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Do we need a failing economy to be a success at limiting climate change?
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© 2023 Douglass Carmichael
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2581. new economy... in a new society
I think several strengthening trends are going to affect (and potentially limit and/or motivate) actions we can take: 1) rising costs of fossil fuels; 2) increasing climate chaos, esp. affecting agriculture; both 1 & 2 are leading to 3) rising food costs. UN FAO says worldwide the costs of food has risen 20 - 30% in the last year alone! We are past peak oil (and peak coal and natural gas are not far behind) which means going forward our economies are going to contract -- slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity (petroleum geologists say to expect 6-8% declines per annum). That contraction will affect the finance industry, especially, and the hoped-for-finance for growth, whether it be new wells, new "green" buildings, new solar/wind/EVs, etc. will start to dry up. I think we have a very short window (3 - 5 years) to rapidly transition towards whatever a post-fossil fuel form of agriculture looks like (regenerative ag, permaculture, silvaculture, agroforestry/agroecology, etc.).
Mainstream efforts to "limit climate change" needs to shift from its current focus on GHGs and electrification, towards measures that actually cool. After all, the GHGs don't create heat (yes, they hold it in) and the issue is "global WARMING". A few leading edge scientists think that by restoring 10% of the 12 billion acres of degraded land around the world, we could actually cool the surface of the earth by 1 degree C in the span of 10 - 15 years. Restoring degraded land that now looks mostly like desert with green vegetation (which we now know how to do rapidly) would engage the evapotranspiration process of plants to cool the surface of the land. (Compare the temperature of bare ground on a sunny mid-afternoon to the ground under a forest canopy. Even ground covered by grasses can be 10 - 15 degrees C cooler than adjacent bare ground.)
The above is one of the key objectives of the EcoRestoration Alliance - https://bio4climate.org/era/ .