VirtualExile

By the 1990s, as a result of improving fidelity of computer models and observational work confirming the Milankovitch theory of the ice ages, a consensus position formed: greenhouse gases were deeply involved in most climate changes and human-caused emissions were bringing discernible global warming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science

We humans have collectively known for roughly 25 years that we need to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases.  So what have we collectively done about it?

Well, over the past 25 years the share of our energy consumption derived from hydroelectric & renewables has increased from 8% to 12%.  That's great!  We've increased our Green share of energy consumption by half over 25 years.  I mean, we need to increase this share much faster to approach 100%, but it is moving in the right direction.

[OK, at 4% every 25 years ... it would take us another 550 years to reach 100%.  Our pace has been increasing more recently, however, we increased the share by 0.45% last year.  At this 0.45% annual rate it would take us only 200 years to reach 100% Green energy.  Not the 10-30 years environmentalists are hoping for, but 200 years.  We need to move much faster, like 10x faster.]

Anyway, we're continuing to increase our Green share.  Solar and wind power installations are booming all over the planet.

Nevertheless, over that same period of 25 years, we've increased our annual CO2 emissions by more than 60%.  And annual CO2 emissions are still increasing each year.  Why?  Because we're still increasing the amount of fossil fuels we burn each year.

Over the same 25-year period we've increased both --> the share of Green energy we consume by half, and the amount of CO2 we emit by more than half.  It's like those horror movies where you're running down the hall as fast as you can, but the door gets farther away.

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This is why I think environmentalists and progressives engage in a form of popular science fiction when they talk about Green New Deals and "sustainable development" and set goals for net-zero emissions over the next 10-30 years.

So far, we humans have chosen more of everything.  Sure, more solar & wind power, but also, more fossil fuel power & more CO2 emissions.

It's not enough to choose more solar & wind power.

We also need to choose less fossil fuel power.  It's this choosing less that is tricky.

I mean, it's great that the most valuable corporation in the world, Apple, has committed to net-zero emissions by 2030.  But elsewhere, we continue to dig more coal out of the ground, and drill more oil & gas out of the ground.  We aren't choosing less of the stuff that's harmful, we're choosing both more of the stuff that isn't as harmful & more of the stuff that is harmful.

We're choosing more of everything.

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At some point, if we really want to stop making global warming even worse, we have to choose less fossil fuels.  Realistically, we have to nearly eliminate them, we must choose to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels by at least 90% to stop making global warming even worse.

Here's the problem with this choice: this cannot be a personal choice.  It has to be a global choice, and it has to be enforceable.

That's the lesson of the past 25 years.  Even though we know, collectively, as a globe-spanning species, that we are causing global warming by consuming fossil fuels, we haven't stopped doing so.  Knowledge isn't enough.  Voluntary action isn't enough.

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Then we reach the hard problem.  Getting the world's governments to agree on enforceable limits.  Here in my own country, our government agreed on unenforceable limits under President Obama via the Paris Agreement, but now we've ripped up that agreement under President Trump.  In my own country we haven't done it.

But of those countries that remain committed to the unenforceable Paris Agreement, only two have actually implemented it: Morocco and Gambia.

In my own country, it would seem the first step is getting us to agree to unenforceable limits.  In almost every other country, OK, you've agreed to unenforceable limits, but ... you're still choosing More of Everything.

How do I get the rest of y'all to agree to enforceable limits on fossil fuel consumption?  Is this even something I can take responsibility for, convincing everybody else to do what the scientific consensus has been telling us to do already for 25 years?

I can commit myself to figuring out how to go net-zero in my own life by 2030, sure, like Apple has.  I won't let Apple do better than me, LOL.  Maybe via climate offsets (a completely separate topic!) I can go net-zero by the end of 2020.  I can beat Apple by a decade, I can beat every Green New Deal by a decade!

But how do I bring along the rest of you?  As a species, we just want more of everything.