I know how to save us from climate change, or as I always say, save the world. It’s not all utopia futuristic either. It’s kind of old school mixed in with the new. We already have all the technology we need.
First, and most important, we need to grow all our food in our cities. We can do that with a mix of permaculture and aquaponics. Aquaponics can feed over 100 people per acre, compared to four people per acre with conventional agriculture. It also uses ten times less water, or 90% less, to produce the same amount of food. If we turn all of our urban golf courses into aquaponic food growing areas, and turn every rooftop and parking lot and yard into permaculture growing areas, we can grow all of our food in our cities. If everywhere in the world did that, we’d cut our emissions by 50% because animal agriculture accounts for half. By also using 90% less water for growing food and not using fossil fuels, our rivers and lakes will stay at higher levels, benefiting the fish. It also means we can remove dams and let rivers flow free again, providing nutrients for the oceans, thus combating and reducing oceanic dead zones. Also means more fish, healthier food chain in the oceans, which also benefits us. Also, by growing all our own food in our cities, we eliminate cargo flights, freight trains, semi-trucks and freight/cargo ships. It’d also make us a lot healthier and lower cancer rates.
Second, we grow vegetation, usually vine works the best, on the outside of all the buildings. This reduces the energy used for heating and cooling by 90%. So now the solar power used for one building is enough to power ten buildings. Meaning we don’t need to extract as much rare earth minerals for our renewable energy, since we’d need way less of it. Vegetation on the walls of buildings also sucks up CO2 and releases oxygen, thus reducing air pollution and making it easier to breathe in cities. Cities are notorious for their low oxygen levels. This would reduce lung cancer rates.
Third, plant trees around every house. If houses are covered by shade from trees, it can reduce the heating and cooling energy use by up to 90%. Covering houses with trees will also suppress the light from houses, preventing it from escaping into the night sky, thus we’d be reducing light pollution, allowing us to see the night stars again in the cities. Also, trees suck up CO2 and release oxygen, thus reducing pollution even further and making it even easier to breathe.
Fourth, have free public transit everywhere. Bus Rapid Transit, light rail, street cars, monorail, commuter trains, bike lanes. Eliminate cars. Build high speed rail everywhere and eliminate all flights under 1,000 miles. Convert unused roads into permaculture areas. This will reduce all pollution from transportation not including flying, while eliminating over half the pollution from flying. It’d also make our streets safer and improve community bonding.
Fifth, convert all gas station and car areas too poisoned for food growing into playgrounds and parks. This will improve community bonding.
Sixth, cover freeways with lids that have parks on them, or tear out freeways and turn them into urban forest wildlife corridors. Turn all shipping ports into wet lands. Before we even get to this point, we’re probably close to or at zero carbon emissions, with how much we’ve reduced pollution and how much green stuff we have sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. Wetlands suck in carbon like nobody’s business, so where we can, we grow new wetlands.
Seventh, with all the unused farmland now, we let it rewild, or rather we help it rewild with forests, oak savannah’s etc. This will bring back wildlife and suck up lots of CO2. At this point, we have negative emissions, but that’s the point.
The warming we see today is because of emissions we released 30-40 years ago. We could go to zero emissions tomorrow morning and the planet would keep warming for a few more decades. With these seven steps, we’d likely be in negative emissions by a significant amount, and that’s our only chance if we want our species to survive past 2100. So yea, there’s no new technological answer. No driverless cars or hyperloop or carbon capture technology. Nope. We have everything we need. We just need some magic, some witchcraft, to make those seven things happen. If we’re to not go extinct within 100 years, that must be our future, and soon.
We need the daydreamers, the overthinkers, the witches.
adamkendall2 