(Part 2 of 2 on the reality of climate change. See Part 1 here.) Admittedly, it’s taken centuries to get to where we are today. It may take centuries, I suppose, for humans to dig themselves out of the hole we’ve buried ourselves in. In the meantime, what are those in the business world going to do?
Well, we’re going to have to change how we manage landscapes at the very least. We’ll have to do purposeful burning in certain fire-prone areas. We’ll have to change our building codes and our zoning laws. We’ll need to reduce the footprint of our cloud computing infrastructure and data centers. We’ll need to learn best practices from each other. We’ll need technological innovation to make our buses and trucks and other forms of transport more efficient and based on renewable energy. We’ll probably need some transformative strategies.
Things like this, common sense immediate adaptations and responses to the reality of climate change are actually not that difficult. Businesses do stuff like this all the freaking time. At least they say they do. So it’s not that difficult at all.
Or they wouldn’t be. If people would stop fucking arguing about whether or not climate change is actually happening. Nobody needs to be convinced at this point. Doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about the history of weather across the broad sweep of geological eras.
What matters is that YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE! Or the HURRICANE DESTROYED YOUR PROPERTY! Or THE DROUGHT HAS PLACED YOUR COMMUNITY UNDER SEVERE WATER RESTRICTIONS!
We know that making changes works. Smog in LA is just one example. The particular kind of smog in the LA basin is a called photochemical smog. It’s the result of emissions from vehicles as well as industrial emissions. It used to be really bad in the 1940s and 50s. So what did the people who lived there do?
They made changes! They tightened emissions standards and reduced the amount of crap going into the air in the area. Result: clearly visible vastly improved air quality.
Now – did it take a long time and overcoming a lot of resistance to make these changes?
Yeah. It took so long that a man in 1905 talked about smog with this wonderful quote:
[It takes] no science to see that there was something produced in great cities which was not found in the country, and that was smoky fog, or what was known as ‘smog’.
Henry Antoine Des Vouex 1905
Business and Industry Are Always Crybabies
Just like now, business and industry and anyone else who felt like it whined and cried and declared it impossible and it was too much trouble and too expensive and OMG how we will we ever survive even the slightest improvement in the world? Waaah waaah waaah. Business always seems to think a better world will absolutely destroy it – as though the hidden belief of every large company is that its secret mission is to make the world as bad as possible.
And yet – hold on because this is going to be a real shocker – BUSINESS SURVIVED!
Business will survive if humanity stops using coal to heat buildings or provide power. The coal industry won’t survive, it’s true. But other industries will thrive and by thrive I mean make lots and lots of money.
Business will survive if emissions from transportation are drastically reduced. How do we know this? Because business has survived this many many times. In fact, get this – business survived the transition from horse-drawn transit to steam engines like those that powered railroads. Business even survived the transition to the internal combustion engine that powered cars!
Wow! If business can survive major transitions like that – I’ll bet it can survive a smaller transition like one from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. What business needs to do is invest its money judiciously in the future – instead of whinging and moaning about the past.
Let’s talk some reality.
2023 coughed up a really brutal summer for some places. Phoenix, for example, experienced 26 days in a row of heat over 110 degrees. People have already forgotten. I know they’ve forgotten because I brought it up recently with someone (who does not live in Phoenix) and they gave me a blank look.
The reality is – in my observation – that people are really terrible at remembering weather. They’re really terrible at remembering a lot of things but one of the things they’re bad at remembering is weather.
For something like 49 years of my life, there have been hot days in February. Not always, not every day, but a few hot days in February are totally normal. Every year, people are totally surprised this happens. People store an idea in their heads of what some smoothed out idealized fall, winter, spring, summer climate would be where they live and then they remember that.
So relying on people’s memories of weather ain’t gonna cut it as far as enacting change.
And you can’t count on anyone fixing anything in the middle of a crisis like 26 days in a row of 110-degree heat. People just don’t do that. Partly because, you know, they’re really fucking hot.
What needs to happen instead is that in the middle of the 26-day visit to hell, planning for how to deal with the next 26-day visit to hell should start. It’s not hard to get a clue that certain stuff happens – when it’s actually happening. This is as important for business as it is for municipalities. Yes, it could be expensive. Failing is even more expensive.
So, Simply Do not tell yourself ‘this is not happening.’
It is happening; the ‘it’ in this case being 26 solid days of temperatures that would fry eggs and bake cookies – and yeah, kill people. The mayor of Phoenix knew this last year and she did something sensible – she told the federal government that extreme heatwaves are disasters and should be classified as such by FEMA. Because they are.
Miami’s another city that needs to get on board the preparing for extreme heat train. In 2023, the heat index in July reached 105 degrees for 70 hours. The previous record was 49 hours in 2020. The heat index got in even higher – 109 degrees – for 7 days in the span of a month. Miami is not prepared for conditions like that. It needs to start getting prepared.
But you already knew stuff like this. What you need to know now is that if you’ll just get pretty fed up enough with your city or county or state or local business behemoth or whoever it is – then you can start changes rolling that will benefit everyone. Including you. And that whinging business that swears this time it really will die.
Get pretty fed up!
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