Knock On Effects...

...or the law of unintended consequences.

I am currently reading Adrienne Mayor's Gods and Robots and it is illuminating.  She begins with the myth of Talos, a made being, not a born one.  It is a story I was not particularly familiar with although I knew of the Jason and the Argonauts tale.  To have her dissect the story in greater detail, especially the section on Talos, has been fascinating.

Over and over again human beings have done amazing things, surprising things.

I am an avid reader as regular readers of this blog will know.  My first dip into science fiction was I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, so the concept of artificial intelligence has long been a staple of my background awareness.

Other authors have explored the consequence of automation, both modern and in antiquity.  Lindsey Davis has done a masterful series set in early Roman times, and much of the technology she details turned out - much to my surprise - to be completely accurate.  Metered taxis, dispensing machines, and the automatons included in temples and just for show.  Guy Gavriel Kay also includes levels of technology that I found surprising for their sophistication - levitating thrones, musical/mechanical birds?  Yes, they were part of our historical record.

So it is with every decision a human being makes - consequences.  Some desired, some completely not.

I made up this chart in an effort to explain to students how the different aspects of cloth construction can be adjusted.  Tweaking one of the areas will, like a bug caught in a spider's web, reverberate around the entire diagram.  Because change one thing, everything can change.  We just anticipate it and further adjust, or we don't know and our results may not be entirely what we were aiming for.

So it is with climate change.

I am old enough to have carried wood and coal from basement to the wood cook/heat stove upstairs.  We burned carbon in it's rawest form and pretty much every house in town did as well.  Some had furnaces that burned sawdust.  A few had oil.  But we all burned carbon in one form or another.

Today?  Still burning carbon, but in the form of natural gas, for the most part.

We got rid of the smoke pall from burning wood that hung over the town, but we didn't reduce the carbon load being dumped into the atmosphere.

As the 50s rolled into the 60s and on into present day, oil/petroleum products became more and more prevalent.

I am old enough to remember that food came wrapped in paper or in glass or metal containers.  Now?  Plastic.

I am old enough to remember wool clothing.  During the winter we were all wrapped in it.  Now?  Polyesters of various degrees (iow, petroleum product).

I am old enough to remember being told in the 1960s that oil was a finite resource, unlike wood.  And that the oil industry suppressed the development of alternate energy sources.  (Blowout by Rachel Maddow)

Last night we watched a NOVA program called Polar Extremes.  The presenter Kurt Johnson (I think was his name) did a pretty detailed summary of where we are now in terms of the effects of climate change due to heavy carbon loading in the atmosphere.  No, climate change is NOT a myth.  The data speaks and speaks loudly.  If we don't do something soon, like in the next few years, we may be facing some pretty grim scenarios (witness Australia and the bushfires, flooding in Indonesia, etc.)  Monsoon rains are now unpredictable and food sources are at risk.  Sea levels rise, permafrost melts, glaciers fade away.  The knock on effect is going to be disastrous.

So what are the alternatives?

Many countries are transitioning to wind turbines.  There is research being done to harness wave action to create electricity.  Solar power.  Some individuals have been installing heat pumps, drilling down deep into the earth to access the stored heat there.

Not everyone can make good use of solar power unless they also install huge battery banks.  Unfortunately the manufacture of batteries has detrimental effects to the environment.

Not everyone can install a large wind turbine - and again battery banks.

Much of society has become tied to gasoline powered vehicles.  People push for more transit, but when living in remote areas, transit is not always reliable.

I have been looking at hybrid technology, but that is only a stopgap as it still relies on gasoline and again...batteries.  But as an individual, all I can do is try to mitigate my impact on the environment with what resources I have at my disposal.

So I recycle.  I compost.  I do not buy 'fast fashion' and look for 100% cotton clothing.  (Which also has knock on effects, but at least isn't fueling the polyester market.)

I wear my clothing until it is worn out, sometimes taking years to get to that point.  I spend little and want for little.  Mostly what I buy is yarn to weave with.

I have been limiting my travel, partially for personal reasons, partially because of the cost to the environment.  So no, I won't be going on any cruises any time soon, or flying unless it is for 'work'.

I don't know what the answer is.  All I know is that we have to do something.