Homer-Dixon on realism and hope

The director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon, discussed his latest book with The Georgia Straight.

Here is an excerpt:

“Keeping temperatures from rising above the 1.5-degree target in 2100, for instance, would require removal from the atmosphere of at least a half-trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide, in a global effort starting almost immediately and extending beyond the end of the century,” Homer-Dixon writes.

“That amount would fill sixty-five Grand Canyons or a balloon filled with pure CO2 measuring about eighty kilometres in diameter (at sea-level atmospheric pressure), and removing it would entail the largest industrial project in history by far, one that would absorb a large fraction of the world's economic output for decades.”

In a phone interview with the Straight, Homer-Dixon cited this as an example of the hard-edged realism that's necessary to minimize the magnitude of climate-induced harm in this century.

This interview appears in the The Georgia Straight.