October 30th, yesterday, was 70° where I live. In practically Canada. Concerningly warm for this time of year.
I rewatched The Day After Tomorrow, and while none of that is happening (and likely can’t happen), I kinda wish it did. But it won’t, and the lack of drastic impacts will continue to create more slow burning action from disaffected parties.
Uninhabitable…for humans!
We only know of one rock in all existence that’s habitable to humans or literally anything else. Relative to humans, yeah life finds a way cuz it’s a lot more resilient than us; relative to the kinds of extremes the universe of capable of producing, life is SUPER fragile.
So… yes, humans are fucked, but so are a lot of other critters, and who knows where all the feedback loops we’ve unleashed will end after we’re gone. Shit isn’t going to just magically get better once we’re gone.
Hopefully it’ll stabilize, but there comes a point that even the most hardy of extremophiles can’t survive, and if we cross that line, Earth becomes indistinguishable from every other lifeless rock in space.
if we cross that line, Earth becomes indistinguishable from every other lifeless rock in space.
But no other lifeless rock in space has abandoned shopping malls…
And massive markdowns on the fashions you love!
Don’t forget oceans chock FULL of PFOS!
but what about the economy and its growth 😰
The environment looks fine when you look at it through the lens of a fiscal quarter!
It won’t fare well for most of us once habitable regions are flooded with climate refugees whose entire life savings and livelihoods have been wiped out.
But that doesn’t matter as long as profits are up in the short term, and it especially doesn’t matter to the handful of people who have hoarded enough resources to last them the next thousand years. They have bunkers and yachts and stuff. They’ll be fine, and they’re the ones deciding policy for the rest of us. Maybe they can make reality television where the rest of us fight hunger games style.
On a totally unrelated note, I’ve heard humans taste like pork.
The economy is expected to stall, shrink and be wiped out the warmer it gets. Insurances disappear, and with that loans and other financial instruments. Production and supply chain issues make things increasingly unviable. Basics like food take an the money. With business as usual, that’s within decades as far as I could find. They’re playing only short term.
with urgent, decisive action, we still can avoid unmanageable outcomes
But not just any urgent, decisive action, it must be the right action. The wrong action could be insufficient at best, and actively harmful at worst.
To meet the Paris climate agreement, we must reduce global GHG emissions by 45% to 50%, from current levels, by 2030. To achieve that, we must begin decommissioning all existing fossil fuel powered machinery, from power plants, to manufacturing, transportation, and agricultural equipment, and replace them with net zero emission alternatives, as quickly as possible. I don’t think anyone really knows how best to do that, at least not on a global scale. It’s not something we’ve ever done before.
To achieve that, we must decommission all existing fossil fuel powered machinery, from power plants, to manufacturing, transportation, and agricultural equipment, and replace them with net zero emission alternatives.
By 2030? Not going to happen, then.
That means we need to come up with a different “right” action in the meantime. We shouldn’t be relying on a dream scenario that has basically no chance of actually coming to pass.
By 2030? Not going to happen, then.
You’re right, that would be virtually impossible. I should have said that we need to decommission the fossil fuel powered machines as quickly as possible, to have the best chance of reducing global GHG emissions by >45% by 2030. But, we do need to have all fossil fuel powered machines that have GHG emissions that can’t be offset by things like carbon capture and sequestration, decommissioned by 2050, to meet the Paris climate agreement goals. That gives us a couple more decades, but even that will be extraordinarily difficult.
