Doomed by reality

February 14, 2019 By Sam Younnokis

I sigh when I read of the policy endorsements of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes. I find her hard to listen to, with her tweenage speech patterns (e.g. “tippy top”), no matter what she says, but I try to listen. After all, sometimes wise ideas can come from babes and fools. Stopped clocks and all that. She seems very anxious that the reality of climate change is going to kill many of us, so we have to do something right now!!!!!

She obviously has no appreciation for actual reality, as opposed to politically useful fiction.

The reality is that even if the climate changes so that the upper Midwest of the United States develops a climate like that currently experienced in Hawaii, people would still find a way to live there. Life is tenacious. We might be eating different varieties of vegetables that were more heat tolerant, but we'd still have food, lots of it. What about places farther south? Again, they would still have food, just different species. Life adapts to climate. Given water (even if it comes from melting polar caps) and air (including carbon dioxide), plants will grow. If a warmer climate is the worry, relax. We'll be fine. We might run the air conditioners more, but we could start building nuclear reactors for energy and it wouldn't be a big deal. Nuclear reactors have never been safer. We could also build and sell air conditioning to people living in jungles and deserts. The world will not have to pack up and move to the American heartland to avoid drowning.

What if the world is getting cooler? I find that more plausible. We can build greenhouses and hydroponic farms, using plentiful nuclear energy to power the heat. Those who are less hardy to cold temperatures may want to move farther south. I wonder how the third world countries will feel about northern climate refugees, considering we seem to be expected to welcome them if the climate warms. People do live in colder parts of the world. The Inuit, for example. They don't survive strictly because of possible DNA adaptations, but by developing skills that work for the environment they inhabit. We can learn those same skills................Read more