50 months to save the world – interactive
The world has 50 months to go before the dice become loaded against us in terms of keeping under a 2C temperature rise. We asked Guardian readers and public figures what they would do to lead us out of this climate predicament. From mass protest to pensions to personal carbon targets, here are their suggestions.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually there may well be considerably less than 50 months available, and so planning to use all 50 months – or to even talk about them as though we can do nothing for that time – is taking the riskier route.
Kia ora Tatou
I think there are too many assumptions made here, the chief of which is that the rise in overall temperature of the Earth is something within human control. It may not be, but I’m not saying that these assumptions aren’t correct. Another is that what we humans are doing is actually making a significant impact on the temperature/rise in temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. We may not be able to change anything about what we do that will have any effect on how climate changes but I’m not saying that we know for sure.
However, I am not advocating that we just continue as we have been doing with our voracious consumption of fossil fuels, mainly for other reasons to do with the conservation of these resources. I also wonder about some of the hype that surrounds what may appear to be sweeping statements to do with so-called global warming. The tack of launching some idea that disaster will befall if we don’t do something is not likely to have political traction nor persuade those who believe that it’s just all a hype.
A better tack would be to campaign that these resources are undoubtedly being used and that they are not replaceable – for whatever use they may be put to during the future of the human race. Sources do run out and that is happening everywhere.
Unfortunately for any reasoned call on constraining consumption of fossil resources, we live in times when postmodern culture seems to be spreading throughout the world like rampant mycelia. In general, people in these cultures are not likely to want to do anything, for those who are in the throes of postmodernism will say something like, “Y’know, it might never happen, and if it does, it won’t affect us.”
Rangimarie