Climate Change in a Nutshell: The Gathering Storm [pdf]

Climate Change in a Nutshell: The Gathering Storm [pdf]
columbia.edu

Articles like these stir me to action, but what action? Where's the mass movement on this? Where's the group, the party, the leadership?

- number of gigatons emitted to date

- rate of ongoing emissions

- change in the rate of ongoing emissions

- what total emissions numbers correspond to what PPM in the atmosphere

- what ppm in the atmosphere correspond to what degrees of C warming (in various timeframes)

here is a nice infographic from the latest ipcc report that shows some of them: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/SPM1... pay particularly close attention to the one in the bottom left.

- what degrees C warming correspond to drought, desertification and crop failures in what areas/river-valleys (note: sea level rise won't actually be a problem until after the famines, focus on the famines)

Once you get a feel for the numbers the "what to do" becomes a fairly obvious "everything/panic/get-super-duper-radical". But I can't elaborate on that more here because it ranges from "borderline communist levels of leftism" to "out and out eco-sabotage".

DO NOT fall for the false framing that a rump dumbass 20-30% of the population doesn't "believe" in global warming. That is smug nonsense that people use to justify a false-framing of some kind of stalemate. No society ever convinced everybody of the way forward. The real problem is the litany of excuses and magical thinking that the so called "believers" will come up with to do nothing. Such as:

- there's nothing we can do, give up, its too late

- magically innovative technology will save us just hold your breath till it comes along

- teh markat will provide! if we can just do this spreadsheet game with tax credits or something

- i can't do that thing i should do because even though I'm one of the richest humans on earth and that ever lived I've cast myself as a victim of the current economic order and cannot afford to do anything.

Now, all that said as context, here are the top 5 things, IN ORDER (assuming you're a middle class american), you can do to curtail your and your families carbon footprint:

1.) have a negative-population-growth number of children. that means somewhere in the 2.) do not use a car on a daily basis. ideally don't even own one. if you must own one make it electric.

3.) live in a 5+ unit building. this cuts your heating/cooling/lighting footprint roughly in half, and ties into the car thing above (mid rise apts correlate strongly to walkable areas). no amount of solar panels and electric cars will make suburban-sprawl a sustainable land use or energy consumption model in your or your childs lifetime. this is the absolute hardest part for americans to swallow, they will pitch a temper tantrum fit and write off the messenger rather than grasp this one.

4.) fly (round trip) less than once a year

5.) don't eat red meat, or at least cows. even if you're not ready to give it up, you could deliberately replace red meat meals with chicken fish or vegitable alternatives more often.

However, I want to stress that viewing things through the lens of individualized personal consumption levels is a TERRIBLE focus. This is the the most universal problem humanity has ever faced. You want to do the 5 things above not because it will cut your footprint 10 - 20 tons per year (~50 - 80%, which it will), but because you will be contributing to building a society in which everyones footprint is cut. You want to normalize apartment dwelling, walking, public transit, avoiding unecessary flights, and avoiding red meat. That is how you contribute to building a sustainable future society. You need to walk the walk not for a few tons, but to show your children and neighbors the way forward.