Thanks to everyone who responded to our April survey on climate change. Here are some highlights:
- 75% of respondents are pessimistic about the future of the world in the face of climate change. (Though we did not ask the question, a few respondents indicated that they were unconvinced that increasing levels of carbon dioxide are the primary cause of global warming.)
- Over 90% of respondents try to recycle their waste, and over 86% compost. However, some doubted the value of recycling, speculating that a significant amount of waste that is supposed to be recycled is actually going to landfill.
- Over 87% of respondents try to minimize automobile use by using public transit; about 39% have considered going completely car-less.
- Over 75% of respondents agree that nuclear power is safe; 70% think that we should be increasing our use of this method of electric power generation.
- About 75% of respondents consider that solar, wind, and geothermal methods are good methods of generating electricity.
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Climate change and global warming are inevitable so our priority must be to adapt and be prepared for major disruptions in our lives and lifestyles. We cannot depend on government to come up with any policy that will alter the inevitability of a different world in the future. Science should stop things like AI and work on alternate energy sources and modes of transport that can move masses of people about without ‘one person one vehicle’ as we tend to do today. People may not be prepared to use public transport today but when fuel prices become prohibitive they will, and the infrastructure must be there first. Adaptability is something we must all work on . Not wait for government to do something.
Unfortunately, “science” is not an entity, it is an activity. So, to say that “science” should “stop things like AI and work on alternate energy …” is meaningless. Since most scientific activity is funded by the public sector (academic institutions, government research programs) or the private sector (profit-seeking corporations) we should try to influence them.
This, of course, gets tricky because:
(a) much private sector research is funded by governments;
(b) private sector interests influence governments;
(c) most politicians and government officials share the same values as most private sector executives;
(d) most senior academic officials and grants writers/recipients share the same values as most private sector executives, government officials, and politicians
Since those “values” have guided us to where we are now … “What is to be done?
The only available option is to use whatever resources are available (between-election mass pressure and, in time, the “democratic” vote) to remove federal, provincial, and even municipal politicians who collude with or are complicit in the kinds of decisions that have shaped, bent, folded, mutilated and generally dominated “science” for the last … long, long time.
And that doesn’t mean supporting the current leader of the opposition who natters on about silencing the “woke” and punishing the private sector and would, instead, like to cut government spending … except, perhaps, to shovel piles of cash to “technology” in the hope of finding market-based solutions … which is even stupider (more corrupt?) than shoveling piles of money at oil companies to fund their science experiments in the hope of refining (so to speak) “carbon capture.”