Who and what is preventing the world from addressing climate change?

[The_jackalope]

Yes, we all know that climate change deniers and oily-garchs are evil that way. But the majority of the impediment is much more prosaic - and a lot closer to home.

It's you and me, him and her, us and them.

All of us - from the richest Russian to the poorest Paraguayan - with the exception of a few tiny, isolated indigenous tribes - are responsible for CO2 emissions. Americans emit on average 16.5 tonnes of CO2 per person per year from energy use. Zimbabweans emit about 1 tonne per person. The world average is about 4.4 tonnes per capita.

All 7.7 billion human lives are founded on, made possible by, fossil fuels. Virtually all CO2 emissions come from the direct and indirect use of fossil fuels; electricity & heating, manufacturing, transportation and agriculture are prime culprits.

Does anyone reading this post not partake in the fossil-fueled economy? Does anyone except those aforementioned aboriginals not partake?

In order to stop the world temperature from eventually surpassing 4 or 5C, with all the hellish consequences that would entail, the world needs to drop emissions by probably 90% within a handful of years. That means stopping 90% of all emission-generating activities. In other words, virtually all use of electricity & heating, all manufacturing, transportation and agriculture needs to stop pretty much immediately.

But, um, that's the whole world economy, isn't it?
Well yes, yes it is.
But how would people live?
Well, they wouldn't.
So we can't do that.
No, no we can't, and won't do that.
So what can we do?
Well, not that much, frankly. We will probably continue to live much as we live today until we can't any more.

Sorry, guys and gals. Our civilization and much of our species are burnt toast. Anything we do between now and the day of our individual deaths we are doing mostly to ease the burden of our own consciences.

So the next time you feel called to heap scorn and opprobrium on climate deniers and oil company executives, look down at your keyboard and around the room you're in. What you see is what's preventing the world from addressing climate change.

We now return you to the American political bunfight that is already in progress...

[customerserviceguy]

1. There's probably

a reservoir of disbelief out there. I was around for the first Earth Day, and I remember all kinds of predictions about how awful the Earth would be by 2000, just thirty years away.

It didn't come to pass. The places that are hellholes today were that way in 1970, and in fact, a few places considered economic basket cases (Communist Eastern Europe outside of the USSR, China, and India) back then have seemed to be better off now than they were then.

I'm sure many people out there think this is crying "wolf" as in the Aesop fable. It's just easier to think of the future that way.

[The_jackalope]

2. The apocalypse is already here. It's just unevenly distributed. nt

[customerserviceguy]

3. Which feeds into the disbelief

I'm sure that lots of people figure if the shit hits the fan, it will splatter on to "other" people, far away, speaking a different language. The poor will be wiped out, and that's been nature's way to control population for millennia.

[The_jackalope]

4. Of course, that's human nature at work

But reality doesn't care what people believe.

We have a hard time accepting that.

[procon]

5. Thankfully most people don't share your conjecture.

Well, except for every Republican I hear saying the same thing... "The problem is so big... It would be too costly... No body really knows what to do... So continue as you were and don't change a damn thing."

Ostriches would welcome you into the flock. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is making changes (in both large and small ways) to mitigate the problem. No one expects these efforts to produce change in the short term, it will take several decades to even begin to curb the mess we created.

And along the way a lot of really smart, visionary people are inventing newtech and more efficient ways of doing things. The US has fallen behind and we are no longer on the leading edge of R&D on climate related tech, but the kids, the young people who embrace science are already forcing the general public to change their outlook.

Societies are already adapting and the increasing demand to go green will drive even more innovation and new products that will attract business interests.

[mr_lebowski]

10. Uh-huh. Guess what ... we don't have decades. Been watching Mauna Loa readings lately?

They aren't GOING DOWN my friend. They're going up, and not just going up, but going up faster and faster.

We've know about this problem as a world for at LEAST 20 years. And we've done FUCK ALL.

What makes you think that's going to change?

No offense, but it's you the ostriches would welcome I'd say.

[Boomer]

19. Who exactly is the ostrich here?

If you can't admit the true scope of the problem, that is pretty much the definition of sticking your head in the sand. It doesn't matter if you're saying "Climate change doesn't exist" or "We are making progress" -- either way, you're not facing reality.

Yes, yes, lots of people are nibbling at the edges of climate change with their prototypes or their green lifestyles. These are all good things to do, in and of themselves, but so far these improvements aren't even close to dropping our CO2 levels. We're still on track for at least 4 degrees warming by the end of the century, and that's by the IPCC predictions which are ludicrously conservative in the face emerging data that says, across the board "Oh, this is happening faster than we predicted."

So stick your fingers in your ears and sing "lalalalalala" all day long, and tell yourself that some visionary somewhere is building the gadget that will save the planet. Then when society starts falling apart, you're going to be all "Wait, wait, how did this happen?"

Don't be that guy.

Do your Green thing, because it will help improve our current lives. It won't help in the long-term, but for now, everything we can do to improve the short-term is worth savoring. Don't take anything for granted, love the people around you, make peace with what we are all losing. You won't be caught by surprise when it's time to say good-bye.

[exboyfil]

6. Tragedy of the Commons

[PETRUS]

11. Pretty much the exact opposite of that.

It's private property and integrated markets that created the incentives and power structures that accelerate development.

[Duppers]

7. Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children.

Next best actions are selling your car, avoiding flights and going vegetarian, according to study.
...
Having one fewer child will save 58.6 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year.



Or...


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children

Graphic from another site:

[Duppers]

8. Just STOP HAVING KIDS!

If your children want a better world, send them these graphics. Will mean few grandkids but a better world for all of us.

[mr_lebowski]

9. I pretty much think exactly the same thing ... (nt)

[Thyla]

12. Well yes, failure to hold those in power accountable will tend to do that..

Comfort and convenience, straight up out the play book. As an added plus their getting a bunch of misplaced guilt for free in the process. The deception continues.

[Mountain Mule]

13. I've pretty much have done everything in Duppers graph

Except I'm not a vegetarian, although I'm cutting back on my consumption of meat. If every single Democrat across this land did those things to the best of their ability, I think that it would make a difference, but by how much?

Exxon, the Koch brothers and the rest of the gang of usual suspects have poured millions if not billions into funding climate denial. Never mind the Heartland Institute, there are denier websites and blogs all over the web. Repugnicans devour the misinformation and outright lies put out by denier groups with gusto and come back for more.

Hard core repugs don't even believe in education, never mind science. If the traitor in chief gets another four years in office we are doomed. Alas, I fear that we are already doomed. We have crossed too many climate tipping points already. If we somehow stopped all the world's CO2 emissions this very day, we still have hardwired in a minimum of 2 degrees C warming and the impact of this is and will be disastrous.

We are leaving a cursed legacy that will impact humans and every other living thing on this planet for millennia to come.

[Boomer]

18. Not even close.

"If every single Democrat across this land did those things to the best of their ability, I think that it would make a difference, but by how much?"

What you describe is like putting band-aids on a hemorrhaging arterial wound.

[The_jackalope]

20. I can tell you how much difference it would make

There are about 70 million Democrats in the USA. Their average emission is 16.5 tonnes of CO2 per year. If each of them did enough to lower their CO2 emissions by 16.5 tonnes (that's 9 tonnes for everything but not having kids, plus 7.5 tonnes for reducing their birth rate by 12.5%) they would reduce global CO2 emissions by about 3.5%.

There is a small problem of large scale here. Putting a Band-Aid on an arterial wound is a good analogy.

[NickB79]

14. I've always said that real measures to address this would be called draconian

And frankly, they are. Given the depth of shit we're in, it would require measures that would make the strict societal controls China places on their people look absolutely libertarian.

[The_jackalope]

15. People have difficulty comprehending the scale of the predicament

We are terraforming Terra - land, sea and air. The changes required to reverse it would spell the end of humanity just as surely as not changing. It's the ultimate "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" dilemma.

Which it's why it's so much more palatable to bury one's head in the sand, and keep on keeping on. By default we are choosing "damned if you don't".

[Boomer]

16. If we had 200 years to work on this, we could beat it

Oh, wait! If we had a 200 year buffer, there would be no sense of urgency and we'd be right back to where we are now in 190 years.

Here we are on the brink of disaster, and we're not even close to dropping our carbon outputs across the world. There's no gentle way to get to where we need to be, and no guarantee that it would make any difference even if we did. And no one -- myself included -- is going to choose the hard way, because we simply can't survive without our current, carbon-emitting infrastructures.

I don't buy the argument that dropping our CO2 "within ten years" would save us, either, since every day we're discovering new feedback loops that have been set in motion. As that wasn't bad enough, climate change is only ONE of the ways in which we're damaging our biosphere. We're eating our way through the ocean food chain, we're using up the last of arable land, and we're exhausting potable water sources. Even without climate change, those would be global emergencies.

Our species is self-destructing one way or another.

[The_jackalope]

17. 100% Right on the money. nt