Teaching the ego to fish

On Christmas Day 2021, I took to the stage at the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II and, for an hour, compared our attitude towards climate change to a frog in a pot.

A few days ago, I saw that same headline in an online news story , and my ego was bruised. "They didn't listen to me at Christmas 2021, and now they're stealing my idea. Bastards."

It just occurred to me that THIS is one of the main impediments between us and salvation that will no longer come in time: ego.

Since that Christmas, I've been publishing lines on this topic. These are often rejected because they sound like a broken record. I'm grateful to Observador for not sending these to the junk mail, and let's go straight to the red slide in my Christmas presentation, which said " Keep calm and do the math ."

While this slide was on the screen, I reminded the audience how the Industrial Revolution marked the beginning of the transport of carbon from the ground, where it had been buried for billions of years (in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms) to the atmosphere. I then explained what a combustion engine is, which consists of metal cylinders into which fuel is injected, which explodes. The fuel consists predominantly of long molecules of carbon atoms surrounded by hydrogen atoms, hence the name hydrocarbons.

I then explained that, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we began by setting machines in motion by burning wood and coal (there's Carbon) to heat water and pressurizing the steam from this water to move heavy objects, such as locomotives, cars, pistons, pistons, and various engines. The diesel combustion engine followed, then the gasoline engine, and their explosions. I'm referring to the explosions inside their cylinders, but also to the explosion in their proliferation.

Do you know how many combustion engines exist today? The internet tells us there are approximately 1.5 billion in cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles. A few million more in 10 million factories, plus some 109,000 ships and nearly 25,000 active airplanes. Now imagine how many existed before these. And now imagine that each of the engines in existence today, plus all the engines that have existed since the Industrial Revolution, operate at several thousand revolutions per… minute .

Let us remember the slide “ Keep calm and do the math ”.

Let's multiply the total number of current engines – without forgetting the ones that are already deactivated and ancestral – by the number of cylinders in each one, by the number of revolutions per minute and by the number of hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades during which hydrocarbons exploded inside those cylinders.

…and expelled the gases from this combustion into the very thin atmosphere of a tiny planet, whose thickness can be compared to a sheet of cling film wrapping a basketball.

If you don't have a mathematical background, you don't need to read any further because you won't understand the scope of the result of the previous multiplication and metaphor.

If you have a mathematical bent and understand the metaphor, you'll probably also stop reading and run off to teach your children to fish instead of giving them fish, because you'll understand the magnitude of the problem we face.

“Problem” is a beautiful euphemism to characterize the end of our species on this tiny planet and by our hand, because this mind-boggling amount of “extra” Carbon in a once balanced atmosphere cannot be – and is not – inconsequential.

The graphs are abundant, as are the alarmist speeches from climate scientists.

Despite this, whenever I play my broken record of the frog in the pot, I invariably hear and read "Here comes the radical leftists proclaiming the end of the world. Do you realize that the amount of _CO2 in the atmosphere corresponds to 0.0(...)1% of the gases in the said atmosphere?"

To this I respond, "And do you have any idea of the concepts of 'system' and 'equilibrium'? Do you have any idea how few decimal places are needed to unbalance something that has been balanced for billions of years? Do you have any idea that the difference between water at -1°C or +1°C is profound? And do you have any idea that the difference between water at 99°C or 101°C is equally profound? Do you have any idea that the Laws of Classical Physics don't care about your notions, or do you not?"

Do you know what separates the Amazon rainforest from the Sahara Desert? Two or three degrees Celsius and the fact that one has vegetation and can retain moisture, while the other lacks vegetation and therefore doesn't retain moisture. The problem is that it only takes two or three degrees Celsius for the top of the forest to overheat and some leaves to die. No longer shading the ground and the plants below, these too dry out and die, in a positive feedback loop where dryness begets more dryness. It doesn't take long for a forest to turn into a desert. It only takes two or three degrees Celsius and a few decades. Or less. Add deforestation and fires, and we accelerate this process even further.

It doesn't take much for this to happen. All it takes is an electoral process.

There are leaders who lead a people toward understanding and problem-solving. And there are leaders who lead the people who elected them toward disagreement and the abyss.

There's the ego speaking. The obsession that we're always right. The ego that took us to the Moon and probes to Mars. The ego that has already sent two probes outside the Solar System and others into the Sun. The same ego that drives us to file lawsuits against those who mock us or to unfriend them because we can't stomach the discord. The same ego that leads me to flaunt my modest literary skills and sharp reasoning on climate matters. The ego that has saved us so many times is the same one that has led us to perdition.

I use the past tense because we are already lost.

Which brings me to the topic of “fishing.”

It is said that we should not give a fish to a hungry person, but rather teach him to fish.

I agree.

Especially since I became a father, a privilege that celebrates six years precisely as I write these lines.

Just yesterday we were teaching our little boy to push kids who push him. "Never push anyone, never call them names. But if they push you, if they call you names, don't stand still." He's the son of a marine biologist who's always loved physics and takes Newton's Law of Action-Reaction very seriously.

Here at home, we try to be part of the solution, not the problem. But our egos are tricky. When it comes to our physical and emotional well-being, come to me with soothing tips, and I'll tell you right away. "Did they push you? Push harder." Reasonableness goes out the window.

The ego is tricky. And it could have saved us. But it screwed us over. With f.