Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
These two factors alone, can make or break any attempt to mitigate man made warming, if only CO2 is focused upon. But these are not the only factors. Just the easiest.
Draconian measures to stop CO2 use may halt CO2 concentrations in the next few years. But if we have a broken ocean ecosystem due to anything that damages the basic phytoplankton food base, CO2 concentrations may not be reduced fast enough. If our urban sprawl and farming methods continue to move past the 12% land surface area we are now at, albedo heating may drive our climate change no matter what we do with reducing CO2.
The combination of an increasing landmass absorption cycle that holds and releases heat instead of reflecting or transforming that energy, along with an ocean that is broken in it's ability to do it's job sequestering CO2, can trigger all the "feedback loop effects" AGW believers trumpet - methane release, deep ocean CO2 and methane release, etc.
All you seem to really want to do is to destroy the fossil fuel industry. Saving the world seems secondary. Or are you really proposing the destruction of human civilization as we know it? Because if you stop the immediate use of fossil fuels, you will bring that about.
I grew up in a relatively primitive setting. We cooked with wood. Used kerosene lighting. We rode horses and water buffalo. We grew most of our food and traded excess for the rest. I can happily go back to the days of my childhood. How about you? How about the billions that have never had a day of want such as Greta T? How about the billions that long for the day they have first world problems such as " does my cell phone use produce more CO2 emissions than the value of my posts on Ecomodder"?
You don't get to make such decisions. Not without a fight. Slam the worlds economies with your stranglehold techniques and "There will be a fight".
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Yeah so I obviously favour an "all of the above" approach.
I'm a millennial, but I lived for a few years at my aunt's house in Canada where the central heating system is a wood stove. Water (for all uses) came from the gutters funneling into a cistern underground. There is a septic field out back. There is electricity and internet. There is no A/C for the summer.
This isn't a bad way to live. I'll admit, adapting to the cold was kinda unpleasant, but I did it and it was fine and I have no problems with it. We also avoided things there such as paper towels. There's a clothes line and a drying rack instead of a dryer. It was fine. Living there I had a lower carbon footprint than I do now back in the USA. There's a difference between that and living in developing world conditions, and it's more than tolerable. Modern American culture is incredibly wasteful. People roll their eyes at reusable shopping bags or paper straws, or using hand towels instead of paper napkins, or a vegetarian diet, but why should they? It's not that hard to give up these things.
In the USA, where I live, right now I will say it's hard to adhere to a vegetarian diet because meat is the most abundant source of protein. When I lived in Canada there was a month where I accidentally ended up going vegetarian because it was so much easier to avoid eating meat. But it's nearly impossible here. If you go to any kind of restaurant it's unlikely they will have plant-only options, or if they do it won't include protein. I don't really like impossible burgers, but soy sausage is great, I order that when I can at certain places that do have it. My life is not structured very well right now (I usually spend the night at 3 different places each week) so that makes it very hard for me to cook for myself. If I can get that sorted out then I'll be able to make a better effort towards a vegetarian diet again.
Ocean problems:
F*** yeah let's fix everything. Why do we need to wash tons of fertilizer down the Mississippi each year? It causes algae blooms and kills fish which obviously then hurts coastal fishermen and their ability to make a living. Different farming practices can reduce the need for fertilizer. We can also get by without growing so many crops for use as bio fuels. It's probably more carbon efficient to pursue vehicle electrification and general fuel economy gains. Unless of course your vehicle uses 100% biodiesel or something. But like ethanol in the gas... correct me if I'm wrong but that looks like a carbon inefficient process because now you gotta burn more fuel to do the farming of the corn that you're going to convert into ethanol, and you're taking up farmland for that purpose.
Urban sprawn, increased albedo, etc... let's fix that too! Buildings can be constructed with roofs that reflect more light back into space. This also helps you on your power bill in the summer. Sounds like a win-win to me. Put solar panels over top of parking spaces. USPS did that for their massive LA package facility. Why do all the big box stores have completely closed off roofs? You could have skylights up there to reduce the need for electric lighting during daylight hours. I did go to a grocery store with skylights in California once, why don't they do that everywhere? It's probably way cheaper to setup than solar panels would be if you want to complain about solar installation cost and complexity. Roads ought to be made from concrete like the US Interstate system. That would reflect more light back into space than asphalt. At the same time the concrete roads have to be redone wayyy less frequently. There are all kinds of great ideas going around. It's a shame more of them aren't adopted.