Birth rates are in decline. The global population is estimated to peak in the 2080s. I suspect that could be later than reality as the endless doom (like this article) inspires more and more people to not have kids. Then as the population declines precipitously, nature takes back over and begins resolving the problem itself.
Population decline will not solve climate change, we already passed multiple points of no return that will result in worsening climate for the next 50-100y. And there won’t be a way to roll back those changes
> And there won’t be a way to roll back those changes
It's possible to sequester CO2, and here are a couple ways.
1. Use permaculture or regenerative agriculture to aggressively increase SOM (soil organic matter) / carbon content of the soil. Typical degraded farmland is around 1.5% SOM. For every 0.1% increase per acre, roughly 1 ton of carbon is sequestered. Setting an ambitious increase to 10% would take decades but would increase yields along the way. There are billions of acres of farmland, so a lot of carbon can be removed from the biosphere. Additionally, since people naively mimic farmers for home gardening etc., if farmers were part of the solution, then more home growers would be, too. With a couple decades of regenerative ag you can go from 1.5% to 7.5%, but with more time and motivation you can go higher.
2. Research and then put into practice industrial-scale pyrolysis for energy generation. So, instead of burning methane (aka "natural gas") to boil water to spin a turbine, we could pyrolysize organic material to emit and burn syngas to boil water to spin a turbine. The resulting biochar can be co-composted and when finished, used as a soil amendment.
With a different mindset a lot can change, and quickly.
Not saying you’re wrong, but sequestering CO2 probably isn’t enough. Ecosystems are connected systems and can be resilient in the long term, but a domino can fall that has a huge, negative impact on everything downstream.
For example, coral reefs provide protection and a vibrant home for a lot of sea life. But when the water gets a couple degrees too warm, it can essentially die, and when it does, the rest of the ecosystem disappears too.
Imagine if you were a human and your body temp was even a couple degrees above normal. You’d have a fever.
And these are only tiny examples… life finds away, but it also needs time to grow back.
> Not saying you’re wrong, but sequestering CO2 probably isn’t enough.
My comment was in response to someone suggesting or implying that nothing can be done, not that the 2 points I made were enough.
I agree with you, especially about the ocean. The oceans have absorbed an enormous amount of CO2, increasing ocean acidity and killing ecosystems not even including the heat they've absorbed, also killing ecosystems. Meanwhile commercial fisherman (aqua farmers) are literally bombing coral as a fishing "method." We need an international effort at changing the people who do farming because the people we have are the worst we can get and they do an enormous amount of harm at basically all levels. Besides the ecological harm, they're just so bad at their jobs that despite selling one of only 3 products humans can't live without, they still can't stay in business without bailouts so routine they don't even consciously recognize them as such.
We need a lot less naysaying and a lot more concrete plans led by people who have successfully done it. I've already done the 2 things I mentioned (soil carbon, biochar) on the scale that is available to me. Additionally our rooftop solar covers maybe 1/3 of the roof and produces 2-3x our annual usage in an all-electric house. We're freegan. My used EV burns no fossil fuel. We compost aggressively including toilet material and make biochar which we co-compost. We have a xeriscape garden and use an amount of water most people would probably consider impossibly low. This is all with a mindset of continuous improvement, always assuming that more gains are yet to be discovered and put into practice. Anyone can adopt this mindset. If anyone thinks the above is way too much for you, I started it all just by switching the incandescent light bulbs in my house to LEDs. That was the first step, and then I took another, and then another. That's all. And we're saving a ludicrous amount of money but that's not the only reason we're doing it, and wasn't the original motivation.
