The Four-Hour Work Day is a workable adaptation to climate change

James Hansen has told New York Times readers that “Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening”.

NASA's James Hansen
being arrested.

Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is the author of “Storms of My Grandchildren”, reaffirmed his earlier warnings (much earlier as the first came in the 1980s) in the piece headed: “Game Over for the Climate”.

Also discussing similar issue in its “Climate Snapshot”, The Vancouver Observer reported in a story headed “Global warming increasing by 400,000 atomic bombs everyday” the “Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, our past C02 emissions will continue to add hundreds of thousands of A-bombs worth of energy each day for years”.

Endless adaptations to climate change are being proposed, including the idea (it’s actually working) that we re-engineer the DNA of certain species causing them to excrete diesel, fuel that can be used in vehicles and while undeniably exciting, the development is still in its early stages and without the fossil fuel infrastructure its likely impact in a useful human time frame will be infinitesimally small.

"Storms of my Granchildren"
 by James Hansen.

The Four-Hour Work Day is something that requires nothing in the way of infrastructure, it can be implemented immediately, it will slow dramatically human consumption and energy use, and in making each of us less reliant on income and more dependent on our neighbourhoods, the world will be a better place and so, by implication, we will slow the human impact on our climate.

Attitude, a preparedness to surrender some of the pleasantries our energy-rich life has bequeathed us and the personal will to opt for the Four-Hour Work Day is the only thing that stands between us and working together to abate our worsening climate.