554: Sea walls won’t protect us from our garbage. Stopping polluting gives us our best chance.

January 23, 2022 by Joshua
in Podcast

My notes that I read from for this episode:

  • Sea wall for Manhattan, like Holland: expensive, huge, likely won’t work
  • Controversial already. Natural solutions might work better.
  • Let’s say they worked.
  • On Staten Island, Fresh Kills
  • Also everywhere, all coasts unprotected
  • Now think of Cancer Alley Gulf coast, oil refineries and global toxic dumps
  • All that pollution will be dispersed to seas and biosphere
  • I’d guess hundreds of thousands of years
  • Think of the suffering
  • Challenge is more than energy. Also thermodynamics. Everything will disperse.
  • Best solution: stop using fossil fuels now.
  • Yes, we’ll face problems, but we’ll solve switching problems more easily than global garbage.
  • Not an option: keep going as we are and maybe the problems won’t happen.

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