It would get worse even if we stopped burning fossil fuels immediately. Because of lag effects, tipping points, and masking.
But you seem to be arguing that it'd be pointless in the same way that pressing the break in the immediate moment before a car accident is futile. Sure it might not help a lot, but I'd argue it's still the right call and will rarely make the situation worse.
Whether it's pointless or not is up for debate. Your brake pressing analogy could be slightly off. Rather than being in the moment before the car accident, we could be in the moment just after driving off of a cliff. In that case, brake pressing is indeed futile. But I think the system we're in is too complex to know for sure, and I'm all for people wanting to say that they are interested in doing anything they can. I'm also all for people actually taking action rather than just saying they are on board with the idea. Also...just do nothing if that's your preference.
I believe you misunderstood the quote. "Would only get worse" is a set phrase that means getting worse is inevitable. The "only" means that no other outcome is possible. It's sort of an intensified version of "would get worse" in that it's more definite.
So "it would only get worse if the world continues to burn planet-heating fossil fuels" means that if we continue burning these fuels, there is no chance we will avoid the consequences. It does not mean that the only way to have the problem is to keep burning fossil fuels.
We could barely lock down for a pandemic. Imagine telling someone (or entire winter cities) they will likely freeze to death today to reduce emissions.
That is not comparable to hitting the breaks to lessen a crash.
That's why I said that's not an option. Stopping fossil fuels would be the same as stopping the car instantaneously - it would be a brand new car crash.
>> but I'd argue it's still the right call and will rarely make the situation worse.
That statement confused me. I don't understand your position then.
> The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.
Said to be a Chinese proverb, but I haven't extensively verified.
The only viable solution right now to combat global warming is to immediately stop emitting greenhouse gases, even if there is a lag effect.
Unlikely, cf. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/12/29/plant-tree/
There's an old Chinese proverb for this, it goes "most of the time it's not a Chinese proverb". Ah, words of sages, the wisdom of ages.
It turns out that since for most of Western history China was synonymous with the "mysterious far east", it become common practice to just tack on "Chinese" to the origin of any saying to let it exotic credibility.
Unsurprisingly "May you live in interesting times" is not a Chinese curse.
People like to fixate on a simple correction that they can work toward (more often just talk about), but the situation is not simple. And I don't think people should be making statements that suggest there is a simple solution at this point.
I would disagree strongly.
It's not only going to get worse if we continue burning fossil fuels. It's going to get worse no matter what.
If accepting that would lead you to conclude that we shouldn't bother, so be it. That's your interpretation, not mine. But downplaying those facts so that you can feel better about the situation is something I would disagree with strongly.
> It’s relevant because people continue to downplay just how dire the situation is.
It also gives us the option to work on carbon capture and mitigation technologies.
If we just carry on it's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse until it doesn't matter any more.
The first is the rational choice, especially when the momentum in the models already accounts for likely future changes.
It's not a given that it will get better again. Not on timescales that matter to our species anyway.
>It also gives us the option to work on carbon capture and mitigation technologies.
Couldn't we do that while still burning fossil fuels? Not sure why we'd have to stop burning in order to have the option to work on capture and mitigation.
> If we just carry on it's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse until it doesn't matter any more.
It's guaranteed to keep getting worse and worse in that case. But we might already be at the point where it doesn't matter anymore. I wonder, at what point would you say it doesn't matter anymore? How do you know?
> The first is the rational choice, especially when the momentum in the models already accounts for likely future changes.
That's the rational choice based on the conclusions you have personally come to, along with your own mental predisposition. I don't believe the situation is simple enough to say that this is the only rational choice for everybody.
But it could.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/massive-forest-restoratio...
The right trees, planted in the right locations (0.9 billion hectares), could store 205 gigatons of carbon dioxide. ... That's two thirds of all the CO2 humans have generated since the industrial revolution.
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
So we could plant not just 0.9 billion hectares but 3 billion.
Twice as much CO2 as we have generated since the industrial revolution.
> Couldn't we do that while still burning fossil fuels? Not sure why we'd have to stop burning in order to have the option to work on capture and mitigation.
Because those technologies don't work at the scale needed. Check how much we're producing and how much carbon those factories are able to store. We'd need tens of thousands of them.
That's your interpretation, not mine.
Well, what do you advocate for? Semantic accuracy is good, but quibbling over it takes up time that could be better spent on ranking proposals.
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01372-y (paywall)
[1] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/188408/6/Dvorak_Armouretal_r... (pdf pre-print)
Well, what if we did so and also start spraying sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere?
That's your reaction. Not mine. Who am I to tell people what to do or not do?
You could just as easily have read what I said and thought: "So we need to prepare for something even worse no matter what, and we also need to act much more aggressively than we are!"
I agree with you that it’s dire, and we need more aggressive action. I agree it’s going to get worse. In the short term, in terms of a few years, it’s true that changes to fossil fuel consumption won’t fix it. In the long term (decades and centuries) that’s not true though, and we do need to be thinking both short term and long term. We do need to curtail fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission in order to solve this problem eventually, in addition to taking stronger actions in order to alleviate some of the symptoms anytime soon, right?
So you just dropped in to make sure everyone feels worse? Gee, thanks.