Major corporations caused this, only major corporations can solve it. Laws would have to be passed requiring them to offset the damage from everything they do. Coops would need to be set up wherever possible for one industry to reuse waste from another. Subsidies would need to be ethically set up to encourage industry involved with cleaning the environment. Cooperation between nations to combat global issues would be needed. Actual consequences for industries it nations that violate. Education!! And most importantly convince half the world’s population to give a shit or even believe the problem exists. I’ve probably missed some.

The alternative would be magic.

Yeah, between the two, I think magic is probably more realistic. Let’s go with that.

You are asking two how to questions “combat climate change” and “reduce emissions”

To realistically combat climate change:

• Admit that we need to try geoengineering (we are already doing this with all the CO₂ and CH₄ going into the atmosphere)
• Weather it is SO₂ injection or cloud seeding to artificially increase the albido; we need to reduce incident solar radiation to give us a few more decades to actually reduce emissions

To reduce emissions:

• Tackle the biggest emissions first.
• Electrification of the passenger fleet; that means batteries. Keep fuel cells for heavy transport (maybe)
• Encourage electric biking. And other micro-mobility. Along with better public transport.
• Normalise a historical style diet, meat is a treat only once or twice a week.
• Reduce concrete construction; keep it for the important things like the foundations.
• Reduce the practice of packaging everything in plastic; again keep it for the important things only like electrical insulation.
• Massive ramp up of solar and wind around the world.
• Where we use fossil fuels, ask is this important enough to use FF here?

Carbon taxes:

• Tax CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent) at a reasonable rate to encourage all of the reduction measures.
• At less than $65NZD/T the cost is too low to encourage significant movement on the issues.
• Have a ratcheting scheme in the CO₂ market, i.e. add $5-8/yr/T for CO₂e; in 10 years the price will be between $110-140/T. At the 10yr mark, make the ratchet $10-15/yr/T.
• Add a carbon tariff; basically make it more expensive to buy from countries that are not pulling their weight.
• Be careful not to double tax, this is important for buy in from the public. i.e. the carbon tax on fuel should be exempt from sales tax, taxing a tax is a great way to alienate people.

Genuinely there needs to be a fee that companies must pay for the pollution they create, with it written into law that they can’t palm the cost off on their customers.

We need to move shipping away from the ‘barely more refined than crude oil’ fuels they use

We need to ensure protection of the oceans by making it so that outflowing waste from industry never reaches the watercourse in the first place.

Single use plastics need to be removed from the supply chain (alternatively changed at the production level so they’re made from plant cellulose or a material that doesn’t break down into PFOAS or microplastics)

We also need to block petrochemical companies from lobbying or interfering with politics, and prevent them from funding smear campaigns against renewable energy sources

Call a halt to this AI bullshit for a start. I’ve just received a (UK) government questionnaire about my personal energy usage and how I might reduce it. Meanwhile, I learn said government has mooted giving everyone in the country ChatGPT Plus for free!

There are innumerable ways businesses and governments can reduce their energy footprint etc and make a difference.

I’m not a doomer, in large part because I think that economic forces will reduce greenhouse emissions significantly on their own, and despite hitting recent setbacks in policymaking that would push those reductions to happen more more quickly or with deeper cuts, that decarbonization back down to 1990 levels is still going to happen in our lifetimes.

Here’s how I think we’ll get there:

• Phasing out fossil fuel electricity generation. Solar power is just ridiculously cheap compared to any other method of generation. As we deploy grid scale storage, demand-shifting technology and pricing structures, develop redundancy with wind and advanced geothermal (and possibly fusion in the coming decades), we’re going to make fossil fuel electricity generation uncompetitive on price. Maybe ratepayers and governments don’t want to subsidize carbon-free energy, but why would they want to subsidize carbon emitting energy when those are no longer competitive?
• Electrification of transportation (electric vehicles, including big stuff like trains and buses and small stuff like bikes and scooters).
• Electrification of heat, both for indoor climate control and furnaces/boilers for water and industrial applications. Heat pumps are already cost effective for new construction in most climates, and even retrofits are approaching cost competitiveness with fossil fuel powered heaters.
• Carbon capture as a feedstock into chemical production, including alternative fuels like sustainable aviation fuel. Once electricity is cheap enough, even only at certain times of day, energy-intensive chemical production can hit flexible output targets to absorb surplus energy supply from overproduction of solar, to store that energy for later or otherwise remove carbon from the atmosphere.

To borrow from a Taoist concept, we shouldn’t expend effort fighting the current of a river when the current itself can be utilized to accomplish our goals. In this case, the capitalist incentive structure of wanting to do stuff that makes money is now being turned towards decarbonization for cost savings or outright profit.

Proviso of this is that, globally, politicians grow a spine, along with a sense of morality, and long term planning. It would also require them to deal with the money hoarding issues with the hyper rich.

• The first step is a massive push for renewables. They should be representing 200-500% of grid demand regularly. If nuclear can get up to speed and be part of this, great, but we can’t wait on it.

• That excess power should be soaked up by large scale, portable, energy storage. Green hydrogen is the current best option, but synthetic fossil fuels could also take up the slack. Depending on the area, desalination could also be combined into this.

• We seriously decarbonise the transport networks. For vans and smaller, electric vehicles win. BYD have demonstrated that low cost electric cars are viable. For larger vehicles, where electric becomes inefficient, hydrogen is viable. This is where a lot of the excess hydrogen will be going.

• Carbon credits with teeth. Rather than relying on a planned economy mindset, we can make capitalism work for us. We need a global fixed carbon emission limit. This limit should trend towards net zero on a preset timetable. Credits are bid on, akin to stock market trades. Companies must have credits by the end of the year/period. The fine for not having credits should be a multiple of the closing credits price (10x?). The fine for falsification should be multiples of that, erring towards corporate execution levels.

This will force easy savings out of the market quickly. It will then force compulsory emitters to factor in Carbon costs.

• Combined with the carbon credits will be negative credits. If a group takes a ton of CO² out of the air, long term, they gain a new credit. They can sell this to emitters. This will provide the CO² emissions industry requires, while meeting net zero.

An example of this might be large scale bio capture on the open ocean. Grow seaweed etc on pontoons, and turn it into a solid. This can then be locked up (old coal mines?) taking carbon out permanently.

• Geo engineering. There are multiple methods of reducing incident sunlight on the earth. Everything from powders in the upper atmosphere, to mylar solar shades at the Lagrange point. They will be short term fixes, but will buy us time.

None of these require massive reductions in quality of life. They do require changes in how we do things. It’s also worth noting that I’ve not covered the numerous problems to be solved e.g. power grid upgrades to account for renewables. None of these should be insurmountable however, just engineering, or political/policing challenges.

An no, I’ve no fucking idea how to get politicians to grow a spine and do what’s required for our long term comfort/survival. Fixing the planet? That’s just a (really big) engineering problem. Fixing human nature? …Fuck knows.

Redistribute all excess wealth perpetually.

Seize control of the corporations that control most of the polution due to global shipping, shut all non-essential services down until our fleet of vehicles are upgraded to carbon neutral.

Reroute military funding to public infrastructure, take away everyone’s gas cars and drivers licenses and force the public to use public transport.

Force the meat industry to cull 99%of cows on earth

Reinvest into the satellite tracking for carbon emissions and stamp out the random offenders.

Yeet billionaires into space is a decent start.

Buy less crap. That’s it. It sounds like a sacrifice, but stuff doesn’t make you happy (provided your basic needs are met). If you are working longer hours to pay for your cars and tvs and fast fashion, your life might improve.

Playing with a cellphone is kinda fun. Know what’s really fun? Friends.

If you’re under 60, buying less crap is going to disrupt your life less than climate change will, so i think i am entitled to the aforementioned bonus points.

I see an opportunity with rising electricity costs due to AI infrastructure building. People are getting angry about their high bills. If enough out solar panels on their houses and install batteries, we’ll be off the grid in short order.

Make it socially unacceptable to adopt and maintain some behaviours.

It will take generations, but it’s the only way to have the political support to reject certain things.

With all the world (at least western nations) drifting backwards at least into nationalism (some countries even at full throttle into fascism), this could be used as an advantage: Why not shifting the narrative into the direction, that a stable, clean and healthy enviroment is pinnacle of patriotism (like the narrative of a healthy body was used in national-socialist propaganda 90 years ago in Germany), along with renewable energy that makes each nation independent from others. Wind turbines and solar power for freedom, so to say. Things like coal rolling or similar acts like wasting resources will be deemed as un-patriotic then.

Compost the rich

Sorry, not sorry, but the

I dont think its as simple as “tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars” because thats not realistic.

is not something we can skip as ducking billionaires and private jers are a large part of the reason we’re here in the first place.

Ban private jets, all of them. Maybe exceptions for medical flights only. There is no reason for their existence, there is no human right that says “well humans must be able to own their own airplane!”

Ban super yachts, there is no reason why they should exist beyond showing off what an abusive hoarding asshole the owner is.

Make cities for humans, not for cars. That doesn’t mean ban cars outright but do make cities like in the Netherlands and more. Cars should be kept out of cities asuch as possible. Pedestrians and bicycles first (and in many places, only) and replace the vast majority of cars with electrified public transport. Make neighborhoods mixed buildings with homes, stores and bars and restaurants. All industrial stuff in industrial parks.

This will change the urban design of cities. You’ll get many more smaller stores all around, people don’t need a car to go yo Walmart, they walk to their neighborhood store. This will make all countries as nice as “oh my god the Netherlands is so nice, it’s so nice with the small streets and the bicycle allowing you to go everywhere”. It’ll also lower CO2 by a shit load. In the Netherlands, a huge amount of the population doesn’t have a car because they don’t want a car. It’s expensive and they no longer actually NEED one. Cars that are left should all be electrified.

Tax the rich, and not just a little bit. The 1% and 0.1% are extreme polluters and take and waste beyond anything that can be construed as normal. There is no inherent human right to be a billionaire. Tax the rich and prohibit anyone from having a networth over 10 million dollars (example figure, but something around that) by taxation. Any income after you reach that is 100 % taxed. Of course there will be tax brackets, starting at zero for the poorest, going up and up to that 100%.

Limit company sizes to 1 billion dollars networth and or 1000 employees. After that billion, revenue taxes go to 100% equally. No company should be too big. If the company is worth that, btw, you’d need loads of shareholders as each individual can only have a networth of 10 million, remember?

Teach our children that being super rich is something shameful. You’ve been abusive, you’ve been hoarding, it’s abusive and you should be ashamed, and (as said above) prohibited

Require all product producers that all their products are recyclable, repairable, built with sustainable materials from sustainable sources. If it’s not sustainable, don’t sell it.

Same for packaging, bit also require all packaging to have only one packaging, not twenty, and all packaging material must be paper

Require stores to also sell used versions of their products. This requires that they also buy used products from their customers. This of course doesnt apply to food and such :)

Prohibit stores from dumping unsold items. If something doesn’t sell, they can give it to the government for distribution

Ban plastics where possible. No plastic in packaging, for example. No plastic bottles, go back to glass. Standardize certain bottle sizes and colors for easier reuse.

Teach kids hat he basics of Capitalism is okay, but that it can become an evil beast if not controlled well. Consumerism is not okay, you don’t need half the crap people have in their homes these days

With that said, prohibited ALL advertising. If I’d have to see another single lie from a company about how their product really is the best, it’d be too much

Stop inheritance. You should be able to inherit some memorabilia from your loved ones, not that castle they owned

Make all enormous homes with 50 rooms into nice spa hotels. Nobody has the right to have a home that is crazily oversized.

Tax meat heavily. It’s still okay (for now) as it’s such a staple of everyone’s diets, but seriously, you don’t need a two pound steak. Limit the amount of meat allowed in single servings. Push for laboratory meat.

Require farms to have all livestock to be able to roam free, have good food, etc.

Those are a few rules to staet with a generally healthier and better world for everyone. I’m sure some rules are incomplete, need more detail, need exceptions or slight modifications, but the basics are there.

Nothing not what we have today HAS to be the way it is, it is the way it is because we all allow it. Changing economic systems is usually disastrous, so let’s keep capitalism, it’s the best system to make capital. But with these basic limits, nobody gets too rich. The government gets loads of money that it can use for social systems like free healthcare, free education, free food and housing, universal basic income, etc.

Sounds pretty neat in my head, I’ll start refining and adding to this list.

First, people need to accept that we exist within a culture of overconsumption that directly contributes to climate change. Sacrifices to common conveniences will need to be made before we can make any meaningful change.

I’m not saying this is all on the individual. Corporations contribute tremendous waste. But they do so in service to society’s demand for convenience and instant gratification. We all need to learn to live with less.