Those many people are absolutely correct. We are essentially taking 0 action at the present moment. Atmospheric CO2 represents only one of 7 planetary boundaries that spell our destruction. We’ve arguably crossed 4-6 of them already and nothing is being done about most of them.

More deforestation, habitat loss, resource use, and energy use are happening than ever before. We’re still building new car and fossil infrastructure which will cement use of those institutions for 40+ more years.

There is hope and we can do something. But, presently we are essentially doing nothing.

We will not green technology our way out of this. We need system level change.

Wrong. Decoupling is not happening. Production is increasing with the new energy sources which is extremely bad. We’re using more fuel and more renewable energy simultaneously. That means we’re stripping more raw resources from the earth than ever, deforesting more, displacing more creatures, and driving our planet to the brink.

Renewables are not a silver bullet. They are only a tiny piece of an actual solution. We are not doing anything that needs to be done.

Putting all our belief in renewables as a solution is just capitalism reskinned as green.

Edit: that’s not to say all hope is lost. There are still beautiful futures.

Having a company which finds a profit in the cleanup is actually an incentive to continue the same system of plastic production. More business means more growth which is “good” under our current model.

The only way the ocean pollution will actually be cleaned is by a concerted effort to stop the system of pollution and a government or community project to clean the ocean as thoroughly as we can.

Our current system will provide no real solutions and we shouldn’t expect it to. It got us into this mess and it’s principles are not geared to get us out.

To hell with the for profit model. To hell with capitalism. Our eco-future is anti capitalist.