I mean, IPCC seems pretty confident that you can limit temperature rise to a certain amount if you slash carbon output. What’s lacking is political will. If a magic science solution comes along, great, but it seems unwise to put all our eggs in that basket when the habitability of Earth is at stake.
I agree and I’m all for cutting carbon emissions, but I don’t know if we will see it happen before its too late. We should be a leader in the fight against global warming instead of a leader in climate change denial.
A couple of problems… The IPCC is fairly conservative in its findings/projections for a variety of reasons. (It’s a consensus report with a political audience, scientists are conservative by nature and prefer to err on The side of conservative projections, no one wants to be seen as alarmist, there is a fear of discouraging action by making climate catastrophe seem inevitable, and models need to account for a bewildering number of feedback loops many of which are as yet unknown.)
But even then, as you say, what is technically possible is practically impossible when you factor in politics and economics. So their confidence is kind of fucked from both sides.
If the alternative is despair or waiting for a deus ex machina, I still don’t see where doing everything possible to turn the Titanic’s rudder isn’t a rational response to the problem at hand. After all, there is nothing about carbon reduction that precludes simultaneous massive research efforts for capture technology.
Interesting analogy, given that they say now that if the Titanic hadn’t tried to turn away and gotten that gash along the side of the ship, a head-on collision might have been less damaging to the ship. So the rational response was not the correct move in retrospect with hindsight 20-20.
It’s just an analogy, dude.
Don’t adopt despair or defeatism. It leads to no action when any action, even just political support for GHG action, helps.
The world has an enormous capacity to absorb GHGs, we’re just above it. It isn’t an insurmountable problem. @Enidigm’s list is ridiculous - we don’t need 0-point energy or to kill 7 billion people
All it really takes to address climate change is one single action; a rising carbon tax. Many countries have it and it works. Granted, the tax needs to rise faster than is currently politically acceptable, but that could change, with support.
There are low hanging fruit that can make a big difference. Coal-based heat and electricity are still popular world-wide and are easily replaced.
Those of us with a home / sufficient can buy an EV and a solar roof and become a part of the net solution instead of the problem, and it doesn’t even require a major lifestyle change. I think there are a few people on this forum with this combination or at least one or the other. I don’t have $70K right now, but it’s not an insurmountable amount of money for a lot of people. I do drive an economy car at least.
My family has reduced our meat intake, and especially red meat. For me, from now on, an 8-oz steak is plenty. I’ve had the A&W beyond meat burger a bunch of times now; it tastes good and it has 180 fewer calories, so it’s win-win for me.
We can’t wait around for technology, but it helps too. Improving PV, lower cost of battery storage, cheaper EVs, LED lights (do you have any incandescent now?).
It’s actually doable, bottom line.
It’s funny how many visions of the ‘sustainable’ future start with first, let’s kill everyone.
To be clear, most of the political will that’s lacking appears to be in the US with the GOP. . Even China is taking huge steps now.
Oh, no what I was saying wasn’t what was good, but what would work.
Climate change is based at its ultimate level upon energy and consumption. We can reduce consumption or increase the available energy. The easiest way to reduce consumption is the reduce the number of consumers. When the population grows, energy consumption grows. When the population declines, energy consumption declines.
But modern debt driven Western economies actually stop working when economies fail to grow. We’re requiring an economic system that demands constant growth in order to just to be sustainable at the same time that a never ending cycle of growth is the very thing that’s going to sink the planet.
That doesn’t make it the best way. But it’s a challenge going forward to understand this interplay between population, energy consumption, and standards of living as well as socioeconomic factors such as zoning and building laws, the relations between public and private transport, consumerism and the effects of globalization on international transportation and commerce, and on and on.
It’s like Starbucks not putting that little cardboard sleeve around a cardboard cup by default. Sure… it helps. But you’re burning a gallon/liter of gas in your car to get there. It’s like 100 steps forward and 1 ant step back.
There are a ton of things we can do to increase efficiency. But ultimately, really, we need nuclear power if we are serious about climate change. That’s just step one. Wind and solar are intermittent and can’t be used by themselves without a substantial improvement in storage capacity, although there is a bit of progress here.
Bro even Thanos wasn’t that extreme.
Just for kicks, if ten generations had only 1 child per man/woman couple (not thinking identity here, just 50% male 50% female population) on average, napkin math says the earth would reduce down to about 8 million people.
Sure. It’s almost like we need an intergovernmental panel on climate change. And a bunch of Universities and colleges researching it from a variety of angles, from direct source to land-use and urbanization. Developing a good understanding of the magnitude of the problem and the type of actions necessary to to address it. Say, developing some targets that are both attainable and easy to understand. We could develop those targets at a conference in Kyoto, for example. Or, if explicit targets are too difficult to enforce or commit to, flexible targets as part of a larger agreement in principle; maybe we could meet in Paris to discuss these targets.
The problem is well understood and targets are attainable but, I agree, are politically difficult, especially in the USA.
Also note, hard-right conservatives took power in Alberta, Canada last night, among their promises is a repeal of the carbon tax, so it is difficult, no doubt.
So what you’re saying is we need a genophage, like the Krogan got.
Hmm… is there any other sci-fi we can work in?
I’m sure there’s a relevant episode of Star Trek.
I mean fundamentally i’m highly skeptical. We live in a time where conservatives by and large desire inertia - stasis. Conservatives are some % of the population in most Western countries, 40-60% moving west to east more or less.
I don’t know how we tackle big issues like climate change that demand big changes in our economies without the solution being profitable, ie, a way to make money. As long as the solution is somebody has to pay more, somebody gets less, somebody is inconvenienced, we’re going to spend most of our time fighting among ourselves.
The conservatives in America, just to take the example, want nothing more than to undo every step forward liberals have made, no matter what the means in a broader sense. They’re indifferent to the long term implications of their actions, content to tear and bite at the hated enemies’ accomplishments. Even if they’re not entirely successful liberals are trapped spending all their effort just holding the line and creeping forward at whatever pace conservatives find imperceptible.
Isn’t it with the ones who don’t agree where the problems crop up?
Personally, I wouldn’t try to sell the link between population and carbon footprint too hard as a solution, because 1) it isn’t actually that clear, and 2) it’s the hardest sell.
Oh, no, that’s “here in the shadows” talk, not anything anyone with half a brain cell would say in public.
In real life of course this is implausible. But it also means that the most effective tool we have, and literally the easiest solution (over time), just not having as many kids, is off the table.
I don’t get why you think it’s easy. What happens to societies that collapse to 1% of their population size in 10 generations? I’m guessing it’s…not pretty.