First aid for the planet

OUR GOAL IS TO FIX HALF OF THE ATMOSPHERIC DAMAGE SINCE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION BEGAN – BY 2030.

We’ll tackle this the same way other emergencies in history were tackled – with strategic enforced rationing, building up of resources, and focusing on the end goal. None of the measures will be terribly austere, so don’t whine – the World War II generation had to sacrifice a lot more than we will if we do this right.

We have everything at stake, the cure will be easier than we think, and the time is now.

If we put it off any longer, though, then we will be eating bugs, wistfully remembering the internet and doctors, and trying to find water or deal with mega-hurricanes until our eventual death… all of us, across the globe, will be suffering immensely.

This is not the time for wishful thinking about some magic inventor getting us out of the situation, either. We need a tourniquet to stop the blood loss and then we need stitches and a blood transfusion. Then the healing starts.

For the purposes of this discussion, we’re going to have three categories of goals:

  1. Tourniquet: Prevent climate breakdown – we only have 10 years to avoid a tipping point to irreversible doom.
  2. Stitches: Continue providing and improving access to necessities like clean water, food, healthcare, shelter, transportation, jobs, entertainment, air conditioning, electricity, lack of warfare, and general high quality of life – WITHOUT the scary sacrifices so many are afraid of.
  3. Blood transfusion: Figure out enough ways to trap and store carbon from the atmosphere to reverse at least half of the total damage since the start of the Industrial Revolution in about 1760 and do it in only 10 years!

I’m going to lay out some imaginative ideas and hand you some hardcore data and tools, all in one place, so you have information and HOPE. In each segment there will be actions that governments need to take and actions that you as an individual can take.

Of course I’m going to get a lot of feedback on this and I hope to get input from many scientists. At first I thought of contacting hundreds in different fields and asking for fact-checking and input, but I realized I simply don’t have time to search out and individually email appropriate experts, then wait months for replies, using spreadsheets to keep track of everything… this way we can all work on the document in public. It is a conversation, after all.