SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
One should avoid wrecking key ecosystems, but if the energy payoff is sufficiently high, it still might be worth doing, because if climate change is not stopped the ecosystem will be wrecked anyway. (Photo: Illustrated | Spencer Platt/Getty Images, Screenshot/The New Yorker)
What It Will Take to Actually Fight Climate Change
The technology is very largely there. All that is missing is the energy, commitment, and international coordination.
Sep 11, 2019
Ponder the onrushing disaster of climate change, and the towering task of getting greenhouse gas emissions down in time to avoid existential calamity, and one can be led very easily to an enervating political despair. The battle is basically lost, or so says the famed novelist Jonathan Franzen in a New Yorker essay this week. While we should try to reduce emissions, he writes, "All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable."
Just like his similar effort from four years ago, Franzen's argument is sloppy, muddled, and premised on elementary factual errors. But it makes a good reason to consider some historical occasions in which human societies have faced and overcome similarly-long odds in the past--like the French Revolution, when ordinary people, pulsing with furious revolutionary energy, flung themselves at seemingly-invulnerable adversaries and won.
First, let's examine Franzen's case. He says that "consensus among scientists and policy-makers is that we'll pass this point of no return if the global mean temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius" which we will almost certainly blow past, and hence the game is basically up. He then reasons that climate policy should not now be too aggressive, because there is often an inherent trade-off between green developments and environmental preservation. "Our resources aren't infinite. Even if we invest much of them in a longest-shot gamble, reducing carbon emissions in the hope that it will save us, it's unwise to invest all of them," he writes, saying some should be saved for humanitarian aid and that renewable mega-projects that threaten ecosystems should not be built.
There is just one problem: Neither premise is true. The science on tipping points is very unsettled, but as the University of Exeter's Timothy Lenton (perhaps the top climate researcher on this particular point) explains in a Climatic Change paper, there are lots of potential tipping points, some are a lot more sinister than others, they will be reached at different temperatures, and, while we can't rule out tripping some at under 2 degrees, the likeliest early tripwire is between 2-4 degrees. Now, that is not at all comforting, but it means there is no certain climate doomsday point--every tenth of a degree of warming means worse direct impacts and a greater likelihood of extreme disaster.
Second, it is simply false to say there is a trade-off between climate policy and environmental preservation, because unchecked climate change will obliterate the biosphere. One should avoid wrecking key ecosystems, but if the energy payoff is sufficiently high, it still might be worth doing, because if climate change is not stopped the ecosystem will be wrecked anyway. High levels of warming will do orders of magnitude more damage to Franzen's beloved bird population than all the windmills in the world. Climate writer David Roberts carefully explained this to Franzen back in 2015, but apparently it didn't sink in.
Read full article here.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 The Week
Ryan Cooper
Ryan Cooper is the Managing Editor of The American Prospect. Formerly, he was a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
Ponder the onrushing disaster of climate change, and the towering task of getting greenhouse gas emissions down in time to avoid existential calamity, and one can be led very easily to an enervating political despair. The battle is basically lost, or so says the famed novelist Jonathan Franzen in a New Yorker essay this week. While we should try to reduce emissions, he writes, "All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable."
Just like his similar effort from four years ago, Franzen's argument is sloppy, muddled, and premised on elementary factual errors. But it makes a good reason to consider some historical occasions in which human societies have faced and overcome similarly-long odds in the past--like the French Revolution, when ordinary people, pulsing with furious revolutionary energy, flung themselves at seemingly-invulnerable adversaries and won.
First, let's examine Franzen's case. He says that "consensus among scientists and policy-makers is that we'll pass this point of no return if the global mean temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius" which we will almost certainly blow past, and hence the game is basically up. He then reasons that climate policy should not now be too aggressive, because there is often an inherent trade-off between green developments and environmental preservation. "Our resources aren't infinite. Even if we invest much of them in a longest-shot gamble, reducing carbon emissions in the hope that it will save us, it's unwise to invest all of them," he writes, saying some should be saved for humanitarian aid and that renewable mega-projects that threaten ecosystems should not be built.
There is just one problem: Neither premise is true. The science on tipping points is very unsettled, but as the University of Exeter's Timothy Lenton (perhaps the top climate researcher on this particular point) explains in a Climatic Change paper, there are lots of potential tipping points, some are a lot more sinister than others, they will be reached at different temperatures, and, while we can't rule out tripping some at under 2 degrees, the likeliest early tripwire is between 2-4 degrees. Now, that is not at all comforting, but it means there is no certain climate doomsday point--every tenth of a degree of warming means worse direct impacts and a greater likelihood of extreme disaster.
Second, it is simply false to say there is a trade-off between climate policy and environmental preservation, because unchecked climate change will obliterate the biosphere. One should avoid wrecking key ecosystems, but if the energy payoff is sufficiently high, it still might be worth doing, because if climate change is not stopped the ecosystem will be wrecked anyway. High levels of warming will do orders of magnitude more damage to Franzen's beloved bird population than all the windmills in the world. Climate writer David Roberts carefully explained this to Franzen back in 2015, but apparently it didn't sink in.
Read full article here.
From Your Site Articles
Ryan Cooper
Ryan Cooper is the Managing Editor of The American Prospect. Formerly, he was a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.
Ponder the onrushing disaster of climate change, and the towering task of getting greenhouse gas emissions down in time to avoid existential calamity, and one can be led very easily to an enervating political despair. The battle is basically lost, or so says the famed novelist Jonathan Franzen in a New Yorker essay this week. While we should try to reduce emissions, he writes, "All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable."
Just like his similar effort from four years ago, Franzen's argument is sloppy, muddled, and premised on elementary factual errors. But it makes a good reason to consider some historical occasions in which human societies have faced and overcome similarly-long odds in the past--like the French Revolution, when ordinary people, pulsing with furious revolutionary energy, flung themselves at seemingly-invulnerable adversaries and won.
First, let's examine Franzen's case. He says that "consensus among scientists and policy-makers is that we'll pass this point of no return if the global mean temperature rises by more than two degrees Celsius" which we will almost certainly blow past, and hence the game is basically up. He then reasons that climate policy should not now be too aggressive, because there is often an inherent trade-off between green developments and environmental preservation. "Our resources aren't infinite. Even if we invest much of them in a longest-shot gamble, reducing carbon emissions in the hope that it will save us, it's unwise to invest all of them," he writes, saying some should be saved for humanitarian aid and that renewable mega-projects that threaten ecosystems should not be built.
There is just one problem: Neither premise is true. The science on tipping points is very unsettled, but as the University of Exeter's Timothy Lenton (perhaps the top climate researcher on this particular point) explains in a Climatic Change paper, there are lots of potential tipping points, some are a lot more sinister than others, they will be reached at different temperatures, and, while we can't rule out tripping some at under 2 degrees, the likeliest early tripwire is between 2-4 degrees. Now, that is not at all comforting, but it means there is no certain climate doomsday point--every tenth of a degree of warming means worse direct impacts and a greater likelihood of extreme disaster.
Second, it is simply false to say there is a trade-off between climate policy and environmental preservation, because unchecked climate change will obliterate the biosphere. One should avoid wrecking key ecosystems, but if the energy payoff is sufficiently high, it still might be worth doing, because if climate change is not stopped the ecosystem will be wrecked anyway. High levels of warming will do orders of magnitude more damage to Franzen's beloved bird population than all the windmills in the world. Climate writer David Roberts carefully explained this to Franzen back in 2015, but apparently it didn't sink in.
Read full article here.
From Your Site Articles
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.