{"id":59406,"date":"2021-09-20T17:19:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T22:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59406"},"modified":"2021-09-20T17:19:52","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T22:19:52","slug":"richard-heinberg-explores-the-flawed-thinking-behind-proposed-solutions-to-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59406","title":{"rendered":"Richard Heinberg explores the flawed thinking behind proposed solutions to climate\u00a0change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Heinberg explores the flawed thinking behind proposed solutions to climate\u00a0change<\/a><\/h3>\n

He explains why real climate progress will require large numbers of people in wealthy countries to forgo forms of power they currently enjoy. \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

\u201cpower \u2014 the ability to do some\u00adthing, the ability to get someone else to do something, or the ability to prevent someone else from doing something \u2014 is everywhere in the human world.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Richard Heinberg (from \u201cPower: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival<\/em>\u201d, page 1 of Chapter 1, Introduction).<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Richard Heinberg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cClimate change is often incorrectly described as an isolated pollution issue. In this flawed framing, humanity has simply made a mistake in its choice of [fossil fuels as] energy sources. The solution entails switching [to renewable energy] sources and building enough carbon-sucking machines to clear the atmosphere of polluting CO2. Only the political power of the fossil fuel companies prevents us from adopting this [renewable energy] solution and ending our existential environmental crisis. But techno-fixes (that is, technological solutions that circumvent the need for personal or cultural change) aren\u2019t working so far, and likely won\u2019t work in the future. That\u2019s because fossil fuels will be difficult to replace, and energy usage is central to our collective economic power. In other words, power is the key to solving climate change\u2014but not necessarily in the way that many pundits claim. Solutions will not come just from defeating fossil fuel interests and empowering green entrepreneurs; real climate progress will require the willingness of large swathes of the populace, especially in wealthy countries, to forgo forms of power they currently enjoy: comfort and convenience, the ability to travel far and fast, and the option to easily obtain a wide range of consumer products whose manufacture entails large inputs of energy and natural resources.\u201d\u00a0\u2014Richard Heinberg<\/strong>, Common Dreams<\/em><\/p>\n

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  1. \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Richard Heinberg explores the flawed thinking behind proposed solutions to climate\u00a0change He explains why real climate progress will require large numbers of people in wealthy countries to forgo forms of power they currently enjoy. \u2014 ***** \u201cpower \u2014 the ability to do some\u00adthing, the ability to get someone else to do something, or the ability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[30675,141,1004,328,1081],"class_list":["post-59406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-citizen-action-monitor","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-richard-heinberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59407,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59406\/revisions\/59407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}