Our only real choice on global warming: adapt

David Zetland at Aguanomics has the best simple description of our global warming choices. Short summary: no one is ever going to agree to reduce carbon emissions, even though when the sky falls it will fall on every one of us. So our only option is to work out how we are going to live in a high-carbon world.

I care about global warming.  I am also flying my family to visit my mother this Christmas holiday. Am I evil? A fool? No. Just complicit. Just making the same choices everyone makes. We have only one life, we have the opportunity to live it in pleasure and comfort, and so we will take it. If we think about it, we'll bicycle somewhere rather than driving or put a solar panel on our roof.  I believe the technical measurement for how much that helps is on the close order of "jack shit".

So, how do we live in a warmer world? We need to think about it, because, assuredly, we are going to be living in it. And blaming someone else, no doubt.  Those pesky Chinese! Don't they know cars and single-family houses are merely vanities? What's wrong with them?

If the sky is going to fall, figure out how to strengthen your roof. That's the highest value for your dollars, like it or not.

BTW, Aguanomics (note the 'g'), mostly about water but also about other topics, is one of the most informative blogs around.  Scarcity of potable water is going to be a major issue in the coming decades. I'm currently reading Mr. Zetland's The End of Abundance, a compendium of good sense on water policy. From his accounts, he travels all around the world, doing interesting things and meeting interesting people. And his photo indicates that he is good looking to boot. I'm feeling the uneven distribution of resources here. I'll just have to live with that, and suck as much value from him as I can. Look for stuff I've stolen from him in my fiction.