The Bastards Are Winning

The image on the right was published in the Washington Post late last month. It shows how deadly global warming could be, and that even if countries do what they have already promised to do, we are still likely to see a rise in temperature of more than 6 degrees (Fahrenheit). The idea of containing things to below 2 degrees is virtually impossible now, without a massive and immediate cut in emissions by most countries in the world. For now, though, carbon emissions continue to rapidly increase.

This clearly shows that significant action needs to be taken now. Two things that can be done, or at least started, immediately are massive reduction and reuse, and starting to build electrified rail in order to get cars and trucks off the street and save energy. At this point it doesn't really matter whether this is accomplished through regulation or through the market, so long as it is accomplished. The ideology doesn't matter, the goal matters.

In order to reduce overconsumption and waste, we need make it more difficult to make, buy and sell wasteful, inefficient, or unnecessary products. This can be done with legislation, simply banning certain products or classes of product. Another approach would be to heavily tax certain products, which should greatly reduce demand. This will inevitably affect jobs. You cannot reduce industrial economic activity without affecting jobs. This is just another reason for creating more green jobs, both for large infrastructure projects (i.e. new rail networks) and at the small local level.

We don't have time to wait for magic technology fixes, like space based solar power or other crazy geoengineering proposals. If new technology is developed that can help reduce emissions, that's great, but we can't wait for it because we simply don't have the time, or any guarantees it will show up.