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The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

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Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#111

Post by Reimersholme »

titzer wrote: post #60
endisneigh wrote: post #25

Is there any solution that doesn’t either involve developed countries lowering their quality of life or preventing developing nations from cheaply industrializing?

> developed countries lowering their quality of life I seriously disagree with this framing. Developed countries have been artificially inflating their quality of life through cheap energy available from burning fossil fuels. This is an unsustainable practice that will a.) come to end due to exhaustion of said fuels b.) have significant, compounding externalities that are subject to incredible levels of reality disto…

No post body was provided.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#112

Post by YATA1 »

clankyclanker wrote: post #61
YATA1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading something somewhere in the 1990s that the entirety of New Orleans was going to be underwater by 2020 and the only way you'd be able to visit Bourbon Street was by boat.

Strictly speaking, that’s not wrong: it’s only through the Herculean efforts of the army corps of engineers that New Orleans is as unsubmerged as it is. Don’t forget Hurricane Harvey: we spent ~$170B cleaning that up. It’s never that we can’t undo climate at a small scale, it’s that doing so may bankrupt entire states in the process.

Strictly speaking, it is wrong: there are several areas of New Orleans that have always been above sea level, Bourbon Street being one of the areas.

Katrina, Harvey, Betsy, 1915, etc. New Orleans is still there. It's not under sea.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#113

Post by iso1210 »

I think some countries are still at stage 2 of the Yes Minister observation of how a government responds, some are at stage 3

> In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

> Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

> In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we can do.

> Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#114

Post by VonGuard »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #74

Reading the thread, I guess all I need is to buy an EV and compost my food waste and then I won't have to worry anymore, plus have a nice moral ground to complain about climate scientists like the Republicans do. Honestly, a huge majority of you need to be honest with yourselves: this kind of thing bugs you because you are business people, founders, people broadly trying to make serious investments in some kind of ec…

This is indicative of what I think is the primary problem we're all dealing with: we are all told to buy EVs and compost and recycle. It's OUR fault the Earth is dying. The consumers....

Which is HORSESHIT. Doritos bags made of shiny plastic, microplastics in products, pesticides used on crops... All of these things are corporate driven decisions. Those bags are used for chips because they make the shelf life longer, saving them money. Microplastics make it easier and cheaper to produce exfoliating products, which could be done with pumice or other stuff that's more expensive. Pesticides increase crop yield, increasing the bottom line.

So while us consumers are out here fretting over how our single coke can not recycled is killing the planet, large corporations make decisions every day that either make them money or save them money, and do irreparable harm to the world. But instead of fixing these problems, they run ads to tell us to recycle. That highly concentrated soap you use on your dishes that goes into the water supply? It's got a baby duck on the bottle so you can feel better about using it!

We lie to ourselves about all of this. Individual changes in behavior make no difference. The things we litter and don't recycle should simply not be there in the first place. I buy a lot of bacon, but it always comes in an un-resealable plastic bag, so they want you to use a Ziplock on it to put it in your fridge. Shit like that. 100 million decisions made by businesses every day killing the Earth. And we get blamed for it as peons.

Explain to me why we have to fly empty planes around the world just to make sure those airlines don't lose their terminal rights? Everything we do every day is optimized to make money at the expense of every other possible method of worth. We forgo reason, we forgo safety, we give up our world to make money. That's not going to change until there's no money left to earn, and we're all fighting over food.

We know how to fix this. Go to Marin and see their waste reclamation site. There is no landfill in that county. They recycle and compost and handle everything, even hazardous wastes like paint.

We have the tech, we know how to do it. But we don't. This entire comment section is full of the main reason why: y'all want yer money. Gotta make that paper. Fuck the world, I want mine.

Glad I never had kids.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#115

Post by incomingpain »

Isinlor wrote: post #13
tim333 wrote: post #3

There are lots of things to talk about other than the 'climate crisis' and exaggerating it can lead to a misallocation of resources really.

We are nowhere near exaggerating it. We should be simple executing what was agreed in the Paris Agreement as it reflects our best evaluation of the cost to benefits ratio. But current policies are aiming at 1.5 degree higher than what we evaluated as the optimal solution.

>We are nowhere near exaggerating it.

https://theconversation.com/four-hiroshima-bombs-a-second-ho...

A second! We are basically in a nuclear holocaust of epic proportions and this is nowhere near exaggerating it.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#116

Post by titzer »

tuatoru wrote: post #86
mrfusion wrote: post #9

I’m a full on believer. I even own an EV but I think this alarmism is just making people numb. I think there’s a whole generation out there that never read “the boy who cried wolf”.

For people on six figure salaries, owning an EV is costless virtue signalling. Do something that costs you, and you have better credibility. Here's my litmus test: commit to never flying anywhere ever again.

We could have carbon-neutral aviation, and not with electric jets. We would need to develop an infrastructure capable of producing jet fuel from other sources, e.g. nuclear power. I don't think we'll ever get energy density from batteries even close to what liquid hydrocarbons offer. We just can't get said hydrocarbons from fossil sources.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#117

Post by throwaway5752 »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #44
throwaway5752 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I told a person in a war zone there was a planetary crisis that would guarantee the death of the children or grandchildren, I don't have a doubt in the world they would care about it. Just because someone living in danger or poverty doesn't make them a fool or a coward.

I was in Ukraine yesterday. That is 100% untrue. When you're in a war zone, even if you're in the country but far from the action, the only thing you can think about is your immediate survival and the survival of your friends and family. Literally nothing else matters.

Thanks for editing your comment for additional clarity. There isn't much one can do about anything if they survive until the next day, but that does not mean they don't care about non-immediate concerns. Flight 571 survivors were not pro-cannibalism, they did what they had to in order to survive in terrible circumstances. People in poverty and conflict definitely still care about their familys' futures.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#118

Post by D_Alex »

nuccy wrote: post #39
vasco wrote: post #16

> Nothing matters as much as our bone-headed, mass-suicidal march toward extreme-weather oblivion. Not COVID-19, not the invasion of Ukraine, not even “The Godfather.” Says a reporter living in Los Angeles, the 49th most expensive city in the world to live in. For a lot of people, what they need to talk about is how they're getting their next meal, how they're going to make rent, or survive a current war. Maybe go to…

I totally agree with what you say. To add on that, effects of Russian war in Ukraine may have extraordinary effect on global climate, given that to limit consumption of Russian oil and gas Europe invests more in renewables and even considers building new nuclear power plants.

The short term effect of Europe's move away from pipeline gas to LNG will be to increase CO2 emissions, if only because production and transportation of LNG consumes about 10% of the original gas.

Furthermore, emissions of methane from LNG production and transportation contribute to global warming - by some estimates at a rate comparable to the CO2 emissions.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#119

Post by waqf »

endisneigh wrote: post #99
waqf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like obviously the wrong question, since it has at least the potential to rule out viable solutions a priori. For example, what would be wrong with preventing developing nations from cheaply industrialising, while also subsidising them to do something else instead?

The question you pose is effectively why we’re in the situation we’re in. To solve the climate crisis all externalities need to effectively be captured in the price in order to stabilize the market failure with respect to said externalities. Subsidies are what we do now already which is why we’re in the situation we’re in.

Conditional subsidies ("we'll give you money if you don't build that nasty coal plant") do capture an externality, so I'm not sure what point you're making.

Re: The only thing we should be talking about is the climate crisis

#120

Post by jordanbeiber »

kgran wrote: post #40
mrfusion wrote: post #9

I’m a full on believer. I even own an EV but I think this alarmism is just making people numb. I think there’s a whole generation out there that never read “the boy who cried wolf”.

>I even own an EV I don't want to be that guy, but driving an EV (unless you drive some sort of electric bicycle or scooter) is not that environmentally friendly as the manufacturers and marketing people want you to believe. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_impact_on_the_environmen...

I’m gonna be THIS guy, though: first - there’s more to our environment than co2.

Prolonging life and reducing negative health impacts are another bonus.

Yes, there is still an environmental cost of the production of EVs but these vehicles don’t emit CO2 or greenhouse gases and so their lifetime carbon footprint is much lower.

For example, a recent Reuters study found that a Tesla Model 3 would need to be driven for 13,500 miles (21,725 km) before it does less harm to the environment than a Toyota Corolla:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti...

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