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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#221

Post by timschmidt »

throw310822 wrote: post #188
timschmidt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Why don't you pay for a more expensive bag and bring it to the store?

Why do you assume I don't? Opinionated defaults matter, as that's what most users will end up using.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#222

Post by CGMthrowaway »

throw310822 wrote: post #185
mullingitover wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. I have to disagree here. This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting. The fossil energy industry pulls the…

I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?

Where does the chain end? I burn diesel in my tractor to harvest corn. Should the feedlot that buys my corn pay for the tractor’s emissions? Should the slaughterhouse that processes the cattle pay? Should the supermarket that stocks the beef pay? Should the family who grills the steak on Sunday pay? Or just the one who eats the largest portion?

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#223

Post by rkrisztian »

vaylian wrote: post #200
rkrisztian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying this. If you want to know the answer to what causes climate problems, you need to go back to the era of dinosaurs, where CO2 levels were multiple times higher than today. Trees could thrive because they could breathe in a lot of CO2. Dinosaurs got so big because there were plenty of food. How could dinosaurs happily live with such high CO2 levels? The key is that there were plenty of forests. Pet…

The climate system in those prehistoric times was in a different stable state. The world that we live in has different ecosystems that are well-adapted to the current stable state and we will likely face a mass-extinction event once the ecological scales tip over. The problem is also the speed in which the CO2 levels are rising. Such a massive change in such a short geological time is very unusual.

[dead]

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#224

Post by fc417fc802 »

bamboozled wrote: post #50
anon84873628 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a classic multi-agent coordination problem. Should I stop taking jet liners and eating meat, when everyone else is anyway? (Edit: purely illustrative rhetorical question, but I appreciate the responses)

It’s hard to convince people not to eat food and take a plane when billionaires do whatever they like at 1000x the carbon footprint, when millions of people drive to work and when base load power is built on fossil fuels. To me eating protein and taking a plane seem benign.

I agree.

If the plane doesn't use synthetic fuel that's a political problem that I can't realistically solve as an individual.

The methane from raising animals exists in an overall equilibrium. It isn't extractive and the total magnitude of the effects of that chemical system is comparatively minor.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#225

Post by throw310822 »

thesuitonym wrote: post #206
throw310822 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?

The amount of fossil fuels that a working class individual burns are a rounding error compared to what big companies burn. How many private jets are in the air right now? Even if you drive the most energy inefficient truck ever produced, run your home HVAC at max, and buy gasoline just to burn in your back yard, you will never measure up. It's like saying we need to dry the oceans, so you should stop peeing in it.

> if you drive the most energy inefficient truck ever produced

Sorry, but how was that truck produced? Where did the energy to make it come from? How was your home built, where did the energy come from? Where did the materials come from? How did the workers come to the job? What did they eat, and what do you eat? Do you go to an office? How was it built? How do you and your colleagues get there? Do your children go to school? Do you go to hospitals when you're sick? Etc.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#226

Post by short_sells_poo »

goatlover wrote: post #193
quantified wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving from fossil is less convenient, not more. So, we're stuck.

For how long though? Solar and wind are very competitive now, electric cars have been good enough to transition to for over a decade, other industries can be decarbonized with the right incentives and enough investment. It's not like there aren't any ideas for how to farm or produce steel cleanly. And nuclear reactors can be made safer and cheaper now. Seems more like a lack of political will with powerful lobbying i…

For a long time to come. The energy density of fossil fuels is very high (about 50x higher than that of lithium ion batteries), there's a ton of infrastructure for handling and transporting them and a ton of infrastructure for using them.

They get turned into plastics and energy, two things which civilization feeds on voraciously.

It's not just inertia that keeps them going.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#227

Post by reactordev »

Fwirt wrote: post #182
reactordev wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You laugh but if everyone changed just some of their behavior, we would be in a much better place. We used to reuse glass jars, now it’s plastic. We used to can goods, now it’s plastic. We used to use refillable bottles, now it’s plastic. We used to have car doors that went “thunk” when you slammed them shut, now it’s plastic. If we each are mindful of the amount of trash/litter/waste we produce and take an active st…

The problem is that a single consumer can't throw themselves into the gears of the industrial machine to slow its progress. If you stop buying food in plastic containers, the food will still be produced, and it will still be purchased by the large multinational corporations that have supply contracts with the food industry, it will just go straight into a landfill when its expiration date passes instead of being purc…

I get what you're saying. I lived on a sailboat with solar so I understand... The sailboat I lived on was made with fiberglass, a petrochemical product. We would still be in a better place though even if the inevitable demise will still occur. It would just occur later.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#228

Post by goatlover »

mym1990 wrote: post #91
yoyohello13 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, more people seems to care about getting AI to play SimCity than the environment. Renewable energy technology is ready, right now today, to replace fossil fuels. All we have to do is start doing it, but the Oil lobby is just too strong apparently. There is no political will. I wish I was wrong, but I just don't see humanity pulling together to solve this one.

We are a planet of 8 billion people, interest will vary widely. Expecting everyone to swarm on the same issue at the same time is simply not how humanity has worked in the past. Innovation often happens because many people go different directions, testing what works and what doesn't. Getting AI to play SimCity may be a stepping stone to real life urban planning, or it may be nothing, who knows?

Humanity in the past has acted to eradicate Polio through global vaccinations, fix the Y2K computer bug, allow the Ozone hole to repair by banning CFCs, form a United Nations to prevent WW3 among other things.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#229

Post by throw310822 »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #222
throw310822 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?

Where does the chain end? I burn diesel in my tractor to harvest corn. Should the feedlot that buys my corn pay for the tractor’s emissions? Should the slaughterhouse that processes the cattle pay? Should the supermarket that stocks the beef pay? Should the family who grills the steak on Sunday pay? Or just the one who eats the largest portion?

You either tax the fuel and pass the cost down to the consumers, or decide as a society to share the cost of the externalities and use general taxation for that.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#230

Post by javascriptfan69 »

pendenthistory wrote: post #123
ctoth wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern about climate is well placed. Ripple et al. lay out a serious case that we may be closer to tipping cascades than models predict, with the Greenland Ice Sheet potentially vulnerable to tipping below 2°C warming, well before 2050. But "invest an equal share of the resources currently being pumped into AI into climate" misidentifies the bottleneck. Marine cloud brightening could produce meaningful planetary…

Cooling the planet is neither a technical nor financial problem. The problem is that environmentalists want this to be a moral issue. They already decided on the solution. If the solution is not environmental communism with them in power, they will not have it.

>Cooling the planet is neither a technical nor financial problem

Yes it is. All solutions have trade offs.

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