Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss • Hacker News Board

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#171

Post by adrianN » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #161

adrianN wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. Building nuclear plants takes ten years on average, at the current rate of building them. If you wanted to suddenly build two or three orders of magnitude more, you'd first have to scale up the supply chain, e.g. for pressure vessels. There is not enough time left for a nuclear revolution.

And there's enough time for a solar or wind revolution? It's not like solar panels come out of thin air either. Same with windmills... To build solar or wind at the scale we need would be quite the "revolution". Probably even more so than nuclear because you'd have no way to store the energy unless you went absolutely mad with lithium mining and battery production. Which would also take years to scale. Truth is - bot…

Renewables have the benefit that they provide a gradual reduction in CO2 emissions that starts basically right now, compared to not reducing emissions at all until the reactors go online.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#172

Post by daenz » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #143

daenz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I don't believe people and businesses can accomplish the individual environmental goals, much less fast enough, on their own. If human contribution to climate change is a result of aggregate behavior, then we're talking about drastically changing the micro behaviors (what you can eat, how you travel, no black markets, etc etc) of everyone on earth. I believe that can only be accomplished through extreme autho…

Those side effects are hideous. Slavery, etc. But I said "extinction". Meaning everyone - you, me, my kid, etc. dying, maybe horribly.

The decision has biased ambiguity. There is no such guarantee that a climate change extinction event will kill off all life, but if you are artificially adding that constraint, you should add a similar artificial constraint to what the fascist government is guaranteed to do or not do, or remove both constraints.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#173

Post by adrianN » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

Recurecur wrote: post #160

adrianN wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. Building nuclear plants takes ten years on average, at the current rate of building them. If you wanted to suddenly build two or three orders of magnitude more, you'd first have to scale up the supply chain, e.g. for pressure vessels. There is not enough time left for a nuclear revolution.

> We have about 10 years of emissions left if we want to stay below 2°. First off, if that is the case you can be sure we'll end "above 2°" (by which I'm sure you mean 2° above some earlier average). China and India alone have massive projected tails for their CO2 output. Second, "10 years of emissions left"? You're suggesting that somehow C02 emissions could be curtailed completely within 10 years? Absurd... Neither…

No, I'm suggesting that we start a linear reduction right now and be done in 20 years. Perhaps overshoot the target by a few years and pay for it with carbon sequestration.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#174

Post by RobertRoberts » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

mikelyons wrote: post #168

RobertRoberts wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Recognizing emotions as part of the problem and solution feels like a big step. I think this is actually the worst thing we can do. Science is facts, cold hard facts. If you want to get rid of the science and focus on emotions, then the solutions to the _real_ problem will get distorted.

If you believe that "cold hard facts" are what motivate human behavior, you are deeply ignorant of _critical_ aspects to understanding human behavior, working with humans, and solving human problems. You're not wrong or bad for this ignorance, we're all born into ignorance, it's the human condition.

It's pure delusion to think you can get everyone to band together to change the climate.

We can't people to stop murdering each other, stealing, lying, or many other harmful things.

You are arguing that propaganda is the solution to climate change. That manipulating people by appealing to their emotions will lower the carbon in the air.

But, you are missing that whoever controls the best manipulation tactic decides the outcome of that manipulation. Want to guess who that will be? The rich and powerful is my guess.

I think we could fix the climate in one simple way, stop polluting. The problem with this is that then the US isn't the biggest polluter, so that is not a "feel good" message.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#175

Post by Rolivaw » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #152

Rolivaw wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren’t good solutions yet. That’s a cold hard fact. Reducing emission isn’t going to help and it’s not a start. It’s a losers battle. We need carbon sequestering tech, fusion, and new tech to solve this.

There are perfectly good solutions. Wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and power-to-gas facilities. If you want to some nuclear reactors. Add insulation for homes, heat pumps, electric cars and public transport and you're there. We just need to build them. It's not hard, it's expensive. There is no new technology needed at this point.

Most of what you mention are sustainability propositions, which are not useful long term, probably not even short term. We can’t create sustainability, it’s a fad we’ve all been fed, based on anthropometric views of the world which aren’t going to improve it. They will cause stagnation and that will cause collapse faster than climate change ever could.

Electric cars still cost to produce what non electrics do, we have to take into account the backend (mining ect) as well. Gas is most likely as bad according to many reports. Countries which have made the switch like Brazil in cars haven’t produced the results expected, again the production is still not clean.

Wind is unreliable in most cases and non scalable. Solar is ok, but expensive and we can’t deploy it for everything(think maritime transport).

The way to solve our problem is with innovation that can really replace our main source of consumption. Think population bomb/explosion in the 50-60s. Whaling shift to electricity and vegetable oils late 1800s. All was replaced by new tech, which has decayed into bad tech, and the new tech we develop will probably also decay into bad tech again in 100years. That’s the way it works. Only realistic current solution is fusion.

Fusion, carbon-sequestering tech, geo-engineering, betavoltaics(One can dream) and new innovations are always the way forward. The rest are bandaids on the dam + have cost us a lot of money/time at subpar results.

Sorry for the quick type, but you can see more here: https://link.medium.com/4p3O0AuImZ

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#176

Post by navigatesol » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #90

navigatesol wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China and India contribute 4-10 times less CO2 per capita than the US. And rising, fast. Besides that, the planet doesn't care about per capita numbers.

People do though. Why should we stunt the developing world's growth just because we've already fucked things up too much? Seems like colonialism all over; the West gets to keep polluting, but the developing world must stop developing?

>Why should we stunt the developing world's growth just because we've already fucked things up too much?

If climate change is a real concern, it's going to be a requirement.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#177

Post by adrianN » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #119

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to consider donating to some of the groups that have sprung up. Two that have had recent visibility are: Extinction Rebellion, organisers of the civil disobedience protests in the UK and elsewhere - https://rebellion.earth Client Earth, a legal charity aiming to repeatedly take governments to court on climate matters. Became much more visible when Dave Gilmour made a major donation recently: https://ww…

Got any good US-based charity recommendations? Both of those seem Euro-centric.

Maybe this https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#178

Post by adrianN » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

Rolivaw wrote: post #175

adrianN wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are perfectly good solutions. Wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and power-to-gas facilities. If you want to some nuclear reactors. Add insulation for homes, heat pumps, electric cars and public transport and you're there. We just need to build them. It's not hard, it's expensive. There is no new technology needed at this point.

Most of what you mention are sustainability propositions, which are not useful long term, probably not even short term. We can’t create sustainability, it’s a fad we’ve all been fed, based on anthropometric views of the world which aren’t going to improve it. They will cause stagnation and that will cause collapse faster than climate change ever could. Electric cars still cost to produce what non electrics do, we hav…

I guess we have to disagree here. I prefer we solve the problem with the solutions we can implement right now instead of continuing to increase our emissions hoping for some deus ex machina that fixes the damage we caused. Fusion for example is not a current solution. It's still in the research stage. With adequate funding we might be able to rush to a demo reactor in a decade or two. But by then the damage is done. If we can't prevent the permafrost from releasing its carbon or the Greenland ice sheet from disappearing it is very unlikely that we'll be able to geoengineer our way out of it.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#179

Post by tomatotomato37 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #133

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #107

The problem with climate change isn't climate change. It's because it has become co-opted by politics. It's now impossible to discuss climate change without becoming political. The politics don't even agree relative to the side. Climate change has left the spectrum of left-right wing.

Any change that affects society is going to be political. Why is this a surprise? How could it be different?

The problem is that the issue itself became a polarized political point, which resulted in the people who view politics more similar to sport teams than steering society to hardline for/against the issue without even knowing what the issue is about. And I attribute this phenomena wholly to our big political leaders, who go in front of a camera and devote themself fully to solving complicated situation [x] as the cornerstone & identity of their party, automatically causing the other party to fight against it; in this case I believe it happened with Gore during the 2000 campaign. Without this whole polarization effect carbon reduction could have easily been non-eventful manner that CFCs or smog was handled in the 70s, instead you have people denying/evangelizing the effect just because the guy on the TV with the matching letter next to his name told them to.

This isn't just something unique to environmentalism either; I believe the same thing happened to net neutrality when Obama made a big speech about it when 90% of Americans didn't even care about it beforehand, and I'm hoping to god the same thing doesn't happen to the right to repair because all successful progress on it will grind to a halt the minute it does.

Re: Yes, I’m Feeling Bad About Climate Change. Let’s Discuss

#180

Post by nabnob » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #105

arrrg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an absurd statement and reeks of the most vile arrogance. I’m so confused, do you honestly and in good faith make a statement like that? Do you not understand the disastrous social and political implications of approaching the problem like that? Do you not understand that fairness is central to this problem because a coordinated global effort is necessary and there is no fascist world police and hopefully neve…

You won't make a difference until you stop the over population. The biggest contributor is simply being born.

Since the United States has one of the highest energy usage rates per capita, do you mean tackling overpopulation in the United States?