1.5° Celsius (2.6° Fahrenheit) doesn't sound like very much, but in the climate change discourse, it is everything. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its authoritative report of 2018, estimated that, in order to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change—extreme weather events, mosquito-borne diseases, flooding, famine, war—global temperature rise must be limited to no more than 1.5° C by the end of the century, and in order to do this, we must reduce net CO₂ emissions by 45% in the next ten years, and reduce them to net zero by 2050. This, according to the report, "would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society."[1]
Consider for a moment the coronavirus pandemic, then ask yourself how well humans handle "rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society"—not well at all. To say that we resist lifestyle changes "kicking and screaming" would be an understatement; in some cases, we do so with guns.[2] With climate change, we are confronted with the limits of our imagination; as a species, we simply do not think on a long-term, global scale.
Not you, though, perhaps? After all, you listen to the scientists. You use reusable shopping bags. You would buy a Tesla, if they weren't so expensive. You support the Green New Deal. But if you think you're "saving the planet," you are in climate change denial. Not denial of climate change, of course. You're not a Republican! No, you're in denial of a very inconvenient truth: It is too late to stop climate change.
The dangers of climate change have been known for thirty years.[3] In those three decades, how much have we reduced our CO₂ emissions? We haven't. More than half of all CO₂ emissions since the Industrial Revolution have been released since 1988, the year when global warming entered national consciousness.[4] Since 1970, CO₂ emissions have increased by about 90%.[5]
Whither the Green New Deal? The proposed transformation of the U.S. economy, championed by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has gone nowhere in the the Senate or the House, where Speaker Pelosi has derisively referred to it as "the green dream or whatever."[6] Joe Biden ran away from the Green New Deal in last month's Presidential debate, saying flatly, "The Green New Deal is not my plan."[7]
Biden does have a plan to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050[8]—a key benchmark in the IPCC's report—but the Obama-Biden administration failed to achieve far more modest goals. Moreover, Trump has shown us how quickly and capriciously climate progress can be reversed. And even if the United States does achieve net zero by 2050, the U.S. accounts for only 15% of global emissions.[4]
"The important number in this is 15% of global emissions," said Andrew Yang in a Democratic primary debate this year, “We like to act as if we’re 100%. Even if we were to curb our emissions dramatically, the Earth is going to get warmer."
"We are too late," Yang said frankly, "We are 10 years too late.”
For making this unpopular observation, Yang was pilloried,[9][10][11] as truth-tellers are. But none of his detractors address the IPCC's conclusion that mitigating climate change will require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society." At a time when, everywhere on Earth, the better angels of our nature are in retreat—from Bolsonaro's Brazil, to Duterte's Philippines, to Trump's America—the mitigation of climate change demands that we humans be indefinitely self-sacrificing, with no discernible reward in our lifetimes for doing so. There is no evidence that we are capable of this.
Yang is right—we're too late.
(But David, you might ask, didn't you just write an article referring to nuclear power as the "solution to climate change"? Yes, but there's something I didn't tell you. In that article, I cite the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)'s support for "financial assistance to [nuclear] power plants," but even with government assistance, the UCS estimates that nuclear will provide at most 16% of the world's electricity needs by 2050[12], far short of the 85% proportion of low- or no-carbon energy sources that are needed to address climate change. As I wrote, "nuclear power is the vehicle that can help get us there," but it is not a panacea.)
I am not a climate defeatist, and I do not propose that we simply give up. But I am a climate realist. There are two approaches to climate change; one is "mitigation," which refers to efforts to reduce emissions and limit global temperature rise (this is what you've heard the most about); the other is "adaptation," which are practical measures to prepare us for the inevitability of climate change. We shouldn't give up entirely on mitigation—even half-measures to reduce CO₂ emissions can help us avoid the worst possible outcomes of climate change[13]—but given that every credible scientist acknowledges the inevitability of at least a 1.5° C rise in global temperature, we should spend our finite amount of time and resources preparing ourselves for it.
Adaptation measures include developing drought-resistant crops, distributing mosquito nets and vaccines for mosquito-borne diseases—or eradicating mosquitoes altogether—adapting buildings to withstand extreme weather events, building flood defenses, and moving vulnerable populations away from coastlines.[14] All of these are good things to do anyway (and they can generate millions of jobs in the process).
There are also geoengineering measures which could help us adapt to climate change. Carbon capture has made great strides in recent years.[15] The launch of reflective aerosols into the upper stratosphere is a feasible way to lower global temperatures, in concept. And introducing iron to iron-poor areas of the ocean's surface can stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, which help to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. But the emphasis on climate change mitigation—and a fear of "playing god" with the climate—takes attention and funding away from these promising methods. Of the 2020 Presidential hopefuls, only Yang called for investment in geoengineering research.
In Dante's Inferno, the gates of hell are inscribed with the phrase "lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"—"abandon hope all ye who enter here." We may be entering a hellish future as a consequence of our sins against the planet, but we needn't abandon hope. Humans are not faster or fiercer than most predators; throughout our history, we have always used technology to adapt to adverse conditions. It is, and always has been, the key to our survival. We can't afford to be in denial any longer. We must prepare for the inevitability of climate change.
[1] https://www.livescience.com/12-years-to-stop-climate-change.html
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496514
[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/07/embark-essay-climate-change-pollution-revkin/
[4] https://blog.ucsusa.org/peter-frumhoff/global-warming-fact-co2-emissions-since-1988-764
[5] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
[6] https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/07/pelosi-trump-government-shutdown-1154355
[7] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21498236/joe-biden-green-new-deal-debate
[8] https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12082020/inside-clean-energy-joe-biden-renewable-energy
[9] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/andrew-yangs-horrific-debate-answer-climate-change/595267/
[10] https://earther.gizmodo.com/andrew-yang-is-the-most-dangerous-presidential-candidat-1836881500
[11] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/is-andrew-yang-the-doomer-candidate-and-whats-a-doomer.html
[12] https://cen.acs.org/energy/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-help-save-us/97/i37
[13] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending
[14] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/adaptation_en#
[15] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/07/carbon-capture-moonshot-moves-closer-as-billions-of-dollars-pour-in