Heat is altering the future on this planet. If you haven’t yet personally experienced the effects of global warming, you surely must have heard about them. July, like June, has produced record-breaking temperatures world wide. If that’s not bad enough, the future will clearly get worse every year, according to almost all scientists who study the phenomena.

Unless we, collectively, do something about it. The sooner we act, the quicker this trend will slow down. By acting I mean stopping putting carbon into the atmosphere. Stopping, not reducing. Every additional atom of carbon dioxide or methane in the atmosphere makes thing a bit worse. Regardless of its source.

Basics

For example, Phoenix, Arizona, has had 31 straight days in June-July with the temperature at or exceeding 110F (43.3C). For reference on the human impact of this temperature, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has a handy chart showing the relationship between temperature, humidity and human survival. Note that 110F with only 36% humidity makes sunstroke, heat cramps or heat exhaustion likely and heatstroke possible with prolonged exposure and.or physical activity. Even at 10% humidity those problems are possible. But for 31 straight days? Next year it might 40 straight days.

Of course Phoenix is a desert city and its humidity tends to be low in summer but the point is that the annual number of really hot days is increasing faster than seems possible just a few years ago. Kim Stanley Robinson’s prophetic book “The Ministry of the Future” begins with a story about a (fictional) city in India that suffers a devastating heat wave that kills most of its population. Review that NOAA chart for your own location.

All of this is because we continue to pump more carbon into the atmosphere, day after day. That has to stop if we are to survive long term. If we are to stop the boiling.

My blog in May, written by Lucy Reed, focused on what you personally can do to relieve climate stress. I’m focusing here on the broader picture of what must be done to stop climate change. There are three main objects of needed effort: government; polluting industry and us.

Government

Clearly, government has a major role in stopping global heating by defining issues, setting goals and forcing polluters to stop polluting. All the COP (Conference of the Parties) meetings have been organized by the United Nations, for example. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a UN organization. Governments are powerful.

The problem is that governments are necessarily political. Politics are hugely influenced by money, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. There are many sources of money, such as the fossil fuel industry, that prefer the world mostly as is, resisting change that negatively affects them.

So the history of government intervention in climate change is spotty, often characterized by great claims but tepid actions. For example, the UK government is now cutting back on its earlier promises of change because of pressure from polluting industry. On the other hand, The United States has produced a major set of incentives, both to increase its global warming responses and incentives to industry to participate. Yet it still has subsidies and limited regulation for the fossil fuel industry.

Industry

We can sort industry into two categories: those who are emitting heat-producing carbon into the atmosphere and those who are either non-emitting or are in the process of replacing the emitters. The first category is the object of much discussion in the press but insufficient effective action by the government or users of fossil fuel products (like us). Yet these companies are the source of most of global warming. There is only one acceptable future for these organizations at todays level of carbon-capture technology: go out of business or convert entirely to non carbon-producing products. The sooner the better for all of us, health wise.

The carbon-emitter-replacing organizations are rapidly growing or springing into existence. They are the companies involved in producing wind farms, solar arrays, geothermal plants, nuclear power plants and the infrastructure to support the new gigawatts of electrification. One of the problems facing this group is that they can’t grow fast enough, either because of limited supply, limited available expertise, governmental regulation or all of those. [Rachel Millard, of the Financial Times, gives examples of the situation in the infrastructure industry] Although these are classic examples of the laws of supply and demand, they are crucial to establishing the rate at which we can expect relief from the continuing onslaught of heatwaves and heat deaths.

Us

In order to ensure that the good outcomes far outweigh the bad it is up to us, individually and in groups, to insist on it. To reduce or eliminate our own use of carbon-emitting industries and services. To confine our purchases to non-carbon-emitting goods. To insist, by voting and other forms of persuasion, that our governments do the same. To talk to our friends and neighbors and help them understand our collective dilemma.

Then, and not until then, can we alter the future and see the heat stop rising.