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The argument is moot now. Believe in climate change, don’t believe in it, doesn’t matter. Our children and grandchildren are fucked.
From the article What if We Stopped Pretending?
As a non-scientist, I do my own kind of modelling. I run various future scenarios through my brain, apply the constraints of human psychology and political reality, take note of the relentless rise in global energy consumption (thus far, the carbon savings provided by renewable energy have been more than offset by consumer demand), and count the scenarios in which collective action averts catastrophe. The scenarios, which I draw from the prescriptions of policy-makers and activists, share certain necessary conditions.
The first condition is that every one of the world’s major polluting countries institute draconian conservation measures, shut down much of its energy and transportation infrastructure, and completely retool its economy. According to a recent paper in Nature, the carbon emissions from existing global infrastructure, if operated through its normal lifetime, will exceed our entire emissions “allowance”—the further gigatons of carbon that can be released without crossing the threshold of catastrophe. (This estimate does not include the thousands of new energy and transportation projects already planned or under construction.) To stay within that allowance, a top-down intervention needs to happen not only in every country but throughout every country. Making New York City a green utopia will not avail if Texans keep pumping oil and driving pickup trucks.
The actions taken by these countries must also be the right ones. Vast sums of government money must be spent without wasting it and without lining the wrong pockets. Here it’s useful to recall the Kafkaesque joke of the European Union’s biofuel mandate, which served to accelerate the deforestation of Indonesia for palm-oil plantations, and the American subsidy of ethanol fuel, which turned out to benefit no one but corn farmers.
Finally, overwhelming numbers of human beings, including millions of government-hating Americans, need to accept high taxes and severe curtailment of their familiar life styles without revolting. They must accept the reality of climate change and have faith in the extreme measures taken to combat it. They can’t dismiss news they dislike as fake. They have to set aside nationalism and class and racial resentments. They have to make sacrifices for distant threatened nations and distant future generations. They have to be permanently terrified by hotter summers and more frequent natural disasters, rather than just getting used to them. Every day, instead of thinking about breakfast, they have to think about death.
Call me a pessimist or call me a humanist, but I don’t see human nature fundamentally changing anytime soon. I can run ten thousand scenarios through my model, and in not one of them do I see the two-degree target being met.
I happen to agree with her. Believe, don’t believe. Doesn’t matter. Nature and reality do not care. Jevon’s paradox doesn’t care. If you’re over 60 you won’t see the wasteland unless we have a black swan. If you’re between 30 and 60 you’ll see it because we will pass the tipping points. If you’re under 30 it’ll become your world. Under 10; Mad Max in your formative years.
Got wasteland survival skills?
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This reply was modified 9 months ago by
Mouse Wizard. Reason: Cleaned up exposed html tags
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This reply was modified 9 months ago by
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@Mouse Wizzard,
Based off what I have read about the Green New Deal, the fact like only 2 or 3 countries have even made the Paris accords target goals, and IF they were really honest with themselves about climate change and what really needs to be done to meet the 2 degree target temp, the whole world would have to go Amish lifestyle.
But they want, are counting on, some techno fix. They do not want to give up their smartphones (BBC report the IT sector consumes as much energy as the airline industry, world wide), their 2400+ sqft homes, their AC (recall the reccommendation of keeping your house at 78 degrees by the DOE?), driving, big screen TVs and out of season fruit.
So, that is why I think the whole idea is a joke. They are not serious, or have to intestinal fortitude to even talk about it.
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@ Mouse Wizard
Thank you for the info.
We should all be terrified.
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I read the New Yorker article in its entirety.
Even that yahoo got it wrong. All he talks about is reducing carbon emissions. NOT reducing Carbon Footprint.
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I went through the whole denial bargaining thing a while back. Now I’m training my children in wasteland survival, nomadic travel, and trades useful in the aftermath, should they be fortunate enough to find a viable community. They’ve each chosen a specialty.
A good read for this is Kunstler’s Witch of Hebron series. He thought it through fairly well, but he didn’t take into account that a significant amount of the country east of the Mississippi will be uninhabitable due to plumes from random nuclear fuel storage failures. Not all will fail; many will be successfully dealt with via heroic measures (if you knew the people that manned those facilities you’d agree), but a significant number will fail, and there’s no telling which ones. Basically, you can’t count on being able to settle on land east of the Mississippi until the dead zones are identified.
Here’s a map of US nuclear facilities.
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