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johndoe30x1 t1_j6lm0ve wrote

Reply to comment by CrimsonToker707 in Earth is on track to exceed 1.5C warming in the next decade, study using AI finds by hugglenugget

If we literally shut off half of the coal and oil and gas power plants on Earth right now, not as the goal, but as a starting point for cutting emissions rapidly, we would still need luck to stay under 2°C. It’s not happening lol

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dzastrus t1_j6mfeb8 wrote

We're burning more oil all the time. Plastic is everywhere, just everywhere. Our clothing, blankets, a lot of our vehicle parts, all of that. It's a runaway train. Awareness won't do a damn thing. Never has. The 70's had the Ecology movement and they designated the first, Earth Day. They helped stop rivers from burning but big oil just kept getting bigger. Hope all you want, convenience will win out.

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johndoe30x1 t1_j6nvdmf wrote

What I’m getting at is that we could have made modest changes back in the 70’s and even 80’s and it could have been no big deal, like saving the ozone layer. Now we’re fucked even if we took the most drastic measures that were never realistic.

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sg92i t1_j6pco28 wrote

> we could have made modest changes back in the 70’s and even 80’s and it could have been no big deal

Unlikely. Even by the 1960s petroleum had become our way of life, globally (with rare exceptions if we want to account for Amazon rainforest tribes & so on). Jevon's paradox holds that any attempt to decrease our consumption of oil or coal, say by producing more nuclear power generation, would simply make it more affordable for under developed countries to use instead.

And in any case; nuclear power does not give us the fertilizer our crops depend on, and electric transportation -still- is not advanced enough to obsolete our big rigs & seafaring container ships.

And those oil guzzling container ships are one of the planet's biggest sources of greenhouse gases. They are dirty in emissions and inefficient in oil/fuel consumption. The top 10 worst container ships in use -right now- nevermind 40 years ago, EACH emit as much greenhouse gas as all of the cars in North America.

Now I suppose in theory we could have banned petroleum based products (coal, gas, diesel, etc) after WW2 and tried to use the UN to invade & stop any country globally from using them, but I am skeptical that this wouldn't have caused WW3 and nuclear war in short order...

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