Brian Brunskill, a geoscientist in Saskatchewan who is working on energy storage, deep waste disposal, geothermal heat sources, and related issues.
Collectively, we in our scientific, engineering and social community represent a wonderful brain-trust of knowledge and experience. Many of us are community elders, and as a community we are in a better position now than any time since the end of WW2 to push for progressive changes in the types of energy sources we use.
As the pandemic unfolds around the world, we are witnessing the effects of the associated chaos being created, exposing many of our institutional and societal weaknesses. But this chaos will be relatively short lived because the threat will eventually be eliminated or tolerably mitigated. By comparison, the chaos that is also arriving due to global warming will continue to amplify and will be compounding and permanent. Although this sounds like more bad news, it serves to awaken us to act, like we could have done years ago to prepare ourselves for the arrival of this pandemic - the one that had been predicted by many in our community, based on evidence gathered and vetted. The chaos we witness now due to the pandemic provides us valuable insight into the chaos coming due to global warming. This is harsh but good news, as it gives us a chance to not squander the time we have remaining to mitigate the coming climate-related chaos.
As our society begins its path to whatever is “normal” after the pandemic, that recovery will likely include significant investment in new infrastructure. As a community of those concerned, we must be actively engaged to assure that this infrastructure embraces deep decarbonization. We have a short window of opportunity – scientists have a bigger voice right now and post-pandemic infrastructure plans are already being formulated. Let’s keep asking challenging questions and offering pathways and solutions.
Respectfully,
Brian Brunskill
Regina, Saskatchewan.