" . . . Because The Planet Is Unlikely To Suddenly Say 'Oh, Well, 450, Then.'"

[hatrack]

EDIT

It helps too by removing the temptation for delay — a temptation that never flags. Only true ideologues or the most oblivious among us thought that we’d never reach the “limits to growth,” but plenty of people convinced themselves they were far enough away that they’d be someone else’s problem. You could hear a bit of that attitude on display at the United Nations last week, as President Obama gave an uninspired speech on climate change, explaining all the reasons that significant progress would be hard (the Congress, the overriding imperative to grow the economy), and admonishing people not to hold out for “the perfect” solution.

But the perfect solution is no longer on offer, as Rockstrom et al make abundantly clear. They’re doing us an enormous service by attempting to isolate the bargaining position of the natural world, a bargaining position that we really might want to respect. If the planet says 350, then it doesn’t matter that the U.S. needs to get out of an economic rut, or that China still has lots of peasants who would like to move to the city. We’re going to have to find non-carbon ways to do those things, because the planet is unlikely to suddenly say, “Oh well, 450 then.” The laws of nature aren’t amendable like the laws of man.

Respecting these limits, now that we know they’re there, becomes the central human task. Just as the man with the high cholesterol needs to think at every turn about his diet, his exercise, his medicine, so we too have lost the right to casual obliviousness that goes with not knowing. If we choose to ignore the warnings, we’re not some 14-year-old smoking because his friends think it looks cool, or even the pack-a-day lifer with other things on his mind. Now we’re the lung cancer patient trying to sneak cigarettes in the ICU.

Yes, it’s hard to change ways of life, and hard to break addictions, and hard to turn your economic systems and political goals away from the constant expansion that have been their target for more than 200 years. But now we know — with the cold precision offered by numbers — that there’s something that’s harder to imagine, which is going on as we’ve been going.

EDIT/END

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2195

[pscot]

1. Hey! I got a new sig line out of this one

n/t

[jaksavage]

2. The majority will notice

when their hair is on fire.

[Bigmack]

3. We're old, so what the hell.....

Well....there's the new grandchild that we adore.....and now a tangible connection to this dubious future..... Scary. We'd do almost ANYTHING to protect her future. Alas, why do we feel SO alone..... Ms Bigmack

[Nihil]

4. "The laws of nature aren’t amendable like the laws of man."

Very nicely put.

Also:
> If we choose to ignore the warnings, we’re not some 14-year-old smoking
> because his friends think it looks cool, or even the pack-a-day lifer
> with other things on his mind. Now we’re the lung cancer patient trying
> to sneak cigarettes in the ICU.

That is just too damn close to the mark.