Book - ‘How to avoid a climate disaster’ by Bill Gates.
I've been a weather geek for as long as I can remember, probably most mountaineers are as it's such an important safety factor....
Only a few chapters into Bill Gates new book (Thank you for suggestion Merideth), I'm both shocked and somewhat encouraged at the level of detail and understanding we have about what is causing predictable weather events like the one which hit the Pacific Northwest this week with such devastation both as it happened and now in it's aftermath.
I feel shocked because one one hand, while climate is such a complex and complicated science, the reasons for the extreme storms are quite simple; it's abnormally hot over the ocean, which this causes increased evaporation of water into the sky which has to fall somewhere.
Hawaii this month has seen new historic records for the hottest temperature 87F the lowest 62F and the highest rainfall in a day 1.5 inches compared to 0.8 previously. Yesterday the temp was 87F with humidity of 80% and very light wind. This is 2C or 4F hotter that fifty years ago.
Gates speaks to the data and how even in 2020 during covid, we still only saw a 5% reduction in estimated CO2 and methane (two main greenhouse gases) being released into the atmosphere, so the bad news is we can't just drive and fly less to solve the problem, we must figure out how to produce energy which doesn't produce warming in order to slow or halt the increasing heat.
It's not the fun or easy book for me to read (actually listening to it) - and the detail is extensive, but I find myself wondering what it would take to teach this in our education system because the solutions outlined seem doable, if enough people do them and if innovation takes place in energy sector.
This book, after it speaks to the difficulties we face, actually fills me with hope and optimism. I didn't think I would find it as interesting as I am, and it will continue to accompany my workouts this week. As I run and struggle for air and try to divert the sweat out of the eyes while hoping for normal mid-pacific tradewinds to pick up, I'm also thinking about people in British Columbia and Washington who are dealing with a literal nightmare in the Pacific Northwest.
Can use the pain of climate-change to feed the urgency needed to act decisively and in enough numbers? This seems an important and timely book. Even just a few chapters in, I recommend it to anyone concerned or hopeful (or both) about the possibilities ahead.
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