to break through public and difference and to motivate people to make a million changes both big and small from becoming vegan on a personal level to committing the budget to making a transition away from coal power and yes sadly maybe tragically to committing to put metal objects in space to reflect away some of the sun's radiation because we sacrificed every other opportunity to solve this problem before it got to that dire point where that kind of intervention was really necessary
hypothetical question and then things are going to get less and less hypothetical pretty quickly what if there was a simple brutally effective technology that we could use today to mitigate the impact of climate change what if it was ugly what if it created a shadow in the sky hanging over Greenland hanging over northern Canada but it reflected away the sun's light allowed us to control how much solar radiation the planet was receiving as a whole but specifically allowed us to mitigate the effects of the warming of the Arctic Ocean allowed us to slow down or stop entirely the breakup of the Arctic ice pack it allowed us to stop the breakup of the mass of ice in the far north that so crucially involves the release of methane into the atmosphere from permafrost in Siberia to a lesser extent in Alaska and in northern Canada what if that technology already existed wouldn't we all be talking about it maybe maybe not one of the reasons why I think that technology is not being discussed right now is that we have a broad-based commitment completely understandable towards encouraging a kind of virtue amongst national governments and even industries even city governments around the world where we try to tell people make the small changes do your part for example we encourage many governments try to get rid of coal power plants which very very difficult for governments to do even a wealthy country like Australia Australia has some of the most polluting the most terrible coal power plants in the world but Australia with all its millions with its bottomless annual budget for the government finds it very very difficult to stop using coal or even to reduce its use of coal currently international organizations some national governments and diplomatic cores are trying to talk to very poor governments about reducing their use of coal for the greater good for the cause of climate change etc etc it's difficult to have those conversations if you have this type of brutally effective technology sitting on the table as an option and if the cost for employing that technology is going to fall entirely on wealthy nations such as the United States Canada Russia possibly England ok what's the technology I'm talking about it's been around since the 1950s people near-earth orbit satellites you can very easily have an array of near-earth orbit satellites that are used as a so-called geoengineering space mirror fancy term but the reality is not fancy to deflect away or control as much of the sun's radiation as you like does that solve the problem no not entirely it mitigates the problem it would crucially help us control and sustain the presence of ice in the Arctic Ocean the existence of the North Pole the you would let us maintain ice on crucial coastlines to prevent the breakup of permafrost and with the breakup of permafrost lets us stop releasing enormous amounts of methane into the atmosphere I'm not talking about industrial production of methane here this is methane that already exists in the soil in permafrost soil whatever whatever you want to say it's locked currently under ice and frozen sludge in the world's permafrost and when the warming of the water and the breakup of that ice releases that methane in the atmosphere it has a tremendously as a feedback loop effect accelerating global warming it's tremendously dangerous but as solutions go near-earth orbit satellites are not elegant it's not science fiction and I think it's very interesting that when this problem has been discussed in newspapers and mainstream sources they've always focused on the most outlandish the most grandiose the most science fiction like versions of this strategy such as not having the array in near-earth orbit but instead having it out at Lagrange point l1 you don't know this but having a set of mirrors very very far from the earth further away than the moon the moon is very far from the earth you may think it's close but compared to near-earth orbit compared to the saddle that give you your TV signal every day that's very very far away as much more expensive they tend to think about enormous networks that would in a diaphanous way filter the light coming to the earth so that we wouldn't even notice this was happening very elegant very science fiction what I'm talking about is ugly it's practical we can do it now it's much much simpler than the type of technology that already exists for the weaponization of a near-earth orbit you know the use of missiles etc by orbital platforms we already do tremendously complex and sophisticated things in space not going to bother giving you examples compared to sending a unmanned exploration vehicle to Mars this is dirt simple you're talking about unfolding a metal tine that is itself much simpler than even having them you know the solar wings as we call them generating electricity for other satellites and the best thing about near-earth orbit is that if something goes wrong you can fix it it's close it's quick if you need to take any of the satellites down if you to repair them if you need to replace them you can do it you can get it done but the result would not be invisible it would mean that a boat going past the coast of Greenland going through the Arctic Ocean we do actually have a lot of trade now now there's less and less ice believe it or not Arctic Ocean trade has been increasing because those waters are more and more navigable now than they ever have been in history or some of our remote Arctic people's in northern Canada certainly Siberia sub-areas relatively densely populated compared to northern Canada there would be people every day would see the strange shadow interfering with the sun's rays they would be able to observe this technology as ugly and brutal as it is and that technology would hang in the sky as a constant reminder of our shame and of our guilt that we had to do this that we had to put pieces of metal in orbit to reflect away the sun's radiation because we could not take responsibility we could not make better use of the resources that we had we could not make decisions such as becoming vegan stopping eating meat stopping wasting enormous amounts of resources on torturing animals to death for food that is unhealthy unnecessary etc it would be a constant reminder of the immaturity and irresponsibility of humanity itself and that may be one of the reasons why this option is so rarely discussed but if you google a little bit you will find there of in both academic conferences and government meetings discussing this it is an option that I think all of the world's major governments are aware of that there have been conferences on etc and that within the next 30 years we're going to have to discuss and decisively deploy and it cuts counter to our sense of global responsibility because it won't be all the world's governments doing it it may just be the United States and Canada or just the US and Canada England I don't know I mean in terms of political science relate cooperation with Russia is not at an all-time high lately but obviously Russia and Siberia or a really special concern we're talking about controlling you know maintaining ice mass and avoiding Arctic methane from escaping etc but it would be a small number of wealthy countries taking on a budget of many billions of dollars because everything in orbit costs money and this doesn't generate any money unlike bringing your TV signals every day scientific knowledge is one thing the social conditions for the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge or another it is not with any sense of a conspiracy theory that I just want to close this video by emphasizing the people who are involved with climate science are human all too human I met some of them one in particular I knew at some depth and some length I knew her I met her mom I met her sister I'm not even gonna mention what country this came in I want this to remain anonymous but I did know personally one scientist she was a real scientist but she was engaged full-time in the politics of climate change he was one of the people in the small elite who attend the United Nations meetings that you read about in the newspaper and there are global conferences where the idea of a carbon tax gets debated where different government resolutions to have targets for reducing you know carbon emissions get debated and also where plans to try to save specific endangered species get debated those things and through her I really had a sense of the social conditions of these scientists who live this life I met her I met some of her colleagues but really it was from her talking about her work life and talking with her colleagues and talking about their social lives these people all ate meat I didn't hear but even one of them who is vegetarian even though they know that meet you know it's the easiest it's the most important thing you can do to show you care about the world's environment is to eliminate meat dairy and eggs from your diet to become vegan none of them were vegan um they're all taking flights ten flights a year partly because they're attending these political events I understand it's part of their job but they all knew that the specific type of upper atmosphere air pollution from airplanes is of such importance compared to other forms of pollution for climate change and they're doing it anyway they're living with these contradictions wearing leather eating meat taking flights driving cars owning multiple cars owning SUVs and in terms of their lives you know they're human all too human it seemed to me all of them were drinking alcohol it seemed to be most of them if you know them were using marijuana if not other drugs like ecstasy in their spare time scientists are not angels there are human beings and it seemed to me like so much of the talk was about who was cheating on their wife with whom who were they gonna sleep with next after they were done cheating on their wife with her husband with this person or that person and you know who was falling in love with and getting married with the soap opera element of who these scientists were and what have you and you know I don't hold any of that against them I really don't I've worked in many diverse fields of human endeavor I've met Buddhist monks and you know professors of philosophy and you know political activists at different levels they're all human beings you know and they all have these these problems the in art but I it is peculiar that this issue of such tremendous importance has relied on people who are not politicians and you don't understand politics very well taking a set of scientific anecdotes and trying to package them into a political program and you could see I mean even my discussions with her with just that one scientist you know okay here's an animal that's going to go extinct because of climate change is it cute enough that we can take this and make this into a news story or make this into a political cause the attempt to try to package a factoid into something okay the acidification of the world's oceans do you think we can get that on the front cover of National Geographic magazine that is like the change in the acidity of the oceans is linked to the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere it's a fascinating issue do you think we can take that get it on the cover of a major magazine and then once it's on the cover the majors matter is what can we do with this in terms of international politicking in terms of negotiating agreements and so on we're all at a tremendous disadvantage in part because those people those scientists they're not army generals they're not elected politicians they're not career bureaucrats even in some ways I think they they're also not media personalities or masters of you know manipulating the press or what have you in some ways they're the worst prepared people to shoulder the burden of the task they have and that task is of trying to break through public and difference and to motivate people to make a million changes both big and small from becoming vegan on a personal level to committing the budget to making a transition away from coal power and yes sadly maybe tragically to committing to put metal objects in space to reflect away some of the sun's radiation because we sacrificed every other opportunity to solve this problem before it got to that dire point where that kind of intervention was really necessary