Having worked on climate and environmental issues for the past 30 + years and teaching Environmental Studies in Higher Ed for 17 years I really wonder what will stop this, if anything. All of our opportunities that were lost, Gore, 2000, Kerry 2004, Obama failing to utilize those 8 years in a significant way and supporting fracking, and on it goes into the horrors of Trumpism. In Ohio we had an excellent energy bill 2008 that implemented benchmarks and was passed unanimously. That was gobbled up and replaced with oil and gas land, adding to the methane assault, we even allow fracking in our state parks. Fought that beginning 2011 and finally swept through 2023. Our state legislature is so slimy you slip on the marble stairs.
Now we must pay our attention to the Quiet Piggy president, one shock after the next. We haven't time to address the expansive environmental catastrophy any longer. Stupidity, ignorance and corruption reigns. The genocide in Gaza and West Bank a horror daily. Daily. How is it possible that the west allows this killing,killing with US tax money and weapons. The GHG emissions from this war exceeds 100 countries outputs. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/carbon-footprint-israels-war-gaza-exceeds-100-countries. Will someone care?
As a 70 yo grandmother it is heartbreaking. We will continue to oppose and fight, to litigate, to collaborate, to stand for the forests. But we have just missed so many opportunities. We must continue to challenge and work, be strong. Testify against expanding fossil fuels. We see the reality now, the complicity, the corruptness, the value of dollars over life. There are no questions. We must continue to strategize and work in collaboration with the earth and fellow colleagues. And what of COP 30. Civil society is engaged, a roadmap for the end of fossil fuels discussed. It is good v evil.
This really resonates with me, a fellow grandmother (Nonna Donna).
It's heartbreaking.
And so many colleagues and connections working in sustainability, climate and ecological science, or who simply just care, are slowly but surely losing the will.
It's so hard to watch them give up.
Like you Loraine, and in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, I'm just trying to do "what I can, with what I have, where I am."
I don't quite get it. All these terrible things happening due to the climate crisis and yet no one mentions individual actions anymore such as not flying, stopping meat consumption, living more simply. Why is that? Most people I know aren't willing to make any lifestyle changes at all. There never seems to be any answers in these articles about what we can do, aside from blame the governments and corporations.
Until the providers of primary energy are primarily providing low/zero emissions versions the personal choices of those motivated enough to go without stuff will never be enough. They can't get to zero at a personal level and even added together cannot be enough when so many people won't do it. It does help but only when primary energy is zero emissions will our energy use be zero emissions.
People who support the policies that roll out clean energy at economy wide scale yet continue to consume and use energy without obsessing over it should not be the ones singled out for criticism; it is a reasonable position to hold that the solutions must prioritise an economy transition to low/zero emissions energy, so that everyone's emissions will be low, whether they are engaged or not. Whether they are wasteful or not. It is the people opposing and obstructing that large scale rollout of clean energy that most need confronting.
Wastefulness and extravagant consumption do come with other problems than global warming but with zero emissions primary energy it stops being or is at least much less of a climate problem.
I think people need to stop blaming the wrong people. If invaders were rolling down my street I shouldn't have my calls for government led, nation wide professionally conducted response dismissed as hypocritical because I haven't thrown enough rocks at them.
FWIW we use much less energy than my average fellow citizens, are frugal, do some homegrown and have used my/our savings to put solar PV and batteries on my home - sending more electricity than we use to the grid, ie reducing emissions for other electricity users as well as our own but I am still a functional participant in the society and economy that exists around me, an economy where fossil fuels and their ongoing use came pre-embedded in everything, in the essentials as well as the un-necesssary.
Any extravagant displays of my going without stuff and making my life harder on purpose cannot make my own emissions zero, let alone everyone else's - I can't make solar panels and batteries or nuclear power plants - and trying harder is more likely to return me mockery for fanaticism than appreciation of my sincerity - speaking of hypocrisy.
An economy wide transition to zero emissions energy at the energy supplier level is required and I strongly advocate for policies for enough of it to provide as high a level of prosperity as possible, beyond barest essentials. My personal experience of PV (and more recently of batteries, heat pumps to go with it) is that a sufficient energy abundance for relatively high levels of energy use - prosperity, with excess left over - is achievable in the near term. If nothing else that is an easier sell to those who aren't engaged, enough so that they may be induced to cease opposing and obstructing out of economic alarmist fear.
Remaking our societies and economies and community consciousness will have to remain a longer term project.
Thanks for the note; it sounds as though you are doing a lot and thinking a lot about this issue. I agree that it is a longer-term project.
I just doubt that we can get to low/zero emissions primary production very quickly, especially at current rates of consumption. I worry that thinking that we can get to it quickly might be a form of denial and might reinforce status-quo consumption patterns. That was the basis of my comment.
I'm in the Bay Area. My son has driven an EV for 10 years. We've had solar for almost 10 years. My husband has been driving an EV for over a year. We added battery storage last spring. We're on SS and we don't fly anywhere. We're very careful with our water. Most of our food comes from within the Bay Area and we have a garden that takes up the back yard. It's not rocket science to figure out what to do. One thing I did do in 2017 was tell my son I didn't want any grandchildren. As the poet said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and I don't want my grandchild to starve to death.
Karen I agree. In our upscale neighborhood mosquito spraying, Orkin exterminators, leaving lights on at night are the norm. A close relative said one family not flying will make no difference. A huge about face by our government and the positive use of artificial intelligence there would be hope although the wrong people have control of both.
Most people hesitate to leave their comfort zone. I commend Dr. Peter Kalmus for enlightening me years ago about everything you mentioned. He is a passionate advocate for Mother Earth and genuinely practices what he preaches by reducing his carbon footprint in every way possible. He even authored a book called Being the Change, Live Well and Spark A Climate Revolution, where he provides detailed guidance on how others can do the same.
I agree. Part of the issue here might be that Bill McKibben has been a massive consumer of fossil fuels with his lifestyle--as he shows in his first paragraph of this article. He prefers to blame Exxon and refuses to consider carbon offsets.
Thanks Bill. Your voice is heard by many of us in Canada where many of our governments are dancing to the wrong tune orchestrated by fossil fuel and nuclear lobbyists.
Just an update. Pam Pearson from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, who's in Belem, reports that it's not just fire. Torrential rain has inundated the conference hall, with much of it leaking through the roof. Her colleague Miriam Jackson took an excellent picture of the Pacific Pavilion "closed for flooding," which I am too inept to figure out how to repost here, but that's pretty on the nose too.
Google AI says that 30 million tons of Greenland ice are melting hourly on ave. around the clock and that without this hydrological system cooling us, we'd be at 122 degF NOW. C3S states that 1.2 trillion tons of global ice are melting annually, 3.3 B daily. Each pound of melting ice absorbs 144 BTUs of heat energy that we are generating mostly through our mindless, incessant burning of fossil fuels, although we humans produce 11-25 k BTUs of heat energy daily, as our domestic animals produce at least half again as much. We are making the 1999 movie "Matrix" a reality, as our only surviving progeny will have to live underground by 2050 in order to survive the surface heat. Questions? Have a blessed evening.
Re forests and oceans turning from sink to source of CO2: This change is not limited to "south-east Asia and in large parts of South America." There is good evidence that Canada's 'managed' forests have passed that tipping point in 2001. The recent massive forest fires have made it even worse. (Ref. https://erwindreessen.substack.com/p/canadas-managed-forests-have-been)
I agree with Bill's description. If we were behaving globally as they did at the COP, we would relocate those in most immediate danger, tend to the wounded, and turn all available resources toward putting out the fire. No denial, no delay, no obstruction.
Took a listen. Good song. Tough spot we are in. Unfortunately the “choice” we are collectively making is to put our heads in the sand. Honestly, sometimes I wish I could!
One of the most important lessons learned from the Alta Dena fires referred to in this feature is that the fire was stopped by the natural forest land ( same droughts as in surrounding area that burned) not by firefighters. The "debate" about human interventions ( which ones work?) and US Forest Management Plans to "do things to forests are more the plans by timber companies and
"thinning forests" are not scientifically supported by research or practical experience. What really stops fires? Take a lesson in what we need to do for safe wild lands....leave them alone and don't go there, people. Close unused Forest roads and do not build more. The biggest reason not to do away with the Roadless Areas of our national forests is to help them help the Planet. They are best managed by minimal human impacts. The more "management" by "man", the more fires. Advise your Federal and State legislators to just say no to sales of Roadless Federal lands. Let's not go there.
I lived through the Oakland Fire of 1991. What did I learn? The fire will stop when the wind stops. Fire fighters cannot stop fires when the wind is blowing 60mph. In that fire, the wind blew north for about an hour, then turned and blew south straight across an eight lane freeway. It got to the houses on the other side and houses on one end of the street were burning before people on the middle of the street could get into their cars. Many people left their houses with nothing, and I mean no purses, no drivers licenses, just the clothes on their backs. At 7:30 pm the wind stopped blowing, and by 9pm it was out. I think it burned about 3000 houses between 11am and 9pm.
Dense and natural forests are wind breaks and though they have branches, leaves and plants below canopies, their ground soil is usually wet or damp and stops fire spreading. Significant, mixed plants and tree breaks, with dense and undisturbed vegetation and a minimum or NO human walking or vehicles, can stop wind and create Forest floors that retain moisture. Should this be part of all city planning? Build up not out from a city center, (and near public transport) even for suburban city plans, to guard homes from flooding and fires.
Ah, alas, the Bay Area does not have any dense and natural forests. It used to have some redwoods in east Oakland, but they were all cut down over a hundred years ago and almost all of what's left is in Redwood Regional Park. The trees we do have now are unnatural forests of eucalyptus, which have never seen a flame they didn't love. I've seen two fires centered around eucalyptus, the fire in Berkeley in 1970 or 71, and the Oakland fire. Once a flame hits the tree, it races to the top in minutes, and of course the detritus, and eucalyptus has a ton of it, catches on fire instantly. Your idea of dense and natural forests is interesting, but Berkeley is a city now run by developers, and they love building up, with some of the ugliest buildings I've ever seen. Even few of the tall buildings in San Francisco are attractive, although the Embarcaderos are nice. It's nice to think of this as a possible part of city planning. Newer downtown Oakland, built by Jerry Brown when he was mayor, combines new, less than 10 story buildings with zip cars on site and BART underground and busses going down the streets, but no grocery stores within walking distance. It is very attractive. But in general, I doubt that a forest belt around a city is practical. It's more the suburban homes on the outskirts of cities that are a problem because they have so much greenery, which makes them livable. Also, where I live, I would suggest a forest area on top the earthquake faults, so houses aren't destroyed. The areas destroyed by fires around here are also right on top of the Hayward Fault. Also, remember, in California, it only rains between October and April, in most cases, and these days we see less and less of it. It's because of that hoax, the climate crisis.
Bill, you mention how people will die of the heat. Is there any consideration of how many people will die because of crops dying? Frankly, I think that's a much larger number. And secondly, as a Californian, what other state has done so much to reduce the threat of global warming? I believe it is the only entity which has met the 2030 climate goals besides the four Scandinavian countries.
I think your analogy between the fire in local fire and the world's climate fire is interesting, but your conclusion that " everyone behaved in precisely the opposite way they’ve reacted to the fire that’s begun to consume the earth" is not correct.
You said, "People warned each other, and evacuated. Firefighters arrived and used their tools to put out the blaze."
But viewed from a certain angle, that is precisely what people are doing with global climate change. They are using their TOOLS to escape the disaster. The rich are using their tools (moving to different parts of their contries or to new countries, air conditioning, other technology) to preven themselves from any immediate pain of climate change.
The two reactions are actually frighteningly similar: in the local fire, people used their tools to escape. They evacuate. In the global fire, they are still using their tools to escape. Putting it out in the local case is only because that was the logical action to prevent immediate damage.
Rather sadly, it is precisely because people can escape disasters that they do nothing about the global one. If there were no such things as national disaster programs, weather prediction, or even firefighters, then people would be a LOT more careful about how they treat the climate.
Let’s talk about this essential fact: “the world’s forests and oceans are losing their ability to sequester carbon.”
You, Mike Mann, Al Gore, Kat Hayhoe and the preponderance of thought leaders disregard the implications in your baseless belief that simply reducing “current emissions” to zero by 2050 (Net Zero by 2050 is delusional because carbon removal schemes are not up to the task, you know) is all that must be done.
You claim that “legacy emissions” will begin to be naturally sequestered [just as “current emissions” always have] quickly within a handful of years, and global mean temperature will begin to decline soon thereafter. Hansen and other reputable renowned scientists have debunked that belief. Why has Mike been dragging his feet?
In reality, ceasing CO2 emissions now would not bend the warming trajectory to a stable 1.5°C or 2°C let alone to actually cool the planet in a human relevant time scale. Hansen et al. demonstrate that deadly 2.7°C will be passed around 2050-2060, and another study predicts 2 billion people will flee their unlivable homeland to settle where we live, where the local climate is more tolerable, you know.
You know in your heart that Mike is leading us down a suicidal path. You and Al and Kat and others need to think this through and stand up to Mike, dont you think?
Emissions reduction is necessary but even when we finally achieve complete decarbonization, without extraordinary temporary cooling intervention, planet earth will become chaotic and unlivable just a few generations from now.
Let’s talk about that. And maybe eat some crow, collectively.
Not sure what to think. One or more paragraphs don’t appear to add up.
I agree will much of your writing. I have read a number of your books. My church has discussed one of your books. However my church also is slow to work towards solutions. Ex: use of plastics & disposable dish ware. In Manistee MI we don’t see a lot of sun this time of year. Solar and wind power is not affordable for the vast majority of the homeowners or renters. My neighbor just north has two solar panels for a huge two family home.
If my electric company offers solar & wind to power my home I surely would use it. I have. heat pump which is electric. A propane & furnace & generator.
I have driven a Pruis since 2011. My daughter has high red Kia plug in. Her spouse has an electric Kia.
Our home is not well suited to receiving sun. Wooded & rural.
Many different factors influence wildfire behavior, such as forest health, weather, topography, and forest management practices. A warming climate is increasing some types of fire activity, leading to larger and more destructive fires, more intensive firefighting efforts, and widespread smoke
But of course it’s more than just fires. A heating planet has thousands of ways to do damage, from rain and flood to drought and storm. A new study, detailed here by Pro Publica, counts the excess deaths 👉simply from Trump’s about face on climate policy at 1.3 million souls
Our calculations use modeled estimates of the additional emissions that will be released as a result of 👉Trump’s policies as well as a peer-reviewed metric for what is known as the mortality cost of carbon. That metric, which builds on Nobel Prize-winning science that has informed federal policy for more than a decade, predicts the number of temperature-related deaths from additional emissions. The estimate reflects deaths from heat-related causes, such as heat stroke and the exacerbation of existing illnesses, minus lives saved by reduced exposure to cold. It does not include the massive number of deaths expected from the broader effects of climate change, such as droughts, floods, wars, vector-borne diseases, hurricanes, wildfires and reduced crop yields.
The numbers, while large,👉 are just a fraction of the estimated 83 million temperature-related deaths that could result from all human-caused emissions over the same period if climate-warming pollution is not curtailed.👉 But they speak to the human cost of prioritizing U.S. corporate interests over the lives of people around the globe.
“The sheer numbers are horrifying,” said Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the nonprofit U.S. Climate Action Network, which works with groups around the world to combat climate change.
“But for us they’re more than numbers,” she added.👉 “These are people with lives, with families, with hopes and dreams. They are people like us, even if they happen to live in a different part of the world.”
Can you please can you please send me an audio version? I have to do many mechanical works around the house and the yard and would love to be able to hear these articles as well as reading them. Thank you so much.
Having worked on climate and environmental issues for the past 30 + years and teaching Environmental Studies in Higher Ed for 17 years I really wonder what will stop this, if anything. All of our opportunities that were lost, Gore, 2000, Kerry 2004, Obama failing to utilize those 8 years in a significant way and supporting fracking, and on it goes into the horrors of Trumpism. In Ohio we had an excellent energy bill 2008 that implemented benchmarks and was passed unanimously. That was gobbled up and replaced with oil and gas land, adding to the methane assault, we even allow fracking in our state parks. Fought that beginning 2011 and finally swept through 2023. Our state legislature is so slimy you slip on the marble stairs.
Now we must pay our attention to the Quiet Piggy president, one shock after the next. We haven't time to address the expansive environmental catastrophy any longer. Stupidity, ignorance and corruption reigns. The genocide in Gaza and West Bank a horror daily. Daily. How is it possible that the west allows this killing,killing with US tax money and weapons. The GHG emissions from this war exceeds 100 countries outputs. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/carbon-footprint-israels-war-gaza-exceeds-100-countries. Will someone care?
As a 70 yo grandmother it is heartbreaking. We will continue to oppose and fight, to litigate, to collaborate, to stand for the forests. But we have just missed so many opportunities. We must continue to challenge and work, be strong. Testify against expanding fossil fuels. We see the reality now, the complicity, the corruptness, the value of dollars over life. There are no questions. We must continue to strategize and work in collaboration with the earth and fellow colleagues. And what of COP 30. Civil society is engaged, a roadmap for the end of fossil fuels discussed. It is good v evil.
This really resonates with me, a fellow grandmother (Nonna Donna).
It's heartbreaking.
And so many colleagues and connections working in sustainability, climate and ecological science, or who simply just care, are slowly but surely losing the will.
It's so hard to watch them give up.
Like you Loraine, and in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, I'm just trying to do "what I can, with what I have, where I am."
I don't quite get it. All these terrible things happening due to the climate crisis and yet no one mentions individual actions anymore such as not flying, stopping meat consumption, living more simply. Why is that? Most people I know aren't willing to make any lifestyle changes at all. There never seems to be any answers in these articles about what we can do, aside from blame the governments and corporations.
Until the providers of primary energy are primarily providing low/zero emissions versions the personal choices of those motivated enough to go without stuff will never be enough. They can't get to zero at a personal level and even added together cannot be enough when so many people won't do it. It does help but only when primary energy is zero emissions will our energy use be zero emissions.
People who support the policies that roll out clean energy at economy wide scale yet continue to consume and use energy without obsessing over it should not be the ones singled out for criticism; it is a reasonable position to hold that the solutions must prioritise an economy transition to low/zero emissions energy, so that everyone's emissions will be low, whether they are engaged or not. Whether they are wasteful or not. It is the people opposing and obstructing that large scale rollout of clean energy that most need confronting.
Wastefulness and extravagant consumption do come with other problems than global warming but with zero emissions primary energy it stops being or is at least much less of a climate problem.
You sound like a person who uses a lot of fossil fuels and doesn't want to stop. True?
I think people need to stop blaming the wrong people. If invaders were rolling down my street I shouldn't have my calls for government led, nation wide professionally conducted response dismissed as hypocritical because I haven't thrown enough rocks at them.
FWIW we use much less energy than my average fellow citizens, are frugal, do some homegrown and have used my/our savings to put solar PV and batteries on my home - sending more electricity than we use to the grid, ie reducing emissions for other electricity users as well as our own but I am still a functional participant in the society and economy that exists around me, an economy where fossil fuels and their ongoing use came pre-embedded in everything, in the essentials as well as the un-necesssary.
Any extravagant displays of my going without stuff and making my life harder on purpose cannot make my own emissions zero, let alone everyone else's - I can't make solar panels and batteries or nuclear power plants - and trying harder is more likely to return me mockery for fanaticism than appreciation of my sincerity - speaking of hypocrisy.
An economy wide transition to zero emissions energy at the energy supplier level is required and I strongly advocate for policies for enough of it to provide as high a level of prosperity as possible, beyond barest essentials. My personal experience of PV (and more recently of batteries, heat pumps to go with it) is that a sufficient energy abundance for relatively high levels of energy use - prosperity, with excess left over - is achievable in the near term. If nothing else that is an easier sell to those who aren't engaged, enough so that they may be induced to cease opposing and obstructing out of economic alarmist fear.
Remaking our societies and economies and community consciousness will have to remain a longer term project.
Thanks for the note; it sounds as though you are doing a lot and thinking a lot about this issue. I agree that it is a longer-term project.
I just doubt that we can get to low/zero emissions primary production very quickly, especially at current rates of consumption. I worry that thinking that we can get to it quickly might be a form of denial and might reinforce status-quo consumption patterns. That was the basis of my comment.
I'm in the Bay Area. My son has driven an EV for 10 years. We've had solar for almost 10 years. My husband has been driving an EV for over a year. We added battery storage last spring. We're on SS and we don't fly anywhere. We're very careful with our water. Most of our food comes from within the Bay Area and we have a garden that takes up the back yard. It's not rocket science to figure out what to do. One thing I did do in 2017 was tell my son I didn't want any grandchildren. As the poet said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and I don't want my grandchild to starve to death.
Karen I agree. In our upscale neighborhood mosquito spraying, Orkin exterminators, leaving lights on at night are the norm. A close relative said one family not flying will make no difference. A huge about face by our government and the positive use of artificial intelligence there would be hope although the wrong people have control of both.
Most people hesitate to leave their comfort zone. I commend Dr. Peter Kalmus for enlightening me years ago about everything you mentioned. He is a passionate advocate for Mother Earth and genuinely practices what he preaches by reducing his carbon footprint in every way possible. He even authored a book called Being the Change, Live Well and Spark A Climate Revolution, where he provides detailed guidance on how others can do the same.
I agree. Part of the issue here might be that Bill McKibben has been a massive consumer of fossil fuels with his lifestyle--as he shows in his first paragraph of this article. He prefers to blame Exxon and refuses to consider carbon offsets.
Thanks Bill. Your voice is heard by many of us in Canada where many of our governments are dancing to the wrong tune orchestrated by fossil fuel and nuclear lobbyists.
Just an update. Pam Pearson from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, who's in Belem, reports that it's not just fire. Torrential rain has inundated the conference hall, with much of it leaking through the roof. Her colleague Miriam Jackson took an excellent picture of the Pacific Pavilion "closed for flooding," which I am too inept to figure out how to repost here, but that's pretty on the nose too.
Google AI says that 30 million tons of Greenland ice are melting hourly on ave. around the clock and that without this hydrological system cooling us, we'd be at 122 degF NOW. C3S states that 1.2 trillion tons of global ice are melting annually, 3.3 B daily. Each pound of melting ice absorbs 144 BTUs of heat energy that we are generating mostly through our mindless, incessant burning of fossil fuels, although we humans produce 11-25 k BTUs of heat energy daily, as our domestic animals produce at least half again as much. We are making the 1999 movie "Matrix" a reality, as our only surviving progeny will have to live underground by 2050 in order to survive the surface heat. Questions? Have a blessed evening.
Re forests and oceans turning from sink to source of CO2: This change is not limited to "south-east Asia and in large parts of South America." There is good evidence that Canada's 'managed' forests have passed that tipping point in 2001. The recent massive forest fires have made it even worse. (Ref. https://erwindreessen.substack.com/p/canadas-managed-forests-have-been)
I agree with Bill's description. If we were behaving globally as they did at the COP, we would relocate those in most immediate danger, tend to the wounded, and turn all available resources toward putting out the fire. No denial, no delay, no obstruction.
By chance, a while back I published a song by the same name. Have a listen: musicalscalpel.com/world-on-fire/
Took a listen. Good song. Tough spot we are in. Unfortunately the “choice” we are collectively making is to put our heads in the sand. Honestly, sometimes I wish I could!
The end of nature ❓❓‼️✌️🤔 Eaarth needs your help. It's nature's way of telling you something is wrong 😔. Here comes the SUN ☀️😎🌻, it's all right 👍
One of the most important lessons learned from the Alta Dena fires referred to in this feature is that the fire was stopped by the natural forest land ( same droughts as in surrounding area that burned) not by firefighters. The "debate" about human interventions ( which ones work?) and US Forest Management Plans to "do things to forests are more the plans by timber companies and
"thinning forests" are not scientifically supported by research or practical experience. What really stops fires? Take a lesson in what we need to do for safe wild lands....leave them alone and don't go there, people. Close unused Forest roads and do not build more. The biggest reason not to do away with the Roadless Areas of our national forests is to help them help the Planet. They are best managed by minimal human impacts. The more "management" by "man", the more fires. Advise your Federal and State legislators to just say no to sales of Roadless Federal lands. Let's not go there.
I lived through the Oakland Fire of 1991. What did I learn? The fire will stop when the wind stops. Fire fighters cannot stop fires when the wind is blowing 60mph. In that fire, the wind blew north for about an hour, then turned and blew south straight across an eight lane freeway. It got to the houses on the other side and houses on one end of the street were burning before people on the middle of the street could get into their cars. Many people left their houses with nothing, and I mean no purses, no drivers licenses, just the clothes on their backs. At 7:30 pm the wind stopped blowing, and by 9pm it was out. I think it burned about 3000 houses between 11am and 9pm.
Dense and natural forests are wind breaks and though they have branches, leaves and plants below canopies, their ground soil is usually wet or damp and stops fire spreading. Significant, mixed plants and tree breaks, with dense and undisturbed vegetation and a minimum or NO human walking or vehicles, can stop wind and create Forest floors that retain moisture. Should this be part of all city planning? Build up not out from a city center, (and near public transport) even for suburban city plans, to guard homes from flooding and fires.
Ah, alas, the Bay Area does not have any dense and natural forests. It used to have some redwoods in east Oakland, but they were all cut down over a hundred years ago and almost all of what's left is in Redwood Regional Park. The trees we do have now are unnatural forests of eucalyptus, which have never seen a flame they didn't love. I've seen two fires centered around eucalyptus, the fire in Berkeley in 1970 or 71, and the Oakland fire. Once a flame hits the tree, it races to the top in minutes, and of course the detritus, and eucalyptus has a ton of it, catches on fire instantly. Your idea of dense and natural forests is interesting, but Berkeley is a city now run by developers, and they love building up, with some of the ugliest buildings I've ever seen. Even few of the tall buildings in San Francisco are attractive, although the Embarcaderos are nice. It's nice to think of this as a possible part of city planning. Newer downtown Oakland, built by Jerry Brown when he was mayor, combines new, less than 10 story buildings with zip cars on site and BART underground and busses going down the streets, but no grocery stores within walking distance. It is very attractive. But in general, I doubt that a forest belt around a city is practical. It's more the suburban homes on the outskirts of cities that are a problem because they have so much greenery, which makes them livable. Also, where I live, I would suggest a forest area on top the earthquake faults, so houses aren't destroyed. The areas destroyed by fires around here are also right on top of the Hayward Fault. Also, remember, in California, it only rains between October and April, in most cases, and these days we see less and less of it. It's because of that hoax, the climate crisis.
Bill, you mention how people will die of the heat. Is there any consideration of how many people will die because of crops dying? Frankly, I think that's a much larger number. And secondly, as a Californian, what other state has done so much to reduce the threat of global warming? I believe it is the only entity which has met the 2030 climate goals besides the four Scandinavian countries.
I think your analogy between the fire in local fire and the world's climate fire is interesting, but your conclusion that " everyone behaved in precisely the opposite way they’ve reacted to the fire that’s begun to consume the earth" is not correct.
You said, "People warned each other, and evacuated. Firefighters arrived and used their tools to put out the blaze."
But viewed from a certain angle, that is precisely what people are doing with global climate change. They are using their TOOLS to escape the disaster. The rich are using their tools (moving to different parts of their contries or to new countries, air conditioning, other technology) to preven themselves from any immediate pain of climate change.
The two reactions are actually frighteningly similar: in the local fire, people used their tools to escape. They evacuate. In the global fire, they are still using their tools to escape. Putting it out in the local case is only because that was the logical action to prevent immediate damage.
Rather sadly, it is precisely because people can escape disasters that they do nothing about the global one. If there were no such things as national disaster programs, weather prediction, or even firefighters, then people would be a LOT more careful about how they treat the climate.
Agree, the world is on fire, in drought, war, famine everywhere there are hard things.
What will emerge ?
Let’s talk about this essential fact: “the world’s forests and oceans are losing their ability to sequester carbon.”
You, Mike Mann, Al Gore, Kat Hayhoe and the preponderance of thought leaders disregard the implications in your baseless belief that simply reducing “current emissions” to zero by 2050 (Net Zero by 2050 is delusional because carbon removal schemes are not up to the task, you know) is all that must be done.
You claim that “legacy emissions” will begin to be naturally sequestered [just as “current emissions” always have] quickly within a handful of years, and global mean temperature will begin to decline soon thereafter. Hansen and other reputable renowned scientists have debunked that belief. Why has Mike been dragging his feet?
In reality, ceasing CO2 emissions now would not bend the warming trajectory to a stable 1.5°C or 2°C let alone to actually cool the planet in a human relevant time scale. Hansen et al. demonstrate that deadly 2.7°C will be passed around 2050-2060, and another study predicts 2 billion people will flee their unlivable homeland to settle where we live, where the local climate is more tolerable, you know.
You know in your heart that Mike is leading us down a suicidal path. You and Al and Kat and others need to think this through and stand up to Mike, dont you think?
Emissions reduction is necessary but even when we finally achieve complete decarbonization, without extraordinary temporary cooling intervention, planet earth will become chaotic and unlivable just a few generations from now.
Let’s talk about that. And maybe eat some crow, collectively.
Not sure what to think. One or more paragraphs don’t appear to add up.
I agree will much of your writing. I have read a number of your books. My church has discussed one of your books. However my church also is slow to work towards solutions. Ex: use of plastics & disposable dish ware. In Manistee MI we don’t see a lot of sun this time of year. Solar and wind power is not affordable for the vast majority of the homeowners or renters. My neighbor just north has two solar panels for a huge two family home.
If my electric company offers solar & wind to power my home I surely would use it. I have. heat pump which is electric. A propane & furnace & generator.
I have driven a Pruis since 2011. My daughter has high red Kia plug in. Her spouse has an electric Kia.
Our home is not well suited to receiving sun. Wooded & rural.
I do dishes by hand daily. I avoid plastics.
Any advice?
John Carter
Many different factors influence wildfire behavior, such as forest health, weather, topography, and forest management practices. A warming climate is increasing some types of fire activity, leading to larger and more destructive fires, more intensive firefighting efforts, and widespread smoke
But of course it’s more than just fires. A heating planet has thousands of ways to do damage, from rain and flood to drought and storm. A new study, detailed here by Pro Publica, counts the excess deaths 👉simply from Trump’s about face on climate policy at 1.3 million souls
Our calculations use modeled estimates of the additional emissions that will be released as a result of 👉Trump’s policies as well as a peer-reviewed metric for what is known as the mortality cost of carbon. That metric, which builds on Nobel Prize-winning science that has informed federal policy for more than a decade, predicts the number of temperature-related deaths from additional emissions. The estimate reflects deaths from heat-related causes, such as heat stroke and the exacerbation of existing illnesses, minus lives saved by reduced exposure to cold. It does not include the massive number of deaths expected from the broader effects of climate change, such as droughts, floods, wars, vector-borne diseases, hurricanes, wildfires and reduced crop yields.
The numbers, while large,👉 are just a fraction of the estimated 83 million temperature-related deaths that could result from all human-caused emissions over the same period if climate-warming pollution is not curtailed.👉 But they speak to the human cost of prioritizing U.S. corporate interests over the lives of people around the globe.
“The sheer numbers are horrifying,” said Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the nonprofit U.S. Climate Action Network, which works with groups around the world to combat climate change.
“But for us they’re more than numbers,” she added.👉 “These are people with lives, with families, with hopes and dreams. They are people like us, even if they happen to live in a different part of the world.”
Can you please can you please send me an audio version? I have to do many mechanical works around the house and the yard and would love to be able to hear these articles as well as reading them. Thank you so much.