Eric Enberg’s op-ed about Canada charging carbon-emissions fees to stabilize the climate asked why America elected a president who pretends climate change is a hoax. (Enberg’s Local View on Nov. 27 was headlined, “Canada takes the lead with carbon pricing.”)
The great science fiction writer (and biochemistry professor) Isaac Asimov offered an answer in a climate-change parable he wrote in 1972. “The Gods Themselves” described futuristic cheap energy that caused unintended, invisible, hard-to-detect harm that jeopardized humanity’s survival. When scientists, politicians, or administrators discuss the danger, they’re silenced by vested interests, especially scientists refusing to believe the energy is flawed and politicians too chicken to honestly discuss the situation.
However, several characters persist because they can’t ethically remain silent, knowing their energy is destabilizing the world, and because they want to protect their grandchildren. When these characters discover a workable solution - another cheap energy system without harmful unintended consequences - they believe governments and peoples will finally listen:
“This is what will set the world on its ear. Any difficulty in persuading the scientific leadership that the Electron Pump is destroying the world should now disappear,” Asimov wrote. “The emotional reluctance to accept that no longer exists. It will be possible to present the problem and the solution at the same time.”
How did we get a president-elect who said climate change is a hoax? People have trouble hearing there’s a problem if easy solutions aren’t also presented. Solar, wind, batteries and electric cars are advancing rapidly. Every time “wind power doubles, there’s a 19 percent drop in cost (and) every time solar power doubles, costs fall 24 percent,” Bloomberg News reported. Ears are opening.
Enberg offered Congress an economic policy to promote orderly, efficient, speedy transitions from our old flawed energy system to a safer system. Will new cheaper energy help politicians and the public listen?
Let’s hope Asimov was right.
Judy Weiss
Brookline, Mass.
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