The world is losing the war against climate change • Hacker News Board

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#31

Post by gus_massa » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

ebbv wrote: post #9

imgabe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the wars on drugs and terror: no.

Not exactly the same because at some point climate change will make the planet uninhabitable.

Even the worst case models predict that Earth will be habitable for humans for a long time. IIRC the worst that can happen in the next 100 years is that the sea will raise a few foots and flood some costal cities, change the sites where you can cultivate some food and cause hunger in some places, more floods and drought in many places, and kill many animals and plants. The worst case prediction is a huge huge huge disaster but it is still faraway from the point it is uninhabitable for us (and uninhabitable for roaches (and uninhabitable for bacteria)).

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#32

Post by ebikelaw » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #12

If you look at global power sector emissions from 1998 to 2018, you'll see that while we have dramatically improved upon the energy intensity (energy/capita) and even are making improvements on carbon intensity (carbon/capita), but the sad reality is this: we are still using around 35% coal power in 2018, the same as we did in 1998. And the power sector is the easiest sector to decarbonize, by the way. If you look at…

Is petroleum for chemistry and plastics a GHG source? It seems like the carbon involved stays out of the atmosphere.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#33

Post by nonbel » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

"War against" ("War on") seems to mean it is a never-ending boondoggle that, at best, wastes a bunch of resources. Is there any example of these "wars" being a success? The three that come to mind are:

  War on drugs:   fail
  War on cancer:  fail
  War on poverty: fail

Why is the economist trying to link climate change to this?

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#34

Post by nutjob2 » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #19

WhompingWindows wrote: post #12

If you look at global power sector emissions from 1998 to 2018, you'll see that while we have dramatically improved upon the energy intensity (energy/capita) and even are making improvements on carbon intensity (carbon/capita), but the sad reality is this: we are still using around 35% coal power in 2018, the same as we did in 1998. And the power sector is the easiest sector to decarbonize, by the way. If you look at…

i dont understand. you completely omit laws in your suggested solution. we need to pass laws that prevent businesses from fucking everything up worse than they already have. you can innovate all you want, but i think you should also not elect people who are fucking STUPID about climate change.

Great theory, but have you tried to get a climate change law through Congress lately?

People vote for people who reflect their views, or at least freely, for whoever they want, so ultimately responsibility rests with the voters for the quality of government.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#35

Post by CamTin » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #19

WhompingWindows wrote: post #12

If you look at global power sector emissions from 1998 to 2018, you'll see that while we have dramatically improved upon the energy intensity (energy/capita) and even are making improvements on carbon intensity (carbon/capita), but the sad reality is this: we are still using around 35% coal power in 2018, the same as we did in 1998. And the power sector is the easiest sector to decarbonize, by the way. If you look at…

i dont understand. you completely omit laws in your suggested solution. we need to pass laws that prevent businesses from fucking everything up worse than they already have. you can innovate all you want, but i think you should also not elect people who are fucking STUPID about climate change.

Laws are a reasonable (thought still incredibly difficult) solution in the parts of the planet that have the rule of law. Large parts don't, and we need different solutions in those places because this is a global problem.

As an example, see this report about cheating on an international agreement about CFCs (https://www.nrdc.org/experts/david-doniger/chilling-news-spo... which) were supposed to have been phased out worldwide by 2007.

Unfortunately, we don't have the international governance in place to attack this problem, and we might not until its too late. Still, you go to war with the army you have, and this is the one we've got.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#36

Post by Retric » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #23

btrettel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if future generations will think people were even serious about solving the problem. In this respect the war was lost long ago. The vast majority of people who believe climate change will have large negative consequences make no major changes to their lifestyles. As someone who rides bike for transportation largely to save money and stay in shape (I think climate change is a lost cause), the environmental cr…

A large part of it is that it is a collective action problem. If you want to talk about "effective action"? You're talking about shutting down coal plants, not going after the man or woman on the street. A person needing a car to get to work is, both in real and proportional terms, causing overwhelmingly less damage to the environment than industrial-scale polluters. If everybody who could switch to a bike instead of…

Commuting using a 50+MPG vehicle is an option for the vast majority of humanity and would make a huge difference. So, it's not like the average person has zero options. People drive ~3.22 trillion miles in the US using 142.85 billion gallons = ~22MPG so a 50% reduction is completely viable.

Further the first 50% reduction is the lowest hanging fruit. We don't need to get to 100% to make a huge difference over time.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#37

Post by Sol- » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

Was there a serious attempt to begin with? Yes, there are some efficiency gains and in some developed nations CO2 emissions seemed to stagnate, but much of that seems incidental (for instance partly caused by the Great Recession 10 years ago) and rarely part of a coordinated effort. Though I guess you can at least partly credit the rise of renewable energy like Solar to some government programs.

Wonder how much faster the effort would have been if we had an actual cap-and-trade system that encompasses the global economy instead of the lackluster attempts which aren't legally binding, only cover limited industries or have an oversupply of emission certificates to render the system useless (like the European one).

But it's pointless to ponder about that. It's not there's a lack of ideas regarding possible solutions, it's a just lack of foresight by humanity. We probably can't even blame previous generations, because we would have acted the same in their situation.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#38

Post by Woberto » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #19

WhompingWindows wrote: post #12

If you look at global power sector emissions from 1998 to 2018, you'll see that while we have dramatically improved upon the energy intensity (energy/capita) and even are making improvements on carbon intensity (carbon/capita), but the sad reality is this: we are still using around 35% coal power in 2018, the same as we did in 1998. And the power sector is the easiest sector to decarbonize, by the way. If you look at…

i dont understand. you completely omit laws in your suggested solution. we need to pass laws that prevent businesses from fucking everything up worse than they already have. you can innovate all you want, but i think you should also not elect people who are fucking STUPID about climate change.

Based on the current political climate, this kind of action also seems to be a ways off. While a clean revolution in laws like that of the 1970s would do much to bring about change, it will be a while before things are bad enough for enough people to care and push for these laws. In a capitalist society, I think money talks more and it talks faster. I think op is right that innovative solutions that are cheap will do more to bring about change.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#39

Post by crankylinuxuser » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #18

pas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? What does that mean? Habitability is not a binary thing.

Actually, it is. For most mammals a temperature over around 31C at 100% humidity is lethal after no more than six hours of exposure. Go beyond that and everyone dies.

You're right to a point. The hotter it gets on average, the faster the less fit die due to various heat related reasons. Once it hits 31c@100% relative humidity, land mammals die.

So it's on a rolling scale up to 31C. At or past, yeah its a binary cliff.

Re: The world is losing the war against climate change

#40

Post by andy_ppp » Mon, Aug 06, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #8

Do we know what will happen if we keep burning all fossil we can find, at today's rate?

Sort of...

https://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/21/opinions/sutter-6-degrees...

I worry that all the sink holes appearing in Russia are massive methane deposits which are probably are not factored into estimates. It being this hot in Europe and specifically the UK for this long is insane.