The Maximal Approach to Climate Change

Someone asked us an interesting question. Here is the question verbatim:“Maybe this is me being a bit naïve, but if we all agree that climate change is ‘a’ problem, but we don’t agree on ‘how big’, isn’t the correct course of action to just take the maximal approach?”

They follow up this question with something that speaks to the underlying logic or premise:

“If the effect is minimal and we take the maximal approach, we’ve guaranteed that the worse case scenario doesn’t happen. And if the effect is maximal and we take the maximal approach, we also stop the worst case scenario.”

Answering this question in totality would probably require so much detail that it would be a book. For that reason, I will attempt to provide the answer in fairly broad strokes. Also, there is also an underlying premise here which should be addressed.

First, the underlying premise provided in the context is that climate change, and more importantly, its worst-case outcome is within our control. When referencing the worst-case outcome this usually references a catastrophic extinction event for humanity. This is a risk which on almost any human-interested risk matrix would have an effectively infinite value on consequences. 

There is a concept called a tipping point, it is referenced frequently in certain types of disasters and risks. Simply put, a tipping point is a ‘point’ at which, once crossed, an irreversible course has been set. 

If one imagined a boulder dangling on the edge of a cliff, the tipping point would be the point at which the boulder started to lean off or fall off the cliff where any practical outside intervention could not stop it from falling.

In climate change risk it is believed that there is a tipping point in global temperature rise, which once crossed, would result in a feedback loop of carbon (methane) release, rapidly accelerating global temperatures that human intervention could not stop. One common example brought up in relation to this is methane gas trapped under permafrost.

There is disagreement here but some believe that the tipping point has already effectively been crossed or is unavoidable. If that is the case then the question is irrelevant, as the situation would already be outside of human control.

Being practical, for the rest of this article I will assume that the tipping point has not been crossed.

To understand what the maximal approach is we have to break down all the components of the solution. Climate change solutions have historically been expressed in a formula, traditionally this has been:

Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology

Expanded this means: the impact humans have on the environment is the number of people on the planet, multiplied by their individual energy consumption, multiplied by the technology that is being used to produce that energy.

Both technology and affluence do not separate the consumer versus producer responsibility. This may obfuscate the impact the producer has, which is generally considered to be substantially more than the consumer, so this formula has also been rethought as I=P*A*T+iEi

The addition on the end of the formula is a sum of environmental impacts directly attributable to major producers. Knowing all the math isn’t critically important to the overall point, but it speaks to how this challenge is viewed.

Broadly speaking, carbon emissions come from four industry categories: energy 73.2%; agriculture, forest and land use 18.4%; industry (chemicals and cement) 5.2%; waste management 3.2%. The maximal approach requires an overhaul of all four.

Technology is generally tackled through innovation. 

The less a technology emits per unit of energy produced, the lower the overall impact. This means a lot of research and development. The maximal approach would be similar in focus to the more well-known Manhattan Project during WWII in the race to obtain nuclear weapons.This would likely be a massive global undertaking refocusing a huge amount of resources toward the goal of innovation within all of the above-mentioned industries.

Further, this issue is very complicated. Two major factors are often not considered:

1. Life cycle analysis.

2. The source of the energy.

Life cycle analysis looks at the emissions of something from ‘cradle to grave’ or ‘womb to tomb’. The battery vehicle’s emissions are subject to all emissions:

• Required to get all the raw materials out of the ground.

• Produced in the manufacturing of the vehicle.

• The operation of the vehicle by the consumer, including maintenance.

• Disposal of the vehicle’s components when it is no longer usable.

• Any and all transportation emissions accrued when getting between the different parts of the life cycle. The raw materials have to get to the factory, the car has to get to the dealer, the parts have to be transported at the end.

While technically part of life cycle, it is also very important to focus on the source of the energy. If a battery vehicle is being powered by an electrical grid, but that electrical grid is being supplied by a massive carbon emitter, like older coal technology, then the battery may effectively be emitting more carbon than gasoline powererd.

When taking the maximal approach, everything has to be looked at and the entire system needs to be overhauled. This is very complicated, expensive, and requires a lot of time. Even if the technology existed today replacing the largest infrastructures on the planet that have been slowly built over 100+ years takes a lot of time.

This leads to the next component: affluence.

Before technology gets to zero emissions, if it is even possible, the maximal approach necessitates that the demand for energy decreases. This means turning back time on modern conveniences to a degree that most people would find intolerable.

Manually cleaning clothes, no computers, no internet, low power old school phones (if phones at all). Living in a power blackout situation effectively as the norm as often as possible. Temperature regulation is largely done through wearing more or less clothing, the energy required for heating and cooling is too expensive. A firepit in the backyard for warmth could emit too much carbon in the winter. The maximal approach is quite extreme (it’s maximal).

People also tend to have relatively short decision horizons. This means that people generally find it difficult to prioritize long-term benefit over short-term benefit. Getting the public to agree to this without force would be near impossible. 

The maximal approach would basically necessitate governments saying ‘this is the way things are going to be and there is nothing you can do about it’. They will phrase it more politely, but in practice: power is being shut off.Also, the world will probably have to go vegan, and will with further restriction on specific crops, as livestock farming would essentially be out-of-the question. Even some plants are simply not efficient enough within the maximal approach.

Population is arguably the least significant of the three main factors right now.

The maximal approach would still need to address it, the human population cannot multiple infinitely. This means population reduction and/or control. Here, there are basically two options: more deaths or less births. 

Population control is an ethical minefield. Even so, when navigating it ‘more deaths’ strategies tend to be significantly more unpopular than ‘less births’ strategies. It is more likely the maximal approach will focus on less births.

Population is measured in this way generally via a replacement rate. The replacement rate is a ratio of the number of children every woman has on average. The ‘magic number’ or the rate where the population does not grow or shrink is approximately 2.1. The goal of the maximal approach is to lower that number.

There are several countries in the world that have very low population replacement rates. The basic idea would be to figure out which countries have produced very low rates and then copy what they are doing that is producing this behaviour.

Now to be clear, the goal would be to seek out countries that are currently experiencing what the world currently considers a crisis of population decline and then to cause these crises intentionally. This carries all sorts of hardship and secondary effects, but this is the maximal approach.

Here are examples of some countries to choose from and their replacement rates as of 2023 according to Our World in Data:

Canada 1.35,   Poland 1.3,   Japan, 1.21,   Italy 1.2,   China 1.1,   South Korea 0.72

Hopefully this helps illuminate the vision for what the maximal approach looks like. There are some people that will assume that this is reasonable given their personal evaluation of climate change risk. For others this may seem entirely unreasonable or unnecessary.Based on what I have seen from students and other individuals from younger generations, it is likely they will fall into a third category. Many will want to do something, be relatively terrified (or at a minimum, anxious) about climate change but will simultaneously find the maximal approach to be untenable.

For them, breaking down the problem and knowing the limits of each component can help map the menu of decisions. People likely will not assume the maximal approach, but some of this, even to a lesser degree, they might consider tolerable.

Learn more and watch the full video here.

Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp. and is the author of Continuity 101. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.