Climate Change Mitigation: How Goeth the War?

Here’s a wonderful article on the history of climate change mitigation from the standpoint of science and politics.  How were we successful in putting a spear through the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) two decades ago, where we seem to be losing the battle to limit greenhouse gas emissions today?  We seem to be doing fairly well at assembling agreements to act, but why is it so difficult to translate these into actual action?

I won’t give away the many cogent answers the author provides, though I would like to comment on an important ingredient in all this, and that is our belief in science itself.  This has taken a serious beating recently, not that scientists have gotten things wrong, but that social media now offers something for everyone, including websites or YouTube videos that offer conspiracy theories on practically any subject one can name.

As we’re seeing here with our protests against experts’ warning re: the coronavirus, anti-intellectualism is a huge component of American life as we move through the 21st Century.

Unfortunately, so is greed.  We tend to be uninterested in the welfare of others, and especially those living outside the United States.  The concept of making a sacrifice in our own personal life styles so as to benefit others is a tough sell indeed, and it’s getting tougher every day.

This is why what’s happening here with the pandemic is so important: it’s a harbinger of how we’re going to react to climate change when the storms, droughts, wildfires and loss of land mass really kicks into high gear.