AnonymousBy Larry Bishop
When will the Central Coast really get going on protecting our climate? Some folks are doing everything they can. Most of us, though, are either picking at climate solutions or pretty much ignoring this catastrophic and looming problem.
We are still burning fossil fuel like it is going out of style. With our mega pickups and SUVs, we are digging our children’s environmental graves. We heat and cool our houses with gas and eat tons of meat thus ensuring a desolate and desperate future for our descendants.
Politically, some of our local governments try to push climate healthy policies such as banning oil well drilling in the Oxnard plain, limiting dangerous oil extraction projects over the Santa Maria groundwater basin, and joining safe energy cooperatives in SLO and Moro Bay cities.
Overwhelmingly, the scientific community urges us to take much more dramatic and persistent action to avoid the worst effects of the growing climate crisis. Local and national solutions abound. We just choose to dither and scoff at these remedies. The Green New Deal stagnates in our Congress as we focus on our comfort and saving money.
Can we sacrifice our current comforts for our community’s future? Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teen climate activist, who initiated the school strike for climate, said it best in challenging our generation. “Our house is on fire”, “I want you to panic”. “I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.”
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So much scolding, scolding, scolding. No wonder so many tune this stuff out. When people finally start driving 55 mph on the freeways you will know your message finally got across. But they haven’t. Just the opposite. Might want to try another way to approach your issues, if you truly want general acceptance, motivation and behavior change.
Sounds like you thought the power was going to go out in the year 2000…
The bottom line is that outside a small circle of folks, no one cares. That is not to say that it is not extremely important, but it is as they say…reality…. nobody in a global sense cares. The approach to educating people about this, in my opinion, is all wrong. For example, humiliating people to “believe” rarely works. Stop the humiliation and maybe you can get a few more peeps on board with the program.
Look at the air in Beijing and Santiago. Humans adapt, much to their detriment. Some of us are aware and do care. There are those of us who walk, ride our bikes and take the bus, even though we can afford to drive everywhere. (I think if buses would allow people to bring their dogs along we’d see even more people doing less driving.) As it is at my house, we don’t waste electricity, water or natural gas. We know all about vampire loading (look it up) and we unplug devices via power strip to save electricity. We don’t have A.C., we don’t use our forced air heating. We buy organic. We don’t pollute the air by burning wood. We don’t use pesticides or dryer sheets or even use the dryer unless we absolutely have to. Those of us in my household and most of my friends chose not to have kids. It’s difficult and sad to watch others act like the Rapture or some other power is going to come rescue them all when things get unlivable . This Big Blue Marble. We’re all in it together, but you’d never know it by the way most people act.
Don’t feel bad. No one cares about the public pension debt, which will destroy us long before so called climate change. In fact climate change may be an intentional distraction, just so we ignore thinking about the all-consuming public pension debt.
It would go a long way if you could find a hard-drinking man’s man as a spokesperson. Someone that guys look up to, rather than wimpy actors, politicians, and comedians. Madison Avenue would never use a Peewee Herman or Al Gore to sell bourbon, 4×4 trucks, or steak burgers. Get someone like a Dana White to push your agenda because an A-hole like him can sell to the folks you eant on board.
good grief are you serious “our house is on fire” ? The scientific community overwhelmingly keeps changing the stats to fit their narrative. Look up what catastrophic actually means, just a thought? Not sure you’ll find plastic straws in the description- Sorry but after 250 people where just blown up on this Easter Sunday i find your article a bit out of touch with what is considered desolate and looming. Seeing a Denali blazing down the road does not = fear in any way shape or form. Good luck with your domesday preachy movement –
Well aren’t you just perfect while the rest of us suck. It must be nice to be so godly.
Que sera, sera. When a butterfly flaps its wings. How can you stop several billion people clamoring for the “good life” in third-world nations from flapping their wings, so-to-speak? So, your efforts, however laudable, won’t stop the inexorable march towards chaos.
Talk to the people who don’t understand the concept of birth control- Talk to our world neighbors who don’t live under ANY environmental constraints or laws (check out the ocean pollution between San Diego and TJ- RAW sewage outfall…)
Thanks to President Nixon who christened the EPA way back in the 70’s … we have some of the most stringent environmental laws in the World… Hard to type this on my phone while driving my truck.
oooo That comment cracks me up.
OK, let’s all walk or drive small cars. Let’s stop drilling for oil. Let’s stop eating meat. If we do all of these things what will be the change in earth’s mean temperature next year? Or in 10 years, or 1,000 years? How many hundreds of trillions of dollars per degree Celsius is all of this going to cost? How many other ways could this money be spent? What if we instead focussed on preventing the 1,000,000 yearly malaria deaths in the world? Or what if we figured out how to get clean water to the nearly one billion people in the world who do not have access currently? Finally let’s quit calling climate change a crisis- people dying needlessly from malaria and bad water is a crisis.
How can it not get warmer every year, since our last Ice Age as 10,000 years ago?
“F’ in air pollution for Santa Barbara County: today’s SB News Press. Locals wake up. And vote in politicians that are not working for oil and gas and cannabis lobbyists.
I highly doubt he means to kill them. Chill. Just because someone isn’t pro illegal immigration doesn’t mean they want those people to die. The sooner you get a grip on reality the better you’ll feel.
On a positive note we recently got a ruling that prevents oil-rich companies from fracking in our ‘coastal waters (aka “Marine Sanctuary Channel”) until Fish and Game can complete its’ report on the effects on endangered species like the southern otters and snowy plovers to name just 2. Aside from the chemicals that fracking puts into our waters I also wonder about what effect breaking up rock well below the surface has on all of our “many” earthquake faults ? Thank you to our environmental defenders who work tirelessly to protect us from greedy corporations.
Where do I stand on this ‘debate’? I don’t subscribe to the end of the world theory nor do I subscribe to non climate change. I subscribe to: Mankind needs to be a good steward of what we have, taking care not to abuse the rich resources with which we’re so blessed. Yes, some of climate change can be blamed on man, how much, I don’t know. However, there is also natural climate change as well. Just how much is man made, natural or a combination, I don’t know. That said, I’ve never heard any scientist talk about natural climate change and one cannot argue only half the reason for climate change. FWIW, China, beings the largest contributer, how will the New Green Deal folks get that country to buy into their agenda? They won’t and without that, their efforts are in vain.
There is no debate, unless you’re unaware of the facts. And China actually is making more efforts to mitigate its carbon footprint than we are.
Education education education. It’s sorely needed, because none of the commenters here appears to be aware of why it’s a crisis and how atmospheric physics works. Greenhouse gases are transparent to solar energy coming in, but slow infrared energy going out, and so the temperature of the atmosphere slowly but inexorably is rising (with temporary fluctuations due to solar and El Nino cycles) … and CO2 put into the atmosphere today will take 100 years to leave it.
While everyone should be a better steward of the environment, most of the hippie feel good actions taken by locals are completely superfluous and offer no added benefit to either the issue or the environment at large. The first line of this OpEd is part of the problem. We on the central coast? As if we are one let alone able to act as one… All you can do is do what you feel is appropriate. Dont want plastics? Dont buy anything with plastic. Dont like meat? Dont eat it. The world is filled with almost 7billion people and headed towards 10. To think you or “we” can stem the rising tide with some feel good and mostly inconsequential changes in behavior is just silly. Or worse, to try and legislate this stuff at the local level only furthers the distance between political advisories. Treat it like religion. Preach but do not force. Teach but do not harm. Lead by example and follow your own heart and desires. Tread lightly and do your best to be a good person. That is all you can do and all that anyone can do. It will take generations and significant advances in technology to make any real change. Things that you as an individual cannot control let alone accelerate.
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I find it sad that people are living in misery thinking ‘our house is on fire’ ?
It is literally snowing in Michigan right now as we are in a grand solar minimum.
The US snowpack is over the 30 year avg. – Does that sound like human caused G.W. ?
If we want to cut auto emissions, use less water and electricity …
How about getting rid of the 5 million illegals in Ca. ?
Too many people. All the rest of the complaints (many of which I share) are but symptoms of that excess. The world is changing as it always does. Someday humans will exhaust it and their time will end. Who knows what the next occupants will make of what we left. For me it is a great time to be old. For the younger folks, you will watch the decline or will change your values to accept stuff that I can never be comfortable with.
It’s hard to motivate people when so many still seem to believe the earth can just take whatever we throw at it and rebound to a balanced state. It’s comforting to believe that everything will be okay. Head in the sand. Rachel Carson wrote her book in 1962 and DDT wasn’t banned until we had almost lost the brown pelican, 10 years later (after our local oil spill and the creation of the EPA). People love comfort and pleasure, that drive is built into our genes. Hard to convince them that “progress” has unintended consequences that could end their reign as the top species on the planet. And of course we have national leadership that seems to leading us right over the climate crisis cliff.
JQB, So are we to assume that YOU are an atmospheric physicist since you seem to know all about how climate works?
If you are old, these climate change people are not asking much more than what we already grew up with – which were pretty thrifty, low-tech times. There is little in our own lives that needs to change. The irony is those protesting the most are the ones who need to change the most. But don’t. Not sure what is fundamentally driving this deep hysteria – but every age is gripped by something similar. Used to be all Olde Tyme Religion – shares many similar elements. But now it is called Climate Change Hysteria.
In January 1970, Life Magazine reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time Magazine that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in 1970 that “air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles.
Paul Ehrlich warned in the May 1970 issue of Audubon that DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons “may have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945.” Ehrlich warned that Americans born since 1946…now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and he predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out. (Note: According to the most recent CDC report, life expectancy in the US is 78.8 years).
Out of the woodwork come the ignorant deniers, with their fables of grand solar minimum, conflations of weather and climate, and popular pseudo-science magazine headlines from 40 years ago, their brains washed and shrunk by propaganda from the big carbon oligarchy. Everyone has an opinion, but there is only one set of facts, and the facts show unequivocally that anthropogenic global warming is occurring at a rate exceeding even the most pessimistic projections.
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https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
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http://www.realclimate.org/
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http://www.skepticalscience.com/
There has been no G.W. as measured by gov. satellites in almost 20 years. I understand if you don’t believe in Santa Clause, but denying a grand solar minimum and even snow pack measurements? They don’t use the term Global Warming anymore for a reason !
You do mean Santa Claus. A ‘clause’ is a term used in grammar. See what happens when Hollywood gets creative!!!!!
@SEA DOG Advocating genocide is a bit of an extreme solution to your xenophobia. Thankfully your type will soon be extinct due to your inability to evolve and adapt.
A movement begins with a single person taking a single step. California is leading the nation on environmental action and it is contagious. Be careful you might catch on!
They think by accelerating Armageddon they’ll get to the promised land sooner.
Science is always changing and evolving not “facts show unequivocally ” again can we use a dictionary please – most folks agree and participate what is being asked of them in terms of climate protection not saying we should ignore basic common sense- but also don’t think we should overly praise those with pro planet stickers- on their cars- or scooters- or whatever-
Republicans are aghast at the use of paper straws instead of single use plastic straws – in spite of there being a mass of plastic debris in the pacific the size of Texas. Tsk Tsk – shame on you deniers.
And, then there is always spell check to help create errors with words and wording. 😉
Didn’t notice ‘genocide’ in his comment.
It is interesting to read the variety of comments to what is beginning to look like an existential crisis. I’ve been researching climate change since 2006 and have published four articles on it in COST MANAGEMENT, a business journal . Plz consider, seriously consider, two more points:
1 it is a verified fact the Arctic is warming and releasing large amounts of methane, confirmed by satellite measurements in the atmosphere. Methyl hydrates are being released from arctic waters in plumes as wide as 1 km or more. Over a five to ten year period a molecule of methane (CH4) has 80 to 120 times the global warming impact of a molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2). Arctic warming has enabled the jet stream to wobble erratically and unpredictably, causing truly extreme weather events such as massive cold and snow.
2 the real critical problem that scientists do NOT effectively incorporate into their predictive models and forecasts is the effect of multiple TIPPING POINTS that are creating NONLINEAR accelerating change.
Let me add that whatever the IPCC predicts has been a pretty severnunderestimate of how fast things are changing because their documents are often political documents where every word must be approved by more than 130 countries.
Wake up folks, check out JEM BENDELL’s paper on DEEP ADAPTATION that has been downloaded 200,000 times. Read SAM CARANA’s arctic news blog on FB. Go to the NASA page and read the latest science. Stop watching Fox and awaken to the real and serious RISK we collectively face.
From Carbon Brief, out of the UK. Google it to sign up for newsletter:
Greta Britain
It’s been an extraordinary fortnight: more than a thousand people arrested in London protesting about climate change; BBC One airing its first primetime film about climate change for 12 years; and many of the UK’s political leaders – with one key exception – scrambling to have their photograph taken with a 16-year-old climate change protester from Sweden who is the current favourite to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
These three events have combined to produce a burst of climate-related media coverage in the UK which has been even more intense than seen during the Paris climate talks in December 2015. Carbon Brief’s daily briefing newsletter – which summarises the climate-related media coverage of the past 24 hours – has been burning white hot. Tuesday’s edition was particularly busy.
One of the many talking points sparked by these events has been the UK’s performance when it comes to decarbonising its economy. Next week will see the Committee on Climate Change publish its advice on when the UK should reach “net zero” so the question is a live and poignant one. Many media critics of the Extinction Rebellion protesters relied on the same cliched response by saying they should be “protesting outside the Chinese embassy” as the UK only represents 1% of global emissions.
But a Carbon Brief animation – which has now gone viral on social media – showed why this argument is both simplistic and wrong. If you look at the cumulative emissions of nations since 1750 it highlights quite starkly the historic responsibility that the UK still carries. Vox, Grist and Mashable all used our animation to further dive into this topic.
Hot water
Meanwhile, the planet’s atmosphere and oceans continue to accumulate heat as emissions rise. Carbon Brief’s latest quarterly “state of the climate” report, published on Tuesday, runs through all the key metrics.
As things stand, global surface temperatures in 2019, buoyed by a moderate El Niño event, are on track to be either the second or third warmest since records began in the mid-1800s, behind only 2016 and possibly 2017.
But perhaps most striking of all is the news that ocean heat content (OHC) set a new record in early 2019, with more warmth in the oceans than at any time since OHC records began in 1940.
Separately, a guest post by Dr Andrew King, who lectures on climate science at the University of Melbourne, sets out why “global” warming will not be uniform and, in reality, is likely to look very different, depending on the location and the timescales involved. He explains how and why, according to his latest study, the “pattern” of warming may change as the world warms up:
“As the world warms, the pattern of local warming may change slightly and this would mean some regions will experience the brunt of further climate change while others are less severely affected.”
They’re ignorant – not necessarily stupid, although willful ignorance is even worse than stupidity. Do you always contradict your own advice? What kind of behavior is that?
No need to panic. The only Earthbproblem we have is over-population. I propose we bus all 148,000 a month from the Southern Border to SB ‘Home of Earth Day’. We’ve plenty of deSal Water and wealth to feed and house all (except our vets and mentally ill). We’ve meatless green protein bars and bill to last until 5067. Think tanks have the year pegged. The change variable is whether we invite Russia or China to take us over in 2024.
HaHa! The stupid progressive feeling people live on the coast. You feeling “forward thinkers”. are no match for scientists armed with facts, tech ability, and problem solving skills; and you can’t influence or change culture or practices in China or India or any African nation. Que sera sera.
We were raised on that classic film and Paul Ehlich’s book. Great propaganda that got us to marry late, have only two children or none, and space generations. WHY? Do our government leaders could open our borders claiming not enough people to drive our economy. Admit people who will have 4-6 kids, bring in 300 relatives and grant them amnesty. The next BIG AMNESTY is December, 2020 after the election. Both political parties agree as does independent Howard Schultz. The more and more we attract for the economy to grow for the rich to get richer, and the government bigger and bigger. Wear a mask, breathe deeply.
And China now allows two kids per couple. They divorce and two more. The one registered child to both parents has ended.
8030, 12:34 PM. Is this a joke? You contradicted yourself completely by using “stupid idiot.” You’re being sarcastic, right?
BIGUGLYSTICK. Once again, you hit the nail on the head. Careful, though, telling people they shouldn’t have children. Or telling them they need to use contraceptives. Worldwide distribution of contraceptives would help a little, if only education was there to shore it all up. But even if we all stopped having kids now, it’s too late. Too late. 7.6 billion humans. What have we done to Mother Earth?
I have done some research into “climate change” and it seems to me like the rise in the global average temperature is just the next crest on the temp wave from the Medieval Warm Period.
It is not any warmer now, so all the fear mongering is based on projections. And it is not like they have been wrong on every other occasion now is it..
Another thing is on many graphs there is also a carbon line (you won’t see that on any of Al Gore’s). Carbon has pretty much been a constant for thousands of years while the temperature has risen and fallen, so the two do not seem to be correlated.
Like most of your positions on this subject, you’ve based it on fiction.
I dismissed Global Warming back when I first heard of it, and long before they had to rename it Climate Change to cover anything that can happen with the weather. They have to keep pushing the lie though, so it’s no surprise they just make stuff up to do that.
As usual, you can see these sorts of falsehoods debunked on the NASA and SkepticalScience pages.
Actually, it was the deniers who changed the label to “climate change” so they could claim “climate is always changing”. Whatever you call it, anthropogenic global warming is real.
Didn’t NASA get caught cooking the books ?
NASA cooking the books, something that was dreamed up by the deniers, was debunked long ago. You can read all about the FACTS here:
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ =================and here======================== http://www.realclimate.org/ ================and here========================== http://www.skepticalscience.com/
MP805, They said that we only had 12 years in 1970……
Right on SBCATOWMN. You show common sense. Too bad that not everyone shows the same.
Chilling comment. Reminds me of Germany in 1930’s.
I recently watched “Soylent Green” filmed in 1973. I love classic sci fi, with Blade Runner being one of my all time favorites. The story line of Soylent Green actually embodies all the apocalyptic doomsday Earth Day predictions so clearly summarized by the poster on 4/26 @ 9:25am. The movie was set in the future: 2021. Radical Eco Predictions are great material for science fiction movies.
You are 100% correct. Too many people. And yet there is still this anti-choice forced birther plank in the American Republican party. What we should be doing is handing out birth control and sex-ed to all kids in every country and keeping abortion legal and accessible and helping families cope with reproductive health care.
Spoken truly like your moniker would suggest…
The amount of climate denier comments in this thread is astounding, particularly when you consider that we are supposed to be in an area where people are more forward thinking and intelligent than most of the middle of the country. California is always a leader in environmental policy, and the comments here are mind boggling. If you don’t think there’s a problem you are severely out of touch. The biggest problem, though, is world overpopulation, and if we don’t address that, we are all effed.
All these experts, scientists, and “influencers” of their day did put out all these scary predictions in the early 1970s to drum up support for their cause. Do they ever walk them back when they don’t come true? No, they just up the hysteria level to keep people anxious.
Sounds familiar 🙂
Deniers will continue to deny, happy in their willful ignorance.
PANIC PANIC… we only have 12 more years!!!
Why are people so angry and upset with deniers? Why waste your time referring to deniers as idiots/stupid/etc. Sales 101: Never/ever/ever insult those who you are trying to sell. Only a stupid idiot would try to sell something by referring to their “customer” that way, so why do it?