What the hell is going on?

We know remarkably well what is happening

There are problems we only notice when they hit us. The climate crisis is not one of them. We have observed it for decades. We measure the warming of the atmosphere and oceans, rising sea levels, melting ice and changes in extreme events. We know the main cause with remarkable precision: above all, the burning of fossil fuels and other human greenhouse-gas emissions are changing the composition of the atmosphere and warming the planet. [Q01]

We also know something particularly uncomfortable for decisions: with carbon dioxide, it is not only the rate of emissions that matters but the cumulative amount added to the atmosphere. Every additional tonne makes a limited remaining space smaller. The urgency of the climate crisis can therefore be counted. [Q01]

The countdown on this site does exactly that. It is not a forecast of catastrophe. It translates a scientifically estimated remaining global CO₂ budget into a calculated German share and subtracts ongoing CO₂ emissions. The allocation of a global budget can be debated, as can probabilities and temperature goals. The basic relationship remains: as long as net CO₂ continues to enter the atmosphere, the remaining room gets smaller. [Q01][Q02][Q03][R02]

Urgency is not an attitude. It is built into the physics of the problem.

And it is not inevitable

This is perhaps the first good piece of news in a very bad situation: the climate crisis is not a meteorite heading randomly toward Earth. It has been caused to a very large extent by human action. How far it progresses therefore depends substantially on what people continue to do — and what they stop doing.

We cannot avoid what has already been emitted. But the next emission is not yet a historical fact. Between a possible emission and a tonne actually emitted lies a decision, a technical system, a building, a journey, a power station, a material, a rule or a habit.

That does not make the situation simple. But it changes the question. If we know what is happening, if we know why it is happening, and if we know our actions influence what happens next: what the hell is going on here?

We are acting

The easy answer would be: nothing. We know and still do nothing. But that is not true.

International agreements have been signed, renewable energy expanded, efficiency standards tightened, research funded, carbon priced, support programmes created and new rules developed. Companies account for greenhouse gases. Cities write climate plans. Buildings receive energy certificates, LCAs and sustainability ratings. Whole systems of assessment and regulation have been built to make decisions better.

A great deal is happening. And yet emissions are not falling fast enough to keep agreed climate goals reliably within reach.

Perhaps that is the more interesting question: not why nothing is happening, but why so much is happening and it is still not enough.

Can a problem become over-complex?

For building, we now have remarkably sophisticated tools. We can assess a building over its entire life cycle: production, construction, use, replacement, energy, demolition, disposal and possible benefits beyond the system boundary. We can capture different environmental impacts and compare functionally equivalent variants. [Q04]

In principle, that should make us excellent at deciding.

Does it?

If the task is climate protection now and as much as possible: do our tools show which decision today contributes most to that task? Can we still see which emissions a decision triggers now, which can be avoided now, when effects occur and where the decision window actually lies?

This is an investigation hypothesis, not a result already proven: can the attempt to include everything at once make the decision basis less sharp? Can a great deal of knowledge paradoxically make decisions harder if every issue is folded into the same score?

Understand complexity. Do not hide decisions inside it.

That is where I want to look more closely — without expecting that my answer has to be the one that comes out. The point is to see more clearly what we can actually decide today, and which decision bases help us do it.