"We don't speak of these things, not in front of the children."
That, according to Gwynne Dyer, is the approach being taken by our political and military leadership when it comes to the geopolitical aspects of climate change. They don't talk about it in front of the children - that's you and me. Here, in a lecture from 2010, he explores the conversation we will never have:
N.B. This was recorded in 2010 when Dyer was briefly optimistic that runaway climate change would be averted with a combination of common sense and geo-engineering. That's a phase he's passed through since then.
A scientist in the US measured ground temperatures following 9/11, after all commercial aircraft were grounded, and measured an upswing in the neigbourhood of almost a half a degree over a few days.
ReplyDeleteWe already have unplanned climatic geo-engineering in place, in the form of commercial jet aircraft exhaust, yet we don't recognise, let alone measure, the changes this type of unintended geo-engineering brings about.
And shooting water into the increasingly warming atmosphere in order to increase the volume of the stratus cloud layer seems a little bit insane, since increased atmospheric water volume is already increasing the intensity of extreme weather events.
Geo-engineering the environment, in a predictable way, in an effort to lessen the effects of climate change is (in my opinion) beyond the scope of human capabilities. We must simply reduce CO2 emissions, as quickly as possible, in order to lessen the intensity of future extreme weather events.
This video ought to be shown in every school across this country.
ReplyDeleteDyer was born, raised and educated in St. John's, Newfoundland. He hasn't totaly lost his St. John's accent with such words as "in fact, about it, draw bridge, see what you, get it, included, forth" etc. The St. John's accent is difficult to cast aside but Dyer has done a good job. Very informative video.