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Reading this article makes me feel very angry, especially as I look at the authors' background. There are so many things we can do, and these people are telling us that "the winner" is driving brand new fuel efficient cars, hot off the assembly line? What about biking? Walking? What about changing our habits so as not to rely as much on cars in the first place. How about not driving ? There are people who don't drive…
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storage haven't been solved and a large part of the entire economy is based on debt in the fossile fuel industry. renewables are not destroying the deman for nuclear as the worlds energy demand will continue to rise quite substantially as 1 billion people enter the middle class over the next decades.
Nuclear is ~6-8 cents/kWh, which wind and solar already beat, regardless of capacity factor.
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storage haven't been solved and a large part of the entire economy is based on debt in the fossile fuel industry. renewables are not destroying the deman for nuclear as the worlds energy demand will continue to rise quite substantially as 1 billion people enter the middle class over the next decades.
Nuclear is ~6-8 cents/kWh, which wind and solar already beat, regardless of capacity factor.
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i dont think i am. humans have mostly changed because technology allowed them to. its those large progresses which gave us new opportunities to change. Edit: why the down vote? care to qualify rather than going trough all my comments you dont like and downvote them whoever you are?
I did not downvote you, but I can point out that your focus on technology as the single most important factor in human behavior change may be oversimplistic.
Since ships are much bigger polluters than cars, a better thing to do would be to buy local exclusively. Governments could impose huge tariffs on imported goods (something Trump would certainly not mind). While we're at it we should probably ban mass production, too, tear down our cities and replace them with farming communes wherein everything people consume or use is produced sustainably from the local environment.…
While I agree society needs to change, this vision of how it should change -- fewer globalized goods, no mass production, and so on -- well if that's my only option I'll take the climate change thanks. It's going to be dangerous for people, but so is what you suggest, seeing as how modern people owe a lot of their health and life enjoyment to the things you'd ban.
You say you would rather risk climate change than let go of your current comforts. How awfully convenient for you that the main effects will not be felt by yourself.
Rich people (most HN posters included) both benefit most from globalized goods AND are able to shelter themselves from the effects of climate change anyway. You probably won't have your home and rice fields permanently flooded or crops more and more years of drought, you probably won't need to find a new home. A lot of poor people will. And judging by politics today, when that happens, the rich countries who have benefited the most from burning fossil fuels will shut the refugees out rather than welcome them in.
Climate change is a terrible thing, but the effects will be felt very unevenly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization#Precautiona... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(oceanographer)
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I disagree that this is an avenue open only to the upper class [1]. Not everyone can do everything, sure (if you're working two jobs, for example, the climate can rightly go fuck itself) but a lot of people can do a lot more. I also disagree that they are insignificant drops in the bucket. The point I'm trying to make is that "culture" is infuriatingly hand-wavy and difficult to quantify, but it matters. As an exampl…
none of that have any effect on climate change what so ever. you need to effect the industry to have any impact and thats not going to happen enough to have any effect.
Okay, now I've eaten dinner and had some coffee. So what was my gripe with your comment?
1) It makes a strong, absolute claim with no evidence. Have you studied nonlinear systems? Even informally? We're dealing with hugely non-linear systems. Little things can compound into tumultuous waves. Look at the way viral memes spread. Culture changes in tumultuous waves. One generation might be hopelessly lost, while the next one comes in with unbelievable clarity, saying "that's just obvious."
2) It's implicitly discouraging of other peoples' perspectives and wisdoms. Imagine some great singer had let their irritable aunt or uncle's mean comments get to them when they were little and couldn't quite keep a pitch. We are learning, and there are without a doubt many, many ways to approach and tackle this. If anything, tackling something so ominously looming is going to take some serious imagination, vision and hope. You might not be hateful, but one doesn't need to be hateful or malicious to be discouraging or to play the part of hater.
3) Culture has, can, does, and will affect industry. Maybe not overnight, but they are inevitably interdependent. We have the power to engage with norms and at the very least set examples. We have the power to abstain, to moderate, to make demands, to dream, to actualize, on short and long term scales. In another comment, you pointed out that people are not systems, they are human beings. To me, that's actually a strength. It makes this struggle messier, but to me it's also an asset. It means that we have the ability to undergo rebirth in imagination and culture, which in the long haul makes us resilient and adaptable.
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I did not downvote you, but I can point out that your focus on technology as the single most important factor in human behavior change may be oversimplistic.
Thats a discussion we can have its certainly not domething i am alone of thinking nor does it warrant downvotes.
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While I agree society needs to change, this vision of how it should change -- fewer globalized goods, no mass production, and so on -- well if that's my only option I'll take the climate change thanks. It's going to be dangerous for people, but so is what you suggest, seeing as how modern people owe a lot of their health and life enjoyment to the things you'd ban.
It is easy to play russian roulette when the gun is pointed at somebody else's head isn't it? You say you would rather risk climate change than let go of your current comforts. How awfully convenient for you that the main effects will not be felt by yourself. Rich people (most HN posters included) both benefit most from globalized goods AND are able to shelter themselves from the effects of climate change anyway. You…
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Well the person in New York has the luxury of decent public transportation. And the person who needs to drive, presumably they live in a suburb or a place with a yard, and they could plant 10 raspberry bushes. Come on! Enough with the excuses! It's getting me down! I'm not saying that people should go and sabotage themselves. I'm saying that there are lots of different things that different people can do to upset thi…
There are many other reasons why people need to drive than them working in the suburbs and globally even more reasons why biking in a city is far from enough (Just look at some Chinese cities) The thing is that if you really were to change your life for it to have an effect we wouldn't do it. Just the threat to reliable food supply is enough to make most people accept things as they are. There are two things you can…
I think those are the two things that you can rationally do! But not everyone is you. I think that your focus on technical and engineering solutions is actually a "one finger points three point back" kind of situation. I think that you are probably capable in those solutions, and I encourage you to take them as strengths, not as the only solutions possible.
Here's an example, one that comes to mind, of another skillset that's going to be valuable in times to come: mediation. I live in Minnesota, where it's very cold in the winter (gets down to -30 to -40 F) and very hot in the summer (gets up to 100 to 105 F of humid heat every year). I see the effects of heat. People get violent, impatient, antsy. Stuff comes out. Pots boil over. There are is quality research into these correlations (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/weather-and...), so it's not just anecdotal. When times get hot around here, what we need is conversation, patience, spiritual introspection, therapies, caring people. We are going to need people with good leadership, with soft skills, who have the ability to motivate people, to guide people out of conflict, to model what's possible. Artists, parents, teachers, even just plain old solid friends who hold people together.
Okay, I'm not arguing that these are "the solutions to climate change". What I'm arguing is that they are necessary pieces of the puzzle!
"The thing is that if you really were to change your life for it to have an effect we wouldn't do it. Just the threat to reliable food supply is enough to make most people accept things as they are."
I've seen people change so drastically over the course of one lifetime, because they had to in order to survive. I've seen my religiously conservative people close to me go from being homophobic and anti-drug to being open minded and hearted. I've seen my somebody go from seriously flailing (with chronic substance issues, suicidal thoughts, body image struggles, etc) to being one of the most kick ass moms I know in 1 year flat. Don't underestimate! "When the spirit says move, move". And people will move.
P.S. I'm planning on building a web app to help people do interactively plan companion planting and permaculture gardens. If you're interested I'll let you know when I put up the source. I'll probably post it on here either way.