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2 billion people consuming as much as the average American does right now gets you in a much worse situation than the current one. The only solution is strong

2 billion people consuming as much as the average American does right now gets you in a much worse situation than the current one. The only solution is strong government action to reduce emissions and environmental consequences of consumption. It's not completely un precedented: the hole in the ozone layer was the unavoidable apocalypse in the late 90s and is an almost solved problem right now.

UncleOxidant 5y ago
Sure, we did mount a concerted effort to solve the ozone problem. But that was a lot easier to do than what we need to do now. We needed to change the types of propellants used in aerosol spays and we needed to change the types of refrigerants we used - it was lucky that we had pretty equivalent and readily available replacements. But now to solve the myriad of challenges we face we need to reduce consumption of many different resources at once - sacrifices will need to be made. Big sacrifices in some cases. And given our current political climate, sacrifices aren't popular (not that they have ever been, but especially not now).
titzer 5y ago
> is an almost solved problem right now. I wish. We only halted its growth and it is only barely healed. From Wikipedia [1]: > A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized. Although considerable variability is expected from year to year, including in polar regions where depletion is largest, the ozone layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades due to declining ozone-depleting substance concentrations, assuming full compliance with the Montreal Protocol.[107] > The Antarctic ozone hole is expected to continue for decades. Ozone concentrations in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica will increase by 5–10 percent by 2020 and return to pre-1980 levels by about 2060–2075. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_ozone_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_o...

UncleOxidant 5y ago

Sure, we did mount a concerted effort to solve the ozone problem. But that was a lot easier to do than what we need to do now. We needed to change the types of propellants used in aerosol spays and we needed to change the types of refrigerants we used - it was lucky that we had pretty equivalent and readily available replacements. But now to solve the myriad of challenges we face we need to reduce consumption of many different resources at once - sacrifices will need to be made. Big sacrifices in some cases. And given our current political climate, sacrifices aren't popular (not that they have ever been, but especially not now).

titzer 5y ago

> is an almost solved problem right now. I wish. We only halted its growth and it is only barely healed. From Wikipedia [1]: > A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized. Although considerable variability is expected from year to year, including in polar regions where depletion is largest, the ozone layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades due to declining ozone-depleting substance concentrations, assuming full compliance with the Montreal Protocol.[107] > The Antarctic ozone hole is expected to continue for decades. Ozone concentrations in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica will increase by 5–10 percent by 2020 and return to pre-1980 levels by about 2060–2075. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_ozone_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_o...