– The Big Short (2015)
I believe strongly that astronomers should be chief participants in the conversation about climate change at every level.
Astronomers are uniquely positioned to contribute to this conversation, and they are the scientists that have the proper intuitive understanding of time that is absolutely essential when making longitudinal decisions in the context of climate change.
I am determined to facilitate this cooperation after seeing first-hand how massive global conglomerate corporations are completely failing to understand how to interpret and use climate risk data. A simple example: Global banks are using data that they do not understand to make decisions that impact the next 10 and 20 years, which are timelines so short in the context of climate change that by the time a 10-year horizon solution is implemented it will be out of date and irrelevant.
A fundamental difference between climate science and astronomy is the understanding of time, and this misunderstanding is the motivation behind the quote that opens this page. I would argue that astronomy as a science has the oldest established foundation of knowledge and practices, preceding other sciences by centuries. Consider the single mission(s) of the Voyager spacecraft, and how the project progressed over the course of 64 years. Compare this to the ample warnings that emerged on the topic of climate change and the subsequent failings:
1960: NASA conceives of the Voyager mission
1972: Spacecraft design and construction begins
1977: Voyager 1 spacecraft launches
2012: Spacecraft leaves the heliopause (the Sun’s “bubble”) and enters interstellar space
2024: Voyager 1 is the single man-made object that is farthest from Earth, still successfully transmitting using 1970s analog technology
1962: Publication of Silent Spring, warning of the dangers of unchecked fossil fuel use
1973: Global fuel crisis
1988: Establishment of International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
2010: 1.5C warming limit established at COP16
2020: A major real estate company solicits climate risk data to fulfill SEC reporting requirements
2022: The real estate company enacts sweeping changes to their construction standards using a 25-year time horizon, or, in other words, the real estate company only looks at the climate risk data that encompasses the next 25 years – when this risk data is often available out to the year 2050 and 2100
2032: The sweeping changes to construction have been carried out at a hypothetical cost of $XBillion
2042: Twenty years later, climate change has progressed as the worst case scenario has predicted, making the sweeping $XBillion construction changes obsolete after the shortsighted decision by the real estate company, leading to an ultimate total cost of $XBillion + the $YBillion necessary to now prop up a rickety, 20-year old solution
Climate adaptation success stories, on geologic and astronomical time scales:
2024 Catastrophic Flood Damage Avoided by Adopting Climate Adaptation Measures Designed to Protect on a 5000 Year Timline