3 ms·

We're going to lose this fight, aren't we?

meristohm 2y ago
Most of us alive today, sure. Some humans and other animals will probably squeak through. Dooming shouldn't stop us from acting, though. Lobby for sane steps based on concepts laid out in Low-Tech Magazine, for example (notably how much energy it costs to make steel, how important it is to heat our bodies first and then maybe the spaces we're in, and how important it is to get off the new-tech treadmill- the old ways worked for tens of thousands of years and are still great), make bold decisions in this direction even if unpopular (I don't fly anymore, and some in my family are uncomfortable with that. That's how culture starts to shift), and focus on what's within your power (which can shift over time, so stay nimble and aware). We'll be okay. It's okay to die- it makes life all the richer.
jfengel 2y ago
No, but only because we never put up a fight. We didn't even really try on climate change. We made a few token efforts. And some progress was made by accident -- swapping out coal for natural gas, building renewables so be more self-reliant, electric cars because they have lower total cost of ownership, and so on. But we never did anything that required anybody to change their lifestyle. We didn't put on a carbon tax. We built more suburbs, and their mandatory automobiles. We didn't figure out how to build without concrete. The chart of CO2 levels is just a straight line. There's no inflection point at all, nowhere you can say "Oh, here is where they noticed the problem and started to fight it." https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ So yeah, we're gonna lose. You always lose if you don't even try.
- staunton 2y ago
  We'll start trying when the consequences are felt. It will be too late to prevent a major catastrophe but not too late to prevent an even bigger one.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    I suppose that there is always some way that it can become even worse. But by the time the consequences are felt enough to get people to do something, the costs are going to be a hundred times what they are right now. Actually dealing with climate change is hard. It takes real effort. People are going to want to cheat. People are going to point fingers at everybody else as the real culprits. Actually getting to genuine net zero will take decades... and that's a process we have not started yet. So yeah, maybe by then we can prevent it from hitting 8C. But if we wait for the consequences to be felt, such that the deniers are dismissed from the table and the actual hard work can begin, then 4C is unavoidable. And "major catastrophe" massively underplays how much damage that will cause.
    - staunton 2y ago
      > then 4C is unavoidable Is this estimate of yours based on anything or just gut feeling? I like to draw a comparison with world wars. As a fraction of GDP, the world spent more on WW2 than what is needed to solve climate change. Having such a war was also hard, took real effort, people cheated, pointed fingers, etc. Also, lot of people died. But we did it anyway. So it's an important and interesting question what exactly it takes for countries to go into emergency mode and take action on such a scale. Working it out seems really hard though. To get to something like your "4C" figure, you would have to look at what kind of catastrophes and damage need to happen to force how much investment into a solution (I guess this is very hard, one would consider a number of possible scenarios), how soon we expect such catastrophic consequences to happen at places where a lot of people live, how much action we can reasonably expect they will take, and how much that action will actually help. The people that The Guardian asked presumably also tried to take all of this into account and arrived at less than "3C".

Most of us alive today, sure. Some humans and other animals will probably squeak through. Dooming shouldn't stop us from acting, though. Lobby for sane steps based on concepts laid out in Low-Tech Magazine, for example (notably how much energy it costs to make steel, how important it is to heat our bodies first and then maybe the spaces we're in, and how important it is to get off the new-tech treadmill- the old ways worked for tens of thousands of years and are still great), make bold decisions in this direction even if unpopular (I don't fly anymore, and some in my family are uncomfortable with that. That's how culture starts to shift), and focus on what's within your power (which can shift over time, so stay nimble and aware). We'll be okay. It's okay to die- it makes life all the richer.

jfengel 2y ago

No, but only because we never put up a fight. We didn't even really try on climate change. We made a few token efforts. And some progress was made by accident -- swapping out coal for natural gas, building renewables so be more self-reliant, electric cars because they have lower total cost of ownership, and so on. But we never did anything that required anybody to change their lifestyle. We didn't put on a carbon tax. We built more suburbs, and their mandatory automobiles. We didn't figure out how to build without concrete. The chart of CO2 levels is just a straight line. There's no inflection point at all, nowhere you can say "Oh, here is where they noticed the problem and started to fight it." https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ So yeah, we're gonna lose. You always lose if you don't even try.

staunton 2y ago
We'll start trying when the consequences are felt. It will be too late to prevent a major catastrophe but not too late to prevent an even bigger one.
- jfengel 2y ago
  I suppose that there is always some way that it can become even worse. But by the time the consequences are felt enough to get people to do something, the costs are going to be a hundred times what they are right now. Actually dealing with climate change is hard. It takes real effort. People are going to want to cheat. People are going to point fingers at everybody else as the real culprits. Actually getting to genuine net zero will take decades... and that's a process we have not started yet. So yeah, maybe by then we can prevent it from hitting 8C. But if we wait for the consequences to be felt, such that the deniers are dismissed from the table and the actual hard work can begin, then 4C is unavoidable. And "major catastrophe" massively underplays how much damage that will cause.
  - staunton 2y ago
    > then 4C is unavoidable Is this estimate of yours based on anything or just gut feeling? I like to draw a comparison with world wars. As a fraction of GDP, the world spent more on WW2 than what is needed to solve climate change. Having such a war was also hard, took real effort, people cheated, pointed fingers, etc. Also, lot of people died. But we did it anyway. So it's an important and interesting question what exactly it takes for countries to go into emergency mode and take action on such a scale. Working it out seems really hard though. To get to something like your "4C" figure, you would have to look at what kind of catastrophes and damage need to happen to force how much investment into a solution (I guess this is very hard, one would consider a number of possible scenarios), how soon we expect such catastrophic consequences to happen at places where a lot of people live, how much action we can reasonably expect they will take, and how much that action will actually help. The people that The Guardian asked presumably also tried to take all of this into account and arrived at less than "3C".