this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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While I love your optimism and agree with your outlook on industry, the feedback loop of global warming has begun. The commercial changes you are talking about are fantastic and will certainly extend our lives. Much like treating a terminal disease, however, these treatments may increase our lifespans, but cannot completely save us. Here's why.
Even if we were completely carbon neutral starting today, the feedback loop of global heating cannot be stopped. I know we don't want to hear this, but this feedback loop will eventually result in a mass mortality event affecting humans globally. The technology to reverse this is not close. Could some deus ex machina technology save us at the last second? Yes, that is possible. But there is no evidence of it currently.
We should acknowledge our trajectory and openly discuss why this is happening. We should also be realistic about our expectations.
We already have technology that could be deployed to save us, it's just a matter of producing enough of it and deciding that the risks are outweighed by the danger of doing nothing. We could deploy mirrors to block a portion of solar rays to reduce global temperature, engineer hyper-sequestering ferns (similar to the cause of a previous ice age), paint surfaces to increase global albedo, etc.
Each of these could massively disrupt ecosystems and climate due to the abrupt change, or who knows what else.
As long as we're still around and still have access to the tools that enable mass production and bioengineering, there are things we can try. Are we trying them? None of the super risky ones that would actually pull us back from a tipping point, and not enough of the less dangerous solutions to reach net zero, but there's momentum building.
If these ideas involved profit, I would have some hope they could be adequately tested or even deployed on a test scale. But between a lack of a clear profit path and a long history of conservative obstructionism globally, I think it's a fair prediction that these treatments will not be attempted on a meaningful scale.
When things start getting bad enough that people in power at the moment are deeply affected, we'll see an incentive to focus on immediate solutions that actually work. That's when the window for drastic measures opens. For now, it's just a waiting game. Vote for the least worst candidate, donate if you can, and do your best to explain the situation without freaking people out so much they won't listen. Hopefully renewable energy wins that race, but as long as it hits the rich before we hit collapse, there's a chance for drastic measures to occur and work.
Our economy currently operates in terms of quarterly gains. I don’t expect that to change. The system will continue to support short term mitigation over long term improvement until it literally collapses under its own weight. While regulation will hopefully continue to stifle the brunt of climate change, corporations will continue to do everything in their financial and other power to push forward their short term profits, at the expense of everything else.
I agree that voting and donating is the best course of action, but the snowball is already rolling down the hill, and those who have the power to stop it would much rather just slow it down if it means a bigger payout.
Those in power that are deeply affected are already seeking ways out. Mars colonization and private space travel is an important human goal, but as it is being funded now it’s a way for those in power to ensure that they, and their children, and those who can pay for it, don’t need to live here once everything goes tits up. Billionaires have contingencies as they keep pumping profit out of the earth. For us, like you said, it’s a waiting game.
The climate deniers profiting off this know this, but they think people are too stupid to understand what will happen.
https://youtu.be/X9FGRkqUdf8