Also it means we won't actually solve the core problem that is greenhouse gas emissions.
Instead we'll just continually pump up some aerosols to ensure the heating doesn't get too bad. And if we ever fail to do so then we'll face incredible heating.
We had conversations about going to the moon and we got there in 10 years.
Talk about producing less disposable crap, driving less, flying less, and cutting military budgets, everyone gets “exercise their 2A rights” in the US.
> Talk about producing less disposable crap, driving less, flying less, and cutting military budgets
That comment illustrates the problem pretty well. We could do all those things and we'd still be way, way behind on what climate scientists say we actually need to do, to avoid disaster.
What we need to do is reduce emissions to zero in less than thirty years, with steep declines starting now. That's not just electric grids, it's all transportation, industry, direct emissions from steel and concrete production, agriculture, everything. And then we need to start pulling massive amounts of excess CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Going to the moon was trivial by comparison; without a breakthrough in cheap fusion or something we're not likely to achieve all this.
SRM isn't a solution but it could buy us a little time, before higher temperatures get the planet releasing gigatons of CO2 and methane without any further help from us.
Cost. The "cost" of all of those things is "too high" for the average American, as evidenced by the reaction to such proposals. So, we gotta do something else.
Because even if every American stopped driving _tomorrow_, we are still going to have the effects of climate change anyway. We can't stop India and China from developing, so instead of trying to limit the rights of Americans to do something which might not even help, it's better to develop a solution such as in TFA.
We can just produce more greenhouse gasses to make the aerosols we pump into the atmosphere to undo just one of the many effects of the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.
otoh, greenhouse gas emissions will eventually drop anyways, from running out of fuel. Even our best somewhat realistic plans of stopping emissions aren't that much better than what we should be doing in preparation of impeding scarcity anyways... Mitigation is no substitute for prevention, we'll need both anyways (unless we fast-track ourselves into oblivion using the nuclear arsenal cheat code)
It absolutely does not mean we can't solve the core problem. You can work on two things at once. You can take medicine to treat disease while you work to fix the underlying root cause
We can definitely switch to driving electric cars. Especially when most people drive just 20 miles to reach their job, and a significant amount of that is in traffic.
Destroying the air we breath and the planet for an average 20 mile drive, that takes an average 25 minutes, is plain insanity. It's well within the capability of electric cars to get the average person to and from work, and most of any form of driving they usually do.
It's pretty universally accepted that investing in public transport and trains 40 years ago would have led to an awesome economic boon, while dramatically lowering emissions. As mentioned, planning could have been much better. And every poor decision there has some car or oil corporation's fingerprints on it.
We could have spent much more on solar, nuclear, and other cleaner power.
We could have punished media and politicians that helped sell out our planets future for some slimy oil dollars.
There's a lot we could have done. But instead we have takes like yours; a direct result of 40 years of FUD and misinformation. Do you have the faintest idea what those cars, those cows, those oil spills and methane leaks cost us?
I guess not everyone realizes that /s means sarcasm?
I don’t disagree that oil and use of oil has caused a negative impact on Earth lol.
I don’t think we could’ve done anything in the last fourty years nor do I think we can do anything to stop. It’s too late.
There’s no way we can stop the use of oil and cars now. Sure we can switch to electric, but I don’t think that will stop the snowball.
It’s too entrenched and part of our life now. Sure we can be altruistic and ban the sale of non-EVs but what about all the millions of cars that are already in the streets?
The oil pockets are too deep for government to just ban existing vehicles. In fact the governments have caused wars to protect their oil assets…
Instead we'll just continually pump up some aerosols to ensure the heating doesn't get too bad. And if we ever fail to do so then we'll face incredible heating.