11–20 of 31 posts
Good, so we have shown that we can make a difference. That means the defeatist argument ("we can't, so what's the point") does not hold, and we can proceed to actually do something. Patting ourselves on the shoulder that something has been done in the past will not help.
Quite. Plant trees and conserve peat bogs.
Ditching CFS is laudable. Ditching oil is a bit harder. I remember the hole in the ozone layer thing from start to not being quite finished (there are still a few holdouts in some parts of the world) I remember the breathless announcements on the TV news and realizing that the underarm deodorant I was using was a wrong one and doing fuck all about it (I was a teenager.) The manufacturer of that deodorant switched che…
Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. If we'd been willing to take the economic hit (and able to co-ordinate doing so as a species) we could have kept emissions well below the current atmospheric level within the bounds of current technology. It would just have meant building a lot of nuclear power plants and using shitty batteries for a lot of stuff
I agree about nuclear, though. We should have been doubling down on them years ago, if only as a stop-gap until the renewable power storage problem has been solved. Although I'm of the opinion that they should be a solid percentage of our power output until fusion plants are viable. Our energy needs are only going to go up in the future.
Good, so we have shown that we can make a difference. That means the defeatist argument ("we can't, so what's the point") does not hold, and we can proceed to actually do something. Patting ourselves on the shoulder that something has been done in the past will not help.
Quite. Plant trees and conserve peat bogs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. If we'd been willing to take the economic hit (and able to co-ordinate doing so as a species) we could have kept emissions well below the current atmospheric level within the bounds of current technology. It would just have meant building a lot of nuclear power plants and using shitty batteries for a lot of stuff
Sure, but ditching your 20-year old beater of a car for a new electric one is not viable for a large percentage of the population at the moment, even in the richest countries. Maybe when 20-year old beater EVs are a thing the tide will turn. I agree about nuclear, though. We should have been doubling down on them years ago, if only as a stop-gap until the renewable power storage problem has been solved. Although I'm…
That's part of the coordinating as a species problem.
Good, so we have shown that we can make a difference. That means the defeatist argument ("we can't, so what's the point") does not hold, and we can proceed to actually do something. Patting ourselves on the shoulder that something has been done in the past will not help.
Ditching CFS is laudable. Ditching oil is a bit harder. I remember the hole in the ozone layer thing from start to not being quite finished (there are still a few holdouts in some parts of the world) I remember the breathless announcements on the TV news and realizing that the underarm deodorant I was using was a wrong one and doing fuck all about it (I was a teenager.) The manufacturer of that deodorant switched che…
Cash for clunkers anyone? How much waste did that create...turn in a 20 year old Civic and get a bunch of money to buy a brand new vehicle that probably gets worse MPG.
Change it over to "Cheap EV for clunkers", the government could/should cover most of the financials and it's a win for the car owner and the environment.
I think it could be argued that it's the government's job to fund things like this. Vision is all that's required!
Ditching CFS is laudable. Ditching oil is a bit harder. I remember the hole in the ozone layer thing from start to not being quite finished (there are still a few holdouts in some parts of the world) I remember the breathless announcements on the TV news and realizing that the underarm deodorant I was using was a wrong one and doing fuck all about it (I was a teenager.) The manufacturer of that deodorant switched che…
Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. If we'd been willing to take the economic hit (and able to co-ordinate doing so as a species) we could have kept emissions well below the current atmospheric level within the bounds of current technology. It would just have meant building a lot of nuclear power plants and using shitty batteries for a lot of stuff
I can't think of anything that is both expensive and easy to do. If something is very easy, why would it ever be expensive?
The Montreal Protocol is a lot like the chemical weapons ban: a ban of something the rich and powerful really don’t need that is incidentally the right thing to do. This kind of enforcement regime will work on fossil fuels in about 20 years when we have fusion power, but until then incentives are too greatly against it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ditching fossil fuels substantially isn't hard, it's just expensive. If we'd been willing to take the economic hit (and able to co-ordinate doing so as a species) we could have kept emissions well below the current atmospheric level within the bounds of current technology. It would just have meant building a lot of nuclear power plants and using shitty batteries for a lot of stuff
Sure, but ditching your 20-year old beater of a car for a new electric one is not viable for a large percentage of the population at the moment, even in the richest countries. Maybe when 20-year old beater EVs are a thing the tide will turn. I agree about nuclear, though. We should have been doubling down on them years ago, if only as a stop-gap until the renewable power storage problem has been solved. Although I'm…