Climate Change — What If You’re Wrong?

Charlottesville

September 3, 2023

The NYT has an important article today about how we are depleting the ground water aquifers in the US. This is not a new issue -- it was addressed in 1986 in the book Cadillac Desert. But almost 40 years later we are still just talking about the issue.

These aquifers will go dry; there is simply not enough time to recharge them. What then? Much of our farmland depends on water from them. We'll be back to relying on rainfall.

Reading the article, which discusses climate change (but we have the problem with it without climate change) I started thinking about the two sides of climate change. One side says we don't have to do anything that we will adapt when we need to. The other side (excluding the alarmists) says we should take actions now. And I wonder how each side would respond to the question "What if you are wrong about climate change?" What I fear about not doing anything now is a corollary to the draining of the aquifers. Even knowing we have a problem doesn't mean we address it because "more now is better."

No, I don't think we are talking extinction of humans (although that will happen eventually right? I mean, we humans have only been around for at most 10,000 years while the Earth is 4.5 billion years old). But I do think we are talking upheaval of societies.