Freeze the Warming. An Emissions Moratorium Proposal.
After Glasgow, which involved a lot of posturing and not enough meaningful substance, I am highly skeptical that CO2 levels can be adequately reduced in time to preserve the life of our planet. Employing conventional methods and thinking will not save us. We cannot keep kicking this crisis down the road.
We’ve run out of road.
It is my understanding that the U.N.’s annual report on climate change (I.P.C.C.) has given us less than a year to become seriously aggressive in achieving emission levels that will not destroy the biosphere. It is incumbent upon us all to keep in mind how flawed our procedures and plans for implementing consequential change are, due to corruption, conflicting interests and blanket denial.
On the face of it, my proposal for a global shutdown to effectively address CO2 and methane reduction, would appear to be a frightfully naive non-starter*, except for the fact that we have already done it; recently, with measurable success and for a far less critical reason.
I do not mean to undercut the seriousness of the pandemic as a world crisis, it’s just that it pales in comparison to the potential Armageddon of unchecked climate destruction.
I understand that the pandemic shutdown did not come together with global coordination, but more or less organically, though inspired by the example set by China. This would be unlikely to happen a second time. But that does not preclude the possibility of a deliberate and coordinated effort.
In order to implement this admittedly stop gap measure
a consensus of will is essential.
For the pandemic shutdown this unity of purpose was created by fear,
a tsunami of which is rapidly heading toward us.
Furthermore, climate related damage and disruption to agriculture, industry & commerce should cause the business and financial sectors to become proactive to protect their interests.
I am hopeful that these combined forces of fear and greed will be sufficient to get us to shut down again,
despite any lingering pandemic ‘fatigue’.
Added to this, the fact that this moratorium would not follow the same guidelines as the pandemic shutdown might make it a bit more palatable.
Although a global freeze of dangerous emissions is procedurally pretty straightforward, it is clearly not without obstacles. We shut down as much as we can, this time with world wide coordination, to lower green house gas levels to scientifically determined safe levels, and then reopen in stages, being responsible not to allow these newly established limits to be breached. Hopefully, a freeze of all polluting non-essentials will buy us the time to rapidly transfer to safe sustainable forms of energy and incrementally reopen those portions that have been up-graded. As an example, electric vehicles would be available throughout, while fossil fuel powered vehicles would be of limited use, relative to necessity, as they’re being fazed out.
We already have all the tools we need to attack this energy transformation head one.
The process of a global shutdown might proceed something like this:
- a state of global emergency will need to be declared and it will be essential to make everyone aware of the full magnitude of the danger we face without any whitewashing.
- we will need to control gas, coal, and oil supplies, cut methane production as much as possible, ration gasoline and shutter all expendable businesses and industries that pollute, until they can be made sustainable.
- for however long it takes, let the planet start to recover while we mobilize all our resources to make the fullest possible transfer to clean energy.
- do whatever is technologically feasible to reverse damage such as: CO2 removal from the atmosphere, addressing natural sources of methane release, cleaning up toxic sites, etc.
Within the first few months of the 2020 shut down, CO2 levels dropped significantly. It is apparently thought now that this did not effect the overall CO2 emissions of 2020 meaningfully. However, I assume that if the world had not reopened, eventually the effect would have been more pronounced. If not, then it would appear that there is no way to reduce levels other than by removal. I find this highly doubtful.
As it was, Scientists were surprised at how fast the planet started healing in 2020 and were at a loss to explain it. This gives me the hope that we may be aided in our efforts by the abstruse resiliency of the planet itself.
Once we commit to this path of aggressive emission reduction and elimination, we will be better prepared to effectively address the myriad of other environmental problems which can no longer be ignored. Many of these ills will need to be dealt with at the same time as all of this is interwoven and most is at crisis level.
Innovation, which is already transforming to tackle these issues, should mushroom.
Whatever hardships are created in the process will need to be suffered as the lesser of two evils, but could be mitigated by global co-operation and aid, as well as the boost to world economies from all the work generated and new jobs created as we tackle these issues.
America experienced something similar when it joined the Allies after Pearl Harbor, and had to prepare for war ‘over night’. We came together as a nation under a sudden threat which violently undermined our complacency. Our self sacrificing efforts were Herculean.
More importantly, as regards our present situation, our mobilization back then would have been considered impossible prior to being attacked.
Rationing, redirecting resources and manpower, as well as innovation, will play their parts in this emergency as they did then. Curbing unnecessary consumption will be vital. In the agricultural sector, waste alone amounts to over 40% of production. Meat production, which is one of the single largest producers of methane globally, is both subject to this waste and suffers from over consumption as well. Rationing could help bring this down to sustainable levels. Plastics are another nightmare that needs to be curtailed, as is the manufacture of a plethora of material goods the
sole purpose of which seems to be distraction from our societal malaise.
All these unnecessary ‘disposables’ blight our oceans and lands and bloat our landfills. ‘Planned obsolescence’
will need to become obsolete.
All the countries that join the effort (and there will be holdouts) will need to share information and resources with the more advantaged countries helping the deprived. A totality of participants will not be necessary, but countries that do not become involved will be left behind and suffer economically as a result.
The irony is that we already had the chance to do this with the
pandemic but were too blind, stupid and greedy to recognize and take
advantage of the opportunity.
However, the fact remains that we already shut down once and survived,
despite fears to the contrary…and that for me is the greatest lesson learned.
Of course the world’s powerful sociopaths and those they mislead,
will scream bloody murder, but if I remember correctly they
did so about the pandemic shutdown and were overridden.
Since it is clear that they all suffer from delusions of omnipotence
and don’t give a flying fuck about any of the rest of us, it’s past time
that they be rooted out and barred from participating in policy discourse.
That the Fossil Fuel ‘demons’ are still allowed to have lobbyists in Washington with such a horrendous track record of willful environmental destruction for profit is unconscionable and speaks loudly to the non-viability of our current plans for carbon reduction.
I believe, however, that a global emissions freeze is viable and I am convinced that it will prove to be our only option for achieving this goal.
*Having effectively never been in Climate denial and having watched this horror unfold over decades, I am comprehensively aware of the horrendous reality we are facing as well as the extremely poor odds for our survival. Sometimes I catch a cognitive glimpse of the mind boggling enormity of our world which gives me a sense of the terrifying scale of the mess we have created. At those times I am overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness. But I refuse to give in to despair.
I am not blind to the plethora of obstacles that could easily make this plan falter, not the least of which being human stupidity.
But I do not see that we have a choice if we want survive and save this extraordinary planet.
It seems clear that our current path is untenable and I have heard of no other alternative solutions for reaching the necessary reduction of greenhouse gases in time. However, I have no delusions that I am the only one to have thought of this approach.
Even if this idea of a freeze on emissions proves to be unfeasible, I hope it retains some relevancy by possibly helping to elevate our thinking toward more broad based solutions.
While anything we do to move toward sustainability has value, it is only by expanding our approach to solving this crisis that will we reach our goal in time.