Thread by @PaulDJohnston

Excited to hear this #guardianLive

"it's pretty much impossible to avoid 2 degrees of warming"
But
"The [political] landscape looks very different than when I finished [The Uninhabitable Earth] last September [2018]"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"In the Second World War... whole industries turned on a dime"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"we need to be decarbonising at something like 10% per year and we're going in the wrong direction"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: Where are we heading?
"We're at 1.1 degrees now... it's like we've landed on a whole new planet... but it's going to get considerably warmer"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"We're going to need a Carbon Capture industry 2-4 times the size of the oil and gas industry and a [much bigger] nuclear industry or we're going to decarbonise much faster"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"At 2 degrees, 280 million people get displaced and many cities in Asia become unlivable during the summer"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Without a dramatic change in our economy we're going to end up some we're near 3 degrees... and a worldwide permanent recession on the scale of the 2008 banking crisis"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Many scientists think these numbers on earning are conservative"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Renewable energy is a substitute ready to go... If electricity was our only problem then we'd be fine... But the other 65% needs new technologies to be created and deployed"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"One way of managing how bad it gets is to not put so much carbon into the atmosphere... but we need to look at the adaptation measures as well"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: Do you see much hope in "Nature based" solutions?
"I grew up in NYC and was protected from the forces of nature for many years... [but] nature is the theatre in which we live all of our lives"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Reforestation can be a really big part of the response... Grazing your cattle in a different way... Raising your crops in a different way... have been forced out by agribusiness."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"There's this deep desire to be this one solution ... but that's just not going to happen"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The emissions from agriculture are not going to be solved in the same way as the emissions from cement"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Technology didn't travel from the lab to global inundation in an instant. It can take 20-50 years. [This] may be a centuries long transition"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Vaclav Smil is getting a positive name check.

vaclavsmil.com

@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I don't think we're yet at a point where we have to give up [growth] but there is a robust conversation on the left about ... degrowth."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Maybe we'll have to retire [fossil fuels] and with it retire our ideas of economic growth"
(He is suggesting not stating this)
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I'm such a creature of the era in which I grew up that I don't know what it would be like to live [in an era of degrowth]"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Lots more comments and discussion around Vaclav Smil... Interesting

Q: Political tipping points... Do you see the nationalists as "Climate related"?
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Climate has definitely affected resource scarcity and ... Countries have retreated into xenophobia"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I don't worry about Trump and Bolsonaro but that we'll get 30 more of them"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Canada declared a Climate Emergency and the very next day approved a new oil pipeline"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Re Macron and Amazon
"It was good to see Nations treat climate issues in a similar way to human rights but... It was done in a poor way"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The Amazon demands our attention ... On the level of nuclear proliferation ... But when I look around the world ... when we need that cooperation the most, so many of us are going in the opposite direction"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The only two counties that are compatible with the Paris accords are Morocco and Gambia"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"[Every country] is waiting for everyone else to move first"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"There are economic incentives to move first ... and yet ... It looks pretty bleak"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"We can dream that [America and China] could lead the world but it isn't looking like [that is going to happen]"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Jonathan Franzen's article is getting a mention...
#guardianlive

Q: What's your take on "Hope is overrated"? What's the psychological point we need to reach? Fear? Hope? What?
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"In general in reluctant to use the word *should*. Sometimes I feel defeated... Excited... It's too big and complicated ... to relate to it in any single way"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I do believe we weren't scared enough about this for a long time"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I'm sympathetic to some of what Franzen wrote... But I think we need to remember when we live in that world (2 degrees of warming) that we once thought of that warning as catastrophic"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"[but] I think the humanitarian cost of stopping going from 2 degrees to 3 degrees is enormous. Every tiny bit of warming matters and any warning we can avoid matters."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The people with the least are hit the hardest ... and we should design policy [so that] we should keep that in mind"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"If we don't do anything about it, we're not just going to be talking about it, we're going to be living it ... We have an incredibly capacity for complacency"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"It's obvious to me that at least in the political front ... we're cascading towards a positive revolution to respond to this crisis"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Now questions...
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: what is the role of social media in fostering collaboration?
"... Greta Thunberg has mobilised millions of schoolkids to go out on Climate Strike... similarly Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion owe a lot to social media"

"The right wing response is also growing out on social media... the other side will be using it as well"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: How do we move away from the polarised politics?
"Extreme weather is doing some of that for us"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The people of the world are ... united in their concern ... and demonstration and mobilisation is key to that"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Some of the most ambitious renewables programmes are in [Republican] States"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"what felt like permanent divides [in politics] will start to dissipate ... The IMF said we're globally subsidising the fossil fuel industry by $5 trillion a year ... Imagine that going to R&D and [other measures]?"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"maybe it is the case we need a more complete revolution" @dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: What is an individual's role?

"It's important that people are living their values and taking action... Many people are living in panic..."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"they are trivial compared to the challenges we face ... to stabilise the planets temperature ... requires us to eliminate carbon emissions"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"unless you can imagine the entire planet abandoning air travel ... going vegan ... putting solar on their roofs ... 8 billion people voluntarily then individual action isn't up to the task"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Policy is feasibly, up to the task... in theory policy can overcome all the human inaction"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: what about the data from Google and Amazon?

(Oooh... Read this bit.ly/2024wp)

"Any industry built on carbon... Will become like the tobacco industry...
Ultimately it's really quite challenging"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Companies of the size of Google - that are like nation states"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Tech companies are also toxic and full of problematic thinking. I don't know why Google flat weather balloons to add WiFi but won't put a climate change solution in place"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

He's laying into Jeff Bezos lack of moral capacity now
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Elon Musk is wasting a lot of money putting a cars into space that he could be putting into solving this problem"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

YOU NEED TO WRITE THIS STORY!!!
(Note: I can help in so many ways)
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: on the UN...
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The UN has been very outspoken on the climate crisis ... but I'm not an expert on the UN"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: Capitalism and it's connection to the oil industry... And China... Is the one party state system better able to deal with the climate crisis?
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"China is 30% of Global Emissions and expected to grow ... the future of the planet is largely in China's hands"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The countries that are doing best are both Liberal Democracies and the wealthiest economies."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I worry about counting on climate authoritarianism because it opens itself up to so many abuses, but the Chinese government is opening itself up to so many abuses anyway."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"We may have to hope that China [likely to become the preeminent power by mid century] may become more liberal and combat climate change"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"However they may want to inherit a world that is not burning [from America] in mid century"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Xi Jinping will be determining Chinese Climate policy for the next 15-20 years and that's [very important for the world]"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: a "Global New Deal"... If someone had some ideas about how that could be done, who would you talk to?

"I think there is a consensus ... All global leaders say this is happening ..."
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"The Secretary General is trying to think all these things through, Al Gore too... I think the planet requires a total transformation... The scale of change can't be achieved by individual nations acting alone"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

Q: India and poverty, how does policy change people from aiming to avoid becoming rich and focus on climate change?
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"It's a dilemma and was built into the calculus... But that perspective has changed and most economists think that action will be better if taken in short order"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"Indonesia believes they can halve their emissions and still grow at 6%... The countries who have capital need to enable the countries in the Global South to grow without making the choice"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"India is a horrifying case study of the impacts of Climate Change... A quarter of it's cities will be unlivable by 2050 ... And the extreme weather impacts [will] shape domestic politics"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I hope encountering extreme weather will push them towards [Climate Mitigation]"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"I think we need to start thinking about committing some of our wealth to the global south as a solution. I worry that we'll move in the other direction and see them as less than human"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive

"We're probably headed in all directions at once ... Ecosocialism ... Ecofascism ... The while human theatre ... Beyond the terrifying nature of the science ... We're initiating a while new era ... the Climate Era"
@dwallacewells #guardianlive