This letter is hosted on my site with a url-knowers-only page (only those with the link are able to see this.)
Updated to correct erroneous link for text “six years worth of current emissions would blow the carbon budget for 1.5 degrees“.
Greetings to you, & thank you beyond what I can say.
We are going to be ok ;D, but I wanted to share with you 3 brief ideas:
This brief article talks about how we must have our bearings; just like if you got lost in the woods; we must make no more mistakes – figure out what needs to be done & methodically/meticulously stick to best practices until we’re, you know, ‘out of the woods.’
We of course feel an urge to do something, but ‘doing it right’ for this is inestimably more important than just ‘doing something.’
I want for us to have “the right plan,” first, & also for it to be changed as needed.
For this communique, let’s call the above point ‘doing it right.’
2ndly, this ((doing it right)) must be merged with, if it is accurate, the fact that “six years worth of current emissions would blow the carbon budget for 1.5 degrees“. (That is one year old as of this month, by the way . . . ) This scary, real number I am not sharing in the public right now as it could well stir great panic, potentially; but: if push comes to shove in eliminating manmade climate change, the carbon budget projection combined with publically-trusted organizations’ climate change effects which are currently certainly enough projected, could be an effective message for we the people of the world to use to corral people not currently acting in concordance with Humanity’s mitigation of climate change.
3rdly, altho I have only heard this suggested in very unserious circles, I would like to anticipate any ‘fighting fire with fire’ strategies that may unwelcomely present themselves: solving our problems with the causes, ‘more of the very same things that caused them:’
Hippocrates, you probably know, was the Father of Medicine – an ancient Greek philosopher from 460 B.C. – & Hippocrates’ medical philosophy was very emphatic about one thing: the body will heal itself, if you allow it: i.e. remove all causes, & rest. Nowadays we know a little more, & I would say besides healing via rest, *natural* substances – as in ‘vegetables slash your death risk 42%,’ in proper doses1 – or ‘medications which are synthetic are thousands of times deadlier than their natural dietary or herbal counterparts’2 – are much safer.
Therefore, we should favor natural mitigating substances rather than synthetics – that means too we should exhaust natural biotic inventory for climate change before we turn to genetically engineered varieties – because as I say, they’d be more of the same: fighting fire with fire; trying to solve problems with their causes that started them.
I appreciate the notion that you must have a lot to say, a lot to do – a lot to think about.
So I will close: In summary:
1. Let’s do this right; let’s have the right plan, first. it’s too hard to backtrack.
2. We must act within our (6 year / 1.5 degree) carbon budget timeframe, also, in order to insure the habitability of Earth in the future; “prediction errors” must be taken into account, here, as well.
3. & I talked about ‘shooting down’ fighting fire with fire – meaning, using the problem’s cause to solve the problem, ineffectively: using more ‘sub-natural’ means of energy production – such as nuclear energy – & also of climate change mitigation will just create new, probably graver problems for *our entire planet* down the road. Learn the lesson of wanton fossil fuels use causing climate change: natural is preferable to synthetics.
Exhaust our natural options – our most natural – first, is what I think the lesson learned from fossil fuels causing climate change is.
Thank You.
– Joe Valentyn
Last, as a post script, looking forward: my homework will be to think of & find the ‘hearts’ of our tradeoff-able personal carbon use, as someone mentioned to me; we might do well, for this purpose, to look into ‘a personal carbon budget’ – what each of us might spend or have as a range, & still live within the quoted carbon budget.
Thank You, for everything; Thank You.
– Joe