> In short we need a global WWII-level effort.
I agree.
"It’s been a couple of weeks now since the IPCC report came out. You know what it says. If the whole damn species pulls together in a concerted effort “without historical precedent”— if we start right now, and never let up on the throttle— we just might be able to swing the needle back from Catastrophe to mere Disaster. If we cut carbon emissions by half over the next decade, eliminate them entirely by 2050; if the species cuts its meat and dairy consumption by 90%; if we invent new unicorn technologies for sucking carbon back out of the atmosphere (or scale up extant prototype tech by a factor of two million in two years) — if we commit to these and other equally Herculean tasks, then we might just barely be able to keep global temperature from rising more than 1.5°C.[1] We’ll only lose 70-90% of the word’s remaining coral reefs (which are already down by about 50%, let’s not forget). Only 350 million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought and “deadly heat” events. Only 130-140 million will be inundated. Global fire frequency will only increase by 38%. Fish stocks in low latitudes will be irreparably hammered, but it might be possible to save the higher-latitude populations. We’ll only lose a third of the permafrost. You get the idea.
We have twelve years to show results.
If we don’t pull all these things off— if, for example, we only succeed in meeting the flaccid 2°C aspirations of the Paris Accords— then we lose all the coral. We lose the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland Ice Shelf (not that it isn’t already circling the bowl, of course). Twice as many people suffer “aggravated water scarcity” than at 1.5°C; 170% more of the population deals with fluvial flooding. The increase in global wildfire frequency passes 60% and keeps going. Marine fisheries crash pole to pole. The number of species that loses at least half their traditional habitat is 2-3 times higher than would have been the case at 1.5°C. It goes on." [1]
(Edit) Yet in my experience nobody is talking about this. A few weeks ago the IPCC told us we have a gun to our head and a decade to solve the problem. A few days ago we learned that "population sizes of wildlife decreased by 60% globally between 1970 and 2014" [2]. And now we're on to the next thing and everyone is walking around like things are normal. People should be focussed on this and nothing else, but they're not.
And also: how exactly do I explain to my children that the world they're growing-up in is in a dire state and soon may not even be able to support anything like a normal life for them? Ideas anyone?
[1] The Adorable Optimism of the IPCC, by Peter Watts https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433
[2] https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/living-planet-report-2018