Climate Action, Silicon Valley and the Road to COP26

[PauloCezarChaves]

Comecei a usar imagens Planet pra monitorar Desmatamentos e Ocupações irregulares de áreas protegidas no Estado de Minas Gerais no Brasil. Realmente um produto extraordinário para uso. Pena que tenho acesso limitado, o uso dessas imagens sendo de alta resolução eu poderia desmascarar aqueles que não cumprem a Normas Ambientais do meu Estado no Interior do Brasil.

[jagvijaypratapsinghgill]

Carbon Mapper satellite by Planet is very exciting. Hope we can reduce the methane emissions drastically and quickly. Very optimistic.

[WalkinBeauty]

Still cutting rainforest in Brazil and Indonesia....We should stop that with military action..BLOCADE ALL TRAFFIC

[AlanDeRossett]

people do not understand the 1.5 degree medium temperature increase had a lady argue that it might be nice.only slightly warmer

[egates]

Is it "fear of change" that prevents us from finding solutions? When we look at the polluting nations, I don't know that it is fear of change but is more related to money and fear of losing money. Can money be made producing clean energy and cleaning up the environment and creating a regenerative economy? Of course it can but the people making money want to keep making money and can't see a path to change that does not negatively impact them.

[alexanderturin]

Dear Colleagues! Make, please, the English TITRES of your texts!

[lynnpoint]

I accept global climate change as a reality based on my personal experience, but I think the advocates proselytizing about it have done an absolutely terrible job at it. This presentation is just another example, six self-congratulatory talking heads (self-proclaimed "leaders who will be remembered"), some of whom are uber-rich (Marc Benioff is worth more than $9 billion) talking about solutions vaguely based on "innovation and technology" and "ecopreneurs" that will make this happen. Give me a break. These people are remarkably lacking in a sense of history. We've been talking about the environment and climate change since the 1960s, and how innovation and technology will fix the problem, and 50 years later we have satellite mapping of flood plains and AI telling us how to cool computing centers. WHERE is the electric car that isn't a piece of crap and wouldn't drain the grid if a city the size of Minneapolis all plugged in at 9:00 p.m. and a battery or a computer that doesn't require rare earth elements that are, well, you know, RARE? Five to six decades of innovation and technology has left us in this situation, not fixed it.

Benioff in particular tends to irk. At 13:06 he talks about "3 trillion" acres of deforestation having taken place. That's equivalent to 4.7 BILLION square miles. Jeezus. One problem, though, is that the land surface area of the earth (including historically non-forested areas like deserts and tundra and Antarctica) only adds up 57 MILLION square miles, or about 4.6 BILLION square miles less than what Benioff says has been deforested. When some "leader" in the movement blows it this badly, EVERYTHING he says begins to sound suspect. "Plant a trillion trees?" Where, exactly? Planting about 150 trees per acre (a density suitable to grow mature trees) would cover around 10.4 million square miles. North America - including the prairies and the tundra and arctic and the deserts and the cities and the suburbs - is only about 9.5 million square miles in size.

This is just more environmental hyperbole that undercuts the movement. In the 1970s we were seriously told that we'd be out of oil in just 30 years or less. It's 50 years later and we have access to more oil than ever...ironically enough, through Innovation And Technology. But Katharine Hayhoe, the nominal scientist on this panel, does not challenge Benioff's skewed narrative. Maybe that's no surprise as she seems to be reading a paper written by a 9th grader titled "I'm Really Worried About The Climate" and not really otherwise involved in the discussion. Like the rest of the speakers, she doesn't seem to take personal ownership of the crisis either, saying she lives in West Texas where "they" have huge methane leaks...not where "we" have huge methane leaks.

I doubt any of the panel has personal ownership, and Trish Wilson, the moderator, does nothing to challenge them either. Benioff mentions he wants to invest in ecopreneurs but she doesn't ask him to what amount, and in what ways is he personally parting with his billions to help the environment. She calls for a "transformative time" and yet fails to challenge Alok Sharma regarding what sounds like an extensive world-wide travel schedule on jet aircraft that consume hydrocarbons by the tanker load. What about staying at home there, Alok, and using Skype or Zoom?

And NONE of these characters will address the REAL cause behind global climate change: Too Many People. We've tripled the world's population in just my lifetime. That's too many people using too many resources and creating too much heat for this planet to support. I'm not suggesting any sort of reduction by force - nature will eventually do that, if we don't - but we do have the ability to reduce our population significantly in just a couple generations, and it wouldn't take much new innovation or technology. Just a transformative change in our society and economic models. Not too much to ask, eh Trish?

All-in-all, I can't express how disappointed - and frankly bored - I was by this talk.