3 ms·

I doubt that very much. More precisely, the scale required to make any change in terms of human time rather than geological time just isn't there. Again, go b

I doubt that very much. More precisely, the scale required to make any change in terms of human time rather than geological time just isn't there. Again, go back to the data: How is a country or a person better than all of humanity evaporating? Let's say the US evaporates from the planet on Monday. No change. Atmospheric CO2 will continue to rise. China? Same problem. India? Same problem. Once you look at the data dispassionately it is hard to conclude we have the ability to do a thing about it. What we can and should be doing is to understand and model changes and plan for society to adapt. I also believe the planet's own regulatory system is reacting to counter our influence, the question is one of scale and time. I haven't found any evidence that says the planet can fix this in 50 years when it has historically taken 50,000 without humanity around to muck it up.

WhompingWindows 7y ago
It's not that complicated, Jigar Shah is the biggest proponent: pay farmers to sequester carbon in their soil. It's much more cost effective than any other carbon-negative solution other than planting massive forests, which we ALSO need to do. Along with forests and carbon-negative-farms, we simply need to innovate and make policies to end coal, end oil, and end natural gas, slowly but surely over the century. If we do these things, we have a chance of being alright.
- robomartin 7y ago
  How is that better than if humanity left earth? If we left, it would take 50,000 years for a 100 ppm drop in CO2 (which is roughly what we need). How is farmers doing as you suggest going to accelerate this to a meaningful human scale rather than 50,000 years. It can't. It won't. Because the things you propose will not do a thing about reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration. They won't even stop it. We already understand that if we convert the entire planet to the most optimal (efficient, clean, cheap, etc.) forms of renewable energy sources not only will atmospheric CO2 accumulation not stop, it will continue to rise exponentially. Again, not my opinions. This is super simple science. Not hard to understand at all. Any claim made must explain how it will improve the rate of change a thousand fold. In other words, just making a claim that sounds good does not make it true.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

It's not that complicated, Jigar Shah is the biggest proponent: pay farmers to sequester carbon in their soil. It's much more cost effective than any other carbon-negative solution other than planting massive forests, which we ALSO need to do. Along with forests and carbon-negative-farms, we simply need to innovate and make policies to end coal, end oil, and end natural gas, slowly but surely over the century. If we do these things, we have a chance of being alright.

robomartin 7y ago
How is that better than if humanity left earth? If we left, it would take 50,000 years for a 100 ppm drop in CO2 (which is roughly what we need). How is farmers doing as you suggest going to accelerate this to a meaningful human scale rather than 50,000 years. It can't. It won't. Because the things you propose will not do a thing about reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration. They won't even stop it. We already understand that if we convert the entire planet to the most optimal (efficient, clean, cheap, etc.) forms of renewable energy sources not only will atmospheric CO2 accumulation not stop, it will continue to rise exponentially. Again, not my opinions. This is super simple science. Not hard to understand at all. Any claim made must explain how it will improve the rate of change a thousand fold. In other words, just making a claim that sounds good does not make it true.