What if we stopped pretending the climate apocalypse can be stopped?

The thing is, it&#x27;s already too late to prevent pretty terrible effects of climate change, but it&#x27;s not too late to stop it from getting <i>even worse</i>. Every tenth of a degree can make a world of difference. So while we will most certainly not stay below 1.5°, the difference between 2 and 3 degrees is huge, and the efforts we make today decide in what world we&#x27;ll live in. Resigning to the inevitable now is a surefire recipe to get to the absolute worst case scenario where the survival of our technological civilization is very much uncertain.

1. Even if we can&#x27;t completely prevent it, we can stop it from being much worse.<p>2. Regardless of the climate changer factor, polluting the air causes cancer, damages ecosystems, harms our food supply, etc.<p>The mentality of &quot;we can&#x27;t prevent it, so why bother trying&quot; is like accidentally shooting yourself in the foot, and when finding out it&#x27;ll have to be amputated, proceeding to shoot your other foot because &quot;what&#x27;s the point?&quot;.

There are now 3 positions in american discourse on climate change:<p>1. It&#x27;s not happening &#x2F; not real<p>2. It&#x27;s happening and we can still prevent it<p>3. It&#x27;s happening and it&#x27;s worse than we all think<p>Externalities aren&#x27;t correctly priced into our market and we&#x27;re suffering the consequences.

To stay sane of course. Dying from climate change isn&#x27;t that different from dying of old age. If every day you remind yourself that you are going to die one day then you are putting yourself under mental stress. If it is hopeless as the title implies and there is nothing you can do to stop it, then thinking about climate change will just make your life worse than it already is.<p>I&#x27;m actually optimistic that it&#x27;s possible to prevent the worst effects of climate change from a technological standpoint but I have no hope that we can resolve the prisoners dilemma. Making a quick buck is simply too easy.

&quot;Some climate activists argue that if we publicly admit that the problem can’t be solved, it will discourage people from taking any ameliorative action at all... But the impending catastrophe heightens the urgency of almost any world-improving action... these are all meaningful climate actions&quot;<p>1) Argues that giving up hope does not mean the end of attempts to ameliorate warming.<p>2) Proceeds to define &#x27;climate action&#x27; so broadly that just everything is a climate action, which will disperse and confuse efforts so much, no action on climate will be taken.

Jonathan Franzen is not an expert in the possible effects of climate change.<p>He&#x27;s an expert at writing novels in which everyone sounds like they have a Creative Writing MFA from Swarthmore.<p>This is silly.

The book &quot;Superfreakonomics&quot; had a chapter on simple, cheap solutions to problems, and suggested one for global warming -- there was a &#x27;year with no summer&#x27; in which a volcano introduced chemicals into the atmosphere (sorry, I don&#x27;t have the details handy) which cooled down the earth, and that we have huge amounts of the stuff as a waste material -- we&#x27;d just need to put it into the upper atmosphere.<p>Now, I see that the science is disputed, and I understand that there&#x27;d be political problems with who controls the thermostat, but the idea was really cheap -- something like $40 million to get going and a million every year to continue. Way cheaper than government initiatives that haven&#x27;t actually done anything.<p>Why can&#x27;t we pursue something like this, or even try them out?

I have heard meat-eating car-drivers push this line of thinking for at least two decades. You know the sort of person: willing to rag on the republicans or the Koch brothers for being bad, but ultimately unwilling to do anything except moan about how it is all too hard.

If it can&#x27;t be stopped, then we must assume that what could happen will. Like when someone shoots a bullet, and we observe the action in slow motion while the bullet is going, there is no way for the target to move out, and we must assume that a murder has been commited, even if the target is not dead yet.<p>So, in this particular case, a mass murder has been commited, and what we should do to put on trial the ones that shoot the bullet, and the same to the ones that intentionally hid the evidence (maybe taking out our chances to avoid preventing it).<p>And then, without them around keep trying to deny that there is no climate change, we may focus on mitigating the effects and avoiding to get worse without more interference.

It is a bit like with a formula one car. If you go through the curve with 100 mph, you will die, because you really need to go through the curve at 200 mph for aerodynamics to give you enough downward force to keep you on the track...<p>We are in a very similar situation here. We need to aggressively speed up and focus our engineering efforts to understand nature and to potentially &quot;suck the gases out of the atmosphere&quot; (one solution, we put it there, we should be able to get it back out, if that was really the reason anyway).<p>Never in mankind&#x27;s history have the odds been so in our favor. Our technology improves at unprecedented speeds and its only going to go faster. It has to go faster, that is. Otherwise we actually might be wiped out.<p>I never understood why people think its a good idea to dial back progress &amp; technology to where we were a few hundred years ago... The earth will die anyway in a few billion years. There is only one way forward: Out into space. At the current rate we will be able to do just that, within the allotted time. Even if we can&#x27;t save earth in the end (who knows), we will still have enough time to leave the sinking ship. But we also have a pretty good shot at to repair the damage we have done.<p>But the answer for both trajectories is the same: Technology, more technology and faster, faster. If that means more pollution, that&#x27;s okay. As long as we advance faster than we destroy (which we are doing already), we are golden! Stopping or going slower is what will kill us.<p>So people, stop whining about pollution and global warming. There is no way to stop that other than technology. Developing countries are not going to stop polluting. Most notably seen with the Amazon. We have no true control over what other countries do. But we can repair the damage they do, via technology deployed on our home soil. That is precisely what we must do &amp; develop. Waiting for global consensus and contracts is waiting for death... Hell, they can&#x27;t even agree on some minimal pollution numbers between the G7 countries. How the hell are you going to get all 200 nations into one basket. It&#x27;s ludicrous.<p>On that note, keep in mind that countries like the USA are the world&#x27;s number one polluter. Developing countries do some serious shit, but on a smaller scale.

What if we stopped talking in apocalyptic terms and started looking at ways to live on a planet which, for whatever reason, is endowed with an ever-changing climate which has given it everything from dragonflies with a 70cm wing span to blue whales to sentient self-conscious primates with a tendency to speak of terrible things which are about to come true if action is not taken <i>right now</i>.<p>Also, use common sense. It will tell you that it is a good thing to be less dependent on energy sources which are directly linked to one of the most volatile regions in the world. Alternatives exist, from nuclear in its many guises which can take care of the base load to solar and wind which can help but can not take care of the base load due to their inherent unpredictability and - in the case of solar - absence during ~50% of the day. Geothermal can be a good source in many regions. Common sense will also dictate that it is high time to seriously start looking at better ways to store energy so that those unpredictable sources can be used more efficiently while keeping the distribution networks from melting down.<p>And, please... stop following the talking points of political organisations which have taken up the climate banner to further their own goals. Stop the McCarthy-like hunt for anyone who dares to voice a differing opinion. Stop all that polarising nonsense and maybe, just maybe the world will be better off in the end.

I have honestly wondered whether a rational, amoral planner would be readying the release of some pathogen(s) from which a reasonable number of people would survive.<p>I wonder what the signs of such preparation would be?<p>Obviously you would want to make sure that nuclear power stations, refineries and dangerous chemical plants were either capable of a graceful shutdown or that there would be enough trained operators in place.<p>You would want some sort of armed forces under your control.<p>Food production chains would need to be local and secured and self-contained.<p>What else?

Alongside this is a story celebrating how more people are using 100 - 200 grams of internationally-shipped and hand-delivered plastic on the equivalent of a 256mb usb stick to distribute music instead of the internet.<p>Most of us can&#x27;t wait to replace our massive-carbon-sink computer with a new one and put the old one in a cupboard.<p>Sacrifice was key to beating this and we didn&#x27;t do it and we might be getting worse.

Really disheartened that it will hit during my lifetime. Had hoped to dodge it, really.<p>How do you, as an individual, prepare for this?

One solution, which I admit is out there, is what if we actively cook the earth?<p>While yes, it would be an engineering challenge, I think it is quite reasonable to create an “adjustable solar shade”. Basically build up enough reflectors at the Lagrange point to selectively “cool” parts of earth. Yes, it would be a massive undertaking, but could potentially be done mostly autonomously.<p>If our timeline is 30 years, this may be more achievable than alternatives.<p>Elevator pitch: use materials from asteroids to build huge reflectors in space. Side benefit is it would enable large scale mining of the sky.

You need to listen &quot;Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy&quot;:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.soundcloud.com&#x2F;user-56712817&#x2F;deep-adaptation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.soundcloud.com&#x2F;user-56712817&#x2F;deep-adaptation</a><p>Or read it:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lifeworth.com&#x2F;deepadaptation.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lifeworth.com&#x2F;deepadaptation.pdf</a>

I&#x27;m not sure I follow the author&#x27;s reasoning. He says that what we do won&#x27;t make a difference but then says that we should do things anyways. It seems to me like if he&#x27;s right, then there is just no hope.

Who&#x27;s pretending? All we need is for the billionaires to stop fighting, work together and save the world.

Is that it? We are all going to die because one fiction writer said so? These kinds of claims only discredit the whole discussion. Climate change is a serious problem, but fearmongering doesn&#x27;t solve anything. How about just stating the facts, instead of chiming in with your own non-scientific opinions and accusing everyone of pretending? Just so you can get more clicks.

There are measures we can take against climate change, they just go against the structural needs of the capitalist system. If governments continue to put the continuation of the system above the needs of the environment, then of course we won&#x27;t see serious action. The author accepts that this is a permanent state of affairs and attributes it incorrectly to &quot;human nature&quot; when in reality it reflects the present weakness of the anti-capitalist movement. There is hope, but it&#x27;s not in liberal politicians and eco startups, and I get why you&#x27;d be hopeless if that&#x27;s where you&#x27;re looking for change to come from.

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What if we stop pretending there is a climate apocalypse

Well, our cow blanket might prove useful if the sun goes to sleep and the earth is destined for another ice age.

It appears that we have already given up. Efficient, low-carbon-emitting natural gas power plants have been replacing coal-fired plants in the USA, largely due to cheap and abundant fuel extracted via fracking. If that were important, we would not be discussing bans on fracking.

The problem with climate change is that it has now solidly left the realm of the scientific to enter politics.<p>Here’s the truth:<p>We cannot do a thing about it.<p>This is scientific fact, not my opinion. I invite everyone to reproduce my conclusion. Here’s how to do it:<p>Question:<p>How long would it take for a 100 ppm drop in atmospheric CO2 concentration if humanity, along with all of our technology, evaporated from this planet tomorrow?<p>In other words, a Thanos moment. A snap of the fingers and humanity is gone in an instant.<p>Why this question?<p>Because that’s the baseline. This is important:<p>WE CANNOT DO BETTER THAN THIS RATE IF CHANGE.<p>Can we answer that question?<p>Yes!<p>We have 800,000 years of highly accurate atmospheric composition data from ice core sampling. In other words, we have a time machine that tells us exactly how the planet would behave if we were not here.<p>What does the data say? How does it answer my question?<p>50,000 to 75,000 years for a 100 ppm drop in atmospheric CO2 concentration if we evaporated from this planet.<p>THAT IS THE BASELINE<p>Any proposal for “saving the planet” has to be measured against that.<p>For example: Erase the US from the planet -&gt; Save the planet in 50 years? Nope, ridiculous.<p>Ban all forms if internal combustion engines? Nope. Ridiculous.<p>Switch to 100% renewable energy at a world scale? Nope. Again, ridiculous.<p>All of these are ridiculous because the next question should be: How is this going to perform a THOUSAND TIMES BETTER than the Thanos scenario?<p>The answer, at that point, becomes beyond obvious: These ideas are ridiculous.<p>As for what would work, well, that’s a whole other conversation that starts with reforestation at a monumental scale.