How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Frying Pan

"Be prepared to appreciate what you meet."
--Fremen proverb, Frank Herbert's 'Dune'

With very little fanfare last November, the International Energy Agency announced that by their calculations (which we at Myrtle’s place believe are conservative by an order of magnitude), the point of no return for avoiding a 2° Celcius increase in average global temperatures is coming in the next five years -- that we are on a collision course with having over 420 parts per million of the atmosphere, at all levels, comprised of carbon dioxide, and that due to qualities of persistence, at that point there will be nothing we can do to stop a host of negative consequences:

• Melting of all arctic sea ice every summer and possibly not completely freezing over in winter, either
• Sea level increases sufficient to swamp low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but also negatively affecting to one degree or another numerous low-lying cities in the developed world, including New York City; New Orleans; Houston; Miami, and on and on
• Persistent drought from which places like the American Southwest, and the central plains (particularly those areas fed by aquifers like the Ogallala) cannot recover, in any way
• Extreme events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, on a more regular basis and with more intensity when they do occur
• Shorter growing seasons in many locations due to extreme heat, particularly high nighttime low temperatures which thwart set of many different types of fruit and vegetable crops
• Reduced chilling hours required by many varieties of stone fruit and other plants requiring vernalization
• Extinction of many plants with narrow temperature tolerances… examples include coffee and chocolate trees
• Shortages of water not just in drought-prone areas, but also in coastal areas where rising sea levels also mean a rise in the salinity of the water table

We could go on, but, really, do you want us to?

While we are astonished on a regular basis that there are still folk out there too dense to pay attention to what is happening, the fact is, it really is too late to bother with trying to convince people about the danger of our addiction to fossil fuels – we can no longer prevent global warming, nor can we mitigate it all that effectively, either.

No, what we are left with is learning to adapt.

Fortunately, coming from a long line of Celtic forebears on both sides of our family tree, Myrtle Maintenance Personnel are that wonderful combination of foolhardy, optimistic, and stubborn.  We feel quite ready for the challenge, and on some twisted level, we are even looking forward to it.

So, what, exactly is the challenge, and why do we feel optimistic while going into it?

In a nutshell, the challenge is to adapt to a world in which the difficulty of several elements which we currently take for granted will constitute the rule and measure of personal and social success – and to globalize from that level, the success of our whole species.

What do we take for granted now that we will soon no longer be able to take for granted?

·    Availability of nutritious food
·    Availability of clean potable water
·    Ability to keep cool in summer and warm in winter
·    Ability to get from here to there in a reasonably affordable manner

Those are challenges enough to be going on.  There will be others, of course, related to the shifting of societies and economies northward, and away from our current form of resource consumption towards something new, but we’re thinking here on a micro level, the level of homeowners and families struggling to survive, rather than on the macro level of urban planners figuring out how to provide livable spaces for millions of people at once.

So… what are we prepared to do about these challenges?

Availability of nutritious food

This is probably the easiest challenge posed by climate change for most people in the developed world.  There are exceptions, of course, based on local variables, but in general it is possible to grow enough food for the typical family of four on as little as a quarter acre of ground.  In some places, even less space than that would be sufficient.

In addition to the typical vegetable and herb garden, use of spaces currently taken up by purely aesthetic plants or knick-knacks can be replaced by productive plants – citrus instead of decorative ficus on a porch or in an alcove; rather than a hanging pot of bouganvillia, a hanging industrial pickle bucket with holes cut in the side for tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers to descend; or (one of our favorites, popular in many African cities) a burlap sack with holes in the side for potato plants to poke out.  In short, on just the typical balcony, or in the typical urban window, there is enough light and moisture to grow a much larger percentage of the typical diet than is generally appreciated.

A relatively small chicken coop with a relatively small run (say, six feet by six feet) would give three or four hens far more space than their factory farmed compatriots ever dream of getting; three or four hens could supply the entire protein needs of a family of four without even counting in however much protein they might acquire from vegetable sources (which, frankly, typically exceeds the protein needs of practically anyone practically anywhere – protein deficiency is a vastly exaggerated nutritional problem).

And dwarf varieties of goat need less space than many of the dogs currently occupying so much space in our currently underutilized backyards.  We don’t know about you, but we’d much rather milk a goat than a dog.

In short, the availability of nutritious food will only be a problem for those who simply refuse to take advantage of their opportunities.

Availability of clean potable water

Water fit for human consumption may well be the greatest challenge faced by humanity in the coming decades.  Already, vast numbers of people in the developing world live without sanitary sources of water for drinking, cleaning and cooking.  The single greatest inducement for migration in the coming century of climate change will be the search for water.

In the developed world, we have come to take clean water coming out of our faucets so much for granted that it is difficult for many folk to fathom the possibility that even here, clean water is not a given.  However, the cold, hard facts are these:  many areas are served by water pumped from sources which cannot indefinitely support the demands currently placed upon them, let alone the increased demands which will be placed upon them by the joint pressures of increasing temperatures and increasing populations.

The two primary examples are the desert Southwest and the central plains served by the Ogallala aquifer – Nevada, Utah, Arizona and California all draw water from rivers and reservoirs which are shrinking even in wet years, and those years are becoming fewer and further between.  Northern Texas up through the Dakotas are served by pumps tapping into an aquifer which is only very very slowly refilled by rainfall, which is increasingly rare for the region.  When these sources are no longer available, these regions have no other sources to which they may turn.

Even areas with plentiful moisture, however, are not immune to the effects of climate change.  New York City, as one example, is served by sources of fresh water which are not likely to dry up any time in the next several tens of thousands of years – unfortunately, though, those sources are likely to be increasingly tainted and less and less fit for human consumption.  The entire Hudson River valley is slowly but surely increasing in salinity because even small changes in sea level create drastic changes in the chemistry of the water table, often tens or even hundreds of miles inland.  Houston, New Orleans, and many other Gulf Coast communities are also subject to this phenomenon.

So what can we do about this problem?

For one thing, collect rainwater.  The runoff from a ½” rainfall event on a 1,000 square foot roof (smaller than most American homes) will easily fill a 100 gallon tank.  Even in a relatively dry location such as West Texas, where rainfall is often in the 10” per year range, that means that the typical family (living in a 1500 square foot home) should be able to collect somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 gallons of rainwater to supplement whatever other sources are available (well or river water, most likely).

Bathing requirements might have to change, but not radically; most water usage would not need to change much, if at all.  Obviously, xeriscaping would be preferred to the planting of lawns in such a scheme… but that is true already, given how expensive lawn maintenance can be in areas where rates for city water supplies are high due to laws of supply and demand.  Industrial use of fresh water will have to be radically altered – cooling stations, for example, need to be re-engineered to make use of briny waters unfit for human or animal consumption (this is a difficult task, but not an impossible one, once the necessity for change forces us as a society to think seriously about it).

In places where rainfall is more hospitably reliable, rainwater can easily supply all needs potable and otherwise.  It is easier to filter or distill water for one family than it is to do so for an entire city; as a consequence, it just makes more sense to collect water from as local a source as possible – and nothing is more local than one’s home – and treat it there.  The salinity of the water table therefore ceases to be an issue.

Some places, of course, will still be impacted beyond help, but as most people do not live in Yemen, Turkmenistan or rural Arizona, we will have to merely sympathize from a distance and wait for those folk to migrate to relatively wetter climates.

Ability to keep cool in summer and warm in winter

In the Brazos Valley, we really don’t have too much to worry about in terms of keeping warm in winter – all three days of our typical winter are perfectly comfortable, provided one stays out of the wind.

Keeping cool in summer, though, is another matter altogether.

We have written before about the wisdom of painting one’s roof white as a means of reflecting heat-generating sunlight in summer.  Obviously sufficiently insulating one’s attic is another necessary bit of home maintenance in preparing for the brutally hot summers we will be facing in the decades to come.  Other forms of weatherization for both cold and hot weather should be looked into as well, such as adding good weather stripping to doors and windows, and replacing merely decorative curtains with more functional tapestries which keep heat inside in winter, and reflect heat back outside in summer.

Landscaping, too, can assist in temperature control – if you don’t have tall shade trees on the western exposure of your home, it’s a good idea to look into planting shade trees or a tall arbor of some kind on that side of the house.  A tall trellis, or even vines grown directly on a brick wall are exceptional heat barriers; the green leaves of an English Ivy, or of any variety of grape, or of a half-dozen other decorative or fruiting vine, can reduce the temperature in western-facing rooms by as much as 10-15° Fahrenheit.

Additionally, two different though related considerations of economy must be evaluated when planning for future cooling technologies.  We will likely see (and soon, at that) increasing stretches of consecutive 100°-plus days; it is simply not tenable for the very young, very old, sick, or disabled to survive in this sort of climate without some means of staying cool and hydrated; air-conditioning is the single most effective means of surviving extreme heat.  However, air-conditioning is likely to become increasingly expensive both in terms of personal economy and also in terms of ecological impact.

Both of these factors need to be resolved as we embark upon our future in the age of global warming.

The biggest cost savings are likely to come from changing our sources of electricity from our current emphasis on burning fossil fuels to wind, solar and geothermal sources of energy.  In particular, home cooling systems dependent upon geothermal energy are already increasing in popularity, and improvements to the technology mean that soon, over the lifetime of the components of the system are likely to be much less expensive than conventionally powered air conditioning systems.

Solar powered A/C units are also increasing in popularity, particularly because these units allow a homeowner to maintain most of their current electrical infrastructure, only changing out an isolated portion of their home grid (albeit the most expensive part!), thus avoiding complicated power load calculations.

For those whose homes are not so large (increasingly another good idea, by the way, since smaller homes are easier and cheaper to heat in winter and cool in summer), it might be possible to shut off a few rooms during the day, and only cool one or two rooms with either a window unit or a standalone A/C unit.  Many mainstream architects scoff at the notion… but that is because their frame of reference is the mainstream American desire for a large home.  One of the biggest benefits of the “microhome” revolution is not just that folk with tiny houses can take advantage of the best interior design ideas available at IKEA; it is that for just a tiny fraction of the cost of a central heating system, they can cool their entire houses with just a $100 window unit. 

It is entirely conceivable that a small home-built solar array smaller than the roof of a typical carport could be used to provide all the power necessary for such a small-scale A/C system, which means not only would all the comfort of 20th century American decadence still be available, but at an almost microscopic percentage of the historical cost of such comfort.

One thing is certain, however:  such comfort cannot be maintained with the status quo.  A 2,000 square foot home will no longer be within the purview of the average family’s budget simply because few will be able to afford to cool such a home in summer the way they have always been used to doing.

We at Myrtle’s place do not believe this is a bad thing.  It’s time to simplify anyway; this is just one more excuse to do so.  And, frankly, our European and Asian guests have always expressed quiet amusement that we describe our own 900 square foot home as “small”… because by comparison with what they are used to seeing, well, it might not be as gaudy as most American homes… but it’s still pretty big.

Ability to get from here to there in a reasonably affordable manner

One of the more amusing internet memes we have seen recently was a quote attributed only to “the Mayor of Bogota”; which mayor, we can only guess, but even if it was made up by some guy in Peoria, it’s still a pretty good slogan:  “A developed nation is not one in which the poor have cars; it is one in which the wealthy take public transportation.”

Barring the sudden onset of wisdom necessary for an immediate decision to build useful infrastructure, however, we foresee the need to rely on other trends to bring American transportation habits into line with future needs.  For several years now, the trend has been for the typical American driver to put fewer and fewer annual miles on their vehicles.

As petrochemical scarcity becomes a problem over the course of the next few decades, this trend is likely to continue, even with the advent of alternative fuel vehicles.  The dirty little secret of electric, hydrogen fuel cell, and liquefied natural gas vehicles is that even if the fuel is not petroleum, the components used in construction of the vehicle still require a lot of natural resources which are either scarce in and of themselves, or which require the use of increasingly scarce fuel sources in their acquisition.

There are several strategies to mitigating the high cost of getting from here to there, though, so we are not particularly worried about the fact that these costs will likely only continue to rise.  First and foremost… stop going from here to there.  A disturbingly large percentage of the travel we are currently addicted to undertaking is simply frivolous.  There is no reason other than vanity to buy a home thirty or forty miles away from our workplaces.  There is no reason other than vanity to vacation a thousand miles away from home.

Likewise, there is no reason to transport goods halfway around the world when they can be produced either at home, or only a few miles away from home.  We have already addressed the notion that self-sustenance vis-à-vis food security is a simple undertaking; in addition to providing  a source of fresh and healthy food, however, growing our own fruits and vegetables would go a long way to reducing transportation costs.  Currently, the average item of produce travels more than 1,000 miles from the farmer’s land to our kitchen table.  Little wonder, then, that the resources involved are the object of high demand, driving prices ever higher as the supply dwindles.

These costs, though, go away if we listen to the Buddhist maxim:  “Don’t just do something… Sit there!”

Cautiously optimistic for most folk

There are accidents of birth and station which are simply unfair, and have always been so; global warming will make the unfairness of the rich-poor divide even worse.  There is no sugar coating the fact that untold scores of people will suffer, and often die, as a direct result of the thoughtless consumption ethic which has dominated the industrialized world – indeed, predating industrialization, though only reaching its current nightmarish peak with the advent of centralized wealth which came on the heels of capitalism – and there is no escaping the negative consequences of the reckless behavior of our forebears, not to mention ourselves.

However, all is not doom and gloom.  The original strengths of our species are still with us – hominids were never the biggest, nor the strongest, nor the swiftest.  We have almost always been the most adaptable species on the block, however, and we will soon be facing a new test of that adaptability.

One would hope that learning from our mistakes would be one of the adaptations we adopt in the near future; necessity is sometimes a cruel teacher, but we at Myrtle’s place are hopeful that her lessons will be taken to heart.  We believe it is likely that most people around the globe will have the opportunity – and hopefully the wisdom – to move away from our historically destructive disregard of the world around us.

Now then… if you’ll excuse us, we’re going back outside.  It’s almost Spring planting time.

Happy farming!