We may or may not have hit the physical point of no return. It doesn't really matter, because we obviously hit the point of political no return a long time ago.
In too much of the world, nobody with any kind of power cares. (My own country included.) It's the prisoner's dilemma yet again: why should any of us who might care cooperate, when everyone else is cheating?
We hit that point a long, long time ago.
The situation isn't hopeless, I think, but this talk of "point of no return" doesn't work because it doesn't acknowledge the reality that, as ever, it's political and some people actively do not want to address it.
And articles like this are just making it worse. What’s the takeaway? “It’s too late to fix it, so there’s no point in trying.” The outcome can always be made better, or worse. We need to focus on that if we want to aim for “better.”
So, what can individuals do? I can stop using airplanes, stop eating meat, switch to bev and heat pumps, vote for green parties, go to rallies against fossil energy and tell my friends to do all that as well. Yet I still have a government (German), that reverses everything its somewhat progressive predecessor did with regards to climate change. And other countries are in an even worse spot. It just looks like everyone need to accept that we will simply not doing enough and that everyone under 20 will face 3°C global warming.
14 years later and the most politically powerful person in the world spends a lot of time yapping about "clean coal" and the evil of windwills because he feels wronged by Scotland for allowing them to be installed near his golf course.
Peter Thiel (also politically powerful, even if unelected, due to immense wealth) unironically calls a young woman a "legionnaire of the Antichrist" because she peacefully protests for positive change in this area. Instead of thinking he is a dangerous sociopath many people worship him, because, well, he's very wealthy.
I'm nearly 53. We've known about this longer than I've been alive, and have made very little to no significant forward progress, with the slight exception of there being a shift to solar power, but even this was only done because it happened to become more economical than dirty alternatives. And even this small positive concession (that we got lucky on the economics of) is still being strongly resisted by the current US government for political reasons (as increased solar power usage is seen to benefit China):
We may or may not have hit the physical point of no return. It doesn't really matter, because we obviously hit the point of political no return a long time ago.
In too much of the world, nobody with any kind of power cares. (My own country included.) It's the prisoner's dilemma yet again: why should any of us who might care cooperate, when everyone else is cheating?
We hit that point a long, long time ago.
The situation isn't hopeless, I think, but this talk of "point of no return" doesn't work because it doesn't acknowledge the reality that, as ever, it's political and some people actively do not want to address it.
And articles like this are just making it worse. What’s the takeaway? “It’s too late to fix it, so there’s no point in trying.” The outcome can always be made better, or worse. We need to focus on that if we want to aim for “better.”
"Making it worse? Gemini! Gemini! Gemini!"*
*AI meets Life of Brian
So, what can individuals do? I can stop using airplanes, stop eating meat, switch to bev and heat pumps, vote for green parties, go to rallies against fossil energy and tell my friends to do all that as well. Yet I still have a government (German), that reverses everything its somewhat progressive predecessor did with regards to climate change. And other countries are in an even worse spot. It just looks like everyone need to accept that we will simply not doing enough and that everyone under 20 will face 3°C global warming.
Nothing. Nothing can be done except hope the accelerationists are right and we have some massive technological breakthroughs that fix it.
It is simply impossible to have humans voluntarily reduce consumption at scale. The only way forward is up and out.
We're frogs in a pot of water on a stove.
As George Carlin said, all we can do at this point is sit back and watch the freak show.
This cartoon is from 2012:
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
14 years later and the most politically powerful person in the world spends a lot of time yapping about "clean coal" and the evil of windwills because he feels wronged by Scotland for allowing them to be installed near his golf course.
Peter Thiel (also politically powerful, even if unelected, due to immense wealth) unironically calls a young woman a "legionnaire of the Antichrist" because she peacefully protests for positive change in this area. Instead of thinking he is a dangerous sociopath many people worship him, because, well, he's very wealthy.
I'm nearly 53. We've known about this longer than I've been alive, and have made very little to no significant forward progress, with the slight exception of there being a shift to solar power, but even this was only done because it happened to become more economical than dirty alternatives. And even this small positive concession (that we got lucky on the economics of) is still being strongly resisted by the current US government for political reasons (as increased solar power usage is seen to benefit China):
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sbvp4ULD6GI
No shit, Sherlock