I honestly don't see any what we can survive unless we can develop something to capture fossil fuels on a huge scale, that is also carbon neutral. That, in addition to stopping the usage of fossil fuels, might be able to do something. We need a Manhattan project level of research and work towards a goal like that to be able to scale up the CO2 scrubbers
The problem is even if we 100% switch to renewable energy (goodluck with that by the way...)
30% of CO2 output today is directly from industry. You can't make steel or concrete without releasing massive amounts of CO2. And making plastics release even more. And seeing as how the three basic materials of out society are plastic, steel, and concrete, we're pretty much fucked.
I think it is predicted that even if we immediately switched off all machines and electronics and went to live Hunter gatherer style the climate would still be too fucked to survive it long term.
The only way to do it is with more technology. Technology to survive extreme climate (clothing/housing, cooling tech) , new settlements in areas that aren't flooded/on fire. Underground housing. Clean energy production. Carbon capturing tech.
Perhaps genetically modified trees with extremely fast growth so we can rapidly produce enormous forests all over the world.
I don't know what is possible and no doubt tragedy is unavoidable, in fact has already occurred. But turning everything off isn't an option and even if we did it won't solve the problem.
People will die but humans and other earthlings can survive/relocate. If we can have people living in space for long periods and plans for moon and Mars presence we can certainly build structures that can preserve live on earth after the outside is less ideal and it will still be a long time before we are unable survive in the outdoors.
even if we immediately switched off all machines and electronics and went to live Hunter gatherer style the climate would still be too fucked to survive it long term.
that's not true at all. If we did that today, the planet would almost immediately stop warming and would start to cool over the next century, avoiding almost all negative effects that haven't already happened. Once we hit +1.5C in 2030, we're locked into more change but the planet would be very, very survivable if we pulled the plug like you say. The only way shutting it all down would have no effect is if we wait until we're past +3C which won't happen until nearly 2100.
That said, it's not really productive to think in impossible hypotheticals, like society reverting 15,000 years overnight.
Any talk of Mars or Venus or Moon is absolute bolox. The cost, resources, carbon footprint, feasibility, and long term outlook of a space colony is fools gold. Much easier to craft a “settlement” on Earth by simply dealing with it. Will China ever address environmental issues? Nope. We’re fucked.
The money billionaires have is dwarfed, actually completely and totally dwarfed, by the amounts governments spend on developing and maintaining militaries to destroy the same humans that share this planet. Target that first.
Musk, Bezos and Gates could fund the run of the mill US military spending for less than a year between them before going absolutely flat broke. That's how 'little' money they have.
CO2 is one thing, but methane is the real killer here, and thats leaking like crazy, with not much of any word about it at all. Carbon Neutral by what, 2050? Okay. What about Methane Neutrality? crickets.
Methane is important, but I'm hoping that ratcheting up either lab grown meat or plant based meats will help to alleviate that somewhat. I think we're beyond the point that simple conservation will help, we need technological advancements that can save us
Direct air capture plus reforestation is all i can think of. I suppose we could also do the reverse and put something into the atmosphere as well that bindsceith c02, but that seems riskier.
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u/jdmackes Aug 10 '21
I honestly don't see any what we can survive unless we can develop something to capture fossil fuels on a huge scale, that is also carbon neutral. That, in addition to stopping the usage of fossil fuels, might be able to do something. We need a Manhattan project level of research and work towards a goal like that to be able to scale up the CO2 scrubbers