Simple solutions to mitigate climate catastrophe

[yurbud]

So the IPCC says we've got 12 years to slow the worst effects of climate change.

There's not a snowball's chance in hell Trump or any Republican will do anything about it.

But if the Democrats manage to get enough votes to at least pass legislation, what would be some straight-forward ways to reduce our greenhouse gasses?

Increase tax incentives for switching to electric cars and make free charging widely available.

All new power plants must be clean energy and renewable.

I'd say rapid deployment of mass transit like the rest of the developed world has in large cities, rail-based, that doesn't have to share the road with cars, and incentives for people to use it free fares and wifi would be a good start.

Start a campaign to get people to eat less meat (or at least less beef).

What else could we do?

[pangaia]

1. Stop reproducing....

[yonder]

7. +1.

Zero population growth.

Steady-state economics.

[yurbud]

12. that tends to take care of itself if standard of living & education go up

and urbanization.

In a poor, especially agrarian family, kids are a source of income.

In middle class and above, kids cost money, so people have fewer.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Enhance processes to recapture CO2 emissions from the atmosphere and pump it into the ...

ground. It's currently an expensive proposition to do now, and if made easier/better to do, then more would use. Place an energy tax on fossil fuels to slow the use of these fuels and use the tax to enhance more technologies to recapture methane and CO2 emissions.

[yurbud]

3. got links to back any of that up?

I need cause for hope.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. What do you mean, links to back what up? It's common knowledge about oil drilling that ...

CO2 emissions is recaptured. The rest of my blurb was about developing technologies to recapture greenhouse gases. Straight up logic.

[yurbud]

9. the recapture stuff. Nevermind, I'll look it up.

[pretzel4gore]

4. Outlaw fossil fuels, fission nukes!

Burning oil to create heat to make energy/electricity, or breaking atoms to heat water, make steam (which is what a nuke power facility ie Chernobyl/ 3mile Island) does should NEVER have been allowed; that's why warehouse forklifts aren't gas guzzling, and nuclear airplanes never.....c'mon...'fools and their money are easily parted, as the Saintly Che once observed. ..

[Hortensis]

5. Pangaia's got #1. When you climb in your car,

don't start it. Buy a bicycle, with a big basket. Stop throwing away food's huge also, and portion control will help more than just the environment for many. Use more elbow grease, less cleaning chemicals. Always carry our own reusable shopping bags. Hundreds of other possibilities in the virtual responsibility shopping cart.

We have to commit to solutions ourselves. If we can't be bothered to make a salad before the lettuce gets limp, we won't make that commitment felt to our politicians. And many of us will also get excited and resistant when solutions are forced on us by others; best that only happens after those people are already realizing that carrying their own shopping bags and refusing elaborate packaging is what people like them do.

Disappearing fresh water's a slightly different issue, but also huge. The water from our taps took thousands of years being collected. Get religious about just throwing that precious treasure away down the drain.

[llmart]

8. Garbage haulers should start charging by the pound.

Then see how quickly people recycle or stop bringing excessively packaged items into their home. This should be across the board and apply to businesses too!

[Wyatt513]

10. How does fresh water disappear?

It's just reused .

We need to develop all that we have from battery electric cars to hydrogen electric cars, build a great solar panel farm in the Sahara dessert , that much energy could power the globe 4 times over. We need to stop defforesting the southern hemisphere and help them with alternative energy, so many people are dying from indoor smoke inhalation.

[dembotoz]

11. pretend energy is more valuable than it seems

combine your trips
keep your house cooler in winter and warmer in summer


most of us lived thru the energy crisis of the 80s
what did you do then that you no longer do?