Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
But what if they have missed something and the heating continues even after the Western World has crippled their economies to reduce the drivers of greenhouse gasses? The seesaw is finely balanced and if something as simple as albedo or a combination of other un-forseen variables still tip us into a heating path, then where are we?
War and pestilence is easily the result of lesser stressors.
A headlong rush into a silver bullet solution (solar, wind ) can leave us wide open to a blind side wallop if we realize we forgot to read the signs more closely.
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The greenhouse effect has been known for over a hundred years.There's been a lot of brain-storming since back then.There's probably little that has not come under discussion and consideration.By 1998,the general circulation models began to match observations,plus be able to recreate past anomalies,which is the only reason scientists have any confidence at all in them.
Capitalists have a track record of crippling the economy all by themselves,without climate change or anything else.We've had plenty of 'crisis',crashes,burst bubbles,meltdowns.It's what they do.Some presidential appointees have made sure they happened,even when warned by their listening posts.That absolutely was the case in 2008.
There's no reason for the economy to get hurt.We'll just be buying refrigerators instead of ice boxes.LEDs instead of whale oil lamps.
There will be a redistribution of wealth into emerging technologies,while eclipsed technology like livery stables and buggy whip makers disappear.
If we ceased GHG emissions,and removed CO2 down to pre-industrial levels,there wouldn't be any known mechanism to drive global warming the way it's going now.
We're already seeing civil war as a consequence of food supply collapse,as with Russia (drought) in 2010,and Arab Spring.The Pentagon is very concerned about this sort of thing.
I wish there was a silver bullet.All we have at our disposal is,a 30-year transition off fossil-fuel combustion,onto a market basket of renewable energy sources,continued improvements in efficiency, and storage.It's where the future billionaires and jobs will come from.
There won't be any rush about it,just slow,steady,incremental change.Just the way capitalists like it.
The signs all say something like 'Green New Deal'.
And a careful reading of the Preamble to, the United States Constitution says likewise.