On Wildfires And The Consequences of Climate Change
Over the past week, the north-eastern regions of the U.S. have been hammered by forest fire smoke from Canada. This event might well not be a one-off, and it further emphasizes a need to combat Clima
Hello, friends,
Last week, we talked about the real-world application of science-fiction-nightmare technologies - specifically, Artificial Intelligence - to the battlefield. This week we’re taking a tour through another science-fiction nightmare, the Climate Crisis. You can almost think of this as an episode of Dystopian Review, just focused on preventing the dystopia.
Oh, and we’ll talk about the Trump Indictments at the bottom of this article, as part of In Other News.
Because right now, this week, massive forest fires burning in Canada have led to huge clouds of smog suffocating everything from New England to New York City; from Virginia to Washington DC.
Here’s a look out of my office window from Wednesday.
What Is The Climate Change Crisis?
The climate change crisis works pretty simply, if I’m being honest - although scientists would murder me for such a hyperbolic statement, because this is a hyper-simplified explanation:
Our economy primarily runs on carbon-based fuels. Burning these fuels releases energy, as well as numerous gasses into the air, with the most obvious and well-known one being Carbon Dioxide (CO2). CO2 is known to be a “greenhouse gas” in that it retains heat energy better than other gasses. Our air is a giant soup of various gasses and there’s always a little CO2 in the atmosphere, but as you increase the concentration of CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) in the environment, you increase the amount of heat that the air traps on the planet’s surface.
It’s hard to measure when temperatures start to go up, so let’s look at this chart by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Do you start when you notice that your yearly average temperature is starting to go up? In that case, we began to notice around the 1950’s that there was an “average” temperature, and by the 1980’s we noticed that yearly temperatures continued to increase from our old average temperature, whereas before the 1940’s most yearly temperatures were lower.
According to NOAA’s Climate.org website, ever since we began measuring the amount of CO2 in the air, we’ve noticed that number has been increasing pretty much year-over-year, with few if any dips. The parts per million have gone from about 320 to above 420, which sounds like a tiny difference when it’s within one million given parts of the air, but indicates an approximately 33% increase.
And it also synchs up with the increases in temperatures.
Therefore, it is simple to conclude: More Burned Fossil Fuels = More CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) = Higher Temperatures.
The higher the temperatures, the easier it is to get forest fires. The higher the temperatures, the less snow that falls, enabling insects like mosquitoes to expand their range and infect people with diseases. Polar ice caps melt, raising sea levels, leading to coastal cities being at greater risk for flooding.
In other words, Climate Change is proving bad.
How Does Climate Change Affect The Wildfires In Canada, Or Others?
To keep it real simple: Hot wood burns easier, and dry wood burns easier. The increased global temperatures weaken trees and make them easier to burn, while the heat also makes the environment dryer. Less rainfall means droughts, meaning there’s a lot of hot, dry wood.
From there, it’s anyone’s guess. You could have a lightning spark touch off a blaze during a storm. You could have well- meaning, skilled campers make a mistake at the worst possible time. You could have arsonists. You could even have industrial accidents, like a power-line failure.
Then, all the smoke has to do is get picked up by the jet stream, which in this area generally heads south then south-east, and it’s crossing national borders to bring atrocious air quality our way.
So How Do We Prevent Climate Change?
Friend, we’ve been working on this since before I was born in the mid-80’s. Like, the theory first really emerged in 1938. One of the key tools we’ve tried to use is to reduce carbon emissions in general by shifting to “green” energy, such as Wind and Solar. This is a good start, but it has not been implemented widely enough to offset the increased global energy needs we’ve seen.
Now, being a science-fiction advocate, I believe in tools like better, safer nuclear reactors such as the LFTR. Nuclear power generation does have its own risks, but it’s strong enough to maintain baseline power in the event that commensurately increased solar and wind power are not enough to maintain day-to-day operations. We don’t limit ourselves to one approach, here.
There are other tools that might be on the horizon. Carbon Capture might take many forms, and would essentially pull CO2 or other gasses out of the air and sequester them in a storable form. This would cut the PPM down, assuming it can be done on solar or nuclear energy.
We could also mitigate some of the consequences of Climate Change through technology like water desalination, which is especially effective in Israel. Being able to transform oceanic water into safe drinking water enables communities in water-poor resources to continue to strive for survival.
There are even wilder geo-engineering grade theories. Hey, did you know that when a volcano erupts, it’s ash blocks out the sun a bit, and reflects heat back into space? It’s not - theoretically - impossible to release airborne particulates to make clouds brighter (and thus more reflective), or to do other high-tech solutions. Of course, we have little idea what the knock-on effects to these strategies might be, and how they might harm the planet further even if it offsets some temperature effects.
But you’ll notice how each of these solutions was more desperate than the last. We start off with prevention and we end with chemotherapy on a planetary scale.
In Other News:
Donald Trump was indicted on 7 Federal offenses. He’s apparently due to surrender and be processed on Tuesday. We’re officially in “this has never happened in the U.S. before” territory, so who the hell knows?
In a surprising move, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to tell Alabama that it needs to re-draw its Congressional maps, which were Gerrymandered against Black people. Again, this is kind of “who the hell knows” when you’ve got Kavanaugh and Roberts saving some chunk of the Voting Rights Act. Even one of my favorite legal analysts, Elie Mystal, had to shrug this one off with dignity.
The Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine was destroyed by Russia, leading to further Human atrocities in Ukraine’s war for its survival. Our condolences to the fallen, and may the worst at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant not come to pass.
Last, on a fairly-positive note (hey, most of this has been positive-ish), California Governor Gavin Newsom just introduced a possible 28th Amendment to the Constitution, which would limit gun rights. I’m still in favor of rewriting the second, but I guess that’d require the 28th to do, so it’s good to see the governor is a big fan of the Substack! (that was a joke)
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.