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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

bbc.com

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#131
post #16

> This pact aims to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2C this century and to pursue efforts to keep it under 1.5C. It seems to me that continuing to communicate just the average temperature increase is a missed opportunity to engage with a greater portion of the population. 1.5 or 2 degrees do not seem like much, but once one understands that’s an average made out of much bigger positive and negative sw…

There's nothing to "keep" under 1.5C, we are pretty much already there when error bars are considered. 2C is going to be breached regardless because even if we went carbon neutral today we have decades of locked in warming. Why the scientists are not communicating this information which has been in pop-science (as early as An Inconvenient Truth (2006), which documents the lag between CO2 rise and temp rise) is beyond…

Don't quite know what you mean by "locked in warming" (nor didn't have time to look at this report yet), but the previous scenarios have massive scale future magic carbon takeback tech baked in. I assume if there was something like that ongoing on a global scale and almost no new emissions, 1.5 degrees might be theoretically possible?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#132
post #4

Getting rid of bitcoin would be a start.

Let's instead get rid of private air travel. Has caused a pandemic and millions of deaths. And the emissions are very likely larger than those of Bitcoin. People can go on vacation by train instead. If you demand people use slow legacy money then I can demand slow legacy travel, ok? ;)

At least remove subsidies from all air travel, and add a carbon tax on top. Would make train much more competitive on many routes.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#134

Climate change is bad. Govt are not doing anything. But has any model taken into consideration about covid deaths?

Covid-19 deaths have been all but invisible in the larger scheme, at least to date.

Far more signficant has been the global economic shutdown imposed by quarantine and containment efforts. That's somewhat reduced fossil fuel usage, though that effect has also been limited. It was enough to show up in BP's annual review of global energy usage though, released about a month ago in July:

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat...

Submitted at the time though there was no discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27798644

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#135
post #70

So now we can get rid of fast fashion, mandate reusability for products, reintroduce basic woodworking, metalcrafting and sewing/repair work in school and with that get rid of a huge chunk of the needless shipping? Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food while thought leaders fly across the globe in private jets (no kidding) telling us we need to change our diet? PS: I'm already a enthus…

Individual action won’t solve this problem. We need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground, which means switching energy sources, which is not something individuals have much influence on. Reducing energy use at the individual level is good, but insufficient if the energy used comes from fossil fuels. I’m not sure we need to switch lifestyles that much, but we will need to radically change energy production. There h…

We need both. We can't just ignore all individual action just because there's worse offenders.

Everyone collectively doing their part will have more of an effect than sitting on their arses and blaming fossil fuels.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#136

So now we can get rid of fast fashion, mandate reusability for products, reintroduce basic woodworking, metalcrafting and sewing/repair work in school and with that get rid of a huge chunk of the needless shipping? Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food while thought leaders fly across the globe in private jets (no kidding) telling us we need to change our diet? PS: I'm already a enthus…

> Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food I mean, yes, we should continue doing that. Our relationship with food is unhealthy and also a massive contributor to environmental decline. I'm not sure why you contrast this with other improvements we can make, many of which, individually, would be less impactful than a transition to a more sustainable diet.

I'm not sure what exactly is a 'healthy' relationship with food, or when the last time any significant fraction of the human population had attained this. Maybe before agriculture, but even that is dubious.

I'm not convinced it is possible at current population levels.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#137
post #73

I really liked Bill Gates new Book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster[1]. I liked that it shows what we have to do to get to 0 greenhouse gas emissions. What's the current state of technology and what's still left to do to get there. I often find suggestions like "Meatless Monday" or "Only fly when really necessary" etc, while probably good, not really useful advice. In Gates book he talks about that transportation and…

What I also like about the book is that it speaks very practically: Gates doesn't put the onus on developing countries to reduce emissions. Instead, he shows how the developed nations need to allow people in developing nations to reach the status of developed nations while reducing their own emissions.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#138
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should do neither. Impose a co2 emissions tax and let the market figure it out.

A carbon tax that would be high enough to force changes quickly enough would also be devastating for the poorer segment of the population and hence very hard to pass in a democracy. I mixture of a carbon price and other measures can be easier to sell to the voters.

Why not a carbon tax that's used to pull carbon out of the atmosphere? It's pretty much inevitable that we have to pull carbon out of the atmosphere at scale at some point.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#139

So now we can get rid of fast fashion, mandate reusability for products, reintroduce basic woodworking, metalcrafting and sewing/repair work in school and with that get rid of a huge chunk of the needless shipping? Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food while thought leaders fly across the globe in private jets (no kidding) telling us we need to change our diet? PS: I'm already a enthus…

> Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food I mean, yes, we should continue doing that. Our relationship with food is unhealthy and also a massive contributor to environmental decline. I'm not sure why you contrast this with other improvements we can make, many of which, individually, would be less impactful than a transition to a more sustainable diet.

> Our relationship with food is unhealthy

Your American relationship with food is unhealthy. Our relationship with food here in France, and many other countries is perfectly fine.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#140
post #41

The responses in this topic alone are enough to see the chances of success are very low.

One of the biggest problems I've come across are older people who say or think "I've got mine, I won't be alive when the shit hits the fan, so I don't care." If you can address that aspect of the problem, then you're probably half way there to solving it.
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