On the Climate Train to Destruction? Another View (adaptation, not futile mitigation)

[rangerrebew]

On the Climate Train to Destruction? Another View (adaptation, not futile mitigation)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 2, 2023

“In business and economic terms, what is physically ‘worse’ [with climate] today is actually better [than in the past]. Thus I would argue that social justice demands affordable A/C for many more or all rather than mitigation policies that make A/C less affordable or unaffordable.”

This exchange was with Susan Krumdieck, “Professor, Author and Leader in Energy Transition Engineering.” While I have criticized her approach to “transition engineering” as uneconomic in a true marketplace and thus government-driven, I appreciate her polite engagement toward mutual learning.

Our latest exchange began with her post comment:

Thanks everyone for sharing the news about the extreme weather. But I feel like we are on a run-away train. Here is a metaphor story. Maybe it will help.

A Speeding Train?

https://www.masterresource.org/linkedin-climate-energy-debates/climate-train-to-destruction-exchange/

[Smokin Joe]

I have been saying for some time, that if the vast majority of any changes to climate on Earth are part of a natural process, nothing we do to 'mitigate' something we have only had a minor effect on (if any effect) will stop the natural process.

In that likely event, humanity will need every arrow in its proverbial quiver to survive and adapt to those changing conditions.

Which means, we will need the energy to utilize the resources we have to adapt through the same technology that permits us to provide enough food to feed all the people on the planet (despite the flaws in distribution) to provide also for the technology that will permit us to utilize areas formerly not available for agriculture and to move from areas too unsuitable to live in.

Considering, for instance, that the 'old ones' and those who built the pueblos of the American Southwest moved out for reasons which may well have included a shift in climate, and that those changes happened long before the advent of SUVs or Air Conditioning, perhaps we would best expend our energies figuring out what adaptations need be made and how we will make them, rather than discarding the technology that has brought us all this far.

[Kamaji]

I have been saying for some time, that if the vast majority of any changes to climate on Earth are part of a natural process, nothing we do to 'mitigate' something we have only had a minor effect on (if any effect) will stop the natural process.

In that likely event, humanity will need every arrow in its proverbial quiver to survive and adapt to those changing conditions.

Which means, we will need the energy to utilize the resources we have to adapt through the same technology that permits us to provide enough food to feed all the people on the planet (despite the flaws in distribution) to provide also for the technology that will permit us to utilize areas formerly not available for agriculture and to move from areas too unsuitable to live in.

Considering, for instance, that the 'old ones' and those who built the pueblos of the American Southwest moved out for reasons which may well have included a shift in climate, and that those changes happened long before the advent of SUVs or Air Conditioning, perhaps we would best expend our energies figuring out what adaptations need be made and how we will make them, rather than discarding the technology that has brought us all this far.