We’ll get to the world’s geothermal capital, picturesque Iceland, in a minute, meanwhile let’s review what’s the principal driver of all this havoc—our world’s warming. By now it should be clear as sunlight that it’s the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities that’s been driving the mercury steadily upward for more than a century.
The current El Niño weather cycle is also allowing more ocean heat to be released into the atmosphere. It’s also become increasingly apparent that a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is the only way to stop global temperatures from reaching disaster levels.
So Planetary Lifeguard™ asks what do we earthlings want to be? The thermometer who just keeps measuring and reporting the rising temperature from climate change resulting in so many calamities?
Or do we want to be the thermostat who makes mother earth a safer, happier place to live? He urges us to take the bull by the horns and be the thermostat!
So, please let’s stop just taking readings as we watch each other perspire. Let’s take control, be the thermostat and set a temperature that’s not going to destroy us but make us revive and thrive! Let’s set it to what it needs to be to keep our planet livable, our homes safe?
More Record Heat
Planetary Lifeguard™ reports that last year was Earth’s warmest year by far in a century and a half. And 2024 is shaping up to be even worse. Last month clocked in as the hottest January ever recorded, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
It was the hottest January on record for oceans, too. Sea temperatures kept on climbing in the first few days of February, surpassing daily records set last August.
The Global Warming Foundation founder Peter Ticktin says when the surface temperature of the Atlantic Ocean is 1° C warmer, it causes more moisture to evaporate, ascend, and condense into clouds.
When the Atlantic surface temperature was just 1° C less, those clouds would drift to land, dumping rain daily on the Amazon rainforest. Now, with just an itsy-bitsy change of 1° C, water vaporizes, clouds tend to dump their loads over the ocean. Now far less water reaches the Brazilian rainforest, dropping its water table lower until it becomes a desert, regardless how many trees deforestation’s cuts down.
Ticktin says the planet can be geoengineered by moon dust placed around the globe like a ring, or a giant sun reflector assembled in space and moved to cool oceans, yet he believes “the powers-that-be seem more inclined to adopt a third method of planet geoengineering–reducing human population.”
Are Oceans a reliable gauge?
Climatologists believe that because oceans absorb most of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they are a reliable gauge of how relatively quickly a warming planet endangers us.
That is the distinct downside as warmer oceans provide fuel for hurricanes and atmospheric river storms. January marked the eighth month in a row that average air temperatures, across both the continents and seas, have topped all records.
Why look at Iceland?
Some who’ve spent time there believe Iceland provides a window into our collective future in several ways.
First, Iceland uses remarkably few fossil fuels to power its economy and heat its homes. Instead, 85 percent of the country’s energy comes from domestically produced renewables, primarily geothermal power and hydropower. Iceland can claim such a high percentage of renewables, the most of any country in the world, thanks to its unique geology.
Its land sits atop an incredibly active volcanic zone, and six major geothermal plants tap that subterranean warmth to provide heating for almost all the country’s homes. You see steam billowing from the ground between the majestic fjords. Occasionally an active volcano erupting. Frightening but beautiful.
Geothermal power produces about 20 percent of the country’s electricity, with the remainder coming from hydroelectric plants. The oil that Iceland burns is primarily used to power cars and trucks, as well as boats that comprise the country’s fishing fleet.
Iceland is a unique country in having such abundant geothermal and hydroelectric resources. Today advances gleaned from the oil and gas business are making geothermal feasible in new locales.
A Little Geothermal History
Geothermal energy is thermal energy extracted from the Earth’s crust combining energy from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay. Geothermal energy has been a source of heat and electric power for millennia.
Using water from hot springs, geothermal heating has been used for bathing since Paleolithic times and for space heating since Roman times. Generating electricity from geothermal energy has been around since the 20th century. Unlike wind and solar energy, geothermal plants produce power at a constant rate, regardless of weather conditions. Geothermal resources are theoretically more than adequate to supply humanity’s energy needs.
A geothermal district heating system in France has been operating since the 15th century. The first district heating system powered by geothermal energy in the U.S. was in Boise, Idaho in 1892 and the world’s first known building to use geothermal energy as its primary heat source was the Hot Lake Hotel in Union County, Oregon in 1907.
As solar and wind power continue to expand, Planetary Lifeguard™ predicts it may not be long before more countries empower their economies not with fossil fuels but with local, clean renewable energy.
Melting glaciers
Still, while Iceland is not a major emitter of planet-warming emissions, the effects of climate change are beginning to transform its landscape.
One of its glaciers, Okjokull, has completely melted away. Over the next 200 years, scientists expect the rest — including the massive Vatnajokull glacier, which covers some 3,000 square miles — to disappear as well.
As major glaciers melt, some research suggests their shifting weight could trigger more volcanic and seismic activity. Already, subterranean tremors are damaging some towns’ pipes and triggering flash floods.
Warmer weather is affecting plants and animals too. Iceland’s native plants are at risk of extinction as temperatures rise.
One of the country’s most important fish, the capelin, has occasionally vanished and like all coastal cities, Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, is in jeopardy from rising sea level.
Planetary Lifeguard’s main message here is that there is no corner of this earth unaffected by climate change, so we’d better start acting and thinking like thermostats, not just thermometers and concentrate more on capturing than releasing carbon into our atmosphere.
Capturing carbon
Icelanders are enthusiastic about a small business with an early foothold in the country, Carbfix, a leader in capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide underground. Climeworks, a Swiss company there is also a leader in pulling carbon dioxide directly from the air.
Planetary Lifeguard™ sees in the years ahead, carbon removal and storage will become a big business, with similar facilities cropping up hopefully around the globe. Our omniscient climate coach and cheerleader Planetary lifeguard™ gives three cheers to Iceland for taking the lead toward a safer, cooler planet.
Tom Madden is a cheerleader for whatever helps to combat climate change and to lead in that direction he created Planetary Lifeguard™. When not cheerleading he’s writing articles, blogs and books, his latest WORDSHINE MAN, about how to make writing inviting. When not doing that which he loves, he’s managing the public relations firm TransMedia Group he started when he left NBC around the end of the last ice age when he was much younger, but less wise than he is today.