"The end of global industrial civilization is where we are headed right now, not at some future dystopian moment. I wish I had a hopeful word to end with. But I don’t."
That's a pretty terrifying ending. Many of these trends (reducing sea ice causing increased ocean warming, burning of forests and permafrost) may be irreversible once things pass a certain point. At very least we may need to engage in some sort of large-scale solar radiation management project to stop them, and worryingly we may need to start that project very soon before it's too late.
IF the correlation between sulphuric oxide contents in shipping fuel and these measures changes are true then we have the solution in the article right there. The best day to start solar radiation management was yesterday, the second-best is now.
I don't actually disagree with this. My concern is that right now the public is very far from accepting the idea that we should engage in these projects, and they only exist at the research stage. Worse: convincing the world to accept near-term SRM (or even "use dirtier fuel again" SRM) may be a tough sell, since some portion of the world isn't convinced that climate change is very serious, let alone an existential threat that needs immediate action. Even if SRM works and is safe, getting from our current situation to one where we deploy SRM could take years, and I'm getting worried that we might not have those years.
Don't worry. Magically awesome, yet uninvented, or in perpetual "in the next ten years" state technology, with Star Trek scope, will save us with a technical solution. If not, we're all just going to Mars in 10-15 years, with colonies and terraformings. Even if we haven't managed to even get back to the moon for 50 years.
That's what everybody insisted for the past 20-30 years, so must be true. All we need to do is keep expanding consumption/production!
That's a pretty terrifying ending. Many of these trends (reducing sea ice causing increased ocean warming, burning of forests and permafrost) may be irreversible once things pass a certain point. At very least we may need to engage in some sort of large-scale solar radiation management project to stop them, and worryingly we may need to start that project very soon before it's too late.