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I had forgotten about it until a friend recently got it. Ten years ago I never saw it coming, and I never really felt it until it flared.
The episode for me likely began a decade ago as an inhaled fungal pathogen (likely Coccidioides immitis, but it could have been C. posadasii) which flared up into something much bigger. My doctor told me that I likely breathed it, shortly after moving back to Tucson and while I was simply roaming the desert trails, maybe sometime in early August of that year.
The pathogens are usually dormant in the long dry spells of the year but when the rains come they can then develop into a mold with long filaments that break off into airborne spores. Once inhaled they typically resolve into mild flu-like symptoms that in Arizona we usually call Valley Fever. And as it did in my particular case, over a period of some weeks or even a couple of months, it can become a full-blown inflammation of the lungs; in short, a less-than-fun bout of fungal pneumonia. Or worse.
As my doctor further explained it to me, if someone is generally in good health the illness can stay sub-acute or below the radar – until it might suddenly flash into the more serious infection. The good news is that with rest, fungal medicines, simple analgesics, and fluids, most types of fungal pneumonia can be cleared within two to four weeks. Building up to a full strength might require a couple more weeks.
I don’t know when my musings first began. Perhaps it was a moment early in the pneumonic stage those ten years ago as I was visiting the Land of Fever 104. And they have continued through the record heat of this past summer. But at one point I began to wonder how such a very small pathogen – one that I couldn’t see, feel, hear, or touch – could have such a huge impact on my body? And maybe because I was in a feverish state several different times early in the course of my pneumonia, I also began to wonder . . . What insights might emerge from understanding how a case of Valley Fever, that lapsed into a more serious case of pneumonia, might be like climate change.
For example, the atmosphere, or what we mostly call air, is actually a layer of gases surrounding our planet. Those gases are retained by the Earth’s gravity. And those gases protect life here on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation. They also warm the Earth’s surface through heat retention (that is, the greenhouse effect). The temperature of the Earth without an atmosphere, for example, might be as cold as the lifeless moon.
While air content and pressure varies significantly, the air that is suitable for the survival of plants and animals (as far as we know), and generally our own civilization, is found in the Earth’s troposphere which has an average depth of about 56,000 feet or about 17 kilometers. That seems like a lot of (hot) air, but my own calculations suggest that if we thought of the earth as the size of a soccer ball, the troposphere would be roughly the equivalent of perhaps two sheets of paper. Not very big at all.
At the scale of sheets of paper compared to a soccer ball, we can begin to imagine how easy it might be to throw the atmospheric system sufficiently out of whack. And just like Valley Fever that flares into a bad case of pneumonia, climate change may prove a hugely disruptive environmental and economic illness.
Especially when we realize that we now have a planet of approaching 7.7 billion people spewing out about ~50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases which increases the strength of the greenhouse gas effect each year – and doing it year after year after year. This becomes even more critical when we’re adding other wastes and pollutants onto the land and into the air, and water. Those additional burdens tend to further weaken the ability of the Earth and its atmosphere to cope with the load of more and more greenhouse gases being dumped each year (see our earlier essay, Let’s Talk Trash: Are We Living More by Waste than Ingenuity?, for yet another look at the amount of waste and garbage that the United States alone unloads each year onto the planet).
Thinking big about investments in much greater levels of energy productivity may be the smartest remedy. And the huge task ahead!
Like Valley Fever slipping into pneumonia, climate change can build into something serious without our really being aware of it – until it bursts into a serious and disruptive burden at wholly unexpected moments. And like pneumonia climate change can lead to additional, even disruptive, complications. But also like pneumonia, the prescription is rest and treatment. In this case, what we call rest might be the reduction of greenhouse emissions through a greater emphasis on energy productivity.
Spearheaded by my long-time colleague and best-selling author Jeremy Rifkin, we collaborated with colleagues at Black & Veatch, the World Resources Institute, and others in a study that suggests that energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, at least in the United States, can to near zero if we’re willing to “Think Big” about a productivity-led, infrastructure investment strategy. The good news here is that, if we’re willing to develop that resource, it can be done in ways that enhance the resilience of the economy. As it turns out, the efficiency gains that make the economy more resilient and more robust will also provide a substantial increase in future job opportunities.
Once we make the effort to give the planet a breather through our combined energy productivity investments – (i) greater energy efficiency gains, together with (ii) movement to 100 percent renewable energy and (iii) the more productive use of capital and other resources – can become the dominant climate change strategy. But as with any medical condition that we wish to change, we first have to accept the diagnosis – even if it means that we can’t see it or feel its effects immediately. Then we have to be willing to accept the recommended treatment.
As our report highlights, the U.S. has already achieved significant advances in our overall energy efficiency; and we are poised to do more. Although energy efficiency has been the workhorse of the American economy for many, many years, we’ve hardly exhausted the economic potential for an even greater contribution – if we choose to develop that potential. So in this particular case of small changes within the atmosphere, ones that we may not be able to see immediately, thinking big about investments in much greater levels of energy productivity may be the smartest remedy. And the huge task ahead!
There is neither a law of physics nor economics that prevents us from quadrupling the productive use of energy and other resources. Rather, it is much more an issue of imagination and our political will to get it done.
– John A. “Skip” Laitner