There is no climate model for less than 2 degrees of warming with decarbonization alone. It's unfortunate but that's where we are today. Large scale decarbonization and removal together are both required, and fast.
You do realize the effects of climate change will not be something for which you can just isolate your bedroom for, then move on.
Everyone needs water. Directly, and for food production. The most populous regions in the world run on meltwater. The Indus Valley. Pakistan. Bangladesh. Indonesia. California. Central China. There are thousands such locations as well, by the way, just smaller. Meltwater that only comes if not only the planet is hot, but is hotter this year than last. If not, ZERO meltwater comes. Not a little bit. Zero. If you stop global warming 2 billion people need to be relocated.
To make matters worse, one of the "points of no return" which is coming global warming will switch from pumping water INTO the atmosphere to pumping water OUT of the atmosphere. This will turn the "inside" (any location sufficiently far from a coast) of countries like India, Africa and China back into the deserts they were 500 years ago. Except, it will do so rapidly. We don't know, of course, but certainly less than 100 years. Potentially much less.
If you calculate energy required, you will conclude that lifting water is a nonstarter. With current energy generation we cannot bring water to these locations. Never mind that most don't even have railway connections, never mind electrical power to the trains. We cannot realistically use desalinated water at elevations above maybe 300 meters. It's just not happening.
To make matters worse, both things are tipping-points. There is very, very little change while you get closer to the tipping point, then all the builtup change happens VERY suddenly. And this will happen twice, a two-punch situation, maybe a decade or two apart. First meltwater will stop, entirely, in one or two years, and it will not come back for tens of thousands of years and then a decade or so later rains will stop.
Walkable cities and isolated buildings do exactly nothing to stop any of this.
cities are made of concrete and steel, both of which emit carbon in their production. nearly everything from pharmaceuticals to clothes to computers is made with petrochemicals. It's not just a matter of civil design, and we don't have the answers.
We do have the answers. Pigovian taxes. Government and industry work together to distract people so they don’t organize to demand the actual answers be implemented.
1) Universal basic income funded by taxes at the point of extraction or emission. See: Alaska (Permanent Fund)
2) Use the taxes to pay down the debt, give UBI since you’ll have to print money anyway.
3) Also raise taxes on non biodegradeable plastics and forever chemicals.
UBI can shift the Overton window from people protesting raising taxes on fossil fuels (eg Yellow Vest protests) to actually embracing them.
Rather than telling individuals they cant have a bag or a straw, the government should put the pressure on bottling companies and clothing companies which continue to use plastics and PFAS everywhere… “recycling” is just another scam to keep individuals distracted. It turns out they were just shipping it all to China for decades.
tito|7 months ago
spwa4|7 months ago
Everyone needs water. Directly, and for food production. The most populous regions in the world run on meltwater. The Indus Valley. Pakistan. Bangladesh. Indonesia. California. Central China. There are thousands such locations as well, by the way, just smaller. Meltwater that only comes if not only the planet is hot, but is hotter this year than last. If not, ZERO meltwater comes. Not a little bit. Zero. If you stop global warming 2 billion people need to be relocated.
To make matters worse, one of the "points of no return" which is coming global warming will switch from pumping water INTO the atmosphere to pumping water OUT of the atmosphere. This will turn the "inside" (any location sufficiently far from a coast) of countries like India, Africa and China back into the deserts they were 500 years ago. Except, it will do so rapidly. We don't know, of course, but certainly less than 100 years. Potentially much less.
If you calculate energy required, you will conclude that lifting water is a nonstarter. With current energy generation we cannot bring water to these locations. Never mind that most don't even have railway connections, never mind electrical power to the trains. We cannot realistically use desalinated water at elevations above maybe 300 meters. It's just not happening.
To make matters worse, both things are tipping-points. There is very, very little change while you get closer to the tipping point, then all the builtup change happens VERY suddenly. And this will happen twice, a two-punch situation, maybe a decade or two apart. First meltwater will stop, entirely, in one or two years, and it will not come back for tens of thousands of years and then a decade or so later rains will stop.
Walkable cities and isolated buildings do exactly nothing to stop any of this.
tim333|7 months ago
beeflet|7 months ago
EGreg|7 months ago
1) Universal basic income funded by taxes at the point of extraction or emission. See: Alaska (Permanent Fund)
2) Use the taxes to pay down the debt, give UBI since you’ll have to print money anyway.
3) Also raise taxes on non biodegradeable plastics and forever chemicals.
UBI can shift the Overton window from people protesting raising taxes on fossil fuels (eg Yellow Vest protests) to actually embracing them.
Rather than telling individuals they cant have a bag or a straw, the government should put the pressure on bottling companies and clothing companies which continue to use plastics and PFAS everywhere… “recycling” is just another scam to keep individuals distracted. It turns out they were just shipping it all to China for decades.
khalic|7 months ago