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> If we stop burning oil now it will get worse for a while, and then it will get better again. It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on timescale

> If we stop burning oil now it will get worse for a while, and then it will get better again. It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on timescales that matter to our species anyway. >It also gives us the option to work on carbon capture and mitigation technologies. Couldn't we do that while still burning fossil fuels? Not sure why we'd have to stop burning in order to have the option to work on capture and mitigation. > If we just carry on it's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse until it doesn't matter any more. It's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse in that case. But we might already be at the point where it doesn't matter anymore. I wonder, at what point would you say it doesn't matter anymore? How do you know? > The first is the rational choice, especially when the momentum in the models already accounts for likely future changes. That's the rational choice based on the conclusions you have personally come to, along with your own mental predisposition. I don't believe the situation is simple enough to say that this is the only rational choice for everybody.

myshpa 3y ago
> It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on timescales that matter to our species anyway. But it could. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/massive-forest-restoration-could-greatly-slow-global-warming https://getpocket.com/explore/item/massive-forest-restoratio... The right trees, planted in the right locations (0.9 billion hectares), could store 205 gigatons of carbon dioxide. ... That's two thirds of all the CO2 humans have generated since the industrial revolution. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares So we could plant not just 0.9 billion hectares but 3 billion. Twice as much CO2 as we have generated since the industrial revolution. > Couldn't we do that while still burning fossil fuels? Not sure why we'd have to stop burning in order to have the option to work on capture and mitigation. Because those technologies don't work at the scale needed. Check how much we're producing and how much carbon those factories are able to store. We'd need tens of thousands of them.

myshpa 3y ago

> It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on timescales that matter to our species anyway. But it could. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/massive-forest-restoration-could-greatly-slow-global-warming https://getpocket.com/explore/item/massive-forest-restoratio... The right trees, planted in the right locations (0.9 billion hectares), could store 205 gigatons of carbon dioxide. ... That's two thirds of all the CO2 humans have generated since the industrial revolution. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares So we could plant not just 0.9 billion hectares but 3 billion. Twice as much CO2 as we have generated since the industrial revolution. > Couldn't we do that while still burning fossil fuels? Not sure why we'd have to stop burning in order to have the option to work on capture and mitigation. Because those technologies don't work at the scale needed. Check how much we're producing and how much carbon those factories are able to store. We'd need tens of thousands of them.