BOOKS
Author advocates hard-edged realism with the climate crisis
CONTENTS
October 29 – November 5 / 2020
9
COVER
In advance of Halloween, we recall some of the most gruesome horror films ever made, including, of course, The Exorcist.
by Charlie Smith
By Steve Newton Cover illustration by Jake Collinge
5
CANNABIS
The U.S. presidential election could have a big impact on a B.C.-based company that markets harvesting devices to cannabis producers. By Charlie Smith
8
ESPORTS
The Spooky Season is upon us, and ESports fans will have plenty of opportunities to indulge their macabre gaming tastes. By Mike Usinger
e Online TOP 5
e Start Here
Smoke from wildfires, like this one near Roseburg, Oregon, has at times made life more difficult for British Columbians with respiratory illnesses. Photo by U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
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hen almost 200 countries came together to negotiate the Paris Agreement in December 2015, it generated widespread hope for addressing the climate crisis. The agreement aimed to limit increases in global temperature. Its ideal was 1.5° C— with a firm cap below a 2° C increase—since the start of the Industrial Revolution. But many don’t realize that these ambitious goals may require a massive amount of carbon sequestration, based on computer projections. This is detailed in a new book, Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril, by political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University. “Keeping temperatures from rising above the 1.5-degree target in 2100, for instance, would require removal from the atmosphere of at least a half-trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide, in a global effort starting almost immediately and extending beyond the end of the century,” Homer-Dixon writes. “That amount would fill sixty-five Grand Canyons or a balloon filled with pure CO2 measuring about eighty kilometres in diameter (at sea-level atmospheric pressure), and removing it would entail the largest industrial project in history by far, one that would absorb a large fraction of the world’s economic output for decades.” In a phone interview with the Straight, Homer-Dixon cited this as an example of the hard-edged realism necessary to minimize the magnitude of climate-induced harm. In his book, he mentions that one way to achieve this carbon sequestration could come from planting fast-growing trees across huge amounts of land. After they absorbed carbon as they grew, they would be cut down to produce energy. The carbon dioxide would then be pumped underground. 2
THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT
“Are we going to divert money even from fossil-fuel industries into growing forests so we can burn them and pump the carbon dioxide underground?” the Metchosin-based author continued. “And yet there it is, in the fine print of all of these models. And it’s something that hasn’t received even a fraction of the attention that it should receive.” Homer-Dixon has devoted his academic career to examining how a multitude of variables come together in complex ways to affect our security. His previous bestsellers—The Upside of Down and The Ingenuity Gap—laid out the magnitude of the world’s predicament. In Commanding Hope, Homer-Dixon offers a road map for responding to the growing ecological crisis. And it’s anchored by radical honesty. “I think one of the things that’s really corrupting our public conversations about our future as societies—and as a species—is where we’re lying to ourselves,” Homer-Dixon said. According to him, there’s no “new normal” as long as more carbon keeps being released into in our ocean-atmospheric systems. “It’s not going to settle down into a new equilibrium—not for centuries,” he declared. “And so the disruption we’re seeing now is just the very beginning of what we can expect to see in the future. It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get way, way worse. “That’s going to have a mobilizing effect on people,” the author continued. “It’s not whether we are going to see this transition in technologies and economies and investments and the way we generate wealth and what our attitudes are toward consumption. All of that is going to happen. The real question is whether it’s going to be soon enough or not.” g
OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 5 / 2020
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ARTS BOOKS CLASSIFIEDS CONFESSIONS FOOD LIQUOR MOVIES REAL ESTATE SAVAGE LOVE WINE
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Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.
1 2 3 4 5
Private home gatherings restricted as new COVID-19 cases reach record high. Buyer takes $7-million lot next to Meng Wanzhou’s $13-million mansion. Dana Larsen: Challenge coins reveal disturbing side of policing. Belligerent Trump interview with Lesley Stahl was simply a case of déjà vu. Recommendations of what to watch on Netflix Canada in November. @GeorgiaStraight
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