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Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

thetyee.ca

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Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#91

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

cyrksoft wrote: post #45
toxik wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably just family planning. Nobody needs to die to save the earth, well, not execution at least

Family planning how? Who will decide who can have children and who can't? Governments? A global one child policy? That's insane

>Family planning how? Who will decide who can have children and who can't? Governments? A global one child policy? That's insane

Without a steady flow of migration from the undeveloped world to the developed world, the population of the native developed world would greatly decline in the coming decades.

There are none amongst the countries breeding at the rate of replacement [0].

We've seen that when a populace has better access to medicine, improving life expectancy and especially reducing child mortality rates, gains access to contraception & abortion, becomes better educated and less religious leading to becoming more well off and having their basic needs met as defined by Maslow, that they trend towards having less and less children.

Even migrants from the undeveloped world to the developed world have shown to have gradually less children as generations go by.

So the theory would be that we could bring down the world's population over time by simply making the above abundantly more accessible to those who are currently fueling the population explosion.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#92

Post by cyrksoft »

journalctl wrote: post #76
usrusr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is cancer-like growth until host EOL less insane? A starting point would be to just stop treating big-family parents like heros. "You're not exactly doing me a favor by spreading your genes like that"

People hate to admit it, but having a child is the most carbon-intensive thing you can do. Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy of the commons. Enough people act in their own self-interest to the detriment of everyone. This is uncharted territory for humanity, and I’m afraid we’re not yet up to the task of tackling it. I mean, in a world with scarce food, water, and arable land, yeah, bringing another resource-intensive hum…

How do you propose to fight it? Everybody acts in their self interest all the time.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#93

Post by hanniabu »

juped wrote: post #82
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>irrational politics around nuclear power Fusion is safe! D: Fusion when?

Fission is safe. Fission many decades ago.

Yes, entirely safe, that's why nobody is living in Chernobyl and they're using robots to enter Fukashima. Totally safe....

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#94

Post by flukus »

cyrksoft wrote: post #69
jejei93ndmd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it insane to alter social norms to save the species as a whole or let people drive it off the cliff by treating a uterus like a clown car? We’re so far away from having to debate this as realistic thing politically right now, the discourse is an exercise in fear mongering. Plenty to be freaked out about before next month is passed.

Having kids is not a social norm (at least not in every case). Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? Even if it only is fear mongering, I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years.

> Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have?

I'm someone who subsidizes families having children, my taxes are paying for their healthcare, their schools, their childcare, etc. And while I'm happy to do that because maintaining society is important I'm not happy to do it for someone pumping out 15 kids.

> I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years.

I bet you it won't, reproduction rates have plummeted in developed nations.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#95

Post by 0xffff2 »

cyrksoft wrote: post #65
XorNot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the human population were limited to one-child per couple for a few decades, then everyone can have a family, and the population still declines. This is happening naturally in a lot of countries already: > According to projections of the population with the current fertility rate, over 65s will account for 40% of the population by 2060,[10][11] and the total population will fall by a third from 128 million in 2010…

I know population will decline, but not as a policy. If it happens naturally then it's perfectly ok. The fact that politicians get to decide how many kids or even if you can have kids is a scary thought.

Why? How is it different from any other aspect of government regulation? In the US at least, the government already has its finger on the scale by giving tax breaks based on number of children.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#96

Post by xyzzyz »

heavyset_go wrote: post #80
eranimo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wind is always blowing somewhere.

What are the transmission power losses over large stretches of land?

2/3rds of the electricity produced in the US is lost in transmission: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained//us-energy-facts/

EDIT: this is actually wrong, I misinterpreted the diagram, see the comment below.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#97

Post by strainer »

mdorazio wrote: post #2

Lots of assumptions baked in here. Chief among them is that renewables deployment will continue to be slower than new energy demand. If you look at the charts, this is pretty unlikely since the renewables trend is a consistent exponential increase year over year while the demand curve is very lumpy and mostly linear when averaged. Next is the assumption that renewables have to be deployed at grid scale, with the mate…

> solar panels don't last "a few years more" [than turbines]

This is not a point against solar, but the "lifetime" of wind turbine installations is misrepresented in the article. It states "the life expectancy of a wind turbine may be less than 15 years." and it links one 7 year old article to support that idea, which is known to be false except in the sly sense that for sure a windturbine may need repairs at any time.

Modern windfarms are commonly financed to be built and make a profit from investment by selling electricity for 15 years. After that contract is up, however much they require new blades and/or refurbished or modernized generators - extending their life is due to be much cheaper than putting entirely new ones in their foundations. The relatively short supply contracts are very desirable to investors, not a sign of unreliability.[1]

[1] https://www.intechopen.com/books/stability-control-and-relia...

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#98

Post by AnthonyMouse »

xyzzyz wrote: post #52
jhayward wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To store 3 days worth of current US energy use, There is absolutely no need, of any kind, to store 3 days of US energy use. It's a complete strawman.

So where do we get energy from in case we get a windless week in winter, if not fossil fuels or nuclear?

> So where do we get energy from in case we get a windless week in winter, if not fossil fuels or nuclear?

It isn't actually unreasonable to just say fossil fuels here. If we had to burn natural gas for a week every two years it would still represent a 99% reduction in carbon emissions.

And on top of that, suppose we keep a week's supply of biofuels. They're not cost-competitive on a normal day, but you're not using them on a normal day.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#99

Post by jejei93ndmd »

cyrksoft wrote: post #69
jejei93ndmd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it insane to alter social norms to save the species as a whole or let people drive it off the cliff by treating a uterus like a clown car? We’re so far away from having to debate this as realistic thing politically right now, the discourse is an exercise in fear mongering. Plenty to be freaked out about before next month is passed.

Having kids is not a social norm (at least not in every case). Who are you or any politician to decide how many kids can a couple have? Even if it only is fear mongering, I bet you this will be a political discussion in some years.

That’s the wrong question: who are you to be able to stop it?

Is it ok to let people crank out as many babies as they want, destabilizing things further for the species?

Can you more concretely define “in some years”? Before or after I am dead?

This is the ultimate point I am trying to make: how much plastic and how many phones we make today impact the necessity of that future dialog.

Do something about the activity today to avoid the conversation from having value rather than emotionally spinning in circles over a hypothetical.

Who is this blogger to think we owe their position much thought?

Cleanup the planet to keep it from being a problem then.

Re: Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change. I Am a Realist

#100

Post by 0xffff2 »

duahncjak wrote: post #17

I think solutions to climate change that require global coordination are doomed to failure. When things start getting rough it’s going to be some entity independently pursuing a geoengineering solution, with whatever risk that entails. It’s not the best approach, but it’s something that someone can impose on the whole world without conquering them and shutting down their coal plans.

I'm afraid you're right, but I'm also afraid that no one has the necessary combination of money, technological skill and military might to undertake that kind of geoengineering unilaterally.
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