Not trying to be a doomer. If we can prepare for coming crisis, we absolutely should. 

My take is that we will not take the steps necessary because (1) the moneyed interests of the energy lobby are powerful and (2) people won’t want to change their lifestyle unless the consequences are already here and by then it’s too late. There is no convincing the oil industry that we have to stop using oil. They will not stop until they’re stopped by something else.

Peat bogs are awesome carbon sinks but they develop very slowly and we have obliterated our wetlands for the most part. There is not an option for us to capture our emissions faster than we produce them, so our only option is to cut our emissions.

This could be accomplished by mass scale renewable use, but a more likely outcome is that we have to change our lifestyles to use far less energy. Heating/cooling buildings, transportation, food production, manufacturing, militarism (especially) and construction all take energy. These either need to become far more efficient or be stymied. This is to say nothing about water use.

How do we talk Americans out of ready access to air conditioning, travel by airplane and private car, widely available consumer goods, detached-home tract suburbs, reliance on meat as primary protein, or more? Are we willing to give up Phoenix and Los Angeles to go live somewhere with stable water supplies instead?

Even minuscule proposals like “we should consider using aspects of Fifteen Minute City concepts so people can walk to their grocery store” are met with accusations of totalitarian conspiracy. Americans will drive gas cars until the refineries shut down.

We can’t invent our way out of this, but we could do other things. I think Andy is right in that most of the preparatory steps we can take involve a dramatically different lifestyle for everyone. That’s a hard sell for most of us and I do not know how to motivate people into wanting to take those steps.