[CM30]

There is no other way. Any attempt to get people to 'change' their lifestyle now is ineffective, and any attempt to force them to will just be met with a coup/failed government.

At the end of the day, technology is the only thing that will fix climate issues. Anything else is simply not possible.

[vkou]

And if we don't develop the technology in time?

[rebuilder]

We're in trouble, then.

I have to agree that technology has to play a big part in mitigating and surviving climate change. I don't believe we have the social means to change our consumption patterns enough.

Right now, to meet the approx. 1.5 tons of CO2 per capita long-term target implied by the (inadequate) Paris accords, you basically have to be homeless in the west. Just your share of infrastructure puts you over the limit.

I don't believe for a moment we can, as a society, voluntarily reduce our quality of life to the point that our emissions would be sufficiently reduced. Any political system that tries that will collapse, because that's what happens when economic growth stops. And if your society is in upheaval, you're not going to be solving climate change, except possibly through self-destruction.

So yes, we definitely need to act, but that action needs to include some very impressive technological change, because without it, we're all but guaranteed to fail.

[ForHackernews]

All of the (as you say, inadequate) climate accord plans already assume that we are going to develop magical carbon-sequestration technology and deploy it on a global scale by 2050 or so.[0]

So basically, it's even worse than you might think. Not only do we have to cut our emissions dramatically, but we also have to invent some technology for negative emissions.

[0] https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...

[JulianMorrison]

We die. Obviously.