161–170 of 222 posts
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as in it's only worth doing if you have nothing else to do with the energy (like when you have too much wind/sun etc)
That's just the concept of energy storage. And even if we lose a significant fraction it's often not an issue given how cheap solar is.
People who choose what they believe have an entirely different understanding of the concept of belief than I do. Belief is something that is inflicted upon me by my environment, not something I choose based on the lifestyle I want or the people I want to associate with. Consumer belief? If I could choose my beliefs, I would choose to believe in an almost completely different set of things. All of my beliefs would be…
While I appreciate your perspective, the construct you described allows one to invalidate others' beliefs as being "wrong" because they don't adhere to the same reference point as yourself. > All of my beliefs would be self-serving This is not a true statement. Why cannot one choose what one feels to be the most appropriate construct after careful inspection and introspection?
Belief based in empirical evidence is at least bound to that evidence.
Belief unmoored from empiricism --- blind faith or revelation --- suffers no such limits. Your criticism would apply all the more so to same, with the further failing that others' beliefs are "wrong" because they ... are simply revealed or adopted faiths. Which is frequently observed.
If my evidence-based belief differs from your evidence-based belief, then we can compare evidence. Evidence does not have to be directly experienced (though for various reasons of psychological evolution we tend often to more highly weight that which is); we can also rely on evidence presented by other trustworthy witnesses. There are numerous social institutions dedicated to precisely this (science, courts, journalism, politics, ...)
People who choose what they believe have an entirely different understanding of the concept of belief than I do. Belief is something that is inflicted upon me by my environment, not something I choose based on the lifestyle I want or the people I want to associate with. Consumer belief? If I could choose my beliefs, I would choose to believe in an almost completely different set of things. All of my beliefs would be…
Anyway, the point is, there is data out there that leads to pessimism. Absolutely. There's plenty of it. There is grounds for pessimism.
But there is also data that leads to optimism. There's plenty of it, too. So you choose your belief by choosing which set of data to pay more attention to. (Except it's not that simple. You're choosing which set of data you think is more credible, or more relevant, or more important, or reflects a more accurate picture of the situation. But there still is an element of choice - you choose which data set to pay more attention to, and that data set usually winds up being the one you consider more valid.)
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Homes are not heated with nuclear power or lignite, they are heated with gas.
Gas is at risk of cut off this winter. Electric heating will be the primary source if that happens. > In late June, after Russia reduced supplies by 60%, Berlin triggered the second stage of its national gas emergency plan — one step away from gas rationing. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/07/18/a...
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Well in theory, yes. In practice, the Russians have captured a large nuclear reactor and may use it as a dirty bomb if things don't go their way. Can't turn a solar panel or windmill into a weapon like that. You could turn a hydroelectric dam in a weapon though, I believe that's the plot of a few films. And solar heat collectors are impractical death rays.
> In practice, the Russians have captured a large nuclear reactor and may use it as a dirty bomb if things don't go their way This is still theory unless they actually use it for that. Also, Russia's own Kursk 2 isn't very far from the captured one. They could turn that into a dirty bomb too. Recency bias on a threat shouldn't overwhelm normal analysis.
Where I live is at risk of declining political stability in the near future. I don't worry about living next to a nuclear power plant because I'm worried about maintenance or operational safety or whatever, I worry about what happens when a thousand men with machetes and an apocalyptic ideology show up. And perhaps you look at the news in your country and wonder if you also may be heading towards declining political stability.
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https://www.helium-one.com/helium-market/ Apparently 8%. But all of these industries waste it unnecessarily, due to our failing to price in or consider the future scarcity. Helium as a waste product of fusion reactors is such a pipe dream, and will produce such tiny volumes should that ever happen, that it is not a remotely realistic solution to the problem.
That's all "lifting balloons" - I'd think the majority of which would be for weather balloons etc.? You're probably right about He from fusion reactors but if we have 100s of years to solve it who knows.
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IPCC AR6 (2022)'s summary for policymakers [1] makes such a claim. Here is the last paragraph: "The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. ( ve…
I don't see where in that sentence it says large parts of the planet will become functionally inhabitable or that climate change is an existential threat.
It literally says "livable future." As in, a future that is as livable for humanity in general as the present currently is.
There are numerous scientists that predict sea level rise coupled with lethal wet-bulb temperatures in the tropics will make living around the equator difficult if not impossible. Here is a direct quote if you need it:
"SSP5-8.5 — Imagine a world where humanity doesn’t just do nothing about climate change but continues to make it worse... The net result would be 4.4°C of warming, with a range between 3.3°C and 5.7°C. As if large-scale coastal inundation and extremely destructive weather weren’t enough, parts of the planet would become unlivable during the hottest times of the year."
Source: https://www.vox.com/22620706/climate-change-ipcc-report-2021...
That's a timeline in which we continue to increase emissions year over year and actively double down on business-as-usual. So far, that has been the case (emissions dipped in 2020 during lockdown, but we are now back to emitting more than ever before).
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> And if they won’t, life itself is even more resilient. You realize that's hardly reassuring, right? You're right though - life is resilient. Life has survived worse. But our fragile global civilization, propped up by fossil fuels at a core level, is not resilient in the worst case outcomes of climate change. And keep in mind: in order to avoid the worst case scenarios, massive economic and political change needs to…
Humans have still suffered far worse. At one point, around 70kya, there were only an estimated maximum of 10,000 humans, and it is from that population that sprung forth 8 billion today. I highly doubt with even all the damage climate change will cause that we will go back to such numbers.
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That's all "lifting balloons" - I'd think the majority of which would be for weather balloons etc.? You're probably right about He from fusion reactors but if we have 100s of years to solve it who knows.
Who knows is exactly the problem. Hand waving this away for future generations to deal with is exactly the problem. If we can’t imagine how we’ll solve it, we should probably strive not to create the mess.
(*) I'm more or less convinced that such a miracle technology is the only hope we have of avoiding catastrophic change. I'm baffled why there's not massively more funding into researching potential geoengineering solutions, given the stakes. Even fossil fuel companies would benefit!
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> If there hypothetically was a magical source of near infinite renewable energy that could be harnessed without negative side effects, would you be ok with 2600+ sqft homes and air conditioning? Yes. In a world with zero negative externalities for massive resource consumption, then by all means, give everyone a mansion and a yacht. > What number of humans can the Earth ideally sustain in your estimation? If it's sub…
Before climate change was a thing, Malthus was making the same claims about society hitting a brick wall in the late 18th century. You then had scientists in the 19th century predicting the downfall of society because we would run out of places to store horse manure as more people could afford a horse. In the 20th century intellectuals predicted that the world would run out of food. When that didn’t work, scientists…
I'm also aware that people have been predicting the apocalypse for as long as there have been people. But this is not as simple as manure storage, and it's a bit disingenuous to draw that comparison. You simply cannot have 8 billion people living in huge houses with air conditioning. It will not work. If our definition of racial equality and harmony is to let everyone fuck up the environment equally, rather than restricting everyone's (including rich white people) ability to overconsume, then we are all equally toast.
> And this is why I don’t believe most of the arguments against big houses, cars, air conditioning, are honest or being made in good faith.
Reminder: all the information and points I'm citing come from the world's leading climate and environmental scientists. If you think the IPCC is just being racist when they lay out the data about how bad climate change will be and say we need to reduce our emissions (i.e. consumption), then I don't know what to tell you.