Since the realization that carbon deposits in the atmosphere could cause global temperatures to rise, there has been increasing conversations on humanity’s role in causing this rise in temperature. We call this the Anthropocene Era, or the span of time in which the activity of humans has and continues to fundamentally alter the state of the world. (For the sake of this conversation, we’re going to assume that the anthropogenic climate change is incontrovertible.) The potential outcomes from this have ranged from mild warming of the global climate to the end of life on earth as we know it. I would wager that there is a fat tail of predictions that map the most disastrous outcomes. Many of these predict existential events.
Warning, normative statement: If there is a significant probability any one of these predictions coming true, humanity should coordinate to prevent this from happening.
One possible solution is by removing the human factor entirely. If there are no humans, there can be no anthropogenic climate change. This is also an existential event; therefore, I will ignore the potentiality of this being doable. I should note that many movements that proclaim a retrogression to primitive human civilizations are equivalent to the removal of humanity. How? No one ever states how far back we must go to not affect the world. Even going back a few centuries of economic evolution requires the elimination of billions of lives. Who decides who gets to live? How this is any better than allowing for future climate catastrophes to take their toll on humanity. This moral implications of this philosophy make it unacceptable.
Solution number two involves in doing nothing, or perhaps increasing our carbon production, which would end in any number of mild to existential level events.
Solution three involves using the resourcefulness of humanity to produce outcomes which are less severe than those being predicted. Even if the probabilities are currently set. moving one percentage point towards a more positive outcome is worth it. Should we do whatever is necessary to avoid the worse outcomes? I can’t answer that. What we shouldn’t do is make things worse. Specifically, if we’re looking to reduce carbon production, using fossil fuels in place of gaps in renewables or nuclear power is anathema to this goal.
Data to come later.
Deric Tilson 