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The notion of counterposing net NEGATIVE global warming footprint advocacy to any and all intermediate measures is misleading. It is tautological that you have to cut emissions, and drastically, before you can reduce them to zero or near zero. Then further measures (increased forestation, building air filters that would sequester unwanted substances from the atmosphere etc) would be required.
By the logic of this post, Norway is making a TERRIBLE mistake in aiming OPENLY for no net carbon footprint by 2030. This is a silly logic, built upon the straw-man premise of political reaction building.
To try to put this is real world terms, CLEARLY if Norway has enacted net zero footprint, many other countries will either follow suit or have FACTIONS in politics calling for them to do so, especially in the other nations with the most progressive ecology policies. Similarly, Norway's more aggressive action inspires countries that are doing little or nothing to do more.
The same logic I am using applies to the bus. If the bus driver says we are headed in the wrong direction, he must FIRST put on the brakes BEFORE going into reverse (or turning around). Part of the fallacy is that the DRIVER is personified as ONE person -- those creating the policies ('in the drivers' seat, so to speak) and those 'announcing' the policies and the full range of advocates. But in the real world, authentic progressives in the blogosphere have virtually zero power. But we and various advocates, almost by definition within movements fairly marginal to society or at least to the power brokers of the mainstream, can INTRODUCE the issue of net negative emissions BOTH to contrast with the grudging policies argued for now, and for the fact that while people like Gore are calling attention to global warming (which he was doing 16 years ago in his book, which I read then, EARTH IN THE BALANCE), but their SOLUTIONS are insufficient. If Gore would at least argue that PLANET-WIDE we should aim to match Norway in its 2030 goal, the whole range of policies now being considered, including by Democrats in Congress, will no longer be seen as sufficient when in fact they are not.
In short, given the overall nature of the situation, it is INDEED easier to accelerate a movement already talking amongst its so-called "vanguard" about net negative greenhouse footprint (NNGF?) to include a broader segment of the public then it is to first lure people into a false sense of security that the kind of measures advocated by Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi are more or less sufficient, only to realize that they lead to catastrophe (only slightly less rapidly than the status quo).
Indeed, this has been true throughout the history of politics. People didn't IMAGINE anything like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act until they were advocated. And while at first only a few might have so advocated, later more did. We have people advocating an end to imperialism, zero WMDs globally, full-scale "rights" for animals, and other issues. SOMETIMES, as with gay marriage, the MOST extreme policy (from the standpoint of those resistant to an idea overall) gets pushed to center stage in order to be used as a wedge issue, but even then it doesn't have the longer term effect described by Nihil. Overall Civil Rights protections IN FEDERAL LEGISLATION have been slighted as gay marriage and gays in the military HAVE BEEN CYNICALLY DEPLOYED in the mainstream.
But with net negative greenhouse footprint advocacy, this might get pointed to by some (trying to discredit the movement) but in reality is much MORE likely to further empower those demanding lesser changes as against those wholly resistant.
You can't GET to no war without ADVOCATING no war.
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