The pessimism is justified, I’m afraid to say, but what I find frustrating is that not only are we failing to reduce emissions, we’re also failing to prepare and adapt for climate change. We could make our cities and our suburbs substantially more livable in decades to come with relatively simple measures — greening streets, recycling water, encouraging community networks — that don’t require vast changes, and yet they too seem to be out of reach.
Interestingly, however, one of the great scientists in the field, who has been gloomy in the past about our prospects — Wallace Broecker — in his book of last year, “Fixing Climate,” found reason to think we might avoid overheating…with a technology fix (courtesy of Klaus Lackner).
For irony, Lackner is now at Columbia but is one of a large cohort of excellent scientists who used to be at LANL and who were not valued there.
The pessimism is justified, I’m afraid to say, but what I find frustrating is that not only are we failing to reduce emissions, we’re also failing to prepare and adapt for climate change. We could make our cities and our suburbs substantially more livable in decades to come with relatively simple measures — greening streets, recycling water, encouraging community networks — that don’t require vast changes, and yet they too seem to be out of reach.
Interestingly, however, one of the great scientists in the field, who has been gloomy in the past about our prospects — Wallace Broecker — in his book of last year, “Fixing Climate,” found reason to think we might avoid overheating…with a technology fix (courtesy of Klaus Lackner).
For irony, Lackner is now at Columbia but is one of a large cohort of excellent scientists who used to be at LANL and who were not valued there.