The trouble is CO2 isn't even a pressing problem compared to everything else. There are so man forms of pollution that are killing things right now. There are the great garbage patches in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. There are the lakes of sludge in factories cities in China. There are the coal fly ash dams at coal plants all around the US (and dams like the one in Kingston Fossil Plant that broke and contaminated the entire watershed between Nashville and Knoxivlle), water supply contamination from fracking, the ongoing ramifications from the BP oil spill in the Gulf that is still not really cleaned up, but everyone has forgotten about.
To solve all these other very current sources of pollution that are killing us right now, we need to consume less. We need more trains, fewer cars, cellphones that are designed to last 8~12 years instead of 2~4, industry that isn't based on infinite growth, more automation, less fear over loss to automation, and just a huge change in the way we think about the world, consumption and the economy.
All of these changes will reduce CO2, but CO2 is just a symptom of a much much larger problem. People will continue to argue about CO2, and it'd a red haring. Humanity needs to focus on the actual Flu and not the runny nose/sniffles.
CO2 is not just disrupting the climate, it is also acidifying the seas, which will soon suffer an eco-collapse as shellfish and coral become unable to precipitate calcium out of the water.
There is a nearly commensurate problem. If existing A/C and refrigeration systems end up venting their HFCs, that will cause as much climate disruption as CO2, and remain in the atmosphere for centuries. Somehow we have to drain every failed compressor and incinerate it all.
People will continue to argue about CO2, and it'd a red haring. Humanity needs to focus on the actual Flu and not the runny nose/sniffles.
You have to be careful about magnifying good plans into a design to destroy and replace every institution of power. If you let your views about how society should be organized piggyback on the need to solve problems, you'll end up fighting for a communist revolution instead of fighting climate change.
There are plenty of ways to address this issue that don't involve the larger problem, (the larger problem being society, human nature, the universal wavefunction and the boundary conditions of the universe...) and you can implement them without having to fight off opposition from everyone else on earth.
Regular old techniques like funding research and taxing externalities can help with this problem, and the opposition to them is going to be far smaller than the opposition to replacing capitalism, or whatever bigger-picture solution you're alluding to.
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The trouble is CO2 isn't even a pressing problem compared to everything else. There are so man forms of pollution that are killing things right now. There are the great garbage patches in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. There are the lakes of sludge in factories cities in China. There are the coal fly ash dams at coal plants all around the US (and dams like the one in Kingston Fossil Plant that broke and contaminated the entire watershed between Nashville and Knoxivlle), water supply contamination from fracking, the ongoing ramifications from the BP oil spill in the Gulf that is still not really cleaned up, but everyone has forgotten about.
To solve all these other very current sources of pollution that are killing us right now, we need to consume less. We need more trains, fewer cars, cellphones that are designed to last 8~12 years instead of 2~4, industry that isn't based on infinite growth, more automation, less fear over loss to automation, and just a huge change in the way we think about the world, consumption and the economy.
All of these changes will reduce CO2, but CO2 is just a symptom of a much much larger problem. People will continue to argue about CO2, and it'd a red haring. Humanity needs to focus on the actual Flu and not the runny nose/sniffles.
This is very far from correct.
CO2 is not just disrupting the climate, it is also acidifying the seas, which will soon suffer an eco-collapse as shellfish and coral become unable to precipitate calcium out of the water.
There is a nearly commensurate problem. If existing A/C and refrigeration systems end up venting their HFCs, that will cause as much climate disruption as CO2, and remain in the atmosphere for centuries. Somehow we have to drain every failed compressor and incinerate it all.
You have to be careful about magnifying good plans into a design to destroy and replace every institution of power. If you let your views about how society should be organized piggyback on the need to solve problems, you'll end up fighting for a communist revolution instead of fighting climate change.
There are plenty of ways to address this issue that don't involve the larger problem, (the larger problem being society, human nature, the universal wavefunction and the boundary conditions of the universe...) and you can implement them without having to fight off opposition from everyone else on earth.
Regular old techniques like funding research and taxing externalities can help with this problem, and the opposition to them is going to be far smaller than the opposition to replacing capitalism, or whatever bigger-picture solution you're alluding to.