Humanity is increasing the levels of CO2, methane and water vapour in the atmosphere. The overwhelming scientific consensus for decades has been and still is that humans are forcing a change in climate through this pollution. Not only that, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is being absorbed into the ocean at a higher rate than it can precipitate out —turning it from slightly alkali to carbonic acid. This and over fishing has reduced marine life to a quarter or tenth of pre industrial levels. Our growing, centralised population is overwhelming local freshwater resources. Annual rainfall, extreme heat and cold is becoming more irregular. Farming may become less reliable in certain regions. Flooding, famine, heat-shock and cold-shock will make certain areas less viable for habitation. Sea levels are rising. Entire pacific islands will become submerged by the oceans. Industrial scale plastic pollution is accumulating in the oceans and killing sea life. Ok land the not only are landfills using more and more precious land, the run off risks water basin contamination.

There is rightly much alarmism about the fallout from the intense industrial activity of human civilisation—as there should be from any existential threat.

Groups like Extinction Rebellion and individuals like Greta Thunberg, who cast the situation as critical, quoting IPCC press releases and climate scientists. The youth has been injected with much climate anxiety and the elite, good-thinking, mainstream, intelligencia have strongly planted their flag, at least verbally on the side of degrowth, a vague sense of ‘sustainability’, and above all wind and solar power. This is the gospel. Underpinning these goals are a variety of masochistic luxury beliefs. Notably the notion that energy use is inherently bad, this culminates in the logical conclusion that uncontrolled economic growth is a clear and present danger to life on earth, and our time is running out to do… something. The practical outcome of this is the new elite culture of mandating paper straws, writing white papers.

This is the view typified by the world economic forum, the UN with their COP sustainability goals, the civil service, education from primary to tertiary. Paying lip service to this view is the establishment position.

But, I am unimpressed by this pseudo empathic reaction.

The truth is, we have known how to address this issue for decades: we can use nuclear fission power, supplemented in the short term by hydropower. To provide all the power we need for electricity. For the remaining ~2/3 of energy, which is currently provided by oil, coal, and gas burnt at the point of use in a vehicle, stove, boiler or industrial furnace we may use high temperature reactors, or synthesize hydrogen, ammonia, or hydrocarbon fuels which will allow the existing downstream energy economy to continue functioning largely as-is, using liquid chemicals as energy storage.

As our energy consumption grows exponentially, the output of nuclear will dwarf all other forms of energy. A nuclear world will require an industry on the scale of the modern fossil fuel industry, and the transition will take 50 years, but it is inevitable to happen due to lack of alternatives and market forces.

During this period of transition, we will start to face the effects of climate change, and we will respond to the symptoms directly. The effects will be disruptive, but the alarmists who panic about these effects clearly have no appreciation for the adversity that humanity overcomes every day, just to keep civilization running. The complexity of the global economy is fantastic. It is a marvel that this dance reoccurs every day, autonomously, managed only by market forces, in an almost equilibrium state. Our system of food supply, manufacturing prowess, and services was not designed. It is an evolved being of its own, and it grows as technology advances and the world changes.

Of course, the market is not perfect. The market is exclusively focussed on the short term. With investment horizons reaching only around 5–10 years, whereas the effects of resource depletion and climate change will accumulate over decades.

But importantly, the price of resources is intimately tied to their availability. We currently have more proven oil resources than we had in 1970 and far more gas resources. Speculation with advanced technology has bought us time. As the scarcity of those resources increases and the price of those resources increases, there will be a strong forcing function on the economy to force change. This will be a gradual process. There will not be a day, when we will suddenly run out.

Another problem with the market is that it is highly susceptible to rent seeking activities, which use the abstraction and complexity of the services sector to parasite the productive elements of the economy. This happens worst in sectors which are not well suited to market control: water, energy grid, water supply, medical services, pharmaceutical industries and the military.

The farming, coastal defence, higher air temperature, ocean desalinization and extreme weather events we are anticipating are well within the capability of humanity to adapt to. There is no circumstance that climate change will bring that life on earth has not already seen hundreds of times.

With the power of abundant energy, and other technologies, all these issues can be overcome. We will construct sea defences where the ocean is rising, or we will simply relocate people to other places. Exactly as happened 12,000 BC, during the younger Dryas period, when half the Mediterranean was swallowed up by the sea in a great meltwater event. Humans survived without technology. Will will certainly survive it with technology.

We will respond to the growing effect of properly damage from fires, by starting to restrict development it areas prone to burning, which will in turn allow for smaller, more frequent fires to limit the amount of damage currently seen in larger events.

We will respond to the scorching summer temperatures by using abundant nuclear electricity to air conditioning to these areas. These areas were going to install air-conditioning anyway. The consequence of climate change is that they will use it more and consume more energy.

We will respond to ‘multiple breadbasket failure’ in central latitudes, by doing more farming at higher latitudes.

The higher CO2 levels, will work to our advantage in farming in the short term. In the short term, we can control CO2 levels by pulling it directly from the atmosphere or from the oceans.

A note on nuclear

On all counts, nuclear is the ultimate form of power. It is the densest energy source available. Uranium contains 17,000 times more power per gram than coal. And nuclear power uses the least resources and the least land area per kWh of energy produced. Our Uranium and Thorium resources are functionally unlimited in the sense that they will for thousands of years, certainly until we have commercialized nuclear fusion.

The volume of nuclear waste is functionally irrelevant in comparison the conventional waste streams, and already has full lifecycle management. The high level waste burden of entire countries could fit inside a standard university lecture theatre and the low contaminated waste, is dwarf by a factor of thousands by the volume of conventionally hazardous wastes such as heavy metal contaminated items and highly acidic sludge. This does not even account for the incoming flood of un-recyclable antimonide waste from solar PV panels or poorly managed lithium-ion battery waste. Unlike this waste, nuclear waste has a finite lifetime and is far easier to contain due to its chemical inertness and low volume.

The safety of nuclear power stations is also impeccable. Not a single person died from radiation from Fukushima. The form of reactor that produced in Chernobyl was unique to the Soviet Union and had fundamental flaws which are not present in the rest of the global fleet.

Nuclear fuel is also so easy to store and more evenly distributed across the planet, that the sort of geopolitical crises resulting from the petroleum trade will be far and fewer between.

The solution lies in nuclear energy, which can produce more power than we currently utilize. In fact, projections from the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960s suggested we should have had much more energy per person by now. However, our policies have hampered our potential, making the process of removing CO2 more expensive than necessary. Today, the US nuclear capacity is 95.8 GWe.

There are companies working on making the extraction process cheaper, and in the short term, a combination of direct air capture of CO2 and continued use of petro-fuels seems to be the most feasible solution for mitigating climate change.

This viewpoint is not popular. The left views energy usage as a moral issue, and the right often opposes the left’s position. Despite the practicality of nuclear energy, it’s politically controversial due to potential risks, like nuclear waste. Yet, if the climate change threat is as dire as some propose, this option would be taken more seriously.

Mainstream discussions about climate change are more focused on arguments rather than problem-solving. Many of those who talk about climate change seem more interested in the conversation than the actual resolution. If we were really serious about solving the problem, our approach would be drastically different. We have the technology to address the issue, and with substantial investment, we could make it even better. Building nuclear reactors should be our priority.

Climate change is no longer merely a ticking time bomb; it’s a clear and present existential danger. Despite the surmounting evidence, some remain staunchly oblivious to the impending catastrophe. Such negligence goes beyond simple misunderstandings about the severity of the issue. The rapidly increasing ocean acidification alone has the potential to precipitate an ecological catastrophe, decimating marine life and wreaking havoc on ecosystems. But instead of focusing on these stark realities, a plethora of special interests prefer to profit from wilful ignorance.

This situation mirrors the escalating homelessness crisis in San Francisco. Despite the ever-increasing resources allocated to the issue, the crisis only intensifies. The irony is that those at the helm of these initiatives seemingly have a vested interest in not solving the problem, for it would render them jobless. Their actions or lack thereof, betray a deeper interest in maintaining the status quo and pushing ideologically-driven agendas, rather than genuinely addressing the issue at hand.

The similarities to the climate change debate are striking. A counterproductive strategy is at play where certain actors prioritize the perpetuation of their own agendas over effective solutions. By focusing on measures that make it more tolerable for people to remain homeless, rather than eradicating homelessness, we’re cementing the problem instead of uprooting it.

An analogous situation applies to the proposal of giving cash to the homeless. At face value, it might seem like a beneficial approach, but it does not tackle the root of the problem. Other proposed solutions, such as forced commitments to mental institutions, are equally fraught with ethical complications and potential for abuse. However, labelling such approaches as uncompassionate only serves to mask the real atrocity: our failure to provide effective and humane solutions.

This isn’t so much an issue of the average person’s understanding as it is about the corrupt information environment we’re steeped in. The narrative surrounding climate change and homelessness is dominated by misinformation and skewed perspectives promoted by those who stand to benefit from the status quo. These are the heads of organizations and news media that hold sway over public perception.

Climate change, in particular, is a battleground of misinformation. Solutions are within our grasp, with technology playing a pivotal role. The narrative that infrastructure would be a hindrance to electric vehicles was quashed by Tesla, who built the necessary network. The same can be achieved for CO2 capture, yet we’re held back, probably due to vested profit interests.

The discourse around climate change is a whirlpool of contradictions. On one hand, we’re warned of potential water wars due to freshwater scarcity, and on the other, we’re told of the abundance of seawater which can be desalinated using nuclear reactors. These inconsistencies only highlight how the real incentives lean more towards capitalizing on the crisis rather than addressing it.

Developing nations also pose a unique challenge. Asking these nations to forgo the fossil fuel path that developed nations trod upon seems hypocritical and is unlikely to be well-received by burgeoning economies like China and India. The issue of resource scarcity, such as uranium and plutonium, is often cited, but with technologies that can extract uranium from seawater, it’s more a question of willingness than feasibility.

Finally, there’s the debate around carbon tax and trading schemes. While the carbon tax raises issues about measurement accuracy, enforcement, and fund allocation, carbon trading could potentially stimulate private carbon capture initiatives. However, the establishment of such a system would require stringent guidelines and enforcement mechanisms.

In essence, the challenge of climate change and homelessness goes beyond just recognizing the problem. It’s about understanding the intricate, often deceptive narratives that shape public perception, and most importantly, about mustering the collective will to drive change rather than profit from crises. If the government indeed considered climate change as pressing an issue as it is, they would undoubtedly commit the necessary resources to tackle it head-on.