There’s no doubt that, as a species, we will change our world in ways that will ultimately cause cataclysmic consequences - I view managing potential climate change as just one aspect of a much broader issue of ensuring sustainability. Related topics - global warming, energy crises, pollution management and waste disposal, food production and shortages, and more recent, clean and accessible water supply - etc.
They’ve all been, and remain, pressing issues, particularly since the worldwide population hit 3 billion in the 60s. Now it’s at almost 7.5 billion. The UN predicts, despite drastically slowing birth rates in many of the most developed countries, that it’ll reach close to 11 billion by the end of the century - the bulk of which will come from growth in Africa, which is predicted to grow from just over 1 billion to 4.2 billion in that time - given the horrific crises that continent already faces, and the fact that its current use of energy is extremely modest relative to other locations (and so their needs, even without population growth, will rapidly grow if their economies develop), the consequences of having to that many additional people needing food, water, and energy - most of which will come from fossil fuels and coal in particular (which has already skyrocketed over 400% worldwide just since the year 2000) - are going to be egregious and cataclysmic beyond our current comprehension at some point.
That just can’t be prevented given those trajectories, so excuse me if I lack your faith in the abilities of an ex-high school teacher and a former social convener to save the day. Ultimately, the planet will be unable to sustain humanity’s continued population growth and there will be cataclysmic consequences - whether that’s due to a side effect of our inevitably increasing resource use (and harvesting), which alters climate and ecosystems - or due to direct conflicts over resources and cultural clashes due to differing population growth rates and expansion into new regions.
So everything we do should be oriented around long-term sustainability, which is why I don’t understand why anyone could possibly be against the development and expansion of green or alternative energy programs. I also don’t understand how anyone could think that reducing the western world’s reliance on fossil fuels could “save the world”, or why mitigation plans to deal with an inevitably changing world aren’t as prominently discussed since the world will never stop increasing its energy production needs (and use of all available resources to do so, including all remaining fossil fuels on this orb), or believe returning to solely organic or natural food production is conceivable, or believe limiting their hot water showers in Quebec City is somehow going to address unpreventable portable water shortages in the 3rd world by population growth, or believe there won’t be horrific consequences to allowing organizations and regimes that support terrorism, seek nuclear weapons, and follow savage ideologies to expand and grow stronger.
No amount of solar panels are going to stop potential conflicts that may be unavoidable on the basis of population growth and resulting proportionate resource inequalities alone. But they’re still constructive. Just not the whole picture, and since a single nuclear attack on a major city will trigger more deaths and consequences far more egregious to the humans currently on this planet than anything else, ensuring there are solar panels in Martha Vineyard is the epitome of a small potatoes concern given its negligible impact on the challenges humanity faces. But they’re still a good thing to do.
some resources on the stats above:
