I have been painting a picture of where we are heading if we fail to successfully intervene. That should not be taken to imply that, within decades, debilitation and collapse are inevitable. All you have been hearing is the first two parts of the physician’s three-part presentation to the patient, diagnosis and prognosis. They are not the full conversation. The third part is treatment plan. Shade. Cleanup. Building resilience. All as Manhattan Projects.
Surgeons and oncologists often have this conversation with a patient who has waited until stage 3 cancer develops before getting started on an intervention. Many such patients survive. Possible climate fixes are a topic unto itself, but it is clear that all of them will require design and field-testing on the scale of a Manhattan Project. ↓
Let me summarize:
- We need to retire the notion that going on a fossil fuel diet will fix our climate problem. (It is still a good idea for other goals.) If we were actually cleaning up CO2, then emissions reduction would speed up the process somewhat. However, we have yet to start a cleanup. We have our priorities backwards. ↓
- Many people think that “Zero Emissions” or “Net Zero” will make the accumulation go away. No. Too little, too late. ↓
- After 1985, the land temperature rose three times faster than the ocean surface. Alter the temperature contrast over coastlines and that may change the winds and where they deliver rain—producing droughts here and floods there. ↓
- There indeed has been more global drought: the land area in drought doubled between 1983 and 2003. ↓
- Global drought and the 21st century surges in extreme weather pose a much more immediate threat than another fractional degree rise in average surface temperature. ↓
There are now reasons why climate action needs to be big, quick, and sure to work the first time. We are in a new danger zone from which we must escape; collapse will kill faster than heat. Climate action now needs to focus on the short term via creating shade and removing CO2.
The climate crisis has been a lot to wrap our hearts, heads, and strategic policy around. But we now need big interventions before we miss even more exits on the Freeway to Hell.
