Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 349 posts

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#201

Post by timr »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #119
macspoofing wrote: post #70

There is no chance of removing existing CO2 from Air to make any sort of difference. There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nucle…

> There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nuclear power continued to be rolled out at the same rate as it did in the 60s/70s. 25%…

> 25% of electricity in the US was produced with renewables this year, more than both coal and nuclear [1].

That number includes hydro, and doesn't communicate the distribution of the generation, which is concentrated in the plains. Wind and solar are only ~16% of total, with the bulk being wind:

> For the six-month period to June 30, electrical generation by wind increased by 24.67% and provided 11.55% of total electrical generation. Meanwhile, solar sources grew by 27.72% and provided 4.94% of US electrical output.

It's also incredibly regional, with the least-dense parts of the US having the highest overall percentages. From the EIA report that link is based on [1]:

> The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) region has had the most growth in the renewable share of electricity generation over the past decade, largely due to wind generation. In 2013, 13% of the region’s electricity generation came from renewables. That share increased to 40% in 2021, and we expect it to rise to 44% in 2022.

> The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, has also increased its renewable share, from 10% in 2013 to 32% in 2022. ERCOT is the only electricity market region where the renewable electricity share has transitioned from less than the U.S. average to more than the U.S. average from 2013 to present. Both SPP and ERCOT have added substantial generating capacity from wind turbines

So that's good, but it's a very different story than the top-line numbers suggest. If we're going to get to high levels of non-fossil electricity in the (far) more densely populated east and southeast, wind isn't going to do the job.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53459

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#202

Post by evilos »

chimprich wrote: post #198
timr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the article: > The estimate stands in sharp contrast to optimistic forecasts published last week that suggested heating could be held to 1.9C or 1.8C, thanks to commitments announced at the talks, now in their second week and scheduled to end this weekend. > Those estim…

> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. > After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature) That's little more than an app…

My interpretation of the "spectrum" comment was that, out of a number of predictions by different papers, the one cited is on the outer ranges of given values. That seems like an objective statement by itself.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#203

Post by checkyoursudo »

vlod wrote: post #180
jameshart wrote: post #109

Let me just leave a Unicode ‘degree’ symbol here for anyone who needs one: ° (on iOS and possibly MacOS you can get one of these by pressing and holding ‘zero’ until the alternate characters appear)

If you're curious on how to do this on linux: - -u then enter unicode char: 00B0 and then press list of unicode codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Lat...

This must be desktop-environment dependent? I have to do for °. (That 0 is a zero.)

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#204

Post by rowanG077 »

abyssin wrote: post #120
tomtomistaken wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s the “huge surface” op is talking about.

And we’re busy decreasing the surface of woodlands on the planet.

Huh I thought the world has more trees now then ever before.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#205

Post by GekkePrutser »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #119
macspoofing wrote: post #70

There is no chance of removing existing CO2 from Air to make any sort of difference. There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nucle…

> There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nuclear power continued to be rolled out at the same rate as it did in the 60s/70s. 25%…

By the time we're in a position to 'pay back' the emitted CO2 we have to be well beyond CO2 neutral energy. Otherwise it's easier to just offset our existing fossil uses instead of reclamation. We'll have to have a huge surplus of say 10x our energy use right now because reclaiming at any decent speed will cost huge amounts of energy.

At that point most of the climate change will have already happened and we'll have dealt with the results for better or worse. If we're to try and reverse it at that point it would result in yet another climate change from the state we'll be in then. People will have settled in the new conditions and I doubt they'll really want it changed back at that point.

Especially because most disruptive extreme weather will occur during the changes. Not before and after.

It's not as if the pre-industrial climate is some kind of ideal for the world. The world has no natural stable state. Climate change is totally normal, the problem is with the speed with which it happens now which is tens or hundreds of times faster than what is normal.

However this goes for the way back as well. By the time we have the extreme amount of free energy we'll need to revert climate change, the reversion itself will cause its own disruption.

In other words we have to go all in on prevention.. Trying to fix it afterwards is going to make things worse.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#206

Post by ben_w »

chimprich wrote: post #198
timr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the article: > The estimate stands in sharp contrast to optimistic forecasts published last week that suggested heating could be held to 1.9C or 1.8C, thanks to commitments announced at the talks, now in their second week and scheduled to end this weekend. > Those estim…

> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. > After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature) That's little more than an app…

> The Guardian is not perfect, but generally gets the science pretty much right most of the time - at least compared to other news organisations.

That caveat is a really low threshold, think of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect and "wet pavements cause rain" level of wrongness in the things other news orgs report.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#207

Post by cmrdporcupine »

frenchy wrote: post #189
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're editorializing it in a way that is making it far more politically neutral or "pox on both your houses" than it actually is. It's not about warring world views. It's just about money. The simple reality is: almost all wealth on the planet is tied up with fossil fuels. This being the case, the more wealthy you are, the more "polarized" in a certain direction you will be. Might makes right. Or at least at…

There's a lot of not wealthy people who are polarized in that direction as well though. It's not simply a matter of sending a few oligarchs to the gillotine. In the short run, basically everyone in North America and Europe benefit from out destruction of the climate, and most people in other countries too. To put it another way, the people who control the oil supply aren't simply wealthy because they pillaged and sto…

I don't disagree with your central point. Though I think there is room to quibble about the definition of "pillage and stole" given that the cornerstone of this whole structure is control over physical lands, physical lands to which troops and violence have definitely been deployed.

Almost all of us are tied into this circuit in some way and "most of us" (in the west) short-term benefit from the continuance of the status quo energy economy and its growth. But what I would say is this: at the end the rich and powerful will continue to be able to buy fresh water and air and arable land and stable neighbourhoods with armed guards and fences. The rest of us will not be so lucky.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#208

Post by yamtaddle »

HPsquared wrote: post #114
gitfan86 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing, refining, and AI improvements are going to reduce the price of batteries by another 90%

How would things look if batteries were 90% cheaper?

Demand would be wildly higher so we'd probably have to mine the raw materials at 5+x the current rate, I expect.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#209

Post by vlod »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #203
vlod wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're curious on how to do this on linux: - -u then enter unicode char: 00B0 and then press list of unicode codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Lat...

This must be desktop-environment dependent? I have to do for °. (That 0 is a zero.)

Oh.. never thought about that. My approach was on Pop_OS.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#210

Post by timr »

chimprich wrote: post #198
timr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the article: > The estimate stands in sharp contrast to optimistic forecasts published last week that suggested heating could be held to 1.9C or 1.8C, thanks to commitments announced at the talks, now in their second week and scheduled to end this weekend. > Those estim…

> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. > After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature) That's little more than an app…

> It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact.

It's a fact reported by the very same article (but buried). I didn't make it up.

> Would you like to cite some projections you think are more accurate?

All projections are theoretical, but one needs only go to the IPCC to see that the range of reputable predictions varies:

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SPM1...

Source of that figure:

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/

Most recent IPCC commentary on predictions to underscore that current estimates land in a range, and that the Guardian-cited source is definitely not in the middle of it:

https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr

Post reply on HN