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Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

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Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#491

Post by Latteland »

shard972 wrote: post #56
Latteland wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those responses seem like something from the people who don't believe there's an actual problem. Scientists are pretty much universally convinced, the only ones who aren't are paid by big oil and the Koch brothers - that means they are lying for money. We don't debate whether the earth is the center of the universe or is the earth flat, because debating that would be a false equivalence of equal chance, but one side…

> Scientists are pretty much universally convinced, the only ones who aren't are paid by big oil and the Koch brothers - that means they are lying for money. Thats actually just wrong and shows how closed minded people are to how science works. Even if they were paid by big oil, shouldn't their evidence stand on it's own merits? Just like the claims made by scientists? And no, I don't buy your false equivalence becau…

I do think that pretty much all reputable scientists do believe it. But another thing that serious scientists do is publish in accepted journals. I hadn't heard of the new american, but a quick search on the site found an article saying that Martin Luther King wasn't really a pacifist- he actually wanted to encourage violence, and also something lauding the John Birch Society. So reading the article you linked about some who thinks everyone else is wrong about global warming leads me to doubt his veracity, based in part on the other ridiculous views therein.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#492

Post by thewhitetulip »

thinkcontext wrote: post #427
thewhitetulip wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier, I charged my phone using the grid. I used grid while reading and writing. Now, I have five solar products and I don't use the grid. I also plant 10 trees yearly, I use my bicycle. Doing something is better than being a cynic. The point isn't recuperating amount of energy spent in manufacturing solar pabel, batteries. It is to stop from further consumption of polluting items. Sure, it wouldn't amount to much.…

If you are not using the grid and just getting by using a foldable solar panel to charge 5 devices, then I should definitely not be lecturing you about minimizing waste. You make a good point about the important thing being the comparison of emissions you would have caused had you used the grid versus what was used to create the panel and batteries. Still, it depends how much charging you actually wind up doing with…

Thank you for having a civil discussion! Our current world climate is intensly hostile and I was afraid that even our discussion would go south.

Well, today morning, I charged my phone on solar power (and I'll do so daily from now on).

India has bigger issues than CO2, yes, but unfortunately, I can't afford to ignore CO2issues. Our governments are incredibly corrupt and incompetent. Their goal in life is to do enough corruption so that their 7 generations dont5 have to work ever.

That aside, yes, it is depressing that US federal policy is ignoring climate change, but don't be sad, half your states have committed to going green by 2030 or something. Plus, Tesla motors and Tesla energy are doing more things for solar than anyone else in this world. They recently bhilt this backup genset in Australia, they also have built solar energy power stations (quietly) in remote islands, I forgot the names.

That means US is contributing despite its depressing govt policies. My issue is that India isn't contributing despite+ve federal policies. For all his faults, ny PM has obsessively focused on solar, thankfully, shifting away from nuclear energy. But now company hasa good electric car or 2 wheeler and those cars are costly and run for 70km on one charge. Tesla runs 250miles!

Coming to less CO2, I won't be able to offset energy used for solar panel, I don't know how much was used in the first place, But and this is a big but, I'll surely he offsetting all energy I was going to use from the grid anyways.

I wasn't going to stop using mobiles, lights for reading at night. So, I'll be saving those emissions and my electricity bill. I get less than 2 $ bill per month, average bill here, converted in dollars should be somewhat 10$, depending on how rich people are.

And btw I have five different solar powered devices that can be charged by builtin solar panel and by USB port. So my Idea is to use my power bank to store energy and use it to charge phone or lanterns as required. (Powerbank is 20,000 mah, and also has a 2w solar panel included!)

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#493

Post by mturmon »

claydavisss wrote: post #280
jonstewart wrote: post #16

Give money to Democratic candidates challenging Republican incumbents, right now. If we believe in evidence-based science, then all evidence points to Republicans being anti-science. You don't have to be a committed lifelong Democrat to see that the current Republican party is fighting climate change efforts at every turn and needs to be displaced in order for political progress on the issue to happen.

California is majority-run by Democrats with a Democrat Governor who isn't seeking re-election (so he can do whatever he wants)... When asked if he would stop offshore drilling, Jerry Brown responded that he refused to put that many people out of work. This is in a state where Democrats have effectively no opposition The idea the Democrats are even one iota different on climate is ridiculous and dangerous. If Democra…

This is a bullshit comment. For more on what Governor Brown has done, please see: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/jerry-b...

For some examples of Trump efforts to roll back GHG limits of the Obama Administration, see: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11092018/methane-flaring-...

I mean, the man does not even seem to believe that climate is changing.

It is not necessary to demonstrate that someone was put out of a job to do any of this.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#495

Post by Juliate »

monktastic1 wrote: post #412
Juliate wrote: post #139

Indirect action idea (I wonder about it). Gather with other persons to invest a few shares in the major groups responsible for CO2 emissions. Not to have weight per se, but to be invited in shareholders assembly. And to be regularly loud about the topic of the group's responsibility. It's enough for 4, 5 distinct individuals to bring up related questions in the same assembly so that it bothers other investors. Bother…

If I'm driving the demand they're fulfilling, I'm probably not a good choice to complain. So I guess we have to find the guiltless ones first....

Beware, that's a trap.

Guilt is not a valid reason not to object to, to criticise the compromission.

Would I be drunk, that wouldn't disqualify me from criticising all of: my own responsibility, alcohol, policies regarding liquors.

(in the same way, would I be a believer, that wouldn't make it impossible or irrelevant or even hypocritical to criticise faith, religion, church, customs, etc.).

That's the good thing with reason: you are allowed and you can detach from what you're talking about.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#496

Post by pauldjohnston »

ed_balls wrote: post #483
pauldjohnston wrote: post #221

Well, having done some research into this recently, the tech world has something it can do right now. Switch to sustainably powered Cloud and move to renewably powered/offset Data Centres. e.g. Google (100% carbon neutral), Azure (100% offset), AWS (Oregon, Montreal, Ireland, Frankfurt regions are 100% carbon neutral) Cloud/Data Centres emit around 2% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (bet you didn't know that). There is a…

> Cloud/Data Centres emit around 2% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Is it just from electricity or the total operation? What about manufacturing and hardware replacements/maintenance? Is significant?

So it is relatively difficult to get exact data and all we can really get from the information supplied is electricity usage. That, plus the mix of electricity in the Data Centre location gives an approximation (again, it's an educated guess) of carbon emissions related to a site. Efficiencies are actually an irrelevance due to the rapid increase in usage swallowing up any gains caused by efficiencies.

Oh and the 2% from Data Centres is a conservative estimate. It's probably higher. We simply don't have the data because it's not required to share it.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#497

Post by perfunctory »

explainplease wrote: post #440
perfunctory wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somehow the prophesied catastrophe never arrives and the date gets perpetually pushed into the future. If anything, the date gets pushed back. With every subsequent IPCC report it turns out the previous as an underestimation.

> If anything, the date gets pushed back. That's what "pushed into the future" means. "Back" means "further away," "up" means "closer." > With every subsequent IPCC report it turns out the previous as an underestimation. So, every IPCC report has been wrong. How long are you going to keep believing them? Sounds like a religion.

> That's what "pushed into the future" means. "Back" means "further away," "up" means "closer."

Somebody here on HN just very recently claimed the exact opposite. Could it be a regional dialect thing?

> So, every IPCC report has been wrong. How long are you going to keep believing them? Sounds like a religion.

This is how science and engineering works, you keep revising and improving your models taking new evidence into account. This is the exact opposite of religion, which never changes its opinion regardless of any new evidence.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#498

Post by adrianN »

monosphere wrote: post #456
tobr wrote: post #19

Fundamentally it is a political problem, not a technological problem. We need high carbon taxes, we need to end fossil fuel subsidies, and we probably need to change our economic system to something that addresses the tragedy of the commons. But we’ve seen in recent years how technology can influence politics. I’d quote a tweet from Tristan Harris from the other day [1]: > In an hypothetical world, if Facebook were r…

Yes, it's a political problem. And one solution is to build nuclear power plants. We need a few thousands of these worldwide to get around 70 % of energy production from fission, then solar, wind and hydro can cover the rest. I really don't understand why we're not doing this. 25 % of emissions are from electricity [1], and 21 % from industry. Industy would quickly start using more electricity once it became cheap. T…

I'm also in favor of nuclear power, but you have to admit that there are valid concerns. Nuclear waste is unsolved as long as we don't build breeder reactors. Uranium supplies aren't limitless either. Without breeders we'd run out quickly. Thorium is unproven tech. Safety is a concern, both engineering (do you really trust for-profit companies not to skimp on safety?) and proliferation of nuclear materials (how many people does it take to break into a nuclear power plant and steal enough material for a dirty bomb? Which nation states do you trust enough to use nuclear power without building bombs?). Nuclear power is also quite expensive because of all the regulations you need to make it safe.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#499

Post by adrianN »

alexozer wrote: post #490
tobr wrote: post #19

Fundamentally it is a political problem, not a technological problem. We need high carbon taxes, we need to end fossil fuel subsidies, and we probably need to change our economic system to something that addresses the tragedy of the commons. But we’ve seen in recent years how technology can influence politics. I’d quote a tweet from Tristan Harris from the other day [1]: > In an hypothetical world, if Facebook were r…

It's only a political problem if you make it one. Better politics requires less technological innovation, and better technology requires less political innovation. The political barrier suddenly becomes much less intimidating if an extremely efficient way to such CO2 out of the atmosphere manually was found tomorrow.

Thermodynamics kind of forbids efficient ways to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. Unburning coal takes more energy than you got from burning it.
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