Scary Future

If the climate models recently published by the IPCC are accurate, then things are not looking great for the future. Indeed, if we continue on the same path that we are currently on then it is unlikely that my daughter will live long enough to die of old age.

When rising ocean levels force a mass migration in India and other highly populated coastal cities, then our recent experience with the mass migration of Syria foretells just how bad of a situation it could be.

More frequent and more intense storms threaten to destroy our infrastructure and homes. Increasing droughts and desertification put our food production at risk.

It is a seriously bad situation.

We know the cause. Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are capturing more of the suns energy.  It’s our fault. But even if it wasn’t, we still need to do something to stop it from getting worse.

There are a few things we can do, and there are multiple concurrent things we need to work on.

1. Everyone’s next car should be electric. The shift to electric transportation is critical to staying below a habitable temperature increase.
2. Minimalism. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like having stuff. There’s a lot of wasted time and money on things we don’t need. I’m trying to reduce my consumption of things as low as possible.
3. Eat less meat. Cows are a horribly inefficient way to grow food calories and nutrients. We’ve cut our meat consumption way back and eat more vegetarian meals than we used to.
4. We should be encouraging Plan B options. Elon Musk’s colony on Mars or Jeff Bezos’ vision of living in space needs some serious consideration and funding.
   
5. We need some geo-engineering technology to sequester carbon out of the air. 
6. Urban planning needs to take a good look at efficiency.  Higher density housing, and mixed-use zoning make walking, biking, or mass-transit an option for more of our trips.

Right now it seems like we are living on the edge of it being too late to act. IPCC has determined that a 1.5 degree rise is only possible with carbon sequestration technology that currently doesn’t really exist. Current government policies are on a course for an unlivable planet.

This century is looking pretty bleak to me right now.