What will it take to “drastically” reduce our carbon footprint?
By: Save Our Climate
Tags: Climate Change, Global Warming

The kinds of changes needed to reduce the world’s carbon footprint, we know, will be beneficial in the very long run. This much is clear. I claim, and I’m not alone, that they are beneficial to you right now and in the foreseeable future. I might even go so far to say that when looked at the right way, they aren’t sacrifices at all. The majority of these changes amount to changes in our habits. They may be drastic changes, but ultimately I don’t believe it will hurt much, if at all.

Some say that the drastic steps we would have to take to reduce our carbon output will really hurt the economy. By some estimates, however, our lack of action will result in a loss of 200 years of economic growth. It has already cost the USA hundreds of billions of dollars. The fires in Australia have destroyed over 12 billion acres of land and possibly 1 billion animals (not counting insects and amphibians). I’d say this is pretty drastic, wouldn’t you? Others say that these steps would either not hurt or improve the economy, creating jobs in new sectors, particularly manufacturing and construction jobs, because of all the infrastructure needed.

Even if the changes we make now do hurt growth, at least the changes are voluntary. What’s going on right now in Australia, and what has happened in California, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas are a glimpse of the future pretty much everywhere. If we don’t adjust now, many more and more drastic changes will be forced upon us. Which do you prefer?

How awful is it, really, to make everything more fuel-efficient? A lot of people who complain about waste and inefficiency. So why the pushback on fuel efficiency? I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of the USA meddling in Middle Eastern affairs. The reality is, like it or not, we’re entangled there, and it’s mainly because we depend on Middle East oil. So…let’s stop depending on foreign oil! Seems to me like a move away from gasoline and petrolum products as much as we can, as quickly as possible would only benefit us: we no longer are bound to ally with certain countries just because of their oil resources, no matter how awful their rulers are, or how much they export terrorism.

If we invested heavily in research and became the leader in alternative fuels, fuel cells and bioplastics, how would this hurt us, exactly? Isn’t China totally kicking our butts at the solar cell game? If what we want is more American manufacturing, we have to move into the 21st century and invest in 21st century research, technology, infrastructure and industry, and become the best at these things, like we were only a few decades ago.

According to this US Army report issued in July 2019, our ageing power grids will soon actively be a national security weak point, if not updated and hardened soon. The lack of security combined with ageing infrastructure and network-connected central power grids is a major weakness, and power grids in Ukraine have already been hacked by Russian state-sponsored actors. Russian hackers continue to “probe the US power grid” for weaknesses. The Army pointed to the recent fires and power outages (intentional and not) in California as evidence of what could happen. Microgrids, power grids that independently operate over smaller areas are one solution, and this needs a certain amount of local power generation. This includes not just solar farms and solar covered parking lots, but home solar installation. In any disaster, this power architecture provides additional redudancy and resilience.

At home solar installation, we’re at the individual level of effort. The other things, which anyone can do, basically involve you simply spending less money. Wait, what? That doesn’t hurt you at all, that helps you! In other posts, I will talk about the history of consumerism, how our buying habits are so habitual and conditioned that we don’t even realize how bamboozled we’ve been. This has contributed to unhealthy and impossible economic expectations of continuous, unlimited growth driven by corporate capitalism. Some of you may be thinking, oh no, a socialist, evil! Or even a communist, *gasp*! Nope, I’m not against free enterprise or a work ethic. I’m very much for a strong, healthy nation, but that depends on having a strong, healthy planet. Plus, it’s like people keep forgetting, this is the only home we’ve got. If we burn it down, we have nowhere else to go.

I truly believe that what is needed to drastically reduce our carbon footprint aren’t really sacrifices. We may think of them as sacrifices, but the biggest effort is in changing our habits; after awhile they won’t feel like sacrifices at all.