Food for thought... the open-minded mentality of "GI" thinking is what is needed to save humanity from extinction by global warminggreenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
This article is about the analogy between dealing with Y2K and dealing with the global warming problem. This issue is far too serious to allow the Polyannas to dissuade you from spreading the message, and taking action on an individual basis not only to prepare, but more importantly, to prevent the disaster.By Bill Moore
1 January 2000 -- Along with 6 billion other people, I breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday morning when CNBC reported that computers, power grids and telephones in New Zealand were virtually unaffected by the rollover into the third millennium (leaving aside the argument as to when the new century actually begins). As the morning progressed, Australia, Japan, Korea, China and country after country in Asia and then Europe celebrated the transition from 1999 to 2000 with only minor computer glitches here and there. It began to appear that predictions of global doom and gloom were, as these things tend to be, somewhat overrated. The world didn't end at midnight and apart from some idiot in Oregon blowing up a power transmission line, there were no wanton acts of terrorism and airplanes didn't fall out of the sky.
Were all the prognostications of apocalypse just so much media hype and millennial paranoia then?
Probably... to a degree. We are a race that hopes for the best and prepares for the worst. For example, most of the better restaurants here in Omaha were booked solid months in advance with New Year's Eve celebrations, while the local WalMart and Target stores were nearly sold out of flash lights and batteries.
This relatively smooth technologically transition from yesterday to today -- after all the sun would continue to shine and the earth spin gracefully on its axis regardless of what day, month or year billions of tiny computer clocks thought -- got me to thinking about electric vehicles and transportation in this new millennium.
We averted technological disaster not because there was no problem, but because businesses and governments took proactive steps to remediate or at least manually monitor potential trouble spots, something to the tune of US$300 billion in the United States alone.
Warming Overrated?
What about predictions of global warming? Are they overrated, as well? First, let's agree that like Y2K, a problem exists. The planet is warming up. At contention is what part, if any, mankind's -- that's you and me -- profligate release of millions of years worth of sequestered carbon dioxide in the form of coal and petroleum in the last 150 years is playing in that warm up.
The most widely accepted view among scientists is that man-made releases are contributing to the warm-up, possibly accelerating what would otherwise be a longer period cycle of natural global climate fluctuation. Like the Y2K bug, no one knows for sure what the consequences of this acceleration might be. More frequent and powerful storms like the pair which recently smashed into France and Germany or the appearance of tropical diseases in northern latitudes are just some of the possible consequences.
1999 may end up being remembered not only as the year mankind collectively averted a computer-glitch triggered social meltdown. It may also be recalled as the year corporate America finally began to accept responsibility for its role in adding excessive greenhouse gases to the gossmer-thin atmosphere that envelops our planet. Ford Motor Company joined BPAmoco and Royal Dutch Shell in quietly withdrawing from the Global Climate Coalition, a fossil fuel industry lobbying group which questions the whole climate warming phenomenon. While Ford's withdrawal was pretty much a non-event to the US media, it nonetheless, may someday be viewed in the same light as the Brown & Williamson defection from the cigarette industry's united front on the issue of smoking and lung cancer.
It should be remembered that it took nearly 5 years from the time the Y2K problem was publicly identified in industry trade publications for the general media and many businesses to accept the proposition that the two-digit dating system did, indeed, pose a serious risk to our technologically-driven culture.
By contrast, global warming has no self-imposed deadline. There is no easily identifiable "drop-dead" date when we have either fixed the problem or we survive the consequences of our inaction. Some scientists have recently suggested we may have already crossed the climate change threshold and that it might be too late to alter course, regardless of how draconian future counter-measures might be.
I prefer to be more optimistic and believe there is yet time to veer from a climatic collision. We have in place the technology or the embryos of technology to make dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the production of energy and moving of goods and people. Central to this revolution is the fuel cell and electric drive, the first generation of which my family and I have been privileged to enjoy the past few months.
Recognizing Historic EV World Events
Now that we've successfully crossed that artificial event horizon of January 1, 2000, I feel it is appropriate to extend our thanks to the visionaries within the EV World who have persevered over the last 30 years to bring us better, cleaner, more efficient transportation and energy generation technologies.
First there's General Motors for its truly pioneering efforts on the EV1 electric car. Despite financial, technological and - sadly - consumer-acceptance set-backs, GM engineers demonstrated the possible.
Next, kudos should be extended to DaimlerChrysler (then DaimlerBenz) for its work on taking the fuel cell out of the space program and shoe-horning it into ever-smaller, more efficient packages that will someday virtually eliminate all automotive-generated pollution.
Toyota earns a place in the EV World hall of fame for introducing an affordable gasoline electric car and showing that consumers will invest in hybrid motor technology.
Ford should be recognized for its willingness to break ranks on the global warming issue. (I fully expect the other major manufacturers to eventually follow suit.)
Finally, the California Air Resource Board (CARB) must be recognized for its ZEV mandate which served as the catalyst for the development of the modern electric-drive vehicle.
Y2K's Lesson
If there is a lesson to be learned from Y2K, it's not that the prophets of doom where wrong. It's that we can alter the course of events. We can pro-actively, as governments, companies and individuals make a difference. But first, it takes recognition of the problem and then a commitment to find solutions that are both efficacious and cost-effective.
The car and energy companies' biggest jobs may, in fact, not be finding solutions - they are already hard at work doing that - but on convincing a skeptical and complacent public that there is a problem, in the first place. Let us hope that in this new millennium, car and energy company advertising will take a more responsible approach to the task of alerting consumers to the consequences of emitting millions of pounds of CO2, CO, NOx and SOx from their stylish, but brutish sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.
It may tax the creative powers of copy writers, art directors and account executives at the car company advertising agencies, but I have every confidence they are up to the task. Let's all work to make global warming as much a non-event as Y2K proved to be, not by ignoring the issue and hoping it will simply go away but by facing it forthrightly and honestly.
-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 22, 2000
HAWK:Your diagnosis appears to be right on. Unfortunately the therapy won't take. Not because it's wrong. But because most humans are not very not very high on the humanity scale. I got into sustainable living/energy exploits 20 years ago. Waren't nobody interested. Tried it again with Y2K in the last 3 years. Most 'doomers' manifested a mere pseudo-interest in the strategies you and I are concerned with --- the phenomenon appeared to me to be mostly acute panic resulting in heavy stocking of fossil-fuel technology along with 3 to 6 months of mostly canned goods & rice/beans food.
What will it take for the appropriate response? A drop-dead date. Will it occur soon? (Has it occurred already?)
Will John Q. recognize the date (assuming the technologists can)? You must be a young man if your answer is in the affirmative. I've seen nearly 73 years of 'missed dates' already, and don't see any change in that pattern on the horizon. Hoping I'm wrong and just an old fuddy duddy.
Bill
-- William J. Schenker, MD (wjs@linkfast.net), January 22, 2000.
Excellent article. Thank you for posting it. The "Get It" frame of mind is also important in dealing with such complex problems as handling the health, environmental, social and economic consequences of enormous amounts of toxic chemicals (in consumer and industrial products) that are increasingly found our soil, water, air, food and fatty tissues. As an activist for people with environmental illness, I know that some people just naturally "GI" and many think I'm a crazy alarmist. Sound familiar? Like Y2K, there's an awful lot of info on toxic chemicals on the internet. It's another 21st century challenge.
-- Amy (canaryclub@aol.com), January 22, 2000.
HawkI quite agree. One of the things that got folks into Y2K was the fear of the unknown. Unlike Y2K though the weather is something we are all intimate with, (well some folks). As a an individual that has worked outdoors all my life, weather commands respect and we don't give mother nature her due for giving us a reality check.
Unfortunately the effects of mankinds industrial age are making their presence known.
The subject was also brough up in a thread below.In which this article was posted
This is an amazing piece of work and I would highly recommend reading it. What does it mean? Well if the weather patterns are any indication it could mean more of the same severe storms in NC, Europe's storm, NE Ice Storm, Droughts and Floods. Weather disasters that have never been seen before.
Shit happens and I think humans brought this one onto ourselves.