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>Will the world come up with a plan to actually curb carbon emissions as much as we need to? Remove carbon? Not in time. Unless the plan involves some form of

>Will the world come up with a plan to actually curb carbon emissions as much as we need to? Remove carbon? Not in time. Unless the plan involves some form of genocide. But even genocide probably won't be fast enough without weapons of mass destruction. > A wide scale rises in temperature and other problems? That's not really a prediction anymore. The only question here is about the degree to which it rises and what the progression of the rise will look like (better or worse than log(n)?) > A huge impact on standard of living (setting us back X years) I think I'm going to start using the "entitlement of living" instead of standard of living here. Much of the western lifestyle seems purposefully wasteful, with planned obsolescence, unreasonable luxury and commitment to wasteful planning (suburbia, etc.) The reduction is inevitable, but the question here again, is of scale and time. >A near extinction of humans? Full? A near extinction of western civilization lifestyle. Possible split into 2 subspecies based on education, wealth and deliberate exclusion. I don't believe humans will become extinct on the Holocene scale (tens of thousands of years), but the difference between the current civilization and somewhere, say in 2500 might be staggering. Then again, humans are notoriously bad at planning at long time scales, so the year 3000 might be just as good as now or even better (but with the caveat of, say, vastly reduced population, perhaps of only 200-300 million worldwide) >Or somewhere else on the scale, or somewhere distinct from my portrayal? It seems you've made several very different portrayals that cover pretty much the entire scale of possibilities (catastrophic to optimistic). The good news is this: under status quo we can probably expect to live reasonably well in our lifetimes. The bad news is: if we want our future generations to live better than us, we have to consciously live much more frugally now and enact changes that might seem horrible and regressive to the current western mentality. I think humanity is slowly coming to an understanding that the planet really was a zero-sum game all along and that the period of unprecedented wealth and fossil fuel exploitation will come to an end eventually.

heurist 10y ago
The most optimistic predictions (as of July when I last checked in on it) have us hitting emissions targets with room to spare before the changes become irreversible. Most of the realistic ones had us barely making it, but still squeaking by. With this week's revelations, not sure that will be possible anymore... but to say the only reasonable plan involves genocide is ignorant. Renovating emissions-producing buildings, riding more bikes, motorcycles, and efficient vehicles, efficient appliances, iterating on renewable energy sources until they are cheaper than oil - all possible within 30 years if we can focus hard enough on making such a lifestyle palatable to consumers.
- vkou 10y ago
  At current rates of emissions, we don't have 30 years. We can't even burn all coal in actively operating mines, and hit the 2C temperature budget.
groby_b 10y ago
>>Will the world come up with a plan to actually curb carbon emissions as much as we need to? Remove carbon? >Not in time. Unless the plan involves some form of genocide. But even genocide probably won't be fast enough without weapons of mass destruction. Well, we're on track to address that problem. Russia is stepping up their nuclear programs, America has a man with little self-discipline in charge of the final decision, India & Pakistan really dislike each other, Iran is ignoring the nuclear treaty, and I'm sure Israel has a few nukes to spare as well. On the upside, the following nuclear winter will mitigate some of the greenhouse effects for a while, so we've got that going for us. > The good news is this: under status quo we can probably expect to live reasonably well in our lifetimes. That will be until roughly 2050, when things will go somewhat pear-shaped. So if you're younger than, say, 35 right now? Ooops. Sorry. > I think humanity is slowly coming to an understanding that the planet really was a zero-sum game all along Alas, it also understand that after they're dead, things don't really matter to them. And so we're in a race to extract maximum value in our lifetimes. We're pretty much doomed.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  > That will be until roughly 2050, when things will go somewhat pear-shaped. So if you're younger than, say, 35 right now? Ooops. Sorry. That's why Millenials are at a turning point. Do I just live it up trying to extract maximum value from my life before 70? Or do I really put in maximum effort into making Earth habitable for future generations? I'm just a monkey with a lizard brain, how can I possibly make an informed choice for the future 10-20 generations? And the choice is pointless without at least a 90% consensus.

heurist 10y ago

The most optimistic predictions (as of July when I last checked in on it) have us hitting emissions targets with room to spare before the changes become irreversible. Most of the realistic ones had us barely making it, but still squeaking by. With this week's revelations, not sure that will be possible anymore... but to say the only reasonable plan involves genocide is ignorant. Renovating emissions-producing buildings, riding more bikes, motorcycles, and efficient vehicles, efficient appliances, iterating on renewable energy sources until they are cheaper than oil - all possible within 30 years if we can focus hard enough on making such a lifestyle palatable to consumers.

vkou 10y ago
At current rates of emissions, we don't have 30 years. We can't even burn all coal in actively operating mines, and hit the 2C temperature budget.

groby_b 10y ago

>>Will the world come up with a plan to actually curb carbon emissions as much as we need to? Remove carbon? >Not in time. Unless the plan involves some form of genocide. But even genocide probably won't be fast enough without weapons of mass destruction. Well, we're on track to address that problem. Russia is stepping up their nuclear programs, America has a man with little self-discipline in charge of the final decision, India & Pakistan really dislike each other, Iran is ignoring the nuclear treaty, and I'm sure Israel has a few nukes to spare as well. On the upside, the following nuclear winter will mitigate some of the greenhouse effects for a while, so we've got that going for us. > The good news is this: under status quo we can probably expect to live reasonably well in our lifetimes. That will be until roughly 2050, when things will go somewhat pear-shaped. So if you're younger than, say, 35 right now? Ooops. Sorry. > I think humanity is slowly coming to an understanding that the planet really was a zero-sum game all along Alas, it also understand that after they're dead, things don't really matter to them. And so we're in a race to extract maximum value in our lifetimes. We're pretty much doomed.

antisthenes 10y ago
> That will be until roughly 2050, when things will go somewhat pear-shaped. So if you're younger than, say, 35 right now? Ooops. Sorry. That's why Millenials are at a turning point. Do I just live it up trying to extract maximum value from my life before 70? Or do I really put in maximum effort into making Earth habitable for future generations? I'm just a monkey with a lizard brain, how can I possibly make an informed choice for the future 10-20 generations? And the choice is pointless without at least a 90% consensus.