The Climate Crisis: Is there anything you can do?

The elderly father of one of my good friends once said to me, “People should buy as much house as they can afford.”   In other words, the bigger, the better up to the maximum you can afford in monthly payments.   I suppose this thinking makes sense from an economic perspective because a home is good place to put one’s savings.  It’s a stable investment and comes with a mortgage interest deduction on income tax assuming you have a loan on the property.  Real estate developers, agents, and lenders are pleased that many people embrace this positive outlook as it means more dollars in their pockets. But from an environmental perspective and especially with regard to the climate crisis, it’s a rotten idea.  People need a place to live but do they really need the largest house they can afford?  Consider the following contrasts between a “McMansion” and a modestly-sized home: - It takes more energy to heat and cool it and often that energy comes from greenho...

Denver, Colorado So, maybe you know that meat and dairy production has a negative impact on the earth’s climate but you love the taste of charcoal-grilled hamburgers and filet mignon.   You might be aware that producing a pound of beef creates more than 25 times the greenhouse gas emissions than producing an equivalent weight of wheat.   This fact bothers your conscience but, hey, you can’t live on bread alone and need your protein, right?   You may have heard that the methane produced by cows burping and their manure traps 28 times the outgoing planet-warming radiation than the equivalent volume of carbon dioxide.   But how are you supposed to suddenly given up the central part of the diet that has sustained you all your life? My answer to you is this – don’t suddenly give up meat.   Because you are going to feel really deprived and you will soon give up on a vegetarian or vegan diet just like my ex-wife, Genie, many years ago when she tried to lose weight on...

Those of you who followed my Southern Africa blog posts, may have come across one of my stories involving my best Botswana friend, Hugh.  There were stories about Hugh's student days as an anti-apartheid troublemaker at South Africa's prestigious Stellenbosch University in the early 1970s as well as our trip together to Botswana's Chobe National Park and Sowa Pan in 1987.  There was even a photo Hugh took of me taking a photo of elephant poo in an elephants' loo! Hugh is an accomplished photographer and artist.  He has graciously allowed me to share the following frame with you from page 40 of his multi-media essay, "Drawing on Relationships".  I had trouble reproducing the slide so that the print would be readable.  Therefore, I have written out the text below.     Relationships with planet Earth are not transactional   Air is a gift from the trees Our relationship is exploitational. No, it is not ‘our’ planet. We are guests at bes...

Denver OK, now I’m going to really get myself in trouble.   Bad enough, I was messing around in your garage when I wrote about gasoline-powered vehicles a couple of posts back.   But now, I’m opening the door to your bedroom which is sure to piss off some of you. I’m talking here about the elephant in the room when it comes to the climate crisis – POPULATION.   A lot of environmental groups like the Sierra Club won’t touch it.   Too sensitive a topic – they don’t want to alienate potential donors.   I’m not looking for donations or to make friends (although it’s really nice to have the latter), so I’m not going to hold back. Source:  www.bitlanders.com   So, here we go – the world simply has too many people to be sustainable and the situation is getting worse.   If we only had maybe 4 billion people on the planet instead of the 8 billion we have now, we wouldn’t have to be nearly as concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. Fifty years ago whe...

Denver, Colorado For trips of more than a few hundred miles, most of us fly.  And considering the hassles of TSA security screening, flight delays/cancellations, cramped seats, rude passengers, and the wildly-fluctuating prices of tickets and sneaky add-on costs, flying has become a giant pain-in-the-ass.  And, oh yes, flying is also responsible for more climate-changing carbon emissions per mile that any other form of transportation.  Consider, for example, the following graph from BBC News (“Should you Drive, Fly, or Take the Train”, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49349566 ).  The article compares forms of transportation in Europe but is applicable on the other side of the Atlantic as well.  Some items of interest in the graph: - Shorter domestic flights generate more greenhouse gas emissions than longer flights per kilometer (or per mile).  This is because of the relatively huge amount of fuel consumed each time a plane takes off and l...

Denver   I was getting ready to post a story about the environmental dilemmas we face regarding air travel.  Then, an incident happened yesterday which I wanted to share right away with you readers.  It dove-tails with my story last week about vehicles.     My partner, Judy, and I had just finished a six-mile hike along and just below the Continental Divide near Breckenridge, Colorado.  We were back at our Prius station wagon (a hybrid but not a plug-in) which was parked in the lot at Hoosier Pass (elevation:  11,542 feet above sea level or 3518 meters).  A paved, 2-lane state highway crosses this high mountain pass so it’s not a wilderness area nor is the area west of the pass where we’d been hiking since it’s dotted with century-plus-old abandoned gold and silver mines and mine tailings.  Still, the area where we had walked is characterized by dramatic terrain with craggy granitic cliffs; alpine vegetation; cascading streams; and a...

Denver, Colorado As I stated last week in my first post on this new blog, I want to explore ways in which we can do something about the climate crisis as individuals.  I’m going to start out by getting really personal – looking at the vehicles we drive.  For some of us, the choice of a vehicle ranks up there with the choice of romantic partners, particularly with younger guys.  So I realize I’m on slippery footing here and may piss you off by messing around in your garage.  At first glance, it seems like we could go a long way toward addressing the climate crisis if we all just switched immediately from gasoline (or diesel) powered vehicles to electrics (EVs).  But I’m afraid it’s not that simple.  Is this the answer to the climate crisis?  Well, maybe not exactly .   Photo source:    https://performancedrive.com.au/2016-tesla-model-s-facelift-revealed-updated-design-1309/   Those people who have given much thought as to what to...