Full speed ahead to what?
By Bianca Begovich
I have visited the Expressway construction site at the end of Te Roto Drive in Paraparaumu with my son’s kindergarten.
The visit was organised by the Expressway Alliance team so that children could ‘see what was happening.’
The Expressway Alliance has been approaching most of the schools and preschools in the area with similar invitations. I decided not to go on a similar previous tri p with my daughter’s school but my son would have missed out if I hadn’t accompanied him and he was keen to see the diggers working.
But after about 20 minutes of watching the huge machines and listening to the men talking, I just couldn’t take it anymore. These massive machines transport 260 wheelbarrows of dirt in one load, and dozens of them operate every day. The tyres are the size of a small car and their exhaust pipes constantly emit the by-products of the fossil fuels they operate on.
While the other families, the children and my son smiled and waved at the diggers and motor scrapers going back and forth and back and forth to build the motorway, I couldn’t help but feel that the whole situation was just too bizarre and surreal.
My head was going crazy because there are a group of scientists which the world employs called the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
They are scientists from all around the world and their job is to tell us about climate change.
Their 2014 report says that climate change is “unequivocally due to human dependence on fossil fuels” and that with ‘continued dependence on fossil fuels, there will be war, famine and mass death.’
These are the scientist’s words, not mine. This is a group of internationally renowned scientists paid by us to tell us about climate change using the words War, Famine and Death.
We had been encouraged by the Alliance staff to ask any questions we wanted to, so after a while, I quietly went up to the main worker and asked him one question:
“When the IPCC tells us that our dependence on fossil fuels will result in war, famine and death, how can you reconcile that with what you are showing the children here”?
War. Famine. Death.
Because this is the future we are committing these children to. It is insane to be using massive machines made with fossil fuels, which run on fossil fuels to build motorways that will produce more traffic which will run on fossil fuels.
The truth is these children will probably never get to use this motorway because fossil fuels are running out and only rich people will be able to afford petrol.
Not to mention the tolls that will inevitably be imposed on the Expressway which will make it prohibitive for the average Kiwi (like the Auckland motorway which is currently having it’s toll price increased).
That is, if the children can even go out in the atmosphere which is already way above the 350 ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide at which life can safely be sustained.
We are currently at 400 ppm, and we’re adding 2 ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year.
War. Famine. Death.
Nice story thanks 🙂 Robert Attack from local has been on about this for ages.
It’s all a bit of a joke really, say this, set up that, then do something exactly the opposite.
350ppm is way above what humans can survive at … long term, for the entire human history CO2 hasn’t gone above 280 ppm, until we started burning coal, then oil, etc.
Generally the information coming out of the IPCC is at best 5 years behind the current thinking/facts, plus they are under political pressure not to frighten the masses, so tend to understate most of their predictions.
We are currently at or just above 400 parts per million CO2 (the amount fluctuates over the year), the last time the environment had this much CO2 floating around it the Earth was 5 degrees Celsius above what it is now, and the oceans were about 26 metres above where they are now. The Earth is still catching up with the effect of past emissions.
Needless to say, human habitat can not change, move, or adapt fast enough to accommodate a 5 degree temperature rise, in what will be an extremely short time, approximately 30 – 40 years, which is the time lag that the melting ice and warming deep seas are giving us.
The current global climate instability is due to the CO2 emissions from decades ago.
Then there is methane. The amount of methane – CH4 – and its forcing factor compared to CO2 are rarely taken into account, when in fact methane is way worse than CO2; it is somewhere in the region of 200 – 300 times stronger a greenhouse gas than CO2. And there is something like 10 – 10,000 times more CH4 trapped in the Tundra and under the sea which is below the fast melting Arctic ice than man has injected into the environment as CO2 in the past 200 years. The current amount of methane in the environment is equivalent to about 400 ppm CO2, giving us in excess of 800 parts per million CO2/CO2e, We are on the cusp of something that may not have occurred in more than 3 billion years.
Reducing emissions now will not be noticeable for something like 40 years, way after humans have gone the way of the 200 species we currently send extinct daily.
If we had the ability to remove the equivalent of 150ppm CO2 within a decade, then I would say we had a chance, doing anything less is futile.
The Kapiti Express Way will be our ‘Moi’ – our version of Easter Island statues. If there are any future archaeologists, they will wonder what ‘drove’ us to this kind of insanity, and what amounts to infanticide. Space doesn’t allow me to write much more except I hope to point to this essay:
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/ which covers the facts way better than I can here.
N.B. CO2 persists in the atmosphere for around 1,000 years.
But alas to maintain growth and create employment for the expanding population, our short sighted so called leaders chose to even ignore the watered down clap trap coming out of the IPCC.
The IPCC’s latest understatement, that ‘we’ need to stop using fossil fuels to produce electricity by mid century, is laughable when you take into account the above CURRENT – ie up to date, information.
I for one am just so lucky I don’t have a child to take to Expressway Education day.
Nice data thks Robert, I have an opposing view though on having children, I am thankful I had children to take to and educate about these matters that they might work towards a better world.
The fight is fr from over 🙂
Sorry Karl but @ 400 ppm CO2 and maybe 400 ppm CO2e (with the methane) it is over, and once the ice has gone so will we.
I’m just giving you the facts, ‘unshrouded’ in ‘hope’
There may be a better world, for volcanic microbes maybe, but our better world was way in the past.
It is going to take millions of years before this planet could support
humans again, we’ve killed our habitat.
22After.com gives a clear depiction of what we face as society unwinds
It’s no excuse to give up on human life IMO, we face destruction from solar flares, asteroid encounters, magnetosphere failure, accidental nuclear launches, biological misadventure etc etc etc, EVERYDAY, expect the best, plan for the worst and look after our fellow humans, the planets been through these cycles and dynamics many times in the past, its not the time to give up.
This is the wrong place to have this debate happy to chat over a coffee sometime? robert@oilcrash.com