Clyde Burnett, Peak to Peak. It was good to see some additional attention to the subject of climate change in The Mountain-Ear. Derek Ridgley’s Climate Politics letter was a good discussion of a solution to political failure to correct the problem. The need for a consensus is another way to say we need a clear majority vote for leadership. Science facts from Michael Mann are not enough.

And the general acceptance of science validity is not sufficient. An understanding of flooding caused by increased atmospheric water vapor from warm oceans is correct. But it needs to be tied to the CO2 increase due to the public acceptance of government policy of power generation from fossil fuels. And the future climate danger to our children and grandchildren needs to be related to our failure to appreciate the many centuries long atmospheric lifetime of that CO2.

The gradual development of a consensus of these science facts has been delayed for decades by the communication dominance of capital expenditures by economic interests. Television time and print space has not been available for environmental concerns. And the dollar advantage of economy minded political candidates for future leadership may be disastrous.  

Historical consensus development was never gradual. Our wartime consensus in WWII occurred only after Pearl Harbor. The international control of CFCs by the Montreal Protocol required the acceptance of the 1980s observations of the Polar Ozone Hole. (And we were lucky; there were observations at Fritz Peak Observatory that indicated the potential for CFC caused additional midlatitude ozone destruction that would have exposed midlatitude populations to increasing solar ultraviolet and danger of skin cancer.)  Do I need to arrange for a coast-to coast week-long triple digit heat?

Today’s arguments of job loss and economic problems were first used by the CFC-producing chemical industry. And the same arguments were used again by the aircraft industry in Congressional discussions about a subsidy for supersonic commercial aircraft.  Jobs never disappeared. Now we have jobs in solar and wind industries. And the costs of extreme weather disasters greatly exceed the deniers’ warned cost of transition to renewables. (See photograph: some damage from Hurricane Michael (2018) not even FEMA can fix.)

Democrats’ debate: Many opinions of the country’s problems caused by the present administration. There was only very slight attention to climate change in the first session. I wonder if that satisfies the needs of voters. If the candidates and questioners know only a little about the science facts and confuse mitigation and adaptation, the voters will get no information about the terrible danger of our existing government policy on climate change. This will dominate these problems, and they will soon become relatively insignificant.

The second night discussion was much more aggressive on climate. It was labeled “a climate crisis”.  We had a constructive solution in a proposed fleet of solar powered charging stations. And the move to international cooperation will require consensus, and that means familiarity with science facts. 

Our unusual cool weather of past weeks may support doubters of global warming. But check the temperatures for next week and in Europe. 

(Originally published in the July 4, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)