Ministry for the Future

The Ministry for the Future: A Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson

This is a modern version of the classic utopian novel. The author zeroes in on one area they want to change. They propose drastic changes to enter their utopia. They assume everything else will proceed as planned and other areas will only improve for the good. It is comical how many parts were just missed or projected wrongly in old books.

This book starts with a massive heat wave in Indian. It is more than people can handle. People are dying. Indian is decides to act on its own and use geo-engineering to cool the earth. The rest of the world has agreed to reduce carbon, but they are slow to do it. The Ministry for the Future is an organization that is supposed to help drive the earth towards the future. However, eco-terrorist groups seem to have a bigger impact. They assassinate business and political leaders they don't like. They use weapons to take out military bases and polluters. They magically manage to stop before they get too carried away. (They must have some amazing will-power that other revolutionaries have not.) The world then creates a new carbon currency to help reduce emissions. This also encourages massive geoengineering efforts that in the end lead to actual reductions in emissions. The human population becomes increasingly equitable and hardly anyone has kids, with the human population declining significantly.

This Utopia is easy to pick apart right now. The terrorists group would either get out of control or get squashed. It is almost impossible for a terrorist-led revolution to stop at just the right place. The same goes with geo-engineering. Things could quickly get out of hand and lead to an accelerating ice age. Focussing on carbon alone may also miss many other areas of global impact that are much harder to manage. Even human population declines due to external events (like wars and disasters) often result in post-event baby booms equalizing the population. Good thing that this is a book rather than government policy.

Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer)

Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer) by Stan Cox

Air Conditioning has caught on in a big way. It has allowed people to live comfortably in hotter areas. It has also contributed significantly to global warming. People can live in hot areas without using compressors to cool the air. India has had hundreds of millions of people live in hot climates. Most Sub-Belt cities (even Phoenix!) were settled before air conditioning. However, living conditions were different. Rather than having buildings sealed off, they were left open with features to allow for natural cooling. Schedules were adapted to the heat. Shade trees were valuable coolers.

Today air-conditioning is omnipresent in new construction. Even in the Seattle metro, air conditioning usage has crossed the 50% mark. This is in a coastal area, filled with trees with an the average yearly peak temperature is in the 70s. Yet people have invested in air conditioning for those odd peak days. To make the air conditioning more efficient, some of the "natural cooling" is sacrificed, requiring the air conditioning to run more frequently. (We are lucky to have our "air conditioning" in the form of big shade trees.)

Air conditioning also impair the social environment. Air conditioners are loud. They warm the outside air. They encourage people to be inside in their climate controlled environment rather than outside catching a cool breeze.

Air conditioners are huge greenhouse gas emitters. They consume a large amount of power. This is primarily produced by burning fossil fuels. Other sources, such as nuclear, solar or wind do not emit CO2 in production. However, they do require significant energy to produce. In addition, the refrigerants are orders of magnitude worse. We have gone from flammable (ammonia) to ozone-depleting (CFCs) to significant greenhouse gases. There are alternatives that are not as bad, but they are also not as efficient. 

Some work has helped to make air conditioning more efficient and affordable. However, this is often subject to rebound problem, with savings resulting in more cooling. Window units can be more efficient because they focus the heat on a single room for a short time. However, as more rooms are cooled, energy consumption goes up.

There is contradictory research on the improvement of workers in cooled environments. Productivity is low in super hot environments. However, things get fuzzier down in the 60s and 70s. People are in general fine with a temperature that more closely represents outdoors than an absolute low temperature. (I recall working in China where the building was heated or cooled to make it "comfortable" but not super hot or cold.) In India air conditioners were advertised as improving performance in bed. (I feel it should be the other way around.) Server farms produce huge amounts of heat and demand cooling. 

There are some hopes for improvements in technology. However, the best way for humans to survive is by not living in places hotter than they can handle.

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

The first half of this book is a well written account of the Fort McMurray fire of 2016. It explores the geography and ecology of the region as well as the history of the area. It also pulls out wide to provide a picture of fire on earth. Ft. McMurray is situated in a forested area that depends on forest fires for natural regrowth of the forest. There are abundant "oil sands" nearby. The quantity of fuel reserves is huge. However, extracting the oil from sands is a difficult and energy intensive process. Once the price of oil become high, it becomes economically viable to extract the oil. Since the price of oil is high, this has lead to growth of the area and huge amounts of money in the region. 

The 2016 fire was extremely destructive. It occurred during a period of abnormal heat and dryness. It was likely started by humans (though the root cause has not been fully identified.) The city was a small development in a heavily forested area. Houses were slapped together quickly and built close together. They were loaded with plastics and other modern products and construction materials that burn quickly. All of these factors contributed to rapid growth and spread of the fire.

The writing of the first half of the book was great, and did an excellent job of providing the big picture details, while drilling down to individual experiences. Had the book ended here, it would have been great. However, it then went on and on. There were explorations of "firestorms" in Australia and other storms. Then there was a big discussion on global warming and climate change. These topics were only tangentially related to the main topic and not nearly as coherently written. There were clearly a number of factors involved in the fires. Focussing on climate change misses out on other areas that also need to be addressed to limit the destruction.

The Once And Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be

The Once And Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon

This book takes the ecological perspective to the earth's history and the impact of humans. Populations are constantly changing. Many of the "past ideals" that we may look at were anomalies caused be previous actions. The Native Americans had thriving civilizations. However, by the time Europeans recorded history, many were decimated by disease. The land that was encountered was one that had been altered by humans, and then partially reclaimed by nature. 

Humans have been impacting the environment since long before recorded history. Humans have even had the chance to be among the initial inhabitants of new locations (such as areas exposed by retreating ice.) Sometimes humans cause great shocks to the system. Lions were once more widespread. Extra large mammals have been eliminated in much of the world. Even in the last centuries, the presence of other predators has greatly decreased in areas with human populations.

Climate change, biodiversity and other key concerns often fail to take the big picture ecological approach. There is a focus on fossil fuel carbon emissions. However, there is a failure to look at the big picture. There are numerous stories of human intervention causing problems and necessitating further human intervention.  Often this has been a case of introducing species. Then other species may be needed help reduce he population. Then others and so on. Environmental manipulation to counter global warming can face similar consequences. We can't just isolate a single variable and hope the environment responds as we intend. We also need to consider the multiple levels of ecological response. 

Carbon taxes can be beneficial when they simply make energy more expensive. However, when the money is used to subsidize alternate energy sources, they are likely kicking the can down the road. This sources will have further ecological impact. They also encourage additional energy use without looking at ways to improve the overall ecology. There is likely not a simple solution to climate change.

How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going

Vaclav Smil does not attempt to advocate for a certain position to "save the earth". Instead, he provides the facts explaining how things work so that everyone can make better decisions. His focus is on energy and its usage. By looking at the evolution of energy use, we can see that policies of drastic fossil fuel cutbacks or hoping for "miracle tech" are not likely to provide a short term fix for climate change.

Energy use has undergone some significant changes. At first, humans provided the energy for all of their activities. Food was hunted or gathered and did not require much additional attention. Agriculture and animal domestication resulting in increase energy needs that were provided by humans and animals. Wind and water were harnessed in limited quantities as was the burning of wood or other items. Not until the late 1800s was coal and fossil fuel used extensively. The high energy density coupled with increased efficiency made these viable for transportation and other work.

Today we use huge amounts of fossil fuels. Some areas are easy to transfer to other usages. Electricity production can be switched to renewable sources such as solar and wind. However, these sources do not provide continuous power. (For instance, solar does not work well when there is high demand for evening cooling.) Other areas are more challenging. Jet fuel is a dense source of energy. We don't have an alternative that is sufficiently light to power an airplane.

The more hidden area of fossil fuel consumption are more challenging to uncover. Plastic and fertilizers produced from fossil fuels are heavily used in agriculture. We are able to feed a large number of people with little human effort thanks to these fuels. This has enabled most of our population to live in cities and be part of the "information economy". If we immediately removed fossil fuels from agriculture, much of the world would starve. There are changes that can be made to reduce fossil fuel dependence, but they are difficult to scale to a large population. Reducing meat consumption would reduce grain needs. Going back to traditional agricultural practices result in reduced yields and require more labor. 

Our buildings, gadgets and devices all require energy. Concrete and steel are the backbones of production. There are huge amounts of energy required in the extraction of raw materials and production. There are many other elements that are integral to the production and use of our modern products. These need to be mined, transported and processed. These are located in different parts of the world.  There is also a large amount of energy that is needed simply to produce turbines or solar panels.

In addition to understanding energy use, it is good to understand probabilities of various events. We tend to be very bad at overestimating the likelihood of extreme, rare events. For instance, the odds of being killed in a terrorist event or a mass shooting are much lower than that of being killed in a car crash. Novel pandemics happen with some regularity. The probability of death is higher with older people, yet older people already have a higher probability of death from other causes. People that die in pandemics often have other comorbidities. We tend to focus on the novel thing that we can't control even while we fail to put efforts into the things we can control individual.

Scientists have known about climate change for over a century. Only recently has it been hyped as an existential crisis. The fear mongering often results in unrealistic solutions.  There are extreme arguments on one side and denial on the other. Expecting society to meet a target based on a model may be unrealistic. Would we just stop concrete production and let our infrastructure fall apart? We would need many people in the cities move to farms, only there is not enough land available. Recapture solutions would be huge undertakings that would suffer from the typical problems of large infrastructure projects. Solutions must be global. Patting oneself on the back for reducing carbon emissions does not help if other parts of the world are increasing emissions. We also can't expect one part of the world to not want the comforts that another part enjoys. It will take understanding to come to a solution.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

Bill Gates presents a technocratic approach to dealing with climate change. His basic supposition is that we need to get to zero carbon emissions while at the same time increasing net energy use around the world. The primary tool used is a reduction of the green premium. The carbon-free and lower carbon approaches should be equal or cheaper than the high-carbon approaches. He proposes a large selection of different approaches that should start out generally. The government should play a role in regulation and encouragement. However, we need to be careful to not be too proscriptive. The government should encourage specific desired results rather than the specific means to get there. Research should also be encouraged in both the government and private sectors.

His solutions are well thought out. My concern are the basic propositions. Is zero-carbon an appropriate goal? Is that too much or not enough? Perhaps we are so far gone that we need to rapidly scale back the greenhouse gasses. Or maybe we are approaching a cooling and we really need to have a controlled increase in greenhouse gasses. A change of a few degrees temperature could be a very significant. However, it could be harmful or beneficial. We just don't have the ability to fully model everything.  A long term target needs to be easily adjustable.

The bigger concern is the assumption that we need to keep energy consumption to maintain a high standard of living. The general focus of his approach is on "greener" energy and "scrubbing carbon." What about the energy that causes great inefficiencies and reduces are quality of life? In the transport sector, a huge amount of energy is spent just transporting the vehicles. A person is nearly a rounding error in the overall weight of a car. What if we focussed on smaller, lighter vehicles. (More efficient bicycles?) Land use and urban design causes huge wastes. Many regulations force excessive energy use in the urban layouts. A person may spend all their time in 1000 square feet of living space, yet they have a 2000 square foot house on 10000 square feet of land. They need to spend extra energy to maintain the yard and living space. They need to travel greater distances to other destinations because all their neighbors have large yards. The energy consumption requires them to spend more time and more money - just to be able to consume more energy that they do not want. 

Urban development has also had a disproportionate impact on local climatic conditions. The urban heat island can make temperatures a few degrees warmer in cities. Should we do more to combat this?

The Covid pandemic has also shown that many in-person activities can take place fine over video conference. (There do still remain many things that are better done at a distance.) 

Continued focus on research should definitely come into play. However, before enacting vast policy changes, we need to make sure the goal is really the right one.

Weather Makers

Weather Makers is such an over the top climate change book that it could turn even a true believer into a skeptic. This is in spite of its effort to present the science to help convert us to the urgency of doing something about climate change. The book presents many examples of species and land areas that are suffering due to the change in climate. It contains research on climate and the models and tools that have been used to identify the warming. However, it also presents the many feedback cycles and contravalent factors. Should we just encourage more airplane contrails to reduce the impact? Do hybrid cars really help - or is it the roads that are problems. We have been doing climate science for a half century now. How accurate were are predictions for today based on past assumptions? What assumptions have changed?
I also wonder what our society will look like 10,000 years from now. Could a society with our technology have existed 10,000 years ago, and we just don't see any record of it? Did other societies trigger climatic change like we have? I also wonder what is important and what is not. Are we already on an irreparable path towards turning earth into a sauna? Or are we just experiencing random blips. How much of the change we see are just random variations? It is a difficult question to answer. We only have detailed records for the past century, which happens to correspond to times of heavy increased CO2. We have tried to use ice cores, trees, and various other means to extrapolate past conditions. But, how accurate are those? Do we have other factors like airplane contrails and particulate matter that conteract CO2 in the air? There are so many different questions that could leave us in a state of paralysis.
The book also seemed to focus on "burning" to produce CO2. It even posited that if everybody switched from a hummer to a Prius, we would be on track. This is the type of thinking that could get us in real trouble. What about the "urban heat island"? What about our land use devoted to cars. We are trying to solve a global problem caused by our current societal choices. A simple surface change will not fix it. We need to make the appropriate sacrifices to be better stewards of the earth.