How we Can Live and Thrive While the Climate Changes

Local Perspectives

How we Can Live and Thrive While the Climate Changes

by Matt Roberts, Madison County Supervisor, City of Oneida

Iwent to the NYSAC conference this fall as a first term Madison County Supervisor representing the city of Oneida, looking to learn what other counties are doing to make their constituents lives better. After experiencing the conference, I walked away with some great ideas and some concerns. One of my concerns is the belief system surrounding climate change that has turned into law in New York State.

No one can argue that the climate is not changing. In the 4 plus billion years of the earth’s history, the climate was and is always changing. Fairly recently in the earth’s history, there were rainforests throughout Alaska, Canada, and the Middle East, which left us with trillions of gallons of fossil fuels. The Sahara Desert was once a vast sea, as evidenced by fossil records.

The office where I am working today was under over a mile of glacial ice at least three times, probably more. The last Ice Age ended 20,000 years ago and we are still in a warming period due to that natural cycle.

Now the question is, what are the effects of this, what percentage is due to human beings living on the earth and what can New York State do to reverse, mitigate, or slow the change. That is certainly up for debate. One concern is the rise of sea levels. What has intrigued me is that sea level rise is not happening according to accepted man-made climate change models. It hasn’t, so why not.

Because we are ignoring a very important phenomena that occurs during the cycle of glacial periods. When the ice melts, the crust under the ice rises, because it is elastic. New York State rose very rapidly after the ice sheet receded and has continued (albeit at a slower rate) in North America. Today we are around 1cm per year. In Finland, for example, the total area of the country is growing by about 7 KM2 per year. The geological term is “glacial isostatic adjustment.”

Where I, and many of our fellow New Yorkers, should be concerned are the plans in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) that hope to combat climate change. Between 1990 and 2016 NY naturally reduced CO2 emissions by over 20%, due mainly to increased natural gas usage and we continue to see reductions. The CLCPA law forces New Yorkers and our descendants to live under stringent carbon emission constraints regarding what kind of vehicle you drive, what kind of appliance you can purchase, what type of zero emission technology we can use to produce electricity (no mention of nuclear power at all). Rather than going on and on about this, you can find the actual goals in presentations from NYSAC or the law online.

The largest concerns with these laws are the ramifications to life within NY versus effectiveness. If these measures work, how will we know. New York represents .25% of the world population and a miniscule percentage of the global CO2 output. The US is currently shipping millions of tons of coal to China, who is building coal fired plants at an amazing rate. Do we think Chairman Xi will change if we do? The answer is certainly no.

So how will the “global” carbon footprint look over the next decade? If you drive a business out of New York that cannot compete globally, the production will move to China and the global carbon footprint will, in the long term, increase.

What should we do as a community, state and nation moving forward? I believe we should first calm down and not think that we can build a thermostat to control the world in 2021. We also should accept that there are things outside of our control. Humans have adapted for thousands of years and we will be able to also. Some changes in our environment will be for the better, some will be challenging.

Let’s spend money on infrastructure to alleviate as much as possible and create an environment in which our lives are better. Solar, wind, tidal generators, and battery technology will get better. Other technologies will arise that make power, transportation, and home lives more efficient, cheaper, and more plentiful.

Let the technology evolve, don’t force it. Hey, one day you might be able fill your household cold fusion reactor with water and power everything you need.