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

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

#291

Post by Sebb767 »

tpxl wrote: post #278
kebman wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The emphasis many countries take is to focus on car owners and drivers by taxing private commuters to death, with dubious environmental gains outside of increasing state income. Meanwhile one cargo ship or cruise liner arguably pollutes way more than millions(!) of cars. I'm not sure that's a great route to take politically, no pun intended. They seem to go for the lowest hanging cash grab before going after those wh…

Same with garbage bags and plastic straws. Stuff comes in stores absolutely wrapped in tons of plastic and they go and ban plastic straws. Not to mention stuff that's triple wrapped (sweets for example).

I'm pretty sure plastic straws were a trash problem, not a climate problem. Related, but not the same thing.

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

#292

Post by titannet »

I don't understand the underlying argumentation. Going "net zero" would require changing the live of every human on the planet, that's just not going to happen in a controlled manner. How about some achievable goals like not building new coal plants? And slightly less BS along the lines of replacing (houses, cars, whatever) with new slightly more efficient variations.

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

#293

Post by whimsicalism »

ianai wrote: post #197
rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

Agree, though the ability to add a tax to goods/services for carbon seems unlikely in the US. I suspect people might be more agreeable if they knew there was a direct relationship between carbon tax and carbon abatement-and couldn't be squandered on something else (like cutting taxes for wealthy/multi-national corps). i.e. $1 of tax means $1 toward sequestration, or something like that.

Surveys have shown Americans have basically 0 inclination to pay more than $10/mo even if it would completely solve climate change for sure.

It's a good thing we don't live in a real democracy, because hopefully elites will wake up faster than that.

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

#294

Post by okokwhatever »

People, it's easy. If we are having difficulties to reduce our consumption because the lack of preparation let's first reduce how many people are living in the world with a worldwide One Child policy. Obviously this will produce future issues that will have to be addressed but it's a necessary step (temporally?) to gain some time.

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

#295

Post by Gigachad »

rich_sasha wrote: post #202
czzr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inability of the US to pass a carbon tax will be one of humanities great tragedies. That they are the theoretical champions of the free market is just piling cruel irony on top of that.

It's not just US. Is there a real carbon tax anywhere at all?

There was in Australia for a short time. The topic has become poisoned though and it will be very hard to bring back with newscorp still running things.

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

#296

Post by MildlySerious »

rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

Here's a small parametric projection you can adjust to get a rough idea[1]. The conclusion is that we need to work on all ends, starting with heavy carbon taxing.

We have pretty much squandered the time for anything but a drastic 180 degree turn.

The best thing you can do as an individual is to be vocal about those concerns and put pressure on your political representatives to take action, CCL[2] being one example of that.

I'm not a big proponent of the individual carbon footprint thing, it's mostly an attempt to shift responsibility to the individual when the ones that can actually get meaningful action on the way are corporations and governments. Despite that, avoiding meat (if you can't avoid all, focus on beef), buying local produce and avoiding flights where possible are still beneficial things to do and the biggest contributions you can make. I would add not driving a 20 year old car, but a lot of time you not driving it just means someone else will be driving that car instead.

[1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html

[2] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

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

#297

Post by occz »

baxtr wrote: post #153

The world's population was at around 5.3 bn in 1990 and is now approaching 7.7 bn. This ain't a popular opinion on HN, but I think a key factor to getting climate change under control (whatever that means), is to reduce the growth and to stabilize the population.

Growth is already projected to peak at around 10-11 billion, though. The general trend is for countries going towards replacement rate, or even below, as they become wealthier.

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

#298

Post by 542458 »

okokwhatever wrote: post #294

People, it's easy. If we are having difficulties to reduce our consumption because the lack of preparation let's first reduce how many people are living in the world with a worldwide One Child policy. Obviously this will produce future issues that will have to be addressed but it's a necessary step (temporally?) to gain some time.

That would not work. Ignoring the mass revolt that would occur in most western nations, it would also be wildly insufficient, destroy the economy, and take a very long time to make an impact. There are much better uses for such a massive amount of political capital.

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

#299

Post by watwut »

QasimK wrote: post #164
gspr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this a lot, too. "It's just 2 degrees" – what the hell is wrong with you? If your body temperature is 2-3 degrees above normal, you feel like absolute shit. Likewise for atmospheric CO₂ concentrations; "it's just 0.04 %" – dude, you surely start noticing the effects of "just" 0.04% alcohol in your blood. Or hey, try cyanide. What is wrong with people?!

If my room was 2 degrees hotter right now, I would barely notice. So "2 degrees" by itself actually really does mean very little even to me - and I already know about the catastrophic effects that are going to come out of 2 degrees. I have to think about the sea level rise, increasing heat waves, more floods, more extreme weather, and so on for it to actually have an impact on even me.

> If my room was 2 degrees hotter right now, I would barely notice.

Are you sure? I have found that difference between 28 and 30 or 30 and 32 celsius is very noticeable.

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

#300

Post by Gigachad »

shadowfaxRodeo wrote: post #276

The internet causes around 5% of global carbon emmissions. It's invisible, and difficult to measure, so little gets done about it. But if you're a developer who wants to help. Check out: https://sustainablewebdesign.org/ Pretty much all the solutions to making a greener web would make the web better in general. - Send less data (efficient video, images, fonts, etc) - Make fewer requests - Use a CDN (the greenest one…

Something that almost the entire population uses all day is only using 5%? Sounds incredibly efficient. Repacking fonts to be smaller sounds about as useful as plugging a hand crank generator in to the power point.
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