How to Save the World from Climate Change

How to Save the World

By Fred Busch

Disclaimer:? I am fully aware that what is being described here is unlikely to be acted on for a large variety of reasons.? I am also aware that writing something that is both simple and far reaching means that I am open to critics who want to put me into the category of idealist.? These are fair critiques however my motivation to write this article is also simple which is to present a viable solution to an existential threat to life on earth.? If you have a better idea, please share it!

I remember Earth Day April 22, 1979.? I was 5 years old and I was sitting on the brown carpeted floor of my parents bedroom watching our 12 inch black and white TV.? I remember even to this day watching the Sesame Street special about Earth Day.? During the Earth Day special Bert and Ernie explained to us kids that the planet was in trouble and that animals were in danger of extinction and other stuff. ? What they were saying about the planet seemed to me like the biggest possible problem.?

?I sat there as a young boy watching Sesame Street and feeling sad about the situation and then all of the sudden Big Bird said, “But WAIT!? We have the solution to all these problems!? We know exactly what to do to make the changes and heal the planet!”? When I heard Big Bird say that I got very happy to know that we could solve everything because we knew what to do!??

But then Big Bird continued...and really he might as well be speaking today...because he said “we know exactly what to do to solve the Earth’s problems but nobody is willing to do it... nobody is doing what we all know is needed!”????

42 years later and I still remember Big Bird saying that ‘we all know what to do’? And yet it seems that since 1979 until now nothing has changed.??

Today it is similar in that some people do know what to do to solve the Climate Crises and begin to reverse the global deterioration.? The question remains are we going to do what is needed?

Sesame Street was not my only exposure to the issue of climate and the health of the planet.? As a graduate of University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment in 1996, I have been aware of climate change for a very long time. In fact I took a class at Michigan in 1993 called ‘Global Change’ which detailed very clearly accurate predictions of what we see today - the earth in a crisis situation.??

And while I almost have the opinion that the global climate crisis is hopeless and irreversible, I still decided to write this simple map to a solution before it is actually too late...a time which is pretty much arriving now.??

What I will outline in this article to save the planet is already known by many people.? But I decided to write it out anyway just in case somebody is willing to organize the resources to execute this map to planetary salvation.

To save the world from the climate crises the following steps are to be taken immediately in a globally coordinated way with an ‘approaching asteroid’ level of cooperation, resource allocation and execution without corruption.

- The world has 2 years to begin to plant industrial hemp in every country in the world on an industrial scale without clearing any forest habitat to plant.? Vast swaths of land being dedicated to agriculture that feeds animals... like in Brazil and Indonesia... and all over the tropical belt as well as summer growing seasons in the north need to be focused on the massive cultivation of the industrial hemp plant.

- It should already be a well known fact, and if it is not a fact it is a testament to the suppression of technology, that the hemp plant has a wide range of applications and is a tenacious plant that is easy to grow and thus is totally sustainable and environmentally ideal.??

Just for sake of clarity for this article the products that hemp can produce include but are not limited to:? engine fuel, paper, wood composites, plastics, clothing and fabrics, flooring products,?

even food for animals and humans.??

The destruction of this earth is happening because of the reliance on industries that can and must be replaced immediately by an alternative that is sustainable and does not contribute to more carbon release but rather is part of the carbon removal solution.

Our planet is being destroyed by a combination of the use of fossil fuels and at the same time a vast campaign of old growth tree deforestation in the tropical rainforests that remain, as well as vast forest fires over the northern and southern latitudes.? This triple whammy is creating the carbon accumulation in the environment that Al Gore pointed out is always directly related to climate increase.

So imagine we could create something that immediately stops the need to chop forests and trees down for paper and building products. ? Also imagine at the same time replacing the need for fossil fuels burning in engines.? We can also eliminate the dependence on hydrocarbons in the plastic industry that is choking the planet and create a biodegradable alternative. ? And all of these polluting and destructive industries can be replaced with a sustainable resource that has no negative effect or carbon footprint.? I think you would say that sounds like it is too good to imagine.??

But it is not too good to be true.? It is a reality.? It is called industrial hemp and the reason you have not heard of its properties and capacity to create products is due to the purchase of patents and suppression of technology that the traditional energy and wood industry interests find threatening to their business model.??

But we as a species must not allow a few business interests to continue to dominate our economies and force us to continue following practices that are leading us to doomsday quickly.

Here is a metaphor for our present environmental situation:

We are on a raft floating down the river with other passengers.? We are floating down the middle of the river that is travelling with great speed and force.? Our raft is fast approaching where the river becomes a massive waterfall. ? To anyone looking at the situation of the raft and the waterfall and the river it is clear that the raft and its passengers are going over falls.??

However the passengers are not looking in the forward direction of the impending waterfall but rather are looking towards the sides and towards the back direction of the raft and the view of the river behind.???

Everyone on the raft is discussing what the land looks like to the sides (the present moment) and also discussing and looking behind the raft at how things used to be (the past) describing trends and patterns that no longer hold true.? While everyone is too busy looking at the past and present nobody is looking at where the raft is heading.? Transfixed by a history and global climate model that no longer exists we are all focused on the past and nobody seems to care that we are all about to fall over the cliff.

We need to stop looking backwards and start looking forwards immediately and we must find a way to stop this raft from continuing down the river as it is presently doing.? We must find the ropes that can reach the shore and pull us out of this momentum towards disaster.? These ropes can only be made from industrial hemp which is a plant that has more potential than any other.

So how do we do this?? How to we invest in the wholesale transformation of our economies and industries so we continue to have a habitable planet???

I have long questioned what is the advantage to the earth or the universe for people to become mega wealthy.? My question was basically like? “Why would God allow such inequality and greed?”??

I have now come to the opinion that perhaps it is because vast resources will be needed to overcome our present crises and only people who can spend vast sums of money without having to answer to voters and shareholders can marshal the resources needed in the scale and timing needed to answer the call.

To save the planet the mega wealthy must stop the space race and start the earth race.??

The billionares must declare that they don’t want to send their offspring into space actually but instead are willing to make the massive financial investments needed to help save the health of the planet that provided them all their wealth in the first place, as well as the human species as whole.??

Entire industries must be eliminated and replaced with industrial hemp production of vast scales.? The paper industry, the wood products industry, the plastics industry, the oil and gas industries, the coal industry, the textile industry... all these and more must stop their present operations and retool to create the same products using hemp instead of hydrocarbons.? This will require herculean effort and sacrifice and means many people who are making a lot of money presently will begin to make less money as the industries adapt to an economy that does not endanger the survival of most living organisms on earth the way that our present economy does.

The type of radical shift of resources away from climate warming industries such as fossil fuels and the forestry industries requires such a commitment of will and money that unless the world’s richest people decide they want to save this planet... it will be impossible.??

The world’s governments must get their act together quickly if they don’t wish to have huge swaths of their territory under 40 feet of water, but governments alone can’t act fast enough.? Industry and the genius Elon Musk and his friends must get involved in more ways than just producing electric cars for the rich. Governments and democracies in particular are held hostage by the politics of minority interests who are not willing to change the status quo that benefits them so immensely.??

Trillions of dollars needs to be shifted toward the production of hemp and the scaling up of production capacity for the myriad of products that the hemp plant produces to replace the fuels and plastics and wood products that are perpetuating the climate crises.?

To swallow such strong medicine is not easy and the world’s power brokers are not likely to employ such a plan until the .01% understand that this earth’s systems sustaining human life are fragile and at the point of critical mass to completely break down.??

The earth is our home and even the richest people in the world will not want to live in a world without wildlife, without clean water or fresh air and full of people starving and desperate. ? It must be seen as self interest for the wealthy to shift huge portions of their resources to the production and technology around the hemp plant.

Let’s start a movement of pressure to demand that the mega wealthy Stop the ‘Space Race’ and start the ‘Earth Race’.? As the youth of today know all too well, we are out of time so it is literally now or never.