4 ms·
A. "serious bicycle or transit prioritization in our major (US) urban areas" will not make a dent in the world global emissions. B. The level of cuts required
by bookofsand 5y ago
A. "serious bicycle or transit prioritization in our major (US) urban areas" will not make a dent in the world global emissions.
B. The level of cuts required to bring the world to sustainable emissions level, combined with global population growth and global equity, would require that everybody to live with under 1.7t/year CO2 emissions by 2050. This is the level of Albania, Colombia or Morocco, complete political dead end on both left and right.
The crux of the problem is that there are no solutions. Even the 'we should do something about it' crowd is utterly incapable in articulating the depth of the cuts needed avert disaster, or articulate the life of the average American after such cuts. Hint: the Great Depression would be 'the good times' in comparison.
- scoofy 5y agoCool, low-hanging fruit is just, woe is me, too much trouble! No problem, let's do nothing then. Should be a fun ride. Going to be Great Depression either way! I'm not saying we can fix it, I'm a nihilist at this point, I'm saying we could have fixed it 15 years ago.
- bookofsand 5y agoThe US should figure out ways to cut emissions in half. Unfortunately: A. That will not fix the global problem, as US population is too small. Even if we were to completely shut down energy production in the US, the rest of the world would build enough power plants to cover for it and then some in less than 20 years. Industrialization of 10 billion people (3% in the US) is not pretty. B. It is unclear what to concretely do in the US to significantly cut emissions. To simplify, the right doesn't want to hear about it, and the left is content with promoting minor inconsequential Potemkiniads. We never had a chance to fix the problem, not with 10 billion people yearning an escape from poverty.