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How fast can we stop Earth from warming?

6 Comments
By Richard B Rood

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With all the attempts made so far, not very fast.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Excellent article. The thermal reserves that will drive warming our planet will be here for decades to come and will only begin to be mitigated when the "Human" inputs have receded. This is very possible but it takes all "Humans"...

0 ( +2 / -2 )

CO2 has a half life in the atmosphere of about a century, so even if we stopped 100% of our greenhouse gas emissions today, global warming would go on for at least the next hundred years. Which is to say, that while we absolutely should be doing what we can to stop global warming, right now we are not being successful.

In order to stop global warming, we have to not only go carbon neutral, we have to go carbon negative, which is another way of saying we have to take green house gases out of the atmosphere, and not just stop putting them into the air.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The permafrost is already thawing, and there is no way to stop it now. It will be the end of us, with methane tens of times more harmful as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

There are huge methane blowouts in Siberia, and even methane seeps now in Antarctica! But go on making fun of scientists, and keep listening to politicians instead of taking action NOW.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The most current critical global crises that demands a swimming pool full of cash to even hope to avert certain disaster.

Yes.

But first consider this:

Ready to live in a “window” for a while?

Ready or not, because we are all in one right now.

The window is a space of time, where growth must occur in certain high ticket price projects (such as this one) in a short space of time; before the world populations wake up to the certainty that, economically, the party is well and truly over.

No “transient” mistakes are now possible. The reality is that the globe now suffers under soaring prices, economic contraction, and currency uncertainty. And under any contemporary measure, will through the next three years. “Supply line difficulties are not an issue.

No mistakes over theories of “money supply” and “currency stabilization” are now possible. The need to create a huge amount of money, to liquefy well over-extended debt structures, is now unmistakably evident and transparent to everyone. No matter how it is being narrated as being necessary to buy ourselves out of growing inflation and contraction.

In order to justify huge amounts of debt for these high-ticket projects, in terms of political, social and economic stability (working class citizens may find current and future burdens on them as being unbearable and unacceptable), they must be rationalized as mutualized debt. That somehow creating new debt and financing it through bonds that must be paid back through taxation is justified – nay unavoidable – as long as everyone’s doing it, in order to avert certain and imminent global catastrophe.

In effect, these efforts become highly inflationary-causing in themselves, and highly expensive to even hope to replay. And, to a reasonable person, are little more that extremely large slush funds, created to keep the spending party going for The Good Cause; be it Global Warming, Global Habitat Protections, Global Vaccination, Global Hunger, Global Population Displacement, Global Medical Care, Global Political Stability, Defense against autocrats, despots, and various Unenlightened Masses, etc. (the list keeps growing). This is framed –unapologetically – as a viable and necessary Enlightened Ones alternative worldview value. Never mind how you and your society is used to handling money and finance, this is now how you must handle money, to save you and society from itself and certain death and disaster, of course!

In past times, there has been a tendency of the international economic community to respond to challenges we are in right now to adopt traditional fiscal rigor and frugality; to work harder, spend less and save more. So much so, that they are widely considered cultural values of importance; a bedrock of societal stability and harmony.

The values are now colliding. And so has the recriminations and venom. Because it is a clash involving a collision of worldviews; a restraint against cultural change, versus a de-culturalized internationalist desire for the world to adopt a mutual destiny of the menu of politically correct alternative outcomes.

Back to the project under discussion. Obviously different countries have different fiscal and economic priorities, and – more importantly – their own view on how they must respond to the current economic crisis. However, they do, and will, recognize the importance of these global causes (hard not to, isn’t it?). However, instead of being handed a minimum bill of costs to combat each and every one that was made up by the topical experts, they must be allowed to decide for themselves how much they can contribute to the project, against the framework of their own priorities. Without being compelled in any way to adopt a free to spend and debt policy of others, which runs counter to their own values.

Accept their contribution with gratitude. Then leave them alone!

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

We can stop contributing to global warming but however global warming cannot be stopped.

The sun is getting bigger and hotter and the poles are shifting.

Using fossil fuels for everything is just dumb.

Even a bicycle has many parts derived from petroleum.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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