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Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

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Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#241

Post by thedevindevops »

konschubert wrote: post #66
starpilot wrote: post #28

Does anyone have any views on buying carbon offsets through services like TerraPass and Carbonfund? I drive a pickup truck so I'd like to reduce my impact, but don't know if the efficacy of carbon offsets have really been evaluated.

I don't think that these services take carbon out of the air and turn it back into fossiles . I guess that they mostly finance re-forestation. Then, you have to ask yourself: Would the new forest happened anyways and they are just taking your money as a bonus? Is the new forest going to be permanent or will it be removed and re-forested again in 30 years?

>Would the new forest happened anyways and they are just taking your money as a bonus? Is the new forest going to be permanent or will it be removed and re-forested again in 30 years?

Perhaps, in decades/centuries a new forest might happen naturally. I should hope - if you're paying for it - that it not be permanent, carbon capture in trees happens fastest at the beginning of their lifecycle so by harvesting and re-foresting it functions as a renewable resource and has greatest efficacy as a carbon sink.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#242

Post by thinkcontext »

kebman wrote: post #156
josho wrote: post #3

> Maybe corporations are the ones who can be pressured to take the lead. Yes. They absolutely will. But only after they have the right incentives. Those incentives can be created over night by having governments put in place a carbon tax. It gets even worse. If a large group of people reduced their energy consumption to help climate change it has the consequence of reducing demand and therefore energy costs will come…

Haha, sure! :D Carbon tax. Sounds legit! Here's what's gonna happen: Corporations just jack up prices accross the board according to the tax, and then everybody else gets to pay. And then nothing changes. It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! :D We're well past incentives. The change has to be law, and the law has to be protected wit…

Consumers are definitely sensitive to prices. In the US in the couple years before the financial crisis gasoline prices spiked to above $4/gallon. This had a dramatic effect on buying habits, with a marked shift to more fuel efficient vehicles. And it hurt SUV happy US automakers to the advantage of more fuel efficient foreign companies.

In Europe, gas prices are 2 to 3 times what they are in the US. As a result, cars are dramatically smaller and more fuel efficient. Transportation patterns are dramatically different, with many fewer miles driven per person.

It's Econ 101 that people adjust their spending in response to price changes. It varies exactly how they do so for different products, this is known as elasticity.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#244

Post by adrianN »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #217
titzer wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Earth will be fine. Life on Earth will be fine... TBH statements like these really grate on me. Yes, Earth will be fine in the same sense that you'd be fine if you surgically removed your arms, legs, eyeballs, ears, and tongue and then were fed intravenously and your waste disposed of for you. You might live a long life and have lots of nice dreams. The reality is that we are in early stages of kicking off a cascad…

I’d love to see a credible source suggesting that climate change has any kind of remote chance of wiping out all life on earth larger than a few cm.

Phytoplankton seems to decline due to warming[1]. If this trend continues we're going to have a bad time. Phytoplankton produces at least half of the oxygen we breathe and is key to the oceanic food web.

[1] https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100728/full/news.2010.379.h...

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#246

Post by wohlergehen »

Juliate wrote: post #139

Indirect action idea (I wonder about it). Gather with other persons to invest a few shares in the major groups responsible for CO2 emissions. Not to have weight per se, but to be invited in shareholders assembly. And to be regularly loud about the topic of the group's responsibility. It's enough for 4, 5 distinct individuals to bring up related questions in the same assembly so that it bothers other investors. Bother…

At least in Germany, this exists [1]. Sorry, but the page is not in English. They target fossil energy, chemical and arms manufacturing industry mostly. You should check if this exists in your country (I can't believe it doesn't) and get involved. This approach does work.

1: https://www.kritischeaktionaere.de/

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#247

Post by TeMPOraL »

onyeka wrote: post #161
doon123 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Well, as comfortable as you will be able get with global wars, refugees, food shortages, etc. going on. I think the crisis will be contained to the poorest parts of the world. Especially the tropics. This area is going to be the first to bear the brunt of climate change related problems. I dont foresee Global wars happening. The politicians are too smart for that. They will try to contain the damage to the extant…

> Because as far as they are concerned mass deaths in poorer nations is only going to reduce the carbon emission load on our planet. But the wealthier nations are the ones producing majority of the carbon emissions. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-r... Seems like you're counting on poorer countries to die off so you in the the richer nations can survive when it's the richer folks causing th…

A part of the climate change calculation is that the poorer countries are actively improving their standards of living, and that means rapidly increasing their energy demands.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#248

Post by Sharlin »

xupybd wrote: post #34
tobr wrote: post #19

Fundamentally it is a political problem, not a technological problem. We need high carbon taxes, we need to end fossil fuel subsidies, and we probably need to change our economic system to something that addresses the tragedy of the commons. But we’ve seen in recent years how technology can influence politics. I’d quote a tweet from Tristan Harris from the other day [1]: > In an hypothetical world, if Facebook were r…

If we can get renewables cheaper than fossil fuels and get reasonable energy storage politics won’t be a problem.

Moving energy production to renewables is the easiest part. Much more difficult is the part where we need to do something about the few billion (and rising!) gas-guzzling personal automobiles. Electric cars are simply not going to be the solution in the timeframe that matters. In the EU traffic is the only major CO2 source that continues increasing. The third big problem is agriculture, specifically meat production. Two to three billion new people who have traditionally been mostly vegetarians are now hungry for meat, and the planet simply cannot afford such a thing.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#249

Post by EeThahs2 »

xupybd wrote: post #34
tobr wrote: post #19

Fundamentally it is a political problem, not a technological problem. We need high carbon taxes, we need to end fossil fuel subsidies, and we probably need to change our economic system to something that addresses the tragedy of the commons. But we’ve seen in recent years how technology can influence politics. I’d quote a tweet from Tristan Harris from the other day [1]: > In an hypothetical world, if Facebook were r…

If we can get renewables cheaper than fossil fuels and get reasonable energy storage politics won’t be a problem.

Agriculture, deforestation are major emitters not directly linked to fossil fuels.

Cement industry, heating are large consumers of fossil fuel that are seeing very little advances compared to electrification of the transportation sector.

So just because renewable electricity starts to dominate does not mean our carbon footprint goes to zero.

Re: Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?

#250

Post by wrinkl3 »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #132

We are past the point where we we can fix this with discussions & civil discourse. Not to say that we shouldn't try. But a leaflet campaigns and discussions aren't going to reduce emissions. The best solution would be not to have kids (too late for me) and adopt instead if you must, not to own a car, try to own as little as you can (it will make you happier too). Plant stuff, pick up gardening, go offline and go outs…

Personally, I don't feel like me rescinding my earthly possessions and refusing to procreate will do anything to help anyone, other than maybe quench my own conscience.

That whole approach is referred to as hair-shirt environmentalism, I believe. Bruce Sterling once observed that if you're trying to combat Climate Change solely by minimizing your individual impact, the logical conclusion would be to stop living altogether.

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