- "Scrubbing CO2 emissions from power plants is of limited effectiveness and prohibitively expensive.” Verdict: May as well have been written yesterday. Yes, carbon capture remains a prominent part of many supposed net-zero pathways, and it now has more federal dollars behind it through some provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. But the fact remains that virtually no carbon is actually being captured from power plant smokestacks—in the U.S. or anywhere—and some countries are warning that relying on the technology is folly. What was true then is still true today. For now at least.
Anything other than relying on existing technology, of which we have effectively all we need, should be considered damaging to the conversation. Effectively, we have everything we need in our tool kit to solve climate change, and we’re simply choosing not to by prioritizing individuals (both human and corporation) ‘right’ to damage the environment in exchange for profit.
We can literally halt the world when we need to. Covid demonstrated that ability to be within our reach. We can effectively put a moratorium on human activity, stop pretending that the 90% of worthless jobs people attend are actually necessary, and tell people ‘its fine; just hang out. go for a walk or start a garden or something’. We can keep the important stuff going and reduce our emissions by 60-80% overnight. Most of human effort is wasted.
Beyond that, people need to simply accept a slightly (and I do mean slightly) lower tech and more manual future. Your milk might come in glass bottles in the future instead of plastic, and you might have to bring them back to the store or pay again for a bottle deposit. Sorry. Your parents and grandparents lived this way. You can too. Want to go places? Bikes or e-scooters for the less fit. You don’t need a car and a hundred years ago, wouldn’t have had one, so deal with it.
The issue I’m taking is treating climate change like a technical problem to be solved. Its not. Its a social problem with how we relate to the world.
This is honestly an excellent response to the article. You are correct that we have to expand our understanding of acceptability and realize that our best life as humans may not be as ‘futuristic’ as we imagine…yet.