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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

#71

Post by kerneloftruth »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #44
kerneloftruth wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to AOC, the earth will end in 6 years (she predicted 10 years remaining 4 years ago). I'm not aware of an update to her estimate.

That number likely came from the 2018 IPCC report which said pretty much this: if something does not happen then by 2030 the there is no realistic pathway to stay belos 2C increase in temperature. World would not end in 2030, but irreversible change would be locked in. Obviously AOC might have been simplifying this or whoever reported on it might have dumbed it down or pushed their own agenda.

It was actually 12 years:

https://news.yahoo.com/ocasio-cortez-world-going-end-1505170...

The point is, beware making quantified predictions. Climate change is real, but when one makes hyperbolic predictions with a quantified timeframe, and then it doesn't happen, the argument is weakened, and skeptics are reinforced.

Al Gore learned the same lesson.

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

#72

Post by oxplot »

One avenue which doesn't require a lot of people/companies to participate, is carbon capture. Not only can it reduce the net emission, but it can even reverse the trend. One example is SpaceX which has plans to produce some of its methane fuel for starship by carbon capture using solar.

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

#73

Post by stickyricky »

distances wrote: post #68
stickyricky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those things matter for air exchange.

I don't think I then understood your comment about air quality concerns. What's the concern if ventilation works fine and energy efficiently?

Place a well insulated wall in the middle of a field. Add a tripled glazed window and 100% efficient ventilation. Which side of the wall is warmer than the other?

Ideal indoor air quality is equal to outdoor air quality. This can only be achieved through air exchange. The ventilation process may be 100% efficient but the consequences of pumping outside air in and inside air out are the same. The air must be heated and costs some unit of energy to accomplish.

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

#74

Post by hgomersall »

distances wrote: post #68
stickyricky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those things matter for air exchange.

I don't think I then understood your comment about air quality concerns. What's the concern if ventilation works fine and energy efficiently?

Modern mvhr systems are 90-odd% efficient. The losses through proper ventilation are small enough.

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

#75

Post by giorgioz »

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

When Italians voted against nuclear in the 1987 referendum there were 2 active nuclear plants in Italy. We switched them off and de-commission them. Switched off reactors and consumed nuclear piles are still a radiation hazard and don't produce anymore energy. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

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

#76

Post by gmuslera »

lopis wrote: post #13
JacobThreeThree wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when the budget runs out?

- No way back from spiraling climate change - Positive feedback loops of melting ice -> lower albedo -> more energy absorbed from the sun -> more ice melts - Unstoppable acidification of oceans and death of vasts amounts of sea life - Disruption of thermohaline ocean currents, disrupting weather everywhere with little time for nature to adapt, leading to mass extinctions - Areas where we currently grow most food will…

Don't forget the feedback loops that adds even more carbon, like permafrost thawing and more frequent/extended forest fires. Even if we stop extracting and burning fossil carbon, still new carbon will be keep being added to the carbon cycle, more each year, due to global warming that seem to have the biggest temperature anomalies around the Arctic. And there are others that slow down the cycle of carbon, like carbon sinks becoming less effective or even turn into net emitters.

It is not possible to just push the brakes and expect an immediate result, the extra carbon that is in the atmosphere will continue warming the planet and the actual warming will fuel positive feedback loops that will make things even worse (and they are not limited to just melting ice).

And, of course, things will keep getting far worse as much as we delay doing something significant in this area.

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

#77

Post by hgomersall »

tomp wrote: post #63
alex_young wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is using more energy important to you? Wouldn’t more efficient energy use equate to getting more production out of less fuel? That seems like a clear win to me.

Practical experience. Products advertised as "energy saving" are almost invariably worse. E.g. modern dishwashers use much less energy, but also take much longer (4 hours instead of 1 hour). If there are products that are equivalent in functionality but use less energy (housing insulation? heat pumps?), I'm all for it.

To paraphrase: Sure, I'm for a habitable planet, just so long as my dishwasher doesn't take any longer to finish.

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

#78

Post by KineticLensman »

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…

> "simply" electrify all energy usage and let people maintain their current lifestyles exactly

You lost me at "simply"

[Edit] Sorry if this comes across as snarky, but c'mon, this is an existentially hard problem and there are few if any significant quick wins that are doable in the face of public inertia, obstruction from the petro-rich, technical complexity, etc. Giving the opponents an easily shot-down 'simply' isn't going to cut it.

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

#79

Post by tomp »

hgomersall wrote: post #77
tomp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practical experience. Products advertised as "energy saving" are almost invariably worse. E.g. modern dishwashers use much less energy, but also take much longer (4 hours instead of 1 hour). If there are products that are equivalent in functionality but use less energy (housing insulation? heat pumps?), I'm all for it.

To paraphrase: Sure, I'm for a habitable planet, just so long as my dishwasher doesn't take any longer to finish.

No, my point is, that is a false dichotomy.

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

#80

Post by distances »

stickyricky wrote: post #73
distances wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I then understood your comment about air quality concerns. What's the concern if ventilation works fine and energy efficiently?

Place a well insulated wall in the middle of a field. Add a tripled glazed window and 100% efficient ventilation. Which side of the wall is warmer than the other? Ideal indoor air quality is equal to outdoor air quality. This can only be achieved through air exchange. The ventilation process may be 100% efficient but the consequences of pumping outside air in and inside air out are the same. The air must be heated an…

That's why the heat recovery is done. It of course doesn't get all the heat, but AFAIK can capture some 80%. This is in use and widely deployed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_recovery_ventilation

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