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I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

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Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#671

Post by AdrianB1 »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #661
ianai wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's finding a way to input the external costs of consumption of emissive products into their final price(s). In reality, a gallon of gas causes significantly more damage than the price paid at the pump - it was like $16/gallon when I saw a figure for it around 2010. Imagine how much differently a world with $20/gallon gas would look. There'd probably be massive pressures from all corners to move away from oil.

Gas was just under $4 a liter every time I've been to Europe. That's about $16/gallon. People were driving to work, and sitting in traffic, just like they do in the US.

Gas was never above $2 per liter in Europe, you are mistaken. The highest gas price I've ever seen was close to $2 per liter, a bit below (~1.90, maybe).

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#672

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

hrududuu wrote: post #509
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #328

I never worried particularly much about climate change, but just to hedge my bets for my kids I moved to northern Europe. For the most part it's just equated to milder (= bearable) Winters and nicer summers up here. I guess we also spend a fair bit on moving to renewables up here - Finland achieved energy self sufficiency last year thanks to a good combination of nuclear + solar + hydro. If I were an ideologue in eit…

And yet I never saw people tracking the daily electricity spot price until I moved to Finland :). Miten menee sun suomi, on kiva oppia sitä.

Minulla lemppari urheilulaji :D se kehittyy hitaasti mutta varmasti.

I actually maintain several online Finnish learning resources now, including a flashcard deck of the most common 10,000 words from the YLE study way back [1], a command line lemmatizer [2], and a website whose permissions I need to refresh ASAP which archives Selkouutiset with YYYY/MM/DD URLs [3].

Indeed building these tools were what got me back into software development as a profession, after a long absence.

[1]: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1149950470

[2]: https://github.com/hiAndrewQuinn/finstem

[3]: https://hiandrewquinn.github.io/selkouutiset-archive/

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#673

Post by globular-toast »

abenga wrote: post #617
globular-toast wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aging userbase? People get to a certain age, realise they'll probably outlive problems then just start campaigning for whatever will give them the best rest of their life. Seems to kick in quite early now too, like 35.

It feels far more rapid, e.g. try to find all highly upvoted posts about EVs over the last couple of months. It feels (anecdotally) that they have been increasingly more negative recently.

EVs are interesting because it's a classic example of people simplifying a multidimensional problem into one. It's not just pro-EV and anti-EV. There's also the orthogonal pro- or anti- car dimension.

For example, I'm anti-car. In principle I'm pro-EV, but I also see EVs making things even worse with respect to all the other damage cars do besides exhaust emissions. They are heavier, more powerful and at best neutral with respect to safety and social issues.

But if you look through the one dimensional lens I'm just "anti-EV" because I don't want them.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#674

Post by Geee »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #525
Geee wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be an extinction event. We already know that warm periods in Earth's history are the most friendly for all kinds of life. And we know that cold periods kill species and reduce biodiversity. In the most catastrophic case Earth will end up as a tropical paradise, resembling the Eocene period [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Flora

The paleontologist Peter Ward has made a fairly compelling argument (in both academic research and the popular science book Under a Green Sky ), that virtually all major extinction events are related to sudden rises in atmospheric CO2. A lot more happens when CO2 rises quickly other than it getting warmer. A major issue is it's impact on the oceans, which can become anoxic [0], causing them to emit hydrogen sulfide i…

That isn't true. 5 major exctinction events are related to giant volcanic eruptions. 7 are due to sea-level falls, and one is due to an asteroid impact. In all cases there might be a correlation to ocean anoxidation, but I doubt it as a cause.

Eocenic period had high CO2 levels, but it didn't lead to ocean anoxidation. In fact, at the end of the period, the eocene-oligocene exctinction event happened in connection with reduced CO2 and global cooling of the climate. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene–Oligocene_extinction_ev...

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#675

Post by croes »

eximius wrote: post #665

It's extremely frustrating to watch our world deteriorating because politicians aren't willing to actually do their jobs and govern. I'd go even stronger and, for the US, pass regulations that all emissions of all kinds must be captured or the company will be fined double the cost of environmental remediation as executed by contractors employed by the government (scaling from 1% of the fine to 100% of the fine over X…

If they do, people vote parties who don't.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#676

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #633
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...until the dispossessed hordes burn it to the ground. The belief that rich people will be able to ride this one out is a huge part of the problem. No matter how deep your bunker, no matter how many acres of land you own, extreme weather will make all of it worthless.

You seem to believe that the disposed hordes will inevitable be able to burn it to the ground despite primarily being dispossessed from places with near primitive military practices, alone supplies. While we’re writing fictional tales, there’s an alternative ending to this fiction that ends with the dispossessed hordes simply losing.

By losing you mean starving, I assume. If the rich northern countries can even come to some sort of agreement that the poor from the south should be kept out by killing them when they try to migrate north. This is all going to be horrifying no matter what.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#677

Post by AdrianB1 »

dublinben wrote: post #670
nradov wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to be politically acceptable, a carbon tax should be phased in gradually and coupled with a reduction in income tax so as to make it revenue neutral. That way it can't be framed as just another government tax grab.

Offsetting income tax would be a massive handout to the rich, who have been and continue to be the greatest contributors to carbon emissions. Instead, it should be paired with a dividend which makes it revenue neutral for the median household. Lower income families, who are more impacted by but less responsible for climate change, would be paid a benefit.

There is progressive taxation, so you can control who is getting offsets and who is not.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#678

Post by trimethylpurine »

ianai wrote: post #663
kylebenzle wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, strongly. I think the next phase will be people like me, not climate change deniers but climate change doomers. The US could go carbon neutral tomorrow and it wouldnt make a dent because of China, India and Russia. 3 Billion people pumping pollution into the the air like their is no tomorrow vs. a couple hundred million reducing their footprint isn't going to make a lick of difference. I think people have…

That's assuming the situation follows your specified path. In reality, an economy transitioned to tech beyond fossil fuels probably enjoys much greater production dynamics. For instance, the US could build out nuclear power to satisfy base board power and then grow that base by which ever rate it decided per year. At some point, mass desalination of sea water becomes affordable because electricity drives down the pri…

You'll still mine oil for tires and roads, and you'll have gasoline as a byproduct. You'll use the gasoline to mine lithium and to transport used batteries. And you'll bury the batteries somewhere out of sight. Just like we're doing with nuclear. None of these solutions actually help preserve live. Life can thrive in a carbon rich atmosphere. It has before. But many years from now when the lithium batteries decay and the nuclear stores erode, life on Earth will actually cease.

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#679

Post by hrududuu »

askonomm wrote: post #611
hrududuu wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer prices are not lower in Finland, although VAT is responsible for a lot of the difference, to be fair. Yeah, sales tax in Finland is 24%. I've been in both places in the last year, cried when I bought my used Toyota here. Rent indeed is 70% lower, but you lose by having 70% lower rent and 70% lower salary. Besides, median salaries in Finland are 15% of what they are in SF (staff swe at 500k vs 90k). And the t…

Do you have a source? My stats are from: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... , but I'm happy to learn of more correct info on this topic.

My anecdote against a couple hundred, I stand corrected. I think the overall point stands though :)

Re: I used to not worry about climate change. Now I do [video]

#680

Post by adrianN »

bsdpufferfish wrote: post #524
adrianN wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religious predictions never come with data to support them. That’s an important difference.

If we were looking at data we wouldn’t be - banning plastic bags and straws - buying expensive electrical vehicles - ignoring other risks in our circle of influence - listening to public figures and scientists who gave us “point of no return” dates several times in the last 30 years

If we were listening to data we would have started the energy transition sometime in the seventies and er world have this discussion now.
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