Climate change: progress and setbacks

This week Greece’s electric grid ran entirely on renewable energy. And it looks like per person CO2 emissions have probably peaked.

However at the same time, the Alaska snow crab population has collapsed (although fishing methods may also have played a role).

My mental model for the climate change story is that for the foreseeable future, there’s going to be significant progress on renewable energy, decarbonization, and the like. It’s actually going to be shockingly fast. Eventually carbon removal is going to be figured out and costs will fall pretty quickly. A critical mass of people have accepted that decarbonization is a problem that has to be solved and it is technically feasible to solve it (with some innovation required along the way).

Alongside this though, a fair amount of environmental cost going to be paid and people and communities are going to suffer because of it. To a large extent, these costs are no longer preventable - the time for that was 10 years ago.

I’m not advocating for this path, but think it’s the likeliest outcome and if you suffer from climate anxiety, it will be crucial to remember that both those things things are happening at the same time.