this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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The sooner we act, the less drastic the measures needed are. That's the reality of it, and something I'll keep on pushing for.
That's not untrue but the problem with phrasing it that way is that people will interpret it to mean we can implement relatively unnoticed measures to mitigate climate change. That may have been true 50 years ago but it's not anymore. Meaningful change will be very painful at this point and that's exactly why it's not going to happen until it's literally impossible to ignore the problem. You would think we're there already but humans are very good at maintaining delusional thinking.
Hardly; it's largely a matter of how quickly we phase out fossil fuels. Wait longer, and you get to scrap equipment before the ends of its normal useful life instead of getting full use out of what you pay for.
We've already waited way too long. That's the point. Talking about it like you are makes it sound like we haven't missed our window for slow and methodical transitions but that part of the conversation happened in the 80s and we decided that path was for pussies. Now here we are in the "October hurricanes are flooding Tennessee" timeline. If that sounds like the right time to be discussing getting the most out of our remaining diesel engines then you're not paying attention.
Yes, we've wanted too long for zero impact.
We haven't waited too long to still end up with a habitable planet. Failing to act now puts that at risk.
At this point we need to essentially end human habitatation of +/-10° from the equator, while eliminating coal, oil, and LNG energy use cases, while eliminating migration laws, while eliminating meat production, while investing tens of trillions into moving our farm capacity indoors and rewilding all previous agriculture sites, while inventing and utilizing an anti ocean acidification technology that doesn't itself cause toxicity among marine life.
And we need to some how conince 8 billion people of that during a time when 7.9...9 billion of them aren't financially capable of changing anything in their life without becoming homeless or dying of starvation.