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Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

nytimes.com

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Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#161

Post by Aloha »

lacker wrote: post #145

I feel like this article underestimates the difficulty of stopping climate change. Would China have remained poor, if in the 1980's a better anti-climate-change treaty had been signed? Would the world have discovered better clean technology? There is a tendency to assume that treaties just solve the problem. I suspect that a different treaty would have failed, just like current negotiations are failing, because of th…

I feel much the same.

I think the concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world. There are some more concerns when subsistence farming is the primary way of living, but humans (and humanity) adapt, and we adapt with great alacrity.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#162

Post by throwaway5752 »

Aloha wrote: post #161
lacker wrote: post #145

I feel like this article underestimates the difficulty of stopping climate change. Would China have remained poor, if in the 1980's a better anti-climate-change treaty had been signed? Would the world have discovered better clean technology? There is a tendency to assume that treaties just solve the problem. I suspect that a different treaty would have failed, just like current negotiations are failing, because of th…

I feel much the same. I think the concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world. There are some more concerns when subsistence farming is the primary way of living, but humans (and humanity) adapt, and we adapt with great alacrity.

"concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world"

Can I ask you why you think that is the case? Why would industrialized farming and the food supply chain that feeds the developed world do better?

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#163

Post by rgbrenner »

jerf wrote: post #150
neltnerb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tricky when a preponderance of evidence and theory tells us that the lag time on the signal is several decades but human generations are also measured in decades. It doesn't matter how strong your negative feedback is if the system it's controlling is in thermal runaway by the time you apply a corrective signal. Maybe we can bandaid or mitigate the worst effects for some people. Probably richer people. But just…

Harvey? The hurricane that was the first to make landfall after 12 years of no hurricanes? After we were repeatedly explicitly promised increased hurricanes because of global warming? The one that Wikipedia lists as merely a category 4 and looms large in your mind simply because of where it happened to hit? Did anyone ever admit their predictions about increased hurricanes during those 12 years were wrong? I never sa…

12 years of no hurricanes eh?

heres the list of hurricanes that have made landfall: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E23.html

here's a list of atlantic hurricanes: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html

axios made this nice chart showing intensity by year: https://www.axios.com/thirty-years-of-atlantic-hurricanes-15...

here's the noaa page about global warming and hurricanes: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#164

Post by throwaway5752 »

dzuc wrote: post #74

Why was this removed from the front page?

There is a vocal minority of people don't believe the overwhelming scientific consensus about global warming, and they downvote, flag, and argue in these posts aggressively. Consequently, the topic gets the reputation of being "divisive". It's playbook how to make an important topic taboo, and an extraordinary success for the people that don't believe the overwhelming scientific consensus about the impact of modern human activity on the climate (or believe it, but profit from the status quo).

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#165

Post by stale2002 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #162
Aloha wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel much the same. I think the concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world. There are some more concerns when subsistence farming is the primary way of living, but humans (and humanity) adapt, and we adapt with great alacrity.

"concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world" Can I ask you why you think that is the case? Why would industrialized farming and the food supply chain that feeds the developed world do better?

The simple answer is because modern day society has a lot of money, and decades in the future we are going to have even MORE money. Compound interest is a hell of a drug, and GDP growth. is showing no signs of slowing.

What I mean by this is that we as a society arent fully exploiting our land even CLOSE to as much as it could be.

Our food production system operates in the normal economic model of marginal costs. We could produce way more food if we wanted, it would just cost more.

And in the future, if global warming has reduced our food production capacity, we wouldn't run out of food. The only thing that would do is force us to use these more expensive methods of food production.

And we have more than enough money now, and definitely in the future, to pay for it. Food is a small percentage of everyone's paychecks. Costs going up by 20% doesn't mean much.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#166

Post by roryisok »

yesyesno wrote: post #33

Ouch. I read this and I am completely confused about what to do with the rest of the time I have left. Should I even bother with my current career in tech, or would it be better to quit it and do something that could have even a slight impact now? These articles are great, but preaching to the choir. What should any of us do? I'm seriously and sincerely asking. Are there any suggestions, from a personal stand point i…

I go through cycles of being horribly depressed about the climate, and about mine and my family's future. In fact, I'm not even going to read this article because I know it'll set me off. I've learned that the only way to cope is to do everything I can personally (eat less meat, drive less, work from home, buy second hand , save energy, vote green, encourage my children and family and those around me to do the same) and then basically just get on with life and enjoy it as much as possible. If the worst happens, there's nothing we can do to prepare, not really. If some moonshot magical tech saves the day there's not much we can do to help or hinder that either. Focus on being the best person you can be, be a force for good, live life and appreciate what you have right now. Soak up fresh air and culture. If the world is consumed by fire in the next 50 years you'll be glad you did. And if it isn't, you'll still be glad.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#167

Post by Lavery »

jimmyswimmy wrote: post #149
erikrothoff wrote: post #3

Why isn't there a billion dollar reward to any person or company that comes up with a cost-effective way to capture carbon from the air and convert back to solid carbon? I'd love to understand the physics (or chemistry? maybe economy?) that prevents this from materialising.

I did a back of the envelope calculation or maybe better a guesstimate on this awhile back. At perfect conversion efficiency you could turn emitted CO2 back to carbon using 15-20 average sized nuclear power plants. If you realistically get 10% overall efficiency then maybe you need 200 of them. All that assumes you can actually build chemical cells that don't need continuous replacement. It also just compensates for…

Just to address the "also just compensates for current emissions" point--the way this tends to be thought of in the research is that, if you assume a completed Step 1 of "develop perfect carbon capture technology", Step 2 is "apply that solution to power plant smokestacks and fuel those power plants by burning and replanting trees / crop waste (corn stalks etc)". So you're not carbon negative on the capture process itself, but can be on the broader system by converting to a fuel source that regenerates through carbon capturing via photosynthesis.

This poses it's own problems though, one of which being the enormous amount of land you would need to dedicate to this process to have a meaningful impact.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#168

Post by andrewjl »

lacker wrote: post #145

I feel like this article underestimates the difficulty of stopping climate change. Would China have remained poor, if in the 1980's a better anti-climate-change treaty had been signed? Would the world have discovered better clean technology? There is a tendency to assume that treaties just solve the problem. I suspect that a different treaty would have failed, just like current negotiations are failing, because of th…

I agree with your assessment on the difficulty of the problem. Where I differ is my (somewhat optimistic, admittedly) view that an existential climate crisis is the kind of exogenous shock needed to force humanity to cooperate against a "common enemy" so to speak.

We've had models before with the CFC / Montreal Treaty, and on a national scale with WW2, and the Sputnik / Apollo missions.

There are very few problems humanity cannot solve by coordinated effort. The trick is to force that coordination, and I don't see that happening in the near future.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#169

Post by throwaway5752 »

stale2002 wrote: post #165
throwaway5752 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world" Can I ask you why you think that is the case? Why would industrialized farming and the food supply chain that feeds the developed world do better?

The simple answer is because modern day society has a lot of money, and decades in the future we are going to have even MORE money. Compound interest is a hell of a drug, and GDP growth. is showing no signs of slowing. What I mean by this is that we as a society arent fully exploiting our land even CLOSE to as much as it could be. Our food production system operates in the normal economic model of marginal costs. We…

What are those methods of production that will feed 8B people in a world that is 5 deg C warmer? I think you are just hand-waving around hard, unsolved, and possibly intractable problems.

Re: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

#170

Post by blackstache »

amorphous wrote: post #114

How can a dev get into clean-tech today? What are the current problems a software engineer could solve? Please, someone with the knowledge give us a path. I wish there was an HN on clean-tech with emphasis on IT

Bret Victor has an exploration of this question[0] (2015) that I have found helpful.

[0]: http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

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