Tyndall Center Director Anderson: Rapid Emissions Reduction Hard: 4-6C Far, Far Worse

[AverageJoe90]

18. CRH, you don't get it.

Can you point to one program or event that has reduced global CO2 emissions, ...
when consumption and growth were not suppressed by recession?

Not personally, at the moment, but they are out there.

If status quo could be maintained, 'Big Energy' would be leading the charge in a reduction of CO2 emissions, to protect their future.

Really? Last time I checked, they were trying to keep expanding oil exploitation in the Arctic.

The fact is, emissions have continued to rise with consumption except in times of economic crisis. New clean energies can't provide for the present demand, and now we are up against the clock which is running out of time. We need to cut back now, one more time,now, by more than ten times what has been considered before in discussion.

They could if we really tried. And running out of time for what, exactly?

International agreements have consistently failed when proposing just a one percent per year reduction, because any larger reduction guarantees an economy at best in stagnation, but more likely in crisis. We don't have the luxury of gradual development of clean energy, and now, the technology is not close to the scale needed.

The economy would only stagnate because certain forces would make it happen. For God's sakes, man, don't you realize that you are starting to echo a few 'skeptic' talking points here? Christopher Booker and many of the others keep claiming that majorly reducing emissions will harm the economy, too:

"The fact is that there is no one in the world who can explain how we could cut our emissions by four fifths without shutting down virtually all our existing economy. What carries this even further into the higher realms of lunacy is that such a Quixotic gesture would do nothing to halt the world’s fast-rising CO2 emissions, already up 40 per cent since 1990. There is no way for us to prevent the world’s CO2 emissions from doubling by 2100"

And that's just Booker.

Joe you seem to be caught up in a desire to maintain your consumption and addressing the cooking of the planet at the same time. The avenues for your success unfortunately do not exist at this time, and we are out of time. Cut back consumption now, or pay the price of 4-6 degrees C, probably more by the end of the century.

You yourself seem to be caught up in the fantasy that if everybody in the West just consumed less, we'd be okay. No, CRH, my avenues of success are not only existent, but doable. And not only will just less consumption be not nearly enough to be helpful without alternative energy implementation, but there will definitely be ways for TPTB to exploit that to their advantage.

Right now we are feeling the effects of less than 2 degrees rise with more already baked in.

No, nothing more than 2 degrees is baked in yet.

And you want to continue to do, what has provided the heat, status quo and rising, c-o-n-s-u-m-p-t-i-o-n.

No, because the status quo will be just fine with nothing more than less consumption. In fact, it just gives the 1% more a carte-blanche to do what they want......including more wars for oil.

Perhaps you haven't seen this yet, but an excellent article by Skeptical Science not only debunks the "emissions reductions will kill the economy!" garbage but it also provides examples of JUST a few things we can do here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard.htm

C'mon man, wake up, please.