Climate change solutions qualify as comedy

The advertised solutions of climate change have one thing in common: they conflict with each other. We have witnessed what happens when governments vow to fight against a threat and is also the bulwark in the way of those very solutions touted as the panacea. The war against terrorism increased terrorism and once the private sector joined the game, the problem only increased. A lot has been said about it but one simple factor is undeniable: both the governments and the private sector were the enemies of the very solutions marketed to tackle terrorism. For example, democracy and equality were to be implemented by the western powers in the Middle Eastern region to deny the terrorist groups the space and the conditions to recruit. Needless to say, the west became the number one enemy of those ideals.

The scientists, the authors, and the public figures are reminding people about how the hotter and southern regions of the world are going to become unlivable. They also warn people that coastal cities would be the first ones to go underwater in a sea level rise scenario. Almost everyone writing and speaking about the sea level rise never forgets to warn that the billions of dollars worth of real estate close to the sea would be completely wasted and that it would be financially wise for people to move to the north.

As a matter of fact, I am a witness to such a trend in America right now. Many people are selling their homes and properties in places such as Miami, Houston, Louisiana and are using that money to buy land in places such as Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and so forth. But then activists and popular entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk also tell us that we need to go to Mars in order to not only avoid the consequences of climate change but also any incoming meteor or asteroid that might hit our planet and turn us into the next dinosaurs.

Work is underway by many countries, especially the US under the umbrella of NASA and SpaceX, to establish a human presence on the Moon as well as Mars. I was once reading somewhere that there was this asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, which contains so much gold that its estimated value is about $700 quintillion. That would make the net worth of all the 7.6 billion earthlings close to about $92 billion. However, if anyone reading happens to be an economist or has any basic understanding of economics, then they’d instantly argue that that much gold brought to the earth would most likely destroy the world economy before climate change might kill us. And they would be right. It is a simple fact of supply and demand. Gold is valuable because it is limited.

Keeping the same principle in mind, finding more land on the Moon or Mars would render the land here almost worthless. Furthermore, the warning about the disappearance of land and livable land on earth in the background of all this leaves the masses only more confused. Either one pays attention to one side and be a prey to bubble life and conspiracy theories or one pays attention to all the conflicting noise and be clueless about it all: move north or stay put and someday they’d be financing a new house on Mars? The latter leads to this subliminal perception that the governments and the private sector will figure something out, which is the most dangerous outcome of all of this.

This week, the White House pushed a five-year research plan to study methods of modifying the sunlight that reaches the earth, a process sometimes called solar geoengineering or sunlight reflection. The idea is to cool the earth down by reflecting the sunlight back into space. Zero emissions are promised around 2050 and 2060 but in the meantime the world is acting like a child in a lab.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2022.

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