When will the rich, say top 10% of planet decrease their emissions?
Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
41–50 of 395 posts
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#42Not much of a surprise. Government action has been anemic at best. Industry action (overall) has been net negative. The only hope now is exponential growth of (solar and wind)+batteries making other sources uneconomic. This seems to be slowly happening, so I hope we hit the exponential curve soon and we're there quicker than we expect. This only stops it. Then, to fix it, we'll need a massive Direct Air Capture indus…
The technology-will-save-us mentality is part of the reason we are here. We live in a society that doesn't do anything unless it makes money for some set of decrepit old men. We had the means to avoid this (strict vegan diets, ground based mass transit, dense development & re-wilding, energy transition) but people made money doing the opposite. And more people made money sabotaging solar+battery pricing in the US. So…
I've been vegetarian for 7-8 years and think it'd be great if everyone stopped eating meat, but expecting even a single person to stop who hasn't already expressed interest in it is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. We should not base our strategies for fighting climate change on hoping all of humanity will take a sudden 180° turn on their natural instincts to eat meat.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The technology-will-save-us mentality is part of the reason we are here. We live in a society that doesn't do anything unless it makes money for some set of decrepit old men. We had the means to avoid this (strict vegan diets, ground based mass transit, dense development & re-wilding, energy transition) but people made money doing the opposite. And more people made money sabotaging solar+battery pricing in the US. So…
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Sorry but this just isn't true. Of course you need more energy to produce a cow and then eat it than you need to sustain yourself by just eating the cows food.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#44There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people. We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.
fourth airport opening in the DC area this week, the news says
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#45There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people. We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.
There was an obvious path that the environmentalists mostly opposed. A decade is plenty of time for massive scale buildout of nuclear power. If we'd started that a decade ago we'd be in a good position now.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#46Not much of a surprise. Government action has been anemic at best. Industry action (overall) has been net negative. The only hope now is exponential growth of (solar and wind)+batteries making other sources uneconomic. This seems to be slowly happening, so I hope we hit the exponential curve soon and we're there quicker than we expect. This only stops it. Then, to fix it, we'll need a massive Direct Air Capture indus…
The technology-will-save-us mentality is part of the reason we are here. We live in a society that doesn't do anything unless it makes money for some set of decrepit old men. We had the means to avoid this (strict vegan diets, ground based mass transit, dense development & re-wilding, energy transition) but people made money doing the opposite. And more people made money sabotaging solar+battery pricing in the US. So…
The issue with the global warming advocates is that they seem to believe that in order to solve global warming we need to make everyone's life worse. That was already a non-starter. It's just terrible marketing.
You say it's for the benefit of "decrepit old men," but the fact is that more and more of the globe is being lifted out of poverty and living more comfortably than ever before. The unfortunate fact is that global warming is an unstoppable force now, humans would have to go extinct for it to waiver.
I'm not saying we should do nothing, but I am saying that your framing is exactly why no one listens to global warming advocacy. We are powerless against it, not because of governments, but because people are living better and no one is going to sacrifice that; and even if they did the math doesn't add up to reverse course. The people that say we should all be sacrificing are often the richest among us that don't even know what sacrifice entails, contrary to your point.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#47We already know we need to pump the breaks on AI for a host of safety issues. However, perhaps the biggest concern is the sheer scale of electricity generation they require. One hyperscale data centre can require electricity equivalent to a fair sized city. Many data centre builders are keen to claim they'll use renewable energy sources... eventually. They'll just suck power off the grid "temporarily" or rely on "clean" natural gas for a few years. There are a decent number of states, provinces, etc. whose total emissions will double in a matter of months. Could the timing possibly be worse?
From a warming perspective, it's utter madness to let this build-out proceed unimpeded. New data centres should be required to be net-zero at power-up. Unfortunately, it's a race and the U.S. side of it has an administration that is actively rolling back policies that fight climate change.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#48Not much of a surprise. Government action has been anemic at best. Industry action (overall) has been net negative. The only hope now is exponential growth of (solar and wind)+batteries making other sources uneconomic. This seems to be slowly happening, so I hope we hit the exponential curve soon and we're there quicker than we expect. This only stops it. Then, to fix it, we'll need a massive Direct Air Capture indus…
the best CO2 capture are trees
Probably algae.
Land only slightly beats the ocean, like a 53-47 split or something, and trees are only part of the primary production on land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_production
This is also why you sometimes see startups pumping green goo through plastic pipes for home-scale solar biofuel systems.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#49Not much of a surprise. Government action has been anemic at best. Industry action (overall) has been net negative. The only hope now is exponential growth of (solar and wind)+batteries making other sources uneconomic. This seems to be slowly happening, so I hope we hit the exponential curve soon and we're there quicker than we expect. This only stops it. Then, to fix it, we'll need a massive Direct Air Capture indus…
The technology-will-save-us mentality is part of the reason we are here. We live in a society that doesn't do anything unless it makes money for some set of decrepit old men. We had the means to avoid this (strict vegan diets, ground based mass transit, dense development & re-wilding, energy transition) but people made money doing the opposite. And more people made money sabotaging solar+battery pricing in the US. So…
Ah yes, the profit motive kept us off of strict vegan diets. Right, sure.
Re: Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it isn't, the idea that strict vegan diets would have stoped climate change is just nonsense. Run the numbers. "Strict vegan diets" is the attitude of US activists telling the developing world that they need to change their behavior before the US activist is willing to accept driving less or adopting dense urban infill housing. "Making money" is the incentive system of society. Technology has now aligned society's…
Significant amounts of the third world are already eating de-facto vegetarian or vegan diets. Many for religious reasons (i.e. in India where the vast majority of people either eat no meat or only chicken/fish), and many others for financial reasons. Strict vegan diets would objectively massively help reduce climate change.
That is not true, most people in India don’t eat meat because they are too poor to afford it and hence malnourishment.