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This strikes me as a very defeatist and Malthusian take on the world, and, frankly, too US-centric. While the US hasn’t managed the political will for signific

This strikes me as a very defeatist and Malthusian take on the world, and, frankly, too US-centric. While the US hasn’t managed the political will for significant climate reform, we are far from the majority of the world, and even if we magically had a green revolution and became the worlds first zero-emission nation, it’s unlikely that this would be enough to avert climate change. The developing world wants modern life, and if they have to burn fossil fuels to catch up, they will. There are really only a few situations that lead to radical global change: 1. Severe crisis, such as a nation-ending war. 2. Extraordinary visionary leadership in the right place at the right time... which often leads to serious crises such as nation-ending wars. Otherwise, progress comes from the chaotic, messy evolution of humanity. Perhaps we will innovate our way out of climate disaster, perhaps the ecology will gradually change and we’ll be forced to adapt, or (my guess) perhaps some of both. The good news is we actually have a lot of the technology we need, and more is being developed all the time. I for one am optimistic that between innovation and adaptation the future will continue to be bright.

credit_guy 5y ago
> even if we magically had a green revolution and became the worlds first zero-emission nation, it’s unlikely that this would be enough to avert climate change. It's actually quite likely that it would go a long way towards averting climate change. Sure, the US contributes only about 6 GT of greenhouse gases of the 50 GT emitted by the whole world annually, so it first seems that zeroing out this would still result in 44 GT worth of emissions left. But going from 6 GT to zero cannot be done without huge innovation. Technological innovation, innovation in policy, oversight, enforcement. These pieces of innovation can (and will) be shared with the rest of the world. When the price of solar panels went down, it went down globally. If the US Navy implements a way to scrub CO2 out of seawater and make fuel out of it [1], others can use the method too. Even if the US won't share the technology outright, just knowing it can be done will let others know the idea is worth investing in. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715123120.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715123120.h...
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The innovation is the easy part. The hard part is that the structure of our governance is such that extractive industries wield way more power than they would in other environments.
Iv 5y ago
No, that does not require some incredible earth-shattering event. It requires political consensus of a majority of nations. Like was done to forbid emissions of ozon-layer damaging chemicals. People thought that obviously, all countries would see the common interest in protecting Earth's climate. There was ONE major rogue nation in this big plan: USA. G.W Bush was the one who presented climate change denial as a respectable policy. I am not sure people measure the impact of this position. Most other advanced countries cut down their emissions, much more than the US did (no, it is not a matter of density, distance between cities or so on: even if you remove all emissions due to vehicles, USA is still way above EU). > The developing world wants modern life, and if they have to burn fossil fuels to catch up, they will. China will peak at a much lower level of CO2/capita than the US currently has. Given the current trajectory, it is quite possible that China will never in its history emit more CO2/capita than the US. > Extraordinary visionary leadership in the right place at the right time Give me a break. Listening to the consensus of experts, both international and domestic experts, on issues that threaten the whole ecosystem, is not "visionary leadership". It is called "not electing a cartoon villain in office". > even if we magically had a green revolution and became the worlds first zero-emission nation You would also need to nuke Bhutan and Suriname, two carbon-negative countries.
dcolkitt 5y ago
My sincere guess is that we'll kludge the problem with relatively low-tech geoengineering solutions. Primarily stratospheric aerosol injections. The technology is very well understood and fully mature. We know with certainty, from historical volcano eruptions, that a large enough dosage will lower global temperatures near instantly. And the cost is low enough that even a single mid-size economy could afford to unilaterally engage in it. The downsides are secondary environmental effects (e.g. ocean acidification), the hesitancy of a single country to make a climate altering decision for the rest of the world, and the general bad optics of sweeping the problem under the rug for future generations. All that being said, up until now the tangible costs of climate have so far been relatively mild. If nothing big enough gets done on the carbon side, which seems increasingly likely, then warming will reach the point where it starts imposing major economic and humanitarian costs. At that point, it's nigh inevitable that at least one major power will bite the bullet and start pumping the stratosphere full of sulfur dioxide.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  I’ve seen enough sci fi movies and watched human behavior long enough that the aerosol idea terrifies me. I can see that going so wrong and plunging us into an ice age that we didn’t predict or many other scenarios because we didn’t understand everything as well as we thought we did. Let’s hope that is the absolute last resort. And I’m not anti science. I’m a former scientist and almost all my experiments usually ended with me realizing I don’t know what I thought I knew, especially when I took something from a simple system I understood and added it to a complex system (the earth in this scenario).
  - labster 5y ago
    Atmospheric scientist here, currently non-practicing. You’re making the same mistake that climate denialists make, but in reverse. We actually know a great deal about climate feedback mechanisms now. We know the residence time of SO2 in the upper atmosphere. We know how to calculate the change in solar flux as a result. We can model what will happen — we know this because our past climate models did well with the uncontrolled experiment we're already running. Simply because the Earth system is complex doesn’t mean we don’t understand it enough to foresee catastrophic failure. And if we overshoot cooling, we know how to fix it. Just pump methane into the atmosphere. Stuff lasts a few decades before breaking into ozone and CO2 (via NOx). We already know how that turns out because we’re doing it now. Lack of perfect knowledge about the Earth-atmosphere system is not an excuse for inaction. The grand experiment was already begun in the 1800s, and it’s too late to call it off now. We must take both decarbonization and geoengineering strategies if we want to escape the worst of this.
Lammy 5y ago
> frankly, too US-centric Try buying petroleum from OPEC in anything but USD: https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/data_graphs/40.htm https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/data_graphs/40.htm Corollary: http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/ http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/
- chrisco255 5y ago
  USD is the world reserve currency. Most international trading occurs in terms of dollars.

credit_guy 5y ago

> even if we magically had a green revolution and became the worlds first zero-emission nation, it’s unlikely that this would be enough to avert climate change. It's actually quite likely that it would go a long way towards averting climate change. Sure, the US contributes only about 6 GT of greenhouse gases of the 50 GT emitted by the whole world annually, so it first seems that zeroing out this would still result in 44 GT worth of emissions left. But going from 6 GT to zero cannot be done without huge innovation. Technological innovation, innovation in policy, oversight, enforcement. These pieces of innovation can (and will) be shared with the rest of the world. When the price of solar panels went down, it went down globally. If the US Navy implements a way to scrub CO2 out of seawater and make fuel out of it [1], others can use the method too. Even if the US won't share the technology outright, just knowing it can be done will let others know the idea is worth investing in. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715123120.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200715123120.h...

Spooky23 5y ago
The innovation is the easy part. The hard part is that the structure of our governance is such that extractive industries wield way more power than they would in other environments.

Iv 5y ago

No, that does not require some incredible earth-shattering event. It requires political consensus of a majority of nations. Like was done to forbid emissions of ozon-layer damaging chemicals. People thought that obviously, all countries would see the common interest in protecting Earth's climate. There was ONE major rogue nation in this big plan: USA. G.W Bush was the one who presented climate change denial as a respectable policy. I am not sure people measure the impact of this position. Most other advanced countries cut down their emissions, much more than the US did (no, it is not a matter of density, distance between cities or so on: even if you remove all emissions due to vehicles, USA is still way above EU). > The developing world wants modern life, and if they have to burn fossil fuels to catch up, they will. China will peak at a much lower level of CO2/capita than the US currently has. Given the current trajectory, it is quite possible that China will never in its history emit more CO2/capita than the US. > Extraordinary visionary leadership in the right place at the right time Give me a break. Listening to the consensus of experts, both international and domestic experts, on issues that threaten the whole ecosystem, is not "visionary leadership". It is called "not electing a cartoon villain in office". > even if we magically had a green revolution and became the worlds first zero-emission nation You would also need to nuke Bhutan and Suriname, two carbon-negative countries.

dcolkitt 5y ago

My sincere guess is that we'll kludge the problem with relatively low-tech geoengineering solutions. Primarily stratospheric aerosol injections. The technology is very well understood and fully mature. We know with certainty, from historical volcano eruptions, that a large enough dosage will lower global temperatures near instantly. And the cost is low enough that even a single mid-size economy could afford to unilaterally engage in it. The downsides are secondary environmental effects (e.g. ocean acidification), the hesitancy of a single country to make a climate altering decision for the rest of the world, and the general bad optics of sweeping the problem under the rug for future generations. All that being said, up until now the tangible costs of climate have so far been relatively mild. If nothing big enough gets done on the carbon side, which seems increasingly likely, then warming will reach the point where it starts imposing major economic and humanitarian costs. At that point, it's nigh inevitable that at least one major power will bite the bullet and start pumping the stratosphere full of sulfur dioxide.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I’ve seen enough sci fi movies and watched human behavior long enough that the aerosol idea terrifies me. I can see that going so wrong and plunging us into an ice age that we didn’t predict or many other scenarios because we didn’t understand everything as well as we thought we did. Let’s hope that is the absolute last resort. And I’m not anti science. I’m a former scientist and almost all my experiments usually ended with me realizing I don’t know what I thought I knew, especially when I took something from a simple system I understood and added it to a complex system (the earth in this scenario).
- labster 5y ago
  Atmospheric scientist here, currently non-practicing. You’re making the same mistake that climate denialists make, but in reverse. We actually know a great deal about climate feedback mechanisms now. We know the residence time of SO2 in the upper atmosphere. We know how to calculate the change in solar flux as a result. We can model what will happen — we know this because our past climate models did well with the uncontrolled experiment we're already running. Simply because the Earth system is complex doesn’t mean we don’t understand it enough to foresee catastrophic failure. And if we overshoot cooling, we know how to fix it. Just pump methane into the atmosphere. Stuff lasts a few decades before breaking into ozone and CO2 (via NOx). We already know how that turns out because we’re doing it now. Lack of perfect knowledge about the Earth-atmosphere system is not an excuse for inaction. The grand experiment was already begun in the 1800s, and it’s too late to call it off now. We must take both decarbonization and geoengineering strategies if we want to escape the worst of this.

Lammy 5y ago

> frankly, too US-centric Try buying petroleum from OPEC in anything but USD: https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/data_graphs/40.htm https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/data_graphs/40.htm Corollary: http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/ http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/

chrisco255 5y ago
USD is the world reserve currency. Most international trading occurs in terms of dollars.