Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think • Hacker News Board

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#181

Post by seppin » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

tito wrote: post #36

seppin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climate change will create the first trillionaire. Or it will break down every aspect of our current society until it is unrecognizable. Your "technology will save us" attitude isn't a plan, it's more of a prayer.

Yes, that future society will be unrecognizable in many ways. Today, my lifestyle emits over 30 tons of carbon dioxide per year. That's the weight of almost 30 cars every year. Any society that manages to do away with that will be completely different than today's. Unrecognizable, here we come!

> Unrecognizable, here we come!

You seem to think things will get better. What evidence do you have of this, besides the fact that global security, political stability and climate change is all getting worse, fast.

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#182

Post by lliamander » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:56 AM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #6

tito wrote: post #4

Climate change will create the first trillionaire. Find every machine that eats fossil fuels and electrify it. Find every crop that requires stable land and predictable weather and farm it in a shipping container. Find every underlying infrastructure that requires decades to pay off and decentralize it. Instead of water line pipes, pull water out of the air. Instead of fiber optic cables make LEO satellites. Instead…

> Climate change will create the first trillionaire. Is that a good thing?

Better than the alternatives, which are:

* We end up in serious deprivation due to climate change

* We end up in serious deprivation due to the austerity measured imposed on industrial society to prevent climate change

Re: Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think

#183

Post by godelski » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

johnsimer wrote: post #168

ciconia wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solving climate change can be as simple as getting a carbon price adopted. Such a solution cannot work, as long as we have a growth-based economy. The fact is that economists have long regarded natural resources as infinite, and their models are conceived accordingly. Infinite growth is by definition incompatible with a finite planet. Until we have come up with a new, finite economic model (which means also a profo…

We can adapt to a green and infinite model - solar energy is effectively infinite - assuming we adapt before catastrophe

What do you mean by solar energy being infinite? There's a clear limit to how much energy the sun outputs. If we had high efficiency collection it would last us for awhile. But I think a lesson to learn from all this is that no resource is unlimited and it's better to recognize those limitations and prepare a mitigating well ahead of time rather than when we're in crisis. Though lack of sufficient solar energy (because high energy demands) is not likely to be catastrophic.