Do you believe it is possible that anything that could happen in American politics could forestall catastrophic climate change?

There doesn't seem to be any credible model under which the world could possibly get past about 80% of the way to "net zero" in the next fifty years through renewable energy alone. Some things simply don't function well with renewables (e.g., jets). Plus, the initial carbon cost in manufacturing the renewable energy sources is somewhat massive.

So if we're going to insist on net-zero-by-2070-or-we're-kinda-screwed, that's inevitably going to require two things:

1) Laws capping the emissions of any company or country or even individual at a very low rate; and

2) International military enforcement of those laws (as best as possible, keeping in mind that militaries tend to be huge carbon generators).

And capping those emissions is no doubt going to cause economic crashes that put the Great Depression to shame; there's just no precedent for actually intentionally shutting down so much manufacture, shipping, agriculture, etc.

So... would.it be worth it?

/r/AskALiberal Thread Parent