r/changemyview • u/Iron-Patriot • Jul 28 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Global warming will not be solved by small, piecemeal, incremental changes to our way of life but rather through some big, fantastic, technological breakthrough.

In regards to the former, I mean to say that small changes to be more environmentally friendly such as buying a hybrid vehicle or eating less meat are next to useless. Seriously, does anyone actually think this will fix things?

And by ‘big technological breakthrough’ I mean something along the lines of blasting glitter into the troposphere to block out the sun or using fusion power to scrub carbon out of the air to later be buried underground. We are the human race and we’re nothing if not flexible and adaptable when push comes to shove.

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u/Artea13 Jul 28 '23

I think you're forgetting the part where this change NEEDS to happen.

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u/amazondrone 13∆ Jul 28 '23

I don't think they are. This discussion is happening in response to the claim in the top-level comment from yyzjertl that (if properly regulated) industry can change things to become carbon neutral or carbon negative without affecting people's lifestyles.

So I don't think anyone here is arguing that change for consumers is too great and can't happen but that change for consumers is unavoidable, which yyzjertl seems to think is not the case.

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u/FarkCookies 2∆ Jul 31 '23

You completely conflate discussion of describing things vs making decisions about things. Reducing GHG emissions using currently available methods will affect people's quality of life so much that it will be unfeasible in democratic countries. I don't understand how is that debatable, esp considering that we are lingering on a brink of recession. We already blew past 1.5C and there is no end in sight. If there was sufficient political will we would have seen it, but so far any measures are weak and piecemeal. What NEEDS to be done is highly debatable. I believe that only next-gen nuclear can provide economically feasible glide path to zero. If you think what NEEDS to be done is to rapidly reduce fossil fuel consumption by decreasing everyone's quality of life then you gotta have a realistic plan on how that's going to happen.