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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#231

Post by kieranmaine »

The bull case is solar and batteries are only going to get cheaper so the speed of the transition will increase.

* Australia's renewables generation increased from 13.7% in 2015 to 42.9% in 2025 [1]

* EIA: 99%+ of new US capacity in 2026 will be solar, wind + storage [2]

* Wind and solar overtake fossil power in the EU for the first time in 2025 [3]

1. https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all...

2. https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/eia-99-of-new-us-capacity-in-...

3. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit...

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#232

Post by marginalia_nu »

mullingitover wrote: post #92
smartmic wrote: post #18

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution t…

> 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…

Problem is that we if we all stand in a circle and point fingers at the next guy who is to blame, that doesn't really move us toward any sort of solutions.

In fact the reason it's so easy to find others to blame is that the responsibility is a shared one. Holding consumers responsible doesn't absolve producers, or governments for their participation. All have to be held responsible for their actions. That's the only way forward.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#233

Post by 2III7 »

Simbio wrote: post #124
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a case of prisoner's dilemma. Individuals making the proposed lifestyle changes in order to make a genuine dent in AGW amount to jumping on the tracks in order to stop a freight train. This is the one issue where I feel some sympathy with the right. I hate "Virtue signaling" about as much as they do. I'm sorry, but if you are going to snap at people over eating beef, while you fly/drive all over the country/world…

Prisoner's dilemma is a bad reference here. Prisoner's dilemma is about situation when optimal outcome requires cooperation from all participants. In the situation with climate change, personal decisions of 99% of Earth population do not really matter.

WDYM personal decisions don't matter? Industrial and agricultural sectors, which both in sum contribute 50% of total greenhouse gas emissions, produce what is in demand from consumers. Another 15% of emissions is from personal vehicles. Changing personal habits is the only way we can ever reach some utopian climate targets. Utopian because old habits die hard.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#234

Post by filoeleven »

bhickey wrote: post #34
chasil wrote: post #29

What is generally not understood is that our current icehouse phase is rare. 'A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet... Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history. 'Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously... Earth's current icehouse state is known as the Quaternary Ice Age and began ap…

The _state_ isn't alarming, it's the rate of change. The transition is happening on a scale of human lifetimes instead of geological time.

Yeah. The XKCD "Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature" is, I'm pretty certain, the most frightening chart I have ever seen.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#235

Post by AnthonyMouse »

bayindirh wrote: post #117
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my body goes haywire if I don't eat some meat at least a couple of days per week Isn't this just a nutrient deficiency in whatever you were eating instead of meat? Meat is "convenient" because it's high in a wide variety of minerals, vitamins, essential amino acids, etc. that your body can't make. (The animals mostly can't make them either but guess what livestock eats.) There are plants that contain each of them,…

Nope. Some aminoacids and compounds are only present in meat. These aminoacids and compounds are the ones which boosted our brain capacity and allowed us to evolve to that point. I eat (and like to eat) tons of veggies, yet I feel my brain capacity declines and I crave esp. meat if I don't eat it for a long time (for two weeks or whatnot). As I said, I don't need two ribeye steaks per week. My body is very good at si…

> Nope. Some aminoacids and compounds are only present in meat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_amino_acids_in_plant...

Notice that many of the plants high in some of these aren't that common, e.g. what percentage of people regularly eat pumpkin seeds or spirulina?

> So, not every person is the same, and assuming that every human being works the same is a big mistake made by modern medicine.

It's not that you need the same diet as every other person, it's that you have to eat the specific things you need, which a random selection of plants may or may not contain in the right amounts.

> For example, my brain chemistry is also different and I consume B12 much more than a typical human, so I need to use B-complex supplements more.

B12 in particular is a pain because it's only produced by bacteria (commonly found in soil) so the options are unwashed vegetables, meat from animals that eat unwashed vegetables, or supplements. And on top of that because of the way it's absorbed, a B12 pill either has to be taken multiple times a day several hours apart or has to be 100x as much to make up for the absorption rate falling off a cliff after a threshold amount which is below the RDA.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#236

Post by htx80nerd »

smartmic wrote: post #18

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful. And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution t…

every year (month?) that passes people are saying the end of the world is right around the corner due to climate change. then 10 yrs passes, nothing happens, and they keep saying the same stuff.

the system warning you the world is in big trouble dont remind you 'their side' has been saying the sky is falling for ~40+ yrs.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#237

Post by Mordisquitos »

quantified wrote: post #139
Mordisquitos wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that consumer-level personal responsibility is absolutely not the way to go. To a certain extent I try to non-dogmatically "do the right thing", but I know it's simply a cute hobby. The only solution is systemic. The incentives need to be in order for businesses and consumers to do the right thing not because it is the right thing, but because it's cheaper or more convenient. That can only be impleme…

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

And yet, we're not completely stuck. It is absolutely clear that not enough has been done to reduce our carbon emissions, and we're on a bad path on track to ~2.5°C warming in the next century. However, something has been done, and if nothing had been done we could easily be on track to >4°C global warming. That would be much worse.

So, how did we achieve what little we have? Well, because many people have cared, and have made the right decisions. Not enough people, or maybe not good-enough decisions, but some people, and somewhat good decisions.

So, what were the decisions which brought us down from an apocalyptic +4°C to a very bad 2.5°C path? Was it enough consumers making environmentally conscious choices, even if they were less convenient or more expensive. No. It was enough voters wanting their leaders to do something, even if it wasn't quite enough, but it was something. And something isn't nothing.

We will never have enough people voting with their wallet to fight climate change, because our rational understanding of the big-picture cannot overpower our intuitive day-to-day choices. However, we may have enough people voting with their ballot to fight climate change, because the rational big-picture can, sometimes, decide whom we vote for.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#238

Post by goatlover »

foolfoolz wrote: post #157
aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

this is like a tiktok rage bait way of thinking. western nations have largely peaked on carbon emissions. china is slowing down and will peak soon. there are a lot of countries that still are growing in emissions, sure, but you are not looking at this scientifically.

Scientifically according to the article, the world is on an emissions path to 2.8°C warming, not accounting for the extra rate of warming we've seen in recent years. And this puts us at greater risk of hitting tipping points into an even warmer planet. So the status quo isn't cutting it.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#239

Post by logicprog »

baq wrote: post #25

Nothing new under the sun. We can't cut emissions fast enough politically, but we can race towards economically viable fusion power which would solve the problem from the supply side and would make industrial scale carbon sequestration not insane, for a century or so, until waste heat itself can't be radiated fast enough even in 250 ppm CO2 atmosphere - but that's a problem for the XXII century.

Economically viable fusion power uses the fusion reactor in the sky beaming energy to us for free that we can collect with relatively cheap, simple, decentralized, solid state, and extremely long lasting (decades) power transmission recievers.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#240

Post by htx80nerd »

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #8

So maybe the people who aren’t having kids due to climate change were right after all?

Go ask Google about China and the 3rd world contribution to global pollution. The West is bending over backwards to 'fight climate change' and a huge chunk of the world is just doing whatever they want, completely negating all of the west efforts.
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