From the oceans to ‘net zero’ targets, we’re in denial about the climate crisis | Adam Morton
www.theguardian.com
The scientific consensus is we need to aim for negative emissions by phasing out fossil fuels, not just removing carbon from the atmosphere

(opinion)

More bad news… Every climate catastrophe indicator is far above what anyone even considered just a year ago. It appears that the rate of climate change is beginning to increase exponentially, further evidence that enough climate tipping points have been reached to render change unstoppable.

  • @chaoraceEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    The problem with “offsets” is that they come in two very different forms:

    • Rebranded conservationism
    • Rebranded terraforming

    Conservationism (i.e.: promising not to cut down trees) does not actually affect the status quo, which is not helpful because the status quo is already unsustainable. It’s a promise, quite literally, to do nothing.

    Terraforming (i.e.: carbon capture, planting trees) on the other hand represents an active investment in reversing prior damage. Of course, when you frame it this way people get very nihilistic because they realize how incredibly expensive it would be to have a perceivable impact on the planetary scale.

    I think that the terms “net-zero” and “carbon offset” have been deeply poisoned by the incentives at play surrounding them and expect that the idea will quietly die out as a consequence. That’s a shame because micro-scale terraforming was how we got ourselves into this mess and it’s probably the only way back out.