Yes, thx for the link as well, had not seen it in a while
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What are people meant to do to turn this around? if reducing global emissions? is going to expose us to more global warming than we thought, what are we supposed to do? (total infp fact paragraph lol)
What can I do, and what can I start telling people to do?
I am not sure anything can be really done about it, reducing emissions drastically would certainly help, but it would have to happen yesterday and be coordinated worldwide to have any effect, we are talking about a complete restructuring of the world economy within one or two decades, which would have to start now. Most importantly fossile fuels would have to be mostly replaced and energy consumption would have to be drastically reduced.
None of this will happen though, if we look past the political retoric and at what is actually being done in the world then we see that practically nothing is happening and that profit considerations are given priority over measures to mitigate climate change.
Now if we had enough time, like a few centuries, or optimistically a few decades, then individual action might actually achieve something, but as it is now action is required so quickly that it would have to be imposed from above and strictly enforced, which will not happen though because the economic and political system would have to kind of change itself, as there is no one standing above the system who could change the global economic workings in such a way that they used resources in a sustainable way.
What is happening right now is that isolated aspects of those workings are reformed, for example we now have hybrid cars and generally more fuel efficient cars, however that is not really accomplishing much, instead it would be necessary to phase out cars completely and construct a public transportation system that runs on a non-fossile fuel base energy source. Additionally cities and towns should be restructured in such a way that motorized transport can be minimized. So instead of reforming the pollution factor car and basically continue buisness as usuall, we completely eliminate it and create something that fullfils the same purpose, providing transportation for the masses minus the negative effects on the enviroment.
In conjuntion with a more efficient city layout one could also completely revise how buildings are constructed to minimize energy for heating and cooling through insulation, window placement, angle of the building towards the sun etc.
Which wont happen though because it is not "profitable".
This same pattern repeats itself across the whole economy actually, so for example instead of trying to build cleaner industries, but continuesly expanding the number of them, we should rather develop cleaner industries and at the same time shut down all production that is non-essential, and redistribute property to minimize necessary production. For example, say someone is really rich and owns six cars, he can still only use one car at a time and the others are just standing around and are therefor useless to anyone. So if we would only allow him to own one car then we needed to produce five cars less. Of course, this is neither compatible with current societal standards (it would requiere overall direction as opposed to "individual freedom") nor with an infinte growth economy.
Sorry for straying so far "out there" but it is necessary to show that one can not really talk about the enviroment without talking about the economy because the economy (and society in general) does not allow for us to actually reduce production, but requires us to continuesly expand it (which includes the "service industry", unless it is solely constituted by human labour.).
We also remain dependent on fossile fuels for practically all of our energy production (including combustion engines etc.) and there is currently NO technology that could replace those fossile fuels within any reasonable amount of time. There are neither vehicles available nor is there any infrastructure, which would take decades to develop (and ethanol is not an alternative because it needs lots of oil to be produced in the first place.)
For this reason I believe that burning fossile fuels will continue until there are no more economically exploitable deposits, so we will likely burn almost all the oil and coal that exist on the earth no matter the consequenses.
Basically I do not believe that the framework presented by the economy and and the societal structures are sufficiently flexible to adapt to the rapid change of it's very basis, the enviroment, and will therefor fail which means that advanced human civilization will fail with it.
If what they say is true, we may need to temporarily bolster particle emissions to keep things from overheating until we can find a solution to reducing the greenhouse effect.
Hm, that would probably not be such a good idea, as this has many other negative effects, though I think that the particle emisions will probably remain high for the nearer future because when oil supplies become scarcer many nations will resort to increasing use of coal...
I'd think that the lense or whatever it is that could block the sunlight from space would be a better idea, but that wont happen either because the people who could allocate resources to such a project are much more likely to spend the money on things like the Iraq War instead.
Which raises interesting questions about authority to tamper with the environment.
Indeed, it does.
Superficially it comes down to the question if individuals distinct from the collective public should be allowed to utilize the enviroment as a resource for their own gain/profit if that use has a detrimental effect on someone other than them (they should not).
However, even if an overall coordination according to the best available scientific data about human impact on the enviroment would always be implemented, as opposed to individuals acting contrary to those findings out of ignorance or indifference and thereby causing unnecessary harm to themselves and everyone else, then the actual data that action is based on could still be faulty or incomplete. In that case the enviroment, and therefor the basis for survival of the population that depends on it, could still be destroyed even if everyone acts in accordance with the best availabe knowledge about how to minimize damage.
Which means that human civilization will likely fail if it gains the means to manipulate the environment in a potentially catastrophic way
before it posesses complete understanding of the mechanisms on which the stability of that environment actually depends.
Which is exactly what is currently happening, we are manipulating nature in many different ways each of which could potentially have catastrophic consequences without actually understanding in detail what effects this will have, it's like driving full speed over the highway in a car with no windows.
, cloud formation over the rainforest depends on the water that evaporates from the foilage, so if the forest is thined to much the weather will change to be dryer and the forest will become more prone to burning and and might eventually change into some type of savanna.
