A strike is when labor workers withhold services from others.
When school kids cut class, they are not withholding services from anyone. After years of Covid school closures and students 1/2 to 1 year behind in learning, they are only withholding services being delivered to them, for free. This is not a “strike”.
But here is an adult who supports kids cutting school – in his own words, he believes we will soon die unless students cut classes. He uses non-IPCC terminology including “existential crisis”, “climate breakdown”, and “chaotic broken world” to illustrate his personal terror: Opinion: My 12-year-old son is cutting school… and I couldn’t be prouder | CNN
The author does not say what we are supposed to do about climate change except to be vegetarian.
Attending school and learning useful skills in science and engineering to solve technical challenges escapes the author. Better off, he says, to cut classes, scream and shout, an demand that someone else solve problems.
The author of the above column has a BA in political science and government, and an MS in Social and Political Thought.
He says we already have the technologies and all the needed money to solve all problems.
A Yale study says converting the U.S. electrical grid to Net Zero would cost $4.5 trillion. I have not found an estimate of the costs of converting all gas fueled vehicles – personal vehicles, motorcycles, boats, business vehicles, transport vehicles like trucks, agricultural equipment including tractors, harvesting and water pumping equipment, ferry boats, commercial ships, cargo ships, railroads and all aircraft, and all of the service industries that support those but which would have to be converted to new technologies. One engineer estimates the cost of replacing just cars would be about $4.5 trillion – in 2014 dollar values – and does not reduce carbon emissions by that much. With the other systems, infrastructure and retraining required, a reasonable guess is north of $20 to $30 trillion in today’s dollars.
Of course, we can replace cars as they wear out. But some systems, like airliners, ships and agricultural equipment have lifetimes of many decades. We incur new expense removing existing infrastructure (gas stations, for example, or retraining service technicians – none of this is free either).
Other serious recommendations for climate management put forth by others:
- Ban gas powered vehicles
- Ban ownership of personal vehicles
- Drastically reduce and limit vehicle speeds (through automated systems in vehicles)
- Put high taxes on all carbon sources
- Prohibit replacing gas furnaces and stoves and require installation of new wiring and new appliances
- Make air travel very expensive or ban all “non-essential” air travel, or limit people (except the elite) to making one round trip flight every two years, or require applying to and obtaining a travel permit from the government, or ban all air travel from 2030 to 2050.
- Ban consumption of meat; everyone must be vegetarian (this is the only solution the author cites)
- Institute “climate rationing” and “climate lock downs”.
- Ban heating of homes at night (UK proposal)
- Use smart meter technology to automatically enforce maximum and minimum temperatures in all homes
- Establish maximum power limits at all homes
- Ban pets, and kill off all dogs.
- Have a WW2 level “mobilization” of all of society to eliminate “climate catastrophe”.
[I have upcoming posts, already scheduled, that go into more details of the above proposals, made in seriousness by officials, activists and scientists, together with past posts that cite these goals.]
Climate scientists say an emphasis on unlikely scenarios and “doomism” is not helpful to addressing climate issues. FactCheck.org sees the problem: Warming Beyond 1.5 C Harmful, But Not a Point of No Return, as Biden Claims – FactCheck.org
Climate scientist Michael Mann said Biden’s statements contribute to the climate “doomerism” narrative, which he has said could be dangerous and paralyzing, since it implies that it’s already too late to cut back on emissions.
“Biden said ‘we lose it all’ if we warm beyond 1.5C,” Mann, a professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, said on Twitter, referring to language Biden used in July. “Unhelpful rhetoric, unsupported by the science. It’s a continuum not a cliff. We’ve lost much already, and lose more with each fraction of a degree. If we miss the 1.5C exit ramp, we still go for 1.6C exit rather than give up,” Mann said.
The 1.5C often cited in the media, refers to a 1.5C rise in temperatures thought to have occurred since 1850-1900. It does not mean average air temperatures have risen 1.5C, in say, 5 years.
Reminder – our house is solar PV powered, we’ve added 14-50 NEMA 220v outlets to the garage and outside to charge a future EV (Update 2023 – we now have an EV), we’ve upgraded attic insulation to R-60+, our windows are triple paned, vinyl coated aluminum frames, and the walls are 6-inch R-19 insulation. We air dry clothes after washing, and while we have a heat pump-based AC, we rarely use it. Heating is from electric heat pump (rarely used) or wood pellet stove from locally sourced wood byproducts. We compost green stuff and food onsite.
According to 3 different “carbon emission calculators”, our household carbon emissions are about 1/8th to 1/10th that of typical U.S. households.
Not much else we can do except eventually get an EV [we got one]-but only after the 42-mpg gas car needs to be replaced. We no longer have a daily commute and car travel is infrequent. It is better for the environment to maintain and continue using that car as long as possible, considering life cycle emissions. We do not plan to engage in non-sustainable measures that have near zero impacts and may cause actual harm.
