How Alberta can solve the climate crisis
I’m going to explain how we in Alberta can lead the way to solving both the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis, and make ourselves rich in the process. I hope to convey to you that the urgency of this crisis is much, much worse than you think; but that there is still a solution, and one that does not require sacrifice, but offers prosperity and enrichment.
Do you suffer from climate anxiety? Yes, Good, you should. Its not good that you have anxiety - thats not good - but its good that you realize that it is a problem, because the first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge that it is a problem.
But it takes more than acknowledgement to actually solve it - and while enough people now recognize that climate change is an existential threat to demand action and solutions, no one seems to have figured out what exactly that should be. And that's what I want to talk about, is solutions. Because that's how I deal with climate anxiety, I think of it as a problem to be solved. That is not only a healthier response than anguish, or despair, or anger, its also more productive.
Five parts to this talk:
One, I’m going to talk about where we are right now with respect to climate. Call it Climate Change 101. Or a State of the Atmosphere report.
Two, I’m going to examine how the leadership in Alberta plans to address it, or not. Because believe it or not no one in Alberta has figured out how to solve climate change.
Three, I will describe how I approach the problem of energy transition, which, as most people recognize, is the key to solving climate change. What are we trying to achieve and how will we know if we have succeeded?
Four, I will do a scan of Alberta’s energy system, what it is, and what it could be. How much energy we use, where we get it from, and what we use it for, that’s how things are. Then I want to look at how things could be. I will look at all of our options for where we derive our energy, and how our energy source options compare with each other in terms of all the things we want from our energy system. Call it Alberta’s Energy Systems 101.
Five, I want to talk about what I would do with that information: how I propose we fix what is broken, not only with the atmosphere, but with our society and the natural world. I want to articulate a vision of what we could be. Call it my moonshot. If you disagree with me conclusions, fine, challenge me.
Bill Watterson
Let’s start with the sky. As a kid, I spent a lot of time staring out the classroom window at the sky, daydreaming; the sky represented a boundless infinity of possibilities that lay outside the cinderblock walls and fluorescent lights of the classroom.
As I got a bit older, I began to spend time in the sky - either flying in my father’s plane (he was a pilot) or, as a teenager, from the cockpit of a glider. I saw that while the sky was indeed boundless whether you go north, south, east, or west, it is actually very thin. Go 10 km in any direction horizontally, you are in pretty much the same environment as when you started; go 10 km straiught up, and the temperature is minus 60 and there is not enough oxygen to stay alive, the only question is whether you freeze before you die of hypoxia. Just a few wisps of gas separate us from the vacuum of space at minus 279 degrees.
(more to come…)
