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Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

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Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#171

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

kgabis wrote: post #164
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems strange to go for the untested approach with unknown side effects instead of reducing and stopping the dumping of CO2 into our air. The best time to reduce emissions was 50 years ago, but the next best time is now. I think we're currently in the situation that we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.

That's why we should be advocating for more research into SAI, but the reality is we will do it anyway when situation gets bad enough. Global warming has happened and will get only worse, if we ignore the possibility of geoengineering we risk losing not only human lives but also a lot of biodiversity after ecosystems collapse.

I'm not a fan of "we must do something, this is something,so we'll do it".

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#172

Post by haizhung »

et-al wrote: post #41

Unfortunately Germany phased out nuclear power, but continues to burn coal.

I swear to god there is not one single thread on HN about Germany where nuclear reactors aren’t brought up.

Nuclear reactors are not solving this problem. Period. The technology is too expensive, building them is too slow, and no one wants them.

It’s a smoke screen (that I think is) set up by big oil to distract the focus from renewables, which are cheaper, scale better, and actually endanger their business model.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#173

Post by scoofy »

Timon3 wrote: post #135
fnordian_slip wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently wrote a reply to someone else with the same argument about the German greens, which I'll recycle here: "It's bad enough that nuclear proponents ignore the massive cost of nuclear compared to renewables once you factor in building costs, insurance and storage imho. But then to pretend like the conservatives didn't have a choice but to bungle the nuclear exit really is too much. The CDU never listened to the…

Yeah, it's crazy how successful that particular piece of propaganda is. The conservative CDU is responsible for the decommissioning of nuclear plants, while the Greens extended the lifetime of the remaining plants . It's literally the other way around, but people don't question it - it feels too good to complain about the Greens, right?

It’s successful because it belies the unseriousness that some of even the strongest proponents of the crisis can have.

I’m an environmentalist. This has been a crisis my entire life. I’m happy for nuclear to be a solution exactly because it’s a crisis. Do I think it’s the best choice long run? No. It has externalities that are concerning. However, it’s a serious crisis, so go ahead and build them if it can help.

I’m an urbanist. I live in a housing crisis. I’m happy for ugly five over ones to be built to help people afford a place to live because it’s a crisis. Do I think they are ugly? Yes. Would I prefer a significant amount of revenue? Sure. However, it’s a crisis, so go ahead and build them.

When your coalition starts getting picky about solutions, it signals that they don’t actually believe it’s is a genuine crisis.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#174

Post by insane_dreamer »

cebert wrote: post #8

If we don’t do something about this, I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.

> If we don’t do something about this

we were sorta going to do something about it, but then we invented LLMs and now nobody cares because $$$ and AI is shiny

> I fear future generations will not view us in a positive light.

you can be sure that they already will curse us

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#175

Post by insane_dreamer »

A good book to read is The Ministry of the Future; yeah, parts could be better written, and I'm not hopeful things will turn out the way they do in the book, but what it did convince me of is that nothing substantial will happen until there is a catastrophic event along the lines of what happens in the beginning of the book -- and even then only if it happens in a "major" (by Western standards) country (i.e., all of the DRC could die and Americans would still happily drive their SUVs to McD for burgers).

The other interesting thing in the book is the emergence of radical groups fighting against who they see as responsible for the destruction of our planet and potentially even our civilizations. We could see a lot more social violence, assassinations (Mangione-style) etc. I'm fairly sure that's going to happen.

Maybe I've lost hope, but I honestly do not want my kids to have any kids of their own, as I'm afraid of the world they will inherit. (And I've been a confirmed techno-future-enthusiast my whole life until 5-10 years ago.)

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#176

Post by belorn »

haizhung wrote: post #172
et-al wrote: post #41

Unfortunately Germany phased out nuclear power, but continues to burn coal.

I swear to god there is not one single thread on HN about Germany where nuclear reactors aren’t brought up. Nuclear reactors are not solving this problem. Period. The technology is too expensive, building them is too slow, and no one wants them. It’s a smoke screen (that I think is) set up by big oil to distract the focus from renewables, which are cheaper, scale better, and actually endanger their business model.

It is time to set a zero-fossil fuels goal in the grid, similar to how we are banning the sale of new ICE in cars. I would say a complete stop in EU for construction of new grid sized fossil fueled power plants by 2030, and a stop of producing energy in the grid using fossil fuels in 2035.

This should be supported by both those that advocate nuclear and those advocating renewables. Those that do advocate for a grid with renewables that are supported with a reserve energy fleet of fossil fueled power plants, like the oil power plant in south of Sweden, will just have to find an alternative. If that alternative is cheaper, faster and more attractive than nuclear then the choice is obvious, and if its not then fossil fuels are still not an option. This include using bio fuels produced with artificial fertilizers since that process currently uses natural gas (which is why people are predicting a food shortage and famine as a result of the war in Iran).

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#177

Post by Dagonfly »

exabrial wrote: post #83

Germany just shut down several perfectly fine nuclear reactors and has some of the dirtiest electricity generation in the entire world They need to look inward before pointing outward.

> some of the dirtiest electricity generation in the entire world

In Europe. Still cleaner than the US, China, India, Japan, and the world avg:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...

Coal and gas are down 50% compared to 10 years ago despite the shut-down. Nevertheless, shutting down the last few ones was bad.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#178

Post by SpacePortKnight »

It'll be fine, especially in EU. It's much easier to adapt and to make renewables more economically profitable than to accelerate decarbonization by raising cost of living.

Even if few days get 10C hotter in the summers, more and more houses will retrofit themsevles with ACs much like Singapore. I live in NL, and I can def see a future where District Cooling[1] becomes a thing.

If something is bound to happen, I think a better way to spend energy and money is to prepare for it. In that sense, I would like to see a study on which crops we as a human species could rotate too, what new lands could use investment and how should new housing and public infrastructure be built than constant articles like these which presents no realistic solution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_cooling

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