Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

Well, you're in a combative mood, judging from all the replies you're posting, but I'll risk it.

> It's not a healthy way to live

Oh, agreed. Trust me. I've been neck deep in this one. It'll warp your mind. Doesn't mean it's not true. Just like the Sun blowing up to a red giant in 5 billion years. Gonna happen. Profound, devastating climate change has already begun. Human civilization is remarkably fragile and will teeter and crash in the next 50-200 years.

> I don't think it's one particularly backed by the evidence.

Well, in the same way that the Sun shows no current signs of blowing up into a red giant the size of Earth's orbit, sure. But I get the impression you're not able (or willing) to run a few of the very obvious scenarios forward in your mind. This is reality. It's coming. Maybe you're like me and will be lucky to live out your life in relative luxury before most of the damage comes home to roost. Great. I'm hoping for 40-50 more years of merrymaking, too. But make no mistake, we are totally fucked.

But then you go on to say,

> In terms of threats I think are likely to impact me over the next twenty years, I still rate "governments instituting stupid economic policies"

And that's my thunder button right there. For fuck's sake, you gotta give up this idea that this mythical "economy" and "economical policies" is all there is. Like your entire life is driven by the stock market or your ability to get bananas in January. Look at the Earth. Fuck your bananas in January and your backyard pool. Fuck your manicured lawn. Seriously. 7 billion humans thinking and acting exactly like this is how we get here, and then you have the gall to moan about "stupid economic decisions made because of unjustified panic about environmental issues."

Fuuuuck. This is what so frustrating, because it is just impossible to get through your economic interest to make you see that hey, we are deep shit right now.

Actually, even though it started lower, Europe has been reducing its emissions at a faster rate. In 2014, Europe was at 63% of its peak of emissions, whereas the US were at 72%.

The slope in log scale gives it away too (from the same data set, comparing US and Eurozone since 1971): https://i.imgur.com/099XLIw.png

Firstly, 5 degrees C is a much larger degree of warming than anyone is predicting for any of their worst case scenarios in the next 200 years. So 200 years from now, the problem will likely sound laughable.

But to answer your question anyway, yes I think that we could solve that problem today with current technology.

There are a couple reasons why. For 1, increasing temperatures also opens up unused land in cold places, that werent bring used before. Potentially, it might produce MORE arable land than it removes, once we get all the infrastructure up, of course.

And 2, it's not about "technology". There are tons of land that we "could" be using for food right now. We aren't using that land, because it is mountainous or has a bad climate, and would therefore produce lower yields.

But just because a mountainous area or a bad climate produces low yeilds doesn't mean that it would produce literally 0 food. It would produce SOME food, and the only reason we aren't using it now is because it is more expensive.

So the answer is the tons and tons of land that we aren't using for farming right now, but we could be using.

Do you mean like this?

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

And no, I'm the same age as you. I do not remember nearly as many devastating hurricanes in the first 20 years of my life, whereas in the second half I've seen Katrina, Harvey, Maria, Sandy, saw California in drought for what, a decade? I have personally seen the glaciers in New Zealand that have receded by miles and miles. And the temperature record is undeniable. And the ocean temperature measurements. And the ocean acidification measurements. And the ice cap melt measurements.

The linked report, by the way, suggests that while the current trends are in line with increases that actual statistically significant diversions from usual won't be detectable until the possible to see until the end of the century (for Hurricanes). Of course by then the temperature will be 3C or so hotter, and lots of other things will be impacted more directly sooner like crop yields, fish populations, and other things.

The problem with this thinking is that, as I said, the timescale that responses show up is on par with the human life span. This is a huge problem for a species with massive future-discounting built into our DNA. No, we don't see these things (strongly) yet. That's not the point, the point is that the impact on our lives to change this is shockingly small compared to the enormous and extremely likely risks of doing nothing. The timescale might be wrong, that wouldn't be surprising. But given a choice between "do something that might not be needed" and "do nothing until it's too late even if it is needed" shouldn't be hard.

Current technology can remove CO2 from the atmosphere for $90-230 per ton. That's with current technology to capture it from literally the air.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611369/maybe-we-can-affor...

A gallon of gas emits 8.9kg of CO2. So capturing that emission with current technology costs $2.25 per gallon. If that sounds expensive, compare that to the further collapse of fish stocks, massive water and food insecurity globally forcing mass migrations, and entire cities being flooded. Suddenly that sounds a lot more reasonable.

Anyway. I don't think your attitude is a good one. Switching to a carbon neutral economy is just frankly not nearly as costly as people seem to think, and the risks of not doing it are way too big to ignore. Of course, people with this attitude that we shouldn't act until proof of specific harm that impacts them specifically is available... not going to lie, I think that's a huge moral failing.