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A 3°C world has no safe place

economist.com

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Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#211

Post by scoofy »

r00fus wrote: post #173
hak8or wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, I could not agree more. These companies exist because their services and products are being bought by someone else, and in the end the consumers are either actual consumers or governments (who consumers vote for). I place minimal blame on companies, because clearly consumers don't care, and instead want to buy the cheapest products possible.

That'd be great if they didn't BUY politicians to write laws that subsidize their extraction and hamper legislation to actually combat the externalities THEY produced. Consumers do care, but their choices are between bad and awful because the economics (structured by the extraction companies) stacks the deck against solutions.

What are you talking about. The corporations, man, are not responsible for the zoning apocalypse American cities dealing with. You literally cannot live in a walkable high rise in most of Brooklyn, SF, LA, Austin, etc., not because of BIG AUTO, but because literally the neighbors there don't like tall buildings and want more free street-parking spaces for their cars.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#212

Post by AussieWog93 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #145
AussieWog93 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU already have a solution for this - they tax imports from nations that don't have an ETA themselves.

Yes. Taxing our way to a better climate is one consideration. But what happens when you need something more than they need to sell it? As in the case of China… steel, aluminum, titanium, food, machinery, computers, plastics, vehicles, or clothing… you know… those “couple of things” that we have collectively allowed China to make for us while pretending we’re all so green and the slave labor isn’t a problem. India, ma…

>But what happens when you need something more than they need to sell it?

The CCP's entire domestic legitimacy comes from the economic growth that has come about since Deng took over. They need to keep the wheels spinning as much as the West does.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#213

Post by goatlover »

visiblink wrote: post #199
goatlover wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear could have already replaced coal by now. Renewables need a lot of battery storage and transmission to scale up to not relying on coal any longer, since a majority of it is relying on the sun and wind.

Nuclear is such a horrible replacement. Let's let future generations deal with the waste from the power that sustained our lifestyle. I hate it. I'd rather live with less.

You would, but realistically, a majority of people are not willing to live with significantly less (which would entail a contraction in the economy and loss of jobs). And that includes all the people in countries still catching up. Nuclear was the alternative decades ago, and we could have witched to it until renewable tech was up to scale.

So we decided a significantly warmer climate was better than dealing with radioactive waste. Now it looks like we made the wrong risk assessment.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#214

Post by ddingus »

mrcwinn wrote: post #125
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

I hear you and I understand where you're coming from. And it's serious. Very serious. And while I do think habits both have to change and will be forced to change — I do think it's useful to accept that we have to build our world and our environment to our behavioral tendencies. It's easy to look back cynically and say, I wish we'd never done X, or Y, or Z. The reality now though is this massive economic engine, whic…

Need each other.

Well, yes! I agree. However, when I look around at the movers and shakers capable of the big decisions that lead to big efforts, I do not get the sense I am needed as much as I could potentially be used.

It cost a ton to bootstrap us onto our current technology.

It will cost a ton more to transition to other energy.

For the most part, we have the tech we need. Better will come too, but big costs are not sexy, though the labor to accomplish these things would and could elevate many into a better life. Ordinary people, when presented with a plan, like build this stuff so we can live better this way, leave something livable for our kids... would be in. Large numbers of people need better jobs, and a future that one can look forward to.

What I don't see is the kind of thinking that gets us there. That kicks off the work we could have been doing for years.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#215

Post by scoofy »

nwiswell wrote: post #196
scoofy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and complete symbolism without substance on the left.

There's plenty of substance. It's just hypocritical for the Sierra Club to pretend that the motive is environmental. There isn't any cause for shock. Given the incentives at play this is expected. How much financial suffering would you accept to put a dent in global warming? For most people it's not much. The good news is, it's easy to predict that the Sierra Club is going to eventually lose on this issue. Property v…

This isn't about the Sierra Club. It's about the blue cities in general. I've been to transit alternatives infrastructure meetings in Austin, NYC, and SF.

They are all driven by parking spaces and reducing peak traffic. It's absurd to see the very same people who lose their mind at the idea of America dropping out of the Paris Climate Accord, are exactly the same people who think we should impose minimum parking requirements on new buildings, block a bike share and safe bike infrastructure because the bike are ugly and take parking space away, and argue that BRT is terrible and will never work, because they won't use it.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#216

Post by tacostakohashi »

RedditKon wrote: post #110
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. This isn't a right/left problem - both parties have let corporations get away with runaway pollution for entirely too long.

Would it be better to split those companies up with a series of spinoffs so it's actually 1,000 companies, or 1,000,000 smaller companies releasing 71% of global emissions? Or is the number of companies involved in fact completely arbitrary and meaningless?

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#217

Post by ddingus »

Swizec wrote: post #134
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

A recent Freakonomics episode about America absolutely blew my mind and cemented this idea I've been trolling friends with that suburbia should be banned. Americans use 2 trillion gallons of water per year ... for lawns. Nice green lawns. In the desert, in the south, in the north, between highways, friggen' lawns everywhere. No consideration for grasses that naturally enjoy the local environment. Only a perfect Briti…

Worse, quite a lot of people are required to do that and face fines should anything but grass grow in their yard, or nothing grows.

A friend of mine did that sometime back. He just did a stone and ground cover, low maintenance yard. Was kind of awesome. City went full bat shit. Circle the yard that is different and excise the cancer! Needs to be grass, not a garden, not stones, just grass.

It is crazy.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#218

Post by [deleted] »

noasaservice wrote: post #27

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

[deleted]

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#219

Post by danans »

jeffbee wrote: post #66
danans wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this country, the ones that are going to be the most affected by global warming, seem like to care the less. This is ignoring the fact that if the southern coastal US is toast the northern areas are going to have a climate refugee crisis on their hands.

Many coastal people seem to assume that the federal government will bail them out in great abundance, which, let's face it, is probably true.

> bail them out in great abundance

It's questionable whether it will even be possible to bail them out - either literally or financially.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#220

Post by smolder »

rightbyte wrote: post #117
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

The same people that can't do a accurate weather forecast more than 5 days into the future are telling you the world is gonna end due to climate change ... and you blame the common man for not freaking out? I mean put your self in peoples shoes.

They are not "the same people", though I suspect most meteorologists have a grasp of climate trends. Those are also two very different kinds of prediction. One is like trying to guess the outcome of an individual chess match, with predictions getting better as the time draws near, the other is like noticing that white has a slightly higher chance of winning over the course of very many games.
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