Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

This is the second post I've written today; and that's the first time I've ever written two posts in a day. I have been writing about two converging crisis - peak oil and climate change - on this blog, as well as various political and economic happenings for a while now, but this evening I put two and two together and had the most horrific brainwave. I'll explain it as clear as I can.

You might have already realised part of the conundrum, that peak oil and climate change might seem mutually exclusive. If we are unprepared for the peaking of the flow of oil to world markets, the global economy could collapse. It nearly did in 2008, only just saved by emergency action by government's to bail out the banking system. That shows that when disaster looms, we can fix big shit. However, if our economy is brought down by a resource crisis of one form or another, that might save us from the impending (and to some extent arleady occuring) climate crisis, right? Wrong.

In fact, I realised, to my absolute horror, that James Lovelock is right in his book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia", that if we stopped burning fossil fuels immediately the atmospheric aerosol that is provided as a side effect of burning fossil fuels would fall out of the atmosphere within weeks if you stopped burning them, leaving the earth exposed to the warming stored up by the emissions of the last 100 years that are still "in the system". Admittedly we wouldn't be in for any more warning after we had paid the overdue debt of past emissions, but it demonstrates what might happen if we do reduce emissions.

Suppose the "continued growth" path is the hard place. The next 100 years will see unprecedented global climate change that will obliterate much of current human civilization. Suppose the "collapse" scenario is the "rock", the next 10-20 years or sooner could see a resource crisis bring down the global economy, and carbon emissions with it, and in turn atmospheric aerosoles with it, exposing the earth to the full force of the greenhouse effect that we are actually to some extent insulated from at the moment.

It feels odd to be aware of a problem, the solution to which might make the problem worse. This paradox paralyses the mind in a strange way. Essentially the faster we reduce emissions the faster short term climate change occurs, but the less of it we have in the long term. The slower we reduce emissions the slower short term climate change occurs but the more of it happens in the long term? I'd be interested to recieve feedback from anyone who comes accross this post who knows anything about the subject. Sadly, I suspect not many of you do.