Big oil helped shape Stanford’s latest climate-research focus

If Japan can’t do it, responsibly, why should we expect any other country to?

That is a very recent phenomenon. From 1958 until 2019 the US imported more than it exported, including during the Iraq War (both of them).

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-...

That could flip at any moment based on the price of imported oil vs the cost of domestic production. The US is still very much "investing" in the military to ensure a stable source of energy (as well as other national interests).

the 4-5C model is a fraudulent model that's been pushed for political agendas, it mistakes the temperature changes that happen as distance from the equator increases.

Realistically, the world is going to see a 1.5-1.9C increase by 2100. These are the IPCC's current projections, which is the most well known standard.

everything you say is the dogma of alarmists, its not that i don't think you care about this, I'm certain that you do, but you're working off incorrect information and its doing more harm than good.

some of the worst implications will be a biodiversity loss in places near the equator, and there is basically not much we can do to stop it. although hopefully i'm wrong as there's a lot of ecological folk trying to remediate future problems in this area.

the worst thing we can do to ourselves as a society is panic and turn all of our attention towards climate-based dogma. europe did this and russia found it as a reason to attack ukraine. in reality, we have multiple priorities that need to be sorted. climate is on there but its not the only one. its important to keep people wealthy enough to care about the climate, because otherwise they burn fuel sources that are worse for it, ie wood and coal. and we also need global societies to develop scientifically/economically so we can achieve nuclear fusion faster for the very goal that you're concerned about.

to summarize a solid policy-based strategy, and complex-web of problems concept to solve our climate problem is that:

increase in global trade -> leads to -> increase in economic prosperity -> leads to -> increase in scientific development -> leads to -> faster development of fusion

now the economic prosperity part isn't simple because there are foreign governments that are showing themselves to be hostile towards western institutions and operations, taking advantage of their own development to act maliciously. this isn't great as it makes us divert resources away from these important problems. but if we only focus on the climate the west will be eaten up by someone who doesn't care about it at all.

I don’t know if all you wrote about is going to be a problem in the way you see it. The developing world has jumped/skipped some of the development the west/rich nations experienced and just adapted the latest technology.

A good example of this is communication technology. In wealthy nations, there was all of this wired infrastructure put in place since the advent of the telegraph. In developing nations, they just skipped all of that and most people have cellphones. Maybe not iphones or even smartphones, but the banks they used developed robust texting protocols, from what I’ve read and heard about, where people could do banking transactions from something like those old nokia dumbphones.

A lot of these developing countries rely on China, maybe to the wests collective chagrin, and China has invested heavily in rail infrastructure in a lot of these countries, and, Chinese auto manufacturers are already producing tons of electric vehicles. Guess whose car companies are building auto factories in a lot of the developing world? And though they may not meet the safety and quality standards of wealthy countries, people in developing countries are just happy to get places quicker than by foot. I may not have listed everything that emits greenhouse gases and a suitable replacement but normalizing mass transit (I forgot to mention the electric buses I’ve read these developing countries are either ordering from china or building at home in Chinese factories), but these two… industries make up a significant chunk of problematic emissions.

What I think we may see in the west is active resistance to adapting new energy and normalizing greener behavior because of things like American exceptionalism. Also, these technologies are expensive to buy for many people even in the west (right, not most people here on hackernews), and its going to be prohibitively expensive for people in old housing stock to upgrade their property and municipalities to upgrade infrastructure. Tax rebates on $35,000 electric cars and heat pumps aren’t going to mean much to people relying on older family members for a roof over their head and can’t find jobs, especially if this whole ai thing takes off. There’s also significant and continual pushback from an people who seem determined to trash electric cars and such, and thats exacerbated by corporations acting bad faith to maximize profit (high efficiency appliances that barely make it through their standard warranty terms and subscription based car features come to mind.

So yeah, I think the developing world might be fine but its the wealthy nations who are going to screw themselves (and because of the US’ voracious consumption if everything), and maybe the rest of the world regardless of what steps the developing world takes.

You could literally buy people electric cars at that pricepoint instead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly in favor of taxing CO2 emission, but the problem IMO is that people in general would rather ruin the planet than pay a fair price for the damage that their emissions cause, purely because they are USED to pollute and consume for cheap.

If there was the necessary political will to pay, then I believe that carbon capture would basically not be used at all, because it is MUCH cheaper to just not emit the carbon in the first place...