[telotortium]

And to those who point out "China, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand were able to suppress COVID through lockdowns", it's important to note they were able to nip it in the bud, before community spread had become established. This does speak to the effectiveness of a drastic lockdown, combined with travel restrictions, in eliminating COVID if there are only a small number of infections, and we should commend those countries for being able to do so. However, if you don't lock down very early, lockdowns don't seem to be able to control spread enough to eliminate the disease, only to somewhat reduce the infection rate, and even a successful suppression of COVID spread in a country will fail in the long term if travel restrictions are not extremely strict (see the EU).

In other words, suppression achieved through lockdowns is an unstable equilibrium. Only herd immunity, ideally achieved via vaccination, produces a stable equilibrium for suppression.

Similarly with global warming, while we may be able to temporarily reduce emissions, at significant economic cost, via political and sociological solutions without new technology, this reduction is an unstable equilibrium. The only permanent solution - the only stable equilibrium - is via technological means (cheap renewable energy and carbon sequestration).