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Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

nature.com

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Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#31

Post by iso1210 »

giorgioz wrote: post #15

Yes there are a lot of ways to reduced emissions. We should also do now the ones that are already available right now (like home insulation). On the same line though decommissioning nuclear plants in Europe was always a bad move. Italy abandoned nuclear with a referendum 1987 just after Chernobyll and again voted against nuclear in 2011. Italy then buys nuclear energy from France and gas from Russia. This is just put…

Is Nuclear available now? In the UK it seems to take decades to build a nuclear power plant

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#32

Post by megapolitics »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #29
cloutchaser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you switch all the wood burning in third world countries, and all the coal fired stations to natural gas, you reduce emissions considerably. You need to do this because third world countries can't afford renewables, or there simply isn't enough supply to roll it out quickly (within 10-20 years). But they burn a lot of wood, which is unnecessary, and can be switched to gas cheaply and easily. Considering it will st…

> third world countries I'll stop you right there because the major producers of greenhouse gasses aren't third world countries. Historically, the majority of greenhouse gasses emitted comes from industrialized nations. > can be switched to gas cheaply and easily I highly doubt that. Gas distribution requires a fine grained pipeline infrastructure which needs constant maintenance. That's a massive upfront cost in dev…

>I'll stop you right there because the major producers of greenhouse gasses aren't third world countries. Historically, the majority of greenhouse gasses emitted comes from industrialized nations.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't tackle emissions in third world countries.

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#33

Post by starkd »

ehnto wrote: post #19
rhino369 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand it, it not a binary "we are fucked" / "we are unfucked" if you are talking globally, or even large nations like the US, EU, Russia, China, etc. It's a gradient. The more CO2, the warmer earth gets.

Yes and no, it's not a linear gradient, there are points on the gradient where things get exponentially worse, and everything rapidly accelerates, like a runaway diesel engine. We can go from "Livable with adaptation" to "millions displaced from unlivable catastrophes and conditions" by hitting some of those milestones.

Perhaps that's true. But the ability to know where those points are with any degree of certainty, we are utterly in the dark about.

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#34

Post by constGard »

radicalbyte wrote: post #25
thatcherc wrote: post #14

The main action advocated by the author here is to increase efficiency (in insulation, appliances, food production, transportation) as a means to curb CO2 emissions and slow climate change - all very important. Lately I've been reading Saul Griffith's book "Electrify" which proposes a different tack - "simply" electrify all energy usage and let people maintain their current lifestyles exactly. Interestingly, doing so…

Electrification requires energy-efficiency savings. Insulation is specifically an absolute no-brainer - it's cheap and save a lot of energy (and money). Currently it seems that rentals are the issue more than anything.

Insulation is a no brainer until you pump it into an older house with poorly sealed walls and end up with a sodden mess next time it rains. Some of the best advice from "green" building professionals is focus on air sealing, efficient electric heat (heat pumps), and eventually rooftop solar. These have complications as well (slave labor solar panels, high gwp refrigerants) but those are often easier to fix than your 1930s wall assembly. The individual cost of a deep energy retrofit to address the systemic problems with a home can be incredibly high (100k+ for people like me in California), so hopefully market innovation and government regulation will help solve some of the issues I mentioned with electrification + rooftop pv.

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#35

Post by iso1210 »

smashah wrote: post #22

The UK Government is not serious about climate catastrophe as evident by the laws around personal electric micro-mobility, amongst other things.

There are many examples of the UK not being serious in dealing with it, laws around e-scooters on public loand is fairly low down that list though

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#36

Post by eldaisfish »

giorgioz wrote: post #15

Yes there are a lot of ways to reduced emissions. We should also do now the ones that are already available right now (like home insulation). On the same line though decommissioning nuclear plants in Europe was always a bad move. Italy abandoned nuclear with a referendum 1987 just after Chernobyll and again voted against nuclear in 2011. Italy then buys nuclear energy from France and gas from Russia. This is just put…

too many don't understand this.

The #1 problem with renewable energy is that the transition to a mostly low-carbon grid is supposed to happen at an indeterminate point in the future. That future currently exists only on paper. Even Ireland and the UK - two countries frequently brought up in this context - still supply only around a third of electrical energy via renewables.

Electrifying everything sounds nice until you realise that nowhere on earth has load growth been supplied by renewable energy.

It is truly a crying shame that nuclear has been abandoned in pursuit of unclear future benefits all the while accelerating the climate emergency.

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#37

Post by eldaisfish »

iso1210 wrote: post #31
giorgioz wrote: post #15

Yes there are a lot of ways to reduced emissions. We should also do now the ones that are already available right now (like home insulation). On the same line though decommissioning nuclear plants in Europe was always a bad move. Italy abandoned nuclear with a referendum 1987 just after Chernobyll and again voted against nuclear in 2011. Italy then buys nuclear energy from France and gas from Russia. This is just put…

Is Nuclear available now? In the UK it seems to take decades to build a nuclear power plant

Even if isn't available now, you can start building now. This isn't the gotcha many think it is.

A nuclear plant will provide decades of energy without emitting carbon into the atmosphere. In all that time, build towards a future where the nuclear plant isn't needed. The promise of a wind and solar future is still several decades in the future. Why wait for that when we have a problem right now?

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#38

Post by stickyricky »

hgomersall wrote: post #23
thatcherc wrote: post #14

The main action advocated by the author here is to increase efficiency (in insulation, appliances, food production, transportation) as a means to curb CO2 emissions and slow climate change - all very important. Lately I've been reading Saul Griffith's book "Electrify" which proposes a different tack - "simply" electrify all energy usage and let people maintain their current lifestyles exactly. Interestingly, doing so…

It's much easier to maintain lifestyles by being more efficient than by any other means. Most energy is simply wasted. There is basically no downside to things like properly insulating houses (except perhaps the bottom line of the property developers).

And air quality concerns. You need to ventilate your home with outside air year round.

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#39

Post by billfor »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #17

I am all in to be a good custodian of the world. But I am tired of the insipid, agitated state, screaming and pushing fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). When I was a young man, I was told the world will freeze, and within five years we will all die. (Good times for fur trade!) Then, the ozone layer will be gone, and within five years we will all die. (SPF 5000 anyone?) Suddenly in the early '80s it flipped to the wo…

Also, there are more bees now than 10 years ago when they were supposed to all be dying and the polar bear population is not decreasing. Biggest carbon footprint you make is your kids....

Re: Climate change won’t wait for future innovation – we need action now

#40

Post by hobs »

starkd wrote: post #33
ehnto wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no, it's not a linear gradient, there are points on the gradient where things get exponentially worse, and everything rapidly accelerates, like a runaway diesel engine. We can go from "Livable with adaptation" to "millions displaced from unlivable catastrophes and conditions" by hitting some of those milestones.

Perhaps that's true. But the ability to know where those points are with any degree of certainty, we are utterly in the dark about.

You're driving a car at night with no headlights, but since there's no way to be certain about what's ahead, should you: pump the gas or pump the brakes?
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