"What man has broken man can fix."

No evidence to support such a bold and frankly uninformed claim. If we could have fixed this we would have - but right now we have so many complex systems which we only think we have some semblance of control.

"The massive carbon reductions being called for won't happen once people realize the massive toll in human suffering they would cause. A pre-industrial Earth couldn't support anywhere near 8 billion humans." << -- More troll lunacy.

> more troll lunacy

The Haber-Bosch process requires nitrogen pulled from petrochemicals (there are no other large sources of nitrogen we can use at scale) to feed a large portion of the worlds population. We literally *CANNOT* go back to guano - people would starve to death.

"The Haber process consumes 3–5% of the world's natural-gas production (around 1–2% of the world's energy supply)"[1]

Seems like we could cut out most fossil-fuel consumption without making any sacrifice on this front.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Economic_and_env...

Even if we don't figure out green hydrogen for some time, I'd be okay with diverting some amount of fossil fuel consumption to essential chemical processes, like Haber-Bosh ammonia and plastics, while cutting drastically the systems that don't strictly need hydrocarbons for their purpose. Hydrocarbons are wildly useful chemical precursors, it's kind of a shame they are mostly used just for burning.

The real lunatics are the ones claiming you can shut down production of internal combustion engines and the use of fossil fuels overnight and long before equivalent alternatives are available without causing societal collapse and the humanitarian disasters that will entail.

Are people seriously suggesting that, though?

We already have an equivalent alternative for internal combustion engines for passenger cars, plus some other types of vehicles in some situations. No, not every situation and every vehicle, but if we could replace all passenger cars with EVs overnight, that would make a huge dent in emissions. Yes, we'd still have all sorts of construction equipment, 18-wheelers, etc. running off gasoline. But that's ok, for now. Of course we can't even replace passenger cars; most legal efforts to phase out ICEs in passenger cars have timelines that we should have already hit, but are still years, and in some places decades, away -- if they exist at all.

On electricity generation, new renewable plants are coming online at a decent pace, but we could be so much farther along by now if it wasn't for special interest groups and lobbyists clinging to the status quo. At the very least, we should have our daylight-hour needs 100% met by renewable sources by now, but we're nowhere near there. It's pathetic.

A huge dent would be nice, but it's not a solution to anything. We need a full reversal, not just stopping emissions but actively recovering emissions that have already been expended.

Cars and electricity generation are but a fraction. We need heating, shipping, goods production, agriculture all to become climate neutral or we'll simply continue on this path of ever increasing catastrophe.

What is your argument for electrifying cars being ok for now?

> What man has broken man can fix.

Citation needed, please.

Beat me to it lol

The hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica? There's an example.

That's a bold example to use, considering that humanity learned that CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) created the ozone hole, so we agreed to stop use them, and then the nature recovered, without causing any noticeable hardship or economic damage.

Now consider that in the context of global warming.

Do you understand that one instance of this being true does absolutely nothing to validate any other instance? You need to present a large body of empirical data.

You know, playing Russian roulette is perfectly safe. I've done it multiple times[1], and look, I'm still here and well.

[1] No, not really.

Alright then, how about leaded gasoline, uranium paint, and PFOA/PFOS? All of these chemicals were found to be terrible over time and were phased out.

These examples do nothing to establish that "what man has broken, man can fix". I'm honestly appalled by the lack of scientific thinking in this thread.

I think you're downplaying how destructive heavy metals and xenoestrogens are on the population.

Widespead use of lead had horrific affects on child development - and it's even credited for being one of the factors that lead to the downfall of the Roman empire.

And if we hadn't stopped using pfas as quickly as we did we would have had an even bigger fertility crisis on our hands than we currently do. We would have strode right into a Children of Men scenario.

I don't understand how you can blow these examples off as a "lack of scientific thinking". The irresponsible use of chemicals (or, more charitably, unintended side effects) seriously damaged society, and collective action was taken to mitigate further damage. How is that not an example of what you were asking for?

I'm not blowing off any examples, I'm disregarding attempts to use these few data points as the basis for proving some asinine hypothesis such as "What man has broken, man can fix".

> How is that not an example of what you were asking for?

I didn't ask for examples. I asked for proof to back up the above claim. A few random examples aren't proof, I don't care how heavy and toxic lead is. It has nothing to do with our current environmental issues, it's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Chop down a tree, plant a new one. Kill someone, have a baby.

I'm not sure these are examples, or counterexamples, though...

>What man has broken man can fix.

Counterpoint: Nuclear disasters like Chernobyl.

Some things just need to fix themselves over a long timescale. If we screw up badly enough, humanity won't be around to see the eventual recovery.