Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need private investment to do electrification and renewable energy. That can be done by the government. Which doesn't have funding problems, ever.
The government isn't inventing electric cars or improving heat pumps or improving batteries or making solar panels more efficient to produce. You absolutely still need private investment in a growing economy to produce and invent these technologies. What the government incentives then can do is speed up their rates of adoption and installation. But you need both sides -- public and private.
Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
361–370 of 591 posts
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the part of the problem it’s almost impossible to get people to accept and understand. The wilful ignorance, even among some of my own relatives, is legitimately terrifying. I tried to explain the concept of a tipping point and got chastised for buying into fake news. For a while I thought maybe a lot of people just think it’s exaggerated or something. Nope. They fully think the entire concept is a work of fi…
Yes, I have relatives that are medical doctors, physic professors, have doctorates in statistics, are engineers (real engineers and not software engineers), etc. and yet, because of the lies of conservative politics, are convinced that at best there is climate change, but it is from natural fluctuations and not human caused, and at worst that it is a hoax. Either way, there is nothing we can or should do.
Thank you, as a software engineer I have to say this made me laugh lol. We make a lot of money yet are usually far behind real world engineering.
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because eating less meat, stop taking the plane, reducing our consumption level, replacing cars with bikes and trains and other stuff like that seems radical to you ?
> replacing cars with bikes and trains 1. What if you are disabled and have no train connectivity? 2. What about workers who need to travel by car to build trains? What about support workers who help those workers? And so on? See what happens if we stop virtue signaling and think for a few more seconds? Please stop with this zero-order thinking and spend a few seconds thinking of first-order and second-order effects…
You likely already have an electric wheelchair or could buy one of the many e-trike or LSV options, and at least the former will benefit greatly from first-class bike infrastructure.
This is such a common concern troll talking point but it ignores the fact that many people have disabilities which prevent them from driving (e.g. blindness or epilepsy) or prevent them from having the kind of income needed to own a car, especially if it needs customization for them to use it. Those people are all better off with reduced car infrastructure: access services don’t get stuck in traffic, transit helps everyone, and all kinds of mobility devices benefit from safe car-free spaces.
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can wax poetic all you want about anecdotal values differences between the first and third worlds, but speaking in terms of actual practical impact: what you are saying is simply not true. Greenhouse gas emissions scale super-linearly with income: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitte... There are dozens and dozens of studies all reaching this same conclusion, if the International Energy Ag…
Yeah and my point is that these studies look at energy consumption they don’t take into account things like burning yard waste or plastic garbage into their co2 consumption which is often done daily to keep mosquitoes away and from laziness. Nor does it look at air pollution nor waterways pollution. So it’s a useless metric that doesn’t even have accurate data or tell the real story. What will we do when these societ…
I'm also unsure if "White guilt" is a good descriptor for the West enforcing emission cuts by force on not-West: that sounds like aggression as opposed to an expression of guilt.
The fun/exciting part: a total mind-bender on this is not-West countries are installing renewables at scale without incentives or "[any color] guilt", solar is cheaper than any other supply you can think of.
Then we can start talking about "solar isn't enough because unreliable", true.
Then maybe we start talking about how it's racist to prevent people from having unreliable electricity, true, but rest-assured, the idea of enforcing cuts on other nations isn't on the table.
To avoid the tarpit of moralizing, I try to stay focused on saying "they're installing solar panels and it's cool if they gotta do coal/tires/etc. while we 10x batteries again like we did last decade" --- this also has the benefit of matching the uncoordinated reality as it stands
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#365All these comments mentioning cutting down on energy. It will help a bit, but the real problem is there are just to many people on earth. A world wide one-child policy like it used to exist in China [1] would be a real solution in keeping earth a pleasant place to live. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same thing that's continued to happen: We adapt and create solutions. People have been screaming "everyone will die!!!" via religious based prophecies for... all of human history. The Cult Of Climate Change is no different: a little bit of truth and a lot of faith in Revelations and the unavoidable apocalypse. Prophecies like "all the icecaps will be gone by 2020" and "billions will die from starvation" (hint: th…
The problem with your argument is comparing climate science to religion. There -is- actual science to support the climate doomers. You can cherry pick headlines all you want, but the models have actually been pretty decent so far. Even a little too conservative. But it's a political problem in the end, anyway, not a science one.
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#367It's odd how everytime somebody mentions slashing oil production by 50 or 75%, people are immediately up in arms. Same for red meat or cheap air travel. Western rich countries have too many really spoiled consumers. It's weird to say, but we should crash the economy if it can slow down climate change. I mean there are plenty people in other parts of the world who don't have such a high standard of living, and it's no…
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can wax poetic all you want about anecdotal values differences between the first and third worlds, but speaking in terms of actual practical impact: what you are saying is simply not true. Greenhouse gas emissions scale super-linearly with income: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitte... There are dozens and dozens of studies all reaching this same conclusion, if the International Energy Ag…
Yeah and my point is that these studies look at energy consumption they don’t take into account things like burning yard waste or plastic garbage into their co2 consumption which is often done daily to keep mosquitoes away and from laziness. Nor does it look at air pollution nor waterways pollution. So it’s a useless metric that doesn’t even have accurate data or tell the real story. What will we do when these societ…
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look around. Everyone on earth wants to maintain a standard of living. Governments are toppled over this. And yet it is the largest economy that is objectively slowing its share of contributed emissions. And it’s the largest exhibit that is helping to drive the innovation needed to solve this problem, alongside incredible people from all parts of the globe. I wish we weren’t dealing with this. I wish there had been a…
I'm not disagreeing with your conclusions... >And yet it is the largest economy that is objectively slowing its share of contributed emissions. These largest economy's also contributed the most over their history, which seems reasonable grounds for contributing more and helping other economies come up to that standard of living w/o making the same contributions
Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm glad you agree, it did seem the dumber choice to continue driving at full speed into a brick wall just because the driver next to me won't brake first.
I think the right metaphor to demonstrate the argument being made is you are coupled to the other car and it doesn't matter if you turn off your engine, you're both hitting the wall anyway if the other car doesn't decide to stop too.
In what world is doing nothing the right choice?