On Truth, Satellites and Climate
POLITICO today detailed the advances humankind has made in satellite-mounted technology that detects climate change. Some 450 satellites are trained on our earth and provide us with an abundance of climate data. The U.S. alone has another $6 billion budgeted next year for this effort The information already helps fire fighters determine the trajectory of fires, measures the melting of our ice caps and can track shipping activity in the most remote waters of the planet. As more and more of this data gets distilled into the general public’s understanding of our climate situation, the question becomes what we will do with it.

As with all things in this money-driven nation, the data will first be exploited for its commercial value. Ships can more accurately plot courses around bad weather, air conditioning manufacturers will know the hottest places to target their wares, and those selling “green” technologies will know where their carbon-reducing products might best find a customer. One feature of this commercial usage is how open the information will be. Companies will see this data as an edge over competitors and seek to “own” or limit its availability. There is already a growing demand that all this information be “open” and available. This may run into military concerns, that will play into how much data is shared.

This kind of data will drive our political debate. Scientists are on the cusp of instruments that will be able to pinpoint exactly where and what facilities are emitting carbon. No longer will there be a need to have a company or community install monitoring devices. The full extent of rising tides and water depletion will be measured down to the gallon and hot spots most affected clearly defined. The extent and locations of climate damage is already becoming an indisputable scientific truth.

The question is how we will handle that knowledge. Currently we have a waning, but still politically potent “climate denial” sector of our population who are actively engaged in the idea that it will all work itself out. Their tactics, as with any inconvenient truths, are to ignore the facts and construct delusional alternatives,to satisfy their followers. The flip side are the climate activists for whom every piece of bad news requires a demand that someone (often not them) sacrifice to save the planet. Their activism is necessary to drive action, but their blindness to the fears they stoke, limits their influence. Caught in the middle are those who realize that climate change must be dealt with, but whose lives and economic security will be upended by the drive to reduce our carbon footprint. What we decide to do with this bounty of climate information has already become a political football.

If we embrace what the satellites tell us, and use it to plan our way toward reversing climate erosion, we can minimize the disruption and transition in a sanely and methodically. That’s not the way its going right now. Climate policy is woefully inadequate to the pace of change we need, while the commercial world is adapting in search of maximum profit. This portends a very unequal and massively disruptive path toward addressing climate issues. That in turn will make climate politics the most divisive and unsolvable problems all time. We will be buffeted by floods, hurricanes, fires and drought as we beg “the market” to deliver us from evil.
The satellites are giving us truth and time to act responsibly. It is up to us to promote and elect leadership that embraces the data and will use it to constructively and fairly repair our planet’s health for us all.

Ihg 10-31-2021

If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: https://ikegittlen.substack.com/ and share. Let’s see what we can build together.