U.S. Carbon Pollution Surged in 2018, After Years of Stasis
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Between this article and events such as the fuel tax protests in France, I have no hope of coming up with a political solution to global warming before it's too late. Our only hope is a technical solution.
If you look at population growth, starting with Malthus, people warned of the dangers of overpopulation and urged people to abstain from sex, so as not to have too many children. Despite grim warnings that didn't happen. Then medical science came up with a pill a that a woman could swallow once a day which would prevent pregnancy. As people over the world gained access to it, the population growth rate has declined, and the population is projected to stabilize. I sincerely hope that something like this will be the story with global warning.
If it becomes clear that only finding a rapid means of reducing the population, then it will be discussed, slowly at first, and then gain steam. However we decide to go about it, with whatever rationalizations and intentions, the result will be extreme violence and social instability. If we want to avoid this as a scenario, waiting for tech to save us is the worst possible action to take. The disappointment and panic that will inevitably set in when people realize no salvation is coming will set the stage for genocide (whether by war, starvation, or denying reproductive rights).
It has already happened in the west, even birth-happy countries like france have gone under replacement rates and their native populations are decreasing.
Even China is starting to slow down, hence why we see China moving towards introducing baby bonus schemes.
Currently Africa is the big holdout with their population still rising drastically but currently there isn't really any plan for Africa to reduce it's population.
If anything, with African emigration increasing and no other major forces counteracting it, we are probably going to see Africa continue to grow in population for years to come. For whatever reason, Africa just isn't jumping on the pill bandwagon.
There are many technical mitigations to the problem, but a technical solution is well out of reach I'm afraid. The problem with carbon removal/storage and the like isn't that it's technically impossible but the scope of the effort required - of a similar magnitude to that of global carbon extraction over the last century.
Malthus was staved off by the efforts of the green revolution but its practises, intensize use of fertilizers and pesticides aided by mechanisation, may not be sustainable due to topsoil erosion and carbon emission. We don't know what the long-term carrying capacity of the planet is.
If they lie about CFC emissions, why on earth would they be truthful about carbon dioxide?