Climate Change Solutions
Why climate change matters so much
Before this section starts, to strongly support mental health,
I propose that, after country pledges have been made:
The focus should be on how to get nearly every person on earth to do 5 effective efforts each week, for a time that they personally choose, depending on their energy that week,
and full acceptance beyond that- to do your effective %s to prevent it, to do adaptation activities for a certain amount of time, and then you choose to not think about it until next week.
Acceptance means, even if climate change disasters 2x, 3x, 4x, over the coming decades, people choose to move location, or choose to preserve their culture digitally, or choose to help each other adapt to change, or choose to strongly scale up funding, or choose to prepare.
Therefore, to help with mental health, I propose that, after country pledges have been made, the focus should be on getting nearly every person on earth to do 5 effective climate change %s each week, followed by acceptance- not thinking about it until the efforts next week.
For civilians, this would be:
scheduling a certain amount of time each week, depending on your energy levels. This could be e.g. 1.5 hours or more or less, in a few time parts, depending on your energy levels
privately writing down 5 effective actions you could potentially do per week
reading through the most effective resources- most likely Project Drawdown and chapters 5 and 6 of the newest UN Emissions Gap report
trying out all or some of your 5 effective actions, including adding %s towards them
including adaptation actions and/or environmental help, especially for more urgent things
climate adaptation things are supposed to be part of the 5 to 12 % protections per week, but you can include them in your 5 climate change if you would like
For governments, this could be:
asking your team to move forward by a %, any number between 4-10 effective, ambitious climate change %s each week for your entire time in governmenthood (and for all future governments)… this way, you are doing regular efforts within the resources available
you could choose what some or all of these 4 to 10 actions are or you could let your teams choose and report to you
being really mindful of prices, safety and tax efficiency
and being really mindful of climate justice and the fact that of the 197 countries, a large numbers of countries are paying for this that can’t afford it, and weren’t polluters for the past 100 years- if there is some way to help achieve the funds for them, this would be really appreciated
examples of these could be:
one hour reading chapters 5,6,7 of the last Emissions Gap Report (even if you only read part of it over 40 minutes, it’s a %)
asking the energy industry where they are having problems with the 2025 and 2030 goals, so that governments can find ways to help with %s to solving these over weeks/ months
asking the food industry what they can find out about where food is wasted along the domestic and international food supply chain
asking the farming industry if they could create info sheets for farmers about all the best climate practices (but to ask them to prioritise the world food supply and their own profitability too)
For small, medium and large businesses, this could potentially be the same as for civilians, but five for your business, and five for yourself, if you have the time; if not, then five for your business around a chosen allocated time would be more helpful for climate change)
After the mental health section above, these are the reasons why climate change matters so much:
Please don’t hesitate to re-read the mental health section at the start of the article if needed.
Some people probably still don’t understand why global warming matters so much, and why 50% of the warnings to humanity are about climate change.
This is why fractions of a degree and everyone’s weekly efforts matter so much:
Climate change disasters increased 5x- this is correct- 5x- over 1970-2019, at the same time the climate increased by the past 1.15 degrees.
They also increased financially 7x with the past 1.15 degrees.
Therefore, we should expect a further 5x increase with the next 1.15 degrees.
Fractions of degrees could mean a 2x increase rather than a 5x increase.
According to 86 international experts in food security and agriculture, climate change is the #1 problem affecting the future food security of the planet.
The 2022, 2021 and 2019 World Scientists' Warnings to Humanity- 50% of all the World Scientists' Warnings to Humanity were focused on climate change, and were signed by thousands of scientists
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biac083/6764747
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Scientists%27_Warning_to_Humanity
The International Panel on Climate Change said that:
About half the global population – between 3.4 billion and 3.8 billion people – live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change.
Everywhere is affected, with no inhabited region escaping dire impacts from the increasing expensiveness of extreme weather- especially poor countries.
Low-lying countries and coastal towns around the globe face inundation at temperature rises of more than 1.5C.
Millions of people face food shortages connected to increasing climate change, even at current levels of heating.
Key ecosystems are losing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide, turning them from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
1.5C above pre-industrial levels constitutes a “critical level” beyond which the impacts of the climate crisis accelerate strongly and some become irreversible.
50% of the challenge is how to help everyone adapt to this, emotionally, financially and practically. At the same time, implementing preventative measures through Project Drawdown and the Emissions Gap Report now mean that an enormous amount can be prevented from happening- if the 8 billion can be persuaded to do them.
How to adapt means things like some people will need to plan to relocate when they feel it’s time, but this also risks much higher climate refugees, so preventing fractions of a degree matters
Locations that are near the sea like cities and islands are at risk of storm surges, flooding, and increasingly intense storms
Some people need financial help with sudden climate change disasters like the floods in Pakistan and Nigeria,
A lot of countries near the equator are dealing with higher temperatures and they already have really high temperatures
If people don’t want to pay for increasing financial help, then they should help with preventative methods.
However, both are needed…
According to 86 international experts in food security and agriculture, climate change is the #1 problem affecting the future food security of the planet.
According to 79 international experts in biodiversity, climate change is one of the largest problems for biodiversity.
The problem with going beyond 0.5 extra degrees is 16 tipping points- points that are accelerants to climate change- once they are passed, accelerate climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds
If you need to, please re-read the mental health section at the start of this article…
In combination with the solutions proposed at the start of this article, it is a really excellent idea if the 8 billion (who are in safe enough locations, and their group is OK with what they do), to do a separate 5 to 12 attempts per week to ethically, safely, effectively prevent -10s to -2s from happening. As well as increasing safety, climate change adaptation methods- pre-planning what you and communities can do around climate change disasters- is something that can be included within the above.
According to 86 international experts in food security and agriculture, climate change is the #1 problem affecting the future food security of the planet.
According to 79 international experts in biodiversity, climate change is one of the largest problems for biodiversity.
The problem with ecosystems and biodiversity loss is that
Please make sure to re-read the mental health section at the top of this article.
Africa
1,695 recorded disasters caused the loss of 731,747 lives and $5 billion in economic losses.
The continent accounts for 15 per cent of weather, climate, and water-related disasters; 35 per cent of associated deaths and one per cent of economic losses reported globally.
Although disasters associated with floods were the most prevalent, at 60 per cent, droughts led to the highest number of deaths, accounting for 95 per cent of all lives lost in the region, with most occurring in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sudan
Asia
3,454 disasters were recorded, with 975,622 lives lost and $2 trillion reported in economic damages.
Asia accounts for nearly one third, or 31 per cent of weather, climate, and water-related disasters globally, for nearly half of all deaths and one-third of associated economic losses.
Forty-five per cent of these disasters were associated with floods and 36 per cent with storms.
Storms took 72 per cent of lives lost, while floods led to 57 per cent of economic losses
North America, Central America & the Caribbean
The region suffered 74,839 deaths and $1.7 trillion economic losses.
The region accounted for 18 per cent of weather-, climate- and water-related disasters, four per cent of associated deaths and 45 per cent of associated economic losses worldwide.
Storms were responsible for 54 per cent and floods, 31 per cent of recorded disasters., with the former linked to 71 per cent of deaths and the latter to 78 per cent of economic losses.
The United States accounts for 38 per cent of global economic losses caused by weather, climate and water hazards.
South America
The top 10 recorded disasters in the region accounted for 60 per cent of the 34,854 lives lost 38 per cent of economic losses equalling $39.2 billion.
Floods represented 90 per cent of events in the top 10 list of disasters by death toll and 41 per cent of the top ten list by economic losses.
Floods were responsible for 59 per cent of disasters, 77 per cent for lives lost and 58 per cent of economic loss for the region.
Europe
1,672 recorded disasters took 159,438 lives and $476.5 billion in economic damages.
Although 38 per cent were attributed to floods and 32 per cent to storms, extreme temperatures accounted for 93 per cent of deaths, with 148,109 lives lost.
Extreme heatwaves of 2003 and 2010 were responsible for 80 per cent of all deaths, with 127,946 lives lost in the two events.
The Pacific
The region recorded 1,407 disasters, 65,391 deaths, and $163.7 billion in economic losses.
45 per cent of these disasters were associated with storms and 39 per cent with floods.
Storms accounted for 71 per cent of disaster-related deaths.
Disasters resulting from weather, climate and water hazards in Australia accounted for 54 per cent or $88.2 billion in economic losses in the entire region.
According to the International Panel on Climate Change
About half the global population – between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people – live in areas “highly vulnerable” to climate change.
Everywhere is affected, with no inhabited region escaping dire impacts from rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather.
Millions of people face food and water shortages owing to climate change, even at current levels of heating.
Coastal areas around the globe, and small, low-lying islands, face inundation at temperature rises of more than 1.5C.
Mass die-offs of species, from trees to corals, are already under way.
1.5C above pre-industrial levels constitutes a “critical level” beyond which the impacts of the climate crisis accelerate strongly and some become irreversible.
Key ecosystems are losing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide, turning them from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
Some countries have agreed to conserve 30% of the Earth’s land, but conserving half may be necessary to restore the ability of natural ecosystems to cope with the damage wreaked on them.
Weather (and therefore also climate-connected) disasters increased 5 times over 1970-2019, at the exact same time the climate increased by the past 1.5 degrees.
Therefore, we should expect a further 5 times increase with the next 1.5 degrees. Figuring out how to limit the temperature increases over the next 30 years to 0.5 degrees will mean a 2x increase rather than a 5x increase. Think about these two numbers in detail- this will help the world enormously and should be considered the #1 or #2 most important world development area. However, it needs to be done together with mindfulness of costs to people.
The problem with going beyond 0.5 extra degrees- e.g. to 0.6- is tipping points- points that are accelerants to climate change, and once passed, make it increasingly difficult to stick reduce climate change.
We just need a world of people who either do 7+7 small efforts per week to help problem solve this, 0.01% by 0.01%, or help with between 2 to 15 small %s per week- climate change and economic development %s could easily take up 100% of these.
It’s just problem solving and mental health care, bit by bit by bit by bit.
Therefore, every % to prevent tipping points makes a world of difference, as long as you’re ethical enough with them. The number one way to prevent tipping points is to achieve the world’s 2025, 2030, and 2050 goals as early as achievable, and being really mindful of people in each society who partly or fully can’t afford it (they will need extra solutions to protect them).
What are the 2025, 2030 and 2050 goals?
2025: stop worldwide climate change emissions from increasing
2030: cut down worldwide climate change emissions by 45% (we can think of this as worldwide 50% reduction, which will have to be done by everyone, but especially by the wealthiest countries aiming for as close to 100% as they can, to make up for the poorest of the 197 countries that can’t afford it)
2050: reach a net-zero world BEFORE tipping points are reached, where every country, region, organization, entity and the world takes in more climate change emissions than produces them.
This means switching to low and zero emissions tech as quickly as we can. This also means aggressively pursuing methods to capture climate change emissions to make up for the huge increase in consumption expected as the poorest 4 billion get wealthier- which is their moral and ethical right.
It can feel overwhelming at first, but if you read my next article for how each individual can strongly do their bit with this, and some of my mental health methods, you will find ways that make the above surprisingly easy to move forward (individually).
The main things to look out for are the 7+7 small efforts per week (2 seconds or more on anything hard- it can be between 2 seconds to 10 minutes- you get to choose according to the rest of week), focusing on between 5 to 20 of the most important Project Drawdown options that you choose per week, regularly aiming for the goals- especially around efforts to stop climate change and stop early tipping points (e.g. the largest Project Drawdown areas, how to problem solve things that might stop your region from reaching net zero and how to solve these, % by %), and especially ways to help those in the way of these needed changes to find alternative equal incomes, adapt to changing locations if needed, and emotionally and practically help them throughout the processes. This can definitely be done within the 7+7 small efforts per week.
If there are ways to get the world of development people to add %s of solutions to renewable tech (especially renewable battery tech), and ways to (safely and privately) use some of your own weekly development %s on larger %s for any of the above, this would be really appreciated.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/28/ipcc-issues-bleakest-warning-yet-impacts-climate-breakdown
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720326139#f0005
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1098662
