Thread by @leashless

I want to talk a bit about this magic number, GDP CO2 intensity. It's a purely technocratic construct, but it measures something important.

Take the total carbon emissions of humanity in kg, and divide by the total size of the economy, in $.

You get grams of CO2 per dollar made

https://twitter.com/leashless/status/1402075641021976578

Grams of CO2 per dollar made is the essential problem.

We can either reduce the number of dollars made, degrowth, or we can reduce the amount of CO2 per dollar through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and maybe technologies like carbon capture.

260 grams per $: it's a lever

Now let's talk about carbon budgets. Earth's natural processes bind about 16 gigatons of CO2 per year, roughly 2 tons per human.

Humanity emits about 40 gt per year say 5 tons per person. Top 10% Americans are at about 70 tons per year, a quarter million dollars earned at 260g/$

So 40gt emitted, 16gt absorbed, 24gt is left in circulation in the atmosphere. We don't know exactly how much CO2 we can have in the atmosphere before things break *horribly* - that science goes by the name "carbon budget". 1.5C is 10 years at 24gt a year?
carbonbrief.org/guest-post-ref…

So this is where we are wedged: $250,000 earned per year will typically emit about 70 tons of CO2. Maybe less if you're an SF author, more for a metal worker.

Getting from 70 tons to 2 tons is going to *kill* the rich.

India is at 2 tons *on average* including all the rich.

What that implies is that if Americans and Europeans and Chinese lived like Indians - and remember, India has 50% of the world's child poverty, and many other ills - the world would be sustainable.

Mexico is at almost 2x sustainable CO2 emissions. *Mexico*.

You see the issue?

We are completely fucked.

I know how to get us out of this hole but nobody wants to hear what I have to say about this. I will summarise the challenge and the solution in five tweets.

The challenge is to provide high quality of life to nearly all humans within our ecological limit.

To get there we have to deconstruct "quality of life" because no existing model (maybe Bhutan?) can work in this context. We need a radical restructuring of our "needs" first. 1/5

What do humans need? Humans need a safe place to reproduce when they are ready, and birth control until then.

Humans are *massively* interested in primal enjoyment: sex, drugs, making music, good food.

Humans are mostly driven by security not by ambition: safe people chill. 2/5

Can we provide secure access to enjoyment and child-rearing at 2 tons of CO2 per person?

Yes, very easily. The key is secure land tenure, and basic income. Reduce anxiety, reduce incentives to stockpile wealth against a rainy day. Kerala in India has 95% literacy on $1/day. 3/5

The technology base has to be exquisitely well designed: stainless steel, polypropylene, glass, aluminium, bamboo, hemp *and very little else*. Items made for permanent use, "melt down" recycle at end of life.

Electronics built to last like loudspeakers are. Sustainable CERN 4/5

What you are left with is a world of primal peasant farmers with simple laptop computers, with some cities to generate the innovation and make the solar panels.

There is no middle class. There are no cars. Everything grinds to a halt, but nobody has to die.

The math works. 5/5

The other approach is that we max out innovation in renewable energy technologies, and try and get to solar powered transatlantic flights really really fast.

That's extremely risky, because of the long transition times: atmosphere is cooked before the emissions can be halted.

So what this leaves is the trajectory we are really on now: geoengineering.

@cascio turned me on to this reality about 10 years ago, "desperate people do desperate things" files.howtolivewiki.com/TRUTHANDBEAUTY… and I don't think his analysis has been bettered, maybe just refined.

Best watch!

Relocating entire populations is slowly becoming a thing in people's minds

https://twitter.com/leashless/status/1412508195566895106?s=20