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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]

#731

Post by johnchristopher »

guil177 wrote: post #645
johnchristopher wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting myself (again) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36619271 : - There's no climate change - Climate change is okay and has no impact - Climate change exists but it's due to natural causes - Climate change exists but it's due to natural causes and its impacts are small - Climate change exists but its impacts are good for us - Climate change exists but we will adapt - Climate change exists and its the activist…

To me he is more like: Climate change exists but we will adapt.

Nah,

> I wonder, if they managed to alienate people without a car and very low CO2 footprint, what demographic is actually left to cater to?

With climate deniers and conspiracists I always suppose they hide their real stance and it is revealed through small hints they let out. I strongly believe these small hints are baits to see if the other party has the same beliefs. They will be lying until they think there are in like-minded company (or are too drunk and let it out).

Yeah, I have been burned hard before by climate and covid deniers who lied right out to my face. They are dishonest and advance in disguise (with loaded questions and fake scepticism and the whole arsenal of arguments coming from fabricated doubt factories).

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

#733

Post by mgaunard »

tim333 wrote: post #727
mgaunard wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not up to individuals to fix it. Your impact is nothing. Cars matter very little in the big picture as well -- it's a distraction to blame the little people. The vast majority of pollution is caused by industrial processes. The fix here is simple: regulate and enforce the regulation. The main polluting countries are: the USA: too afraid to do anything in case it affects their economy, political caste too corrupt…

World society is just a bunch of individuals so some have to do something. Re global regulation you need to get the main players like the US, China and Russia to agree some sort of policy which is tricky but might be possible if people lobby their politicians.

There is already a global agreement that the US keeps getting out of.

China has already solved their problem and significantly improved air quality in its cities, and is the world biggest builder of nuclear power plants. They ceased being a problem already.

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

#734

Post by ianburrell »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #678
ianai wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is no problem mining oil for tires and roads. The carbon is sequestered. The problem is burning fossil fuels and producing CO2. Also, tires and roads are a byproduct of refining, and much less is produced than gasoline.

Mining lithium doesn't require gasoline. Mining can be electrified like many other things. Probably easier to electrify than long distance transport since it is short distances.

Nuclear waste is not a danger in the far future. The radioactive products decay on short time scale. Most of them are gone in century, but they want to store them for.

Lithium batteries aren't a problem if they did decay. Lithium is a common, non-toxic metal. Some batteries, like lead acid in every car, have toxic metals but is small scale overall and not that dangerous.

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

#735

Post by pxeboot »

maigret wrote: post #193
pxeboot wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bicycle machine emits nothing The tires and some types of brakes still emit micro plastics.

How much? If that's 1% of car (making this up), would this be a real practical issue? By the way this argumentation is great to sabotage any argument to keep the statusquo. When someone argues for a way better solution, tell why it's still not 100% perfect to make people to believe it has the same flaws than the previous state. Repeat until someone finds a 100% perfect solution (hint: there is never such a thing).

I am not arguing against biking, just pointing out that with current materials, there is still pollution emitted. As you said, cars are likely exponentially worse.

Shoes have the same problem, except for some very expensive artisan brands. They may actually be worse per mile than biking.

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

#736

Post by hnmullany »

evandijk70 wrote: post #390
hnmullany wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change is a catastrophe, but it's not going to be the apocalypse and if we keep working on mititgation, there is a good chance it will merely be a "normal" scale disaster. For example - it's possible that tundra methane emissions in many areas could be mitigated relatively quickly by the regrowth of birch and pine scrubland whose increased evapotranspiration will reduce water tables and eliminate methane emis…

Not a biologist, but won't the tropical amphibians migrate away from the equator? It seems to me that polar bears and penguins have bigger problems

Amphibians have low dispersal speeds. Precipitation changes are a big driver, more than temperature:

Paper reference:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40419628

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

#737

Post by nojvek »

kylebenzle wrote: post #647
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #566

You can do something about this. I got involved in climate advocacy in 2021. Since then I’ve successfully lobbied my local government to start an energy resources study, which will look at ways for my community to quickly transition to renewables. A small thing. But if we all do small things, it will add up! Still though. My state, Arizona has really terrible people writing awful laws. This legislative session they’r…

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…

The scale at which China is deploying Solar is more than rest of world combined. It’s frankly quite amazing.

If any major economy achieved zero emissions for productions of electricity, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was either China using Solar and Nuclear, or France betting on Nuclear.

We call China our enemy, but the biggest enemy of US is US. We can either adapt or live in the past.

Electricity prices haven’t changed much in last 50 years in real currency.

Economies that heavily invest in cheap energy, and high autonomy will win out.

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

#738

Post by ianburrell »

mgaunard wrote: post #724
perlgeek wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you have partial control. You can vote for candidates that take climate change seriously. You can decide to buy or lease an EV instead of an ICE one. You can raise the bar for when you book a flight. And so on...

It's not up to individuals to fix it. Your impact is nothing. Cars matter very little in the big picture as well -- it's a distraction to blame the little people. The vast majority of pollution is caused by industrial processes. The fix here is simple: regulate and enforce the regulation. The main polluting countries are: the USA: too afraid to do anything in case it affects their economy, political caste too corrupt…

We don't care about pollution, for climate change only the pollution of carbon dioxide matters. The majority of carbon dioxide is produced by transportation and heating, much of that from individuals.

There are a lot of people that want to deflect from action on climate change by focusing on the oil refinery and not the tailpipe.

Your list is suspiciously missing China, the biggest producer of CO2. Saudi Arabia is down the list, after South Korea and Germany; their CO2 per capita is but not abormally. It is the per capita emissions and population that matter. Then USA (300 million), Russia (147 million), Saudi Arabia (40 million), India (1.4 billion). The first three have large per capita emissions, double the others. The list of CO2 producers are basically a list of large and/or rich countries.

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

#739

Post by ianburrell »

madaxe_again wrote: post #457
PeterisP wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you may be technically true, it is obviously clear that some places are far safer than others, and moving to another place will have a very high impact on how global warming affects you, as some regions will be affected much more harshly than others. At the extreme, some places may be underwater or otherwise uninhabitable, but if you can afford to, moving away from them in a timely manner, you can escape being…

Second order effects will be the killer. It won’t be the coastal flooding, it will be the dispossessed hordes. It won’t be the uninhabitable areas, it will be the rapid rise in price of food staples. No matter where you are, the chaos will come to your door, when it comes. Takes surprisingly little to collapse a civilisation when you kick its knees out from under it.

There are also potential feedback effects from rising temperature. Northern Europe should survive the 2C warming we are headed towards, but higher temps could cause big problems.

Northern Europe should worry about the Gulf Stream or Atlantic Conveyor currents failing and changing the climate.

Another big one is melting permafrost. Warmer temps cause permafrost to melt and release CO2, which leads to more warming, and repeat.

Finally, there is danger of ice sheets melting which could rise sea levels by hundreds of feet.

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

#740

Post by trimethylpurine »

ianburrell wrote: post #734
trimethylpurine wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is no problem mining oil for tires and roads. The carbon is sequestered. The problem is burning fossil fuels and producing CO2. Also, tires and roads are a byproduct of refining, and much less is produced than gasoline. Mining lithium doesn't require gasoline. Mining can be electrified like many other things. Probably easier to electrify than long distance transport since it is short distances. Nuclear waste is…

Not nuclear in a century? Who sold you that? It doesn't matter. We can't discuss the pros and cons because downvotes prevent me from commenting. The choice is made for you. Enjoy. Knowingly or unknowingly, I'm sure you're destroying the environment. And since we can't discuss it, you can't convince me otherwise. I'll vote against you until I die because we can't discuss the topic. How can I learn if you're right?
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