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

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

#81

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…

Well, in my new house I'm all electric, but it's a new one, in the old one there is a 30kW heating system, it's a bit expensive to run it on electricity, just a little bit...

And that's essentially the same for the point: build new houses. It's surely positive and needed in the long run, but to do so you need many resources, wood itself is renewable at a certain level of demand, not renewable above that level. Long story short: not counting some mass-genocidal ideas, at a level even the original nazi probably never though of IMVHO the quicker changes possible is start to re-localize anything that can be re-localized, starting from a massive agricultural plan with very strong incentives to try to maximize local, even inefficient, food production to cut transportation as much as possible.

For many area of the planet that's still not possible tough, too many people in such areas respect of the nature local production capacity... Local and inefficient agriculture might run at a slow peace, for instance instead of powerful diesel tractors fields can be handled by less powerful on-rails electrical agrivoltaic tools, something unsustainable without government incentives, but ultimately probably doable with. That's can reduce general pollution to more manageable levels and still provide enough food in most cases. Pushing rails with similar criteria (only goods trains, running when there is enough energy, slow, inefficient, but enough for non-perishable goods).

Quicker than that I know only mass genocide and unpleasant things like that.

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

#82
post #63

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.

IMVHO that's a bit of a wrong evolution, personally having a small p.v. domestic system I do prefer things that eat much and constant energy for a short time so I can schedule it when the Sun shine and the produced energy is MUCH more than my needs.

More expensive systems to consume less are logical in cities or for things that can't be scheduled, when p.v. and other renewable with similar output characteristics can't be used.

Much of the rest is just not for efficiency but for sell cheaper crap for the OEM at a bigger price for the customers.

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

#83
Whatever people say, the solution is less buying power for everyone. For now, that's the only solution. It's hard to hear, but any economic crisis is beneficial for the environment.

There is no way we can make enough changes in 10 years, so things must go the other way. Jean Marc Jancovici says emissions must be shrink 5% per day. You can't have a thriving economy anymore.

Of course nobody wants to make any effort, because it means selling your car, turning off heating/AC, forgetting that vacation, forgetting that steak, even quitting your job, etc etc.

On one hand, we think people who live in the forest, far from everything, are crazy people. But the reality is that a life of sobriety, economic degrowth, austerity, those are the things that are needed to *save the world*.

We need to accept to eat pasta, rice and vitamins for a long time unless civilization moves away entirely from fossil fuels so that it can properly adapt.

If you refuse to accept that you must reduce your living standard, you are part of the problem, plain and simple. Politicians and companies will do exactly NOTHING if it angers consumers or if consumers keep giving those companies money.

I'm often quite pessimistic about the ability of politicians to change course about co2 emissions. Consumers have too much powers.

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

#84
> Of the hundreds of strategy plans I’ve analysed over the five years I’ve been studying energy, almost every single one ensures three things. First, that global citizens will still buy a lot of energy. Second, that control of energy resources will remain concentrated among a few industry players. Third, that energy-intensive companies and their shareholders will still make huge profits.

And there it is: the big boys are addicted to oil profits and "the spice must flow". Last time I looked (a few years ago) the ten most profitable companies in the world were nine oil companies and Apple.

(As I type this there's a guy outside driving a gas-powered noisy golf-cart thing with a tank and a gas-powered pump spraying plant poison on the lawn. It's a microcosm of what's wrong with us. Poisoning the air, land, and water, polluting sound itself, to maintain a wasteland of useless grass! What's more, you could make a lawn that maintained itself and fed some livestock, and not waste this guy on this stupid destructive job.)

Anyhow... Here's a link to an old "brain dump" comment of mine in re: systems of agriculture. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24827329

There's also a great case to be made for integrated alcohol fuel production on a local ecologically harmonious scale to power ICE vehicles (or hybrids) In many cases it makes way more sense that going directly for full electrification of cars, trucks, and busses, etc. (I know of http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/node/277 but there are others.)

As pointed out in TFA we have all the solutions and technology we really need already. What seems to be missing is the knowledge and will to employ them.

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when the budget runs out?

Global warming is likely avoidable using geoengineering technology. But, for some reason, many don’t think a technological solution is morally appropriate. For instance, here is a concerted effort trying to permanently ban all scientific research on geoengineering [1]. Sure, no one wants to loft sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, but it won’t cost much [2] and we have plenty of natural experiments demonstratin…

I agree. I think we should be discussing geoengineering. Outside of technical feasibility, I believe there are two arguments against doing geoengineering:

- It'll reduce the motivation to transition. You can imagine the current politicians and lobbies against climate change trotting out an argument along the lines of we don't need to transition because we have geoengineering. - The second argument which holds more weight I think is that it creates a time bomb. You need to continue increasing the amount of geoengineering that's happening. I believe the name for this is "termination shock": all the pent up warming happens in a much smaller time scale which could have massive unintended consequences.

"The Risk of Termination Shock From Solar Geoengineering" https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...

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

#86
post #64
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing to a vague they makes for a very uninformative comment. I believe most people see a future where civilization progresses. There is just somewhat of a consensus, among left leaning people and groups of scientists, that we need to dial back energy usage short term, until the sources of that energy are moved away from fossil fuels. I don't think a willingness to accept less energy for a decade or two, constitut…

> I don't think a willingness to accept less energy for a decade or two, constitutes an anti-civilization agenda. Sounds like "two weeks to flatten the curve" . Very slippery slope. Expect a lot of people to oppose it (me included). Especially since there will invariable be different rules for the elites (same as with the pandemic).

> Sounds like "two weeks to flatten the curve".

Another necessary short term sacrifice to lessen the risk to society?

> Very slippery slope

I don't know where you're scared "increase effeciency" or "waste less" will go. It's perfectly fine to have gripes with how that gets accomplished. "Fuel taxes are bad because X", "cap and trade would be terrible" or "Windmills suck", I get, "using less energy is bad", I do not get.

> Especially since there will invariable be different rules for the elites

I mean, the most common proposal is taxes on consumption to fund clean energy and/or cleanup. Not really a "different rules" situation in my mind.

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

#87
post #64
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing to a vague they makes for a very uninformative comment. I believe most people see a future where civilization progresses. There is just somewhat of a consensus, among left leaning people and groups of scientists, that we need to dial back energy usage short term, until the sources of that energy are moved away from fossil fuels. I don't think a willingness to accept less energy for a decade or two, constitut…

> I don't think a willingness to accept less energy for a decade or two, constitutes an anti-civilization agenda. Sounds like "two weeks to flatten the curve" . Very slippery slope. Expect a lot of people to oppose it (me included). Especially since there will invariable be different rules for the elites (same as with the pandemic).

The imperative is reducing carbon output. Reducing usage is the simplest, most reliable way of doing that so I find it hard to blame people who push that approach.

On the other hand, if anyone wants to use more energy the onus is on them to explain how we can do that within our carbon budget, when we're not even living within our budget currently.

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

#88
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

> 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. Do you have sources for these 2 claims? Not that I doubt you, necessarily, but I'd love to check the data.

And here is a couple for the polar bears.

https://polarbearscience.com/2021/10/31/global-population-si...

https://arcticwwf.org/species/polar-bear/population/

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

#89

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…

> 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!)

You should have listened to Tiny Tim then:

https://youtu.be/uAZgTKsdJsc

Because he thought The Ice Caps are Melting

(Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho)

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

#90
post #83

Whatever people say, the solution is less buying power for everyone. For now, that's the only solution. It's hard to hear, but any economic crisis is beneficial for the environment. There is no way we can make enough changes in 10 years, so things must go the other way. Jean Marc Jancovici says emissions must be shrink 5% per day. You can't have a thriving economy anymore. Of course nobody wants to make any effort, b…

Yes, I too think that GDP growth goal is not very compatible with sustainable production. But not to the point where you have less kinds of food.

But the main problem I think is: there is no option to work less. Lets say you want to consume less, what will you do with your money, throw away? So I think that the workday should be reduced.

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