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[deleted] t1_j7v7ytt wrote

Reply to comment by Vericeon in Renewables are on track to satiate the world's appetite for electricity by ForHidingSquirrels

Personally I don't think any level of just emissions reduction will dodge catostrophic climate change at this point. It's just not plausible that at this level of rapid change, warming and ice melt that reducing emissions by 2050 or such would be really anywhere near enough.

At best you have to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and at worst you will have to employ some level of solar blocking to reduce heat build-up. It's a long term Co2 build-up and the CO2 doesn't go away quickly, so emissions reductions are just bets that we can limit warming. They aren't guarantees of anything and that's kind of the problem. The upside is solar blocking would lower heat immediately so it would be a good way to combat the core problem, which is heat, vs trying to only attack it from the insulating gas angle.

To me ice melt and changing climate happening well before models predicted means it's already too late for just emissions reduction. You certain still need emissions reduction, but betting the planets future on such a passive plan with no proof our modeling is accurate enough to make such a bet AND when we have other options to limit warming just seems dumb.

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StateChemist t1_j7w213a wrote

Too late for what? It’s only too late if humanity stops working on the solve.

Is it going to get worse before it gets better? Yeah I’m with you there, it probably will.

So what can we do? Work harder at turning it around and not let up or just give up and die?

You think people are passively saying ‘well this one band aid is obviously enough, good job’ there are tons of sectors looking for ways to forestall disaster and we need all of the fixes in the toolbox.

Emission reduction is a requirement because you can’t clean up the mess if the hose is still spraying everywhere while you are trying to mop it up. There are also lots of ideas for cleaning up the mess as well which are all great, and we can work on all phases of the project at the same time!

It may take centuries to undo what we’ve done in the last 100 years but we are actually starting to believe we can turn things around, and with constant applied pressure to a large enough lever you can move the world.

But would you kindly get off the wrong side of the lever? It works better with us all pushing over here instead of undermining those who are attacking the problem from all sides.

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