The modern day Technological system all needs energy, plastics, transportation, healthcare, education and food. All those things in turn have the potential for CO2 emissions.
That is a wicked problem because it can ONLY be solved with political campaigns, economic policy or cultural shifts. The problem must be solved by using Politics, economics and social culture to drive rational actions using the tools of science, engineering and technology.
There, fixed your typos and thinking all at the same time.
I agree that the use of technology is a political decision, and therefore changes to it require political changes. My concerns are the following:
- The sheer scale of energy use of the top 10% (i.e. all of us in the "western" nations), and the current atmospheric level of GHGs, is so high that required reductions in GHG emissions will require substantial and absolute reductions in energy use that will reduce social welfare (hopefully weighted toward the richest, which is opposite to what the richest would prefer). This is not touched on by ER.
- Kevin Anderson is one of the few who is ready to voice this reality
- Such a rapid reduction would cause a financial and economic crash, which could only be contained through a "war-like" economic planning setup that distributed losses in a way that did not destitute a significant part of the population.
- Asking the poor of the world (e.g. India) to substantially reduce their emissions - i.e. stay poor - is a losing proposition short of military enforcement.
If this was 1990 things would be a lot easier, but we are now three decades of increasing emissions later and with 1.3 billion Indians wanting to join the middle income level, and 1.4 billion Chinese wanting to be at least as rich as Italy.
The other possibility is of course vast (and in the end most probably failed) attempts at geo-engineering so that the above realities do not have to be dealt with. That would be the result of technology use with no real political changes, with the Greta's of the world used as a marketing ploy (not intentionally by them) to facilitate a rapid move to geo-engineering without significant GHG emission cuts, through the construction of an international emergency. Just like the highly photogenic Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter lying about Iraqi soldiers emptying babies from incubators to produce support for the first Iraqi war.
"Letting the days go by ... same as it ever was" Talking Heads. We need a revolution not an easily co-opted rebellion.