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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#261

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ctoth wrote: post #93
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…

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…

> Marine cloud brightening could produce meaningful planetary cooling for roughly $5 billion per year at scale (NAS estimate).

Eh. Cloud brightening is a temporary hack, stops working as soon as you stop actively doing it, and isn't an alternative to switching away from fossil fuels. It's probably worth doing to push back the "ice melts and releases more carbon" thing but let's not confuse it with the extent of what needs to be done. You can't actually solve the problem for $5B/year.

> AI investment is private capital chasing returns.

Getting private capital to work for you is a good way to solve the problem. The real problem is politics.

The EV tax credits and the subsidies oil companies get were costing about the same amount of money, but we only got rid of one of them. Nuclear should cost less than fossil fuels, but we're told that fission is scary and Deepwater Horizon is nothing but spilled milk so the one with the much better environmental record has to be asymmetrically regulated into uncompetitiveness.

If we actually wanted to solve it we'd do the "carbon tax but 100% of the money gets sent back to the people as checks" thing, since then you're not screwing everyone because on average the check and the tax cancel out and corporations pay the tax too but only people get the check. Then everyone, but especially the heaviest users, would have the incentive to switch to alternative energy and more efficient vehicles etc., because everybody gets the same check but the people putting thousands of miles on non-hybrid panzers pay more in tax.

The "problem" is that it would actually work, which is highly objectionable to the oil industry and countries like Russia since it would cause their income to go away, hence politics.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#262

Post by Ancalagon »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #237
quantified wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

are you sure we aren't on the >4°C path?

AI could very well put us back on it.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#263

Post by XorNot »

vaylian wrote: post #171
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…

Hank Green did a good short video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAznN_MPWQ TL;DW: It is important that individuals show that there is a real problem and that they perform actions that address the problem. This demonstrative behaviour leads to social dynamics where more people feel encouraged to perform actions and to drive larger change. You need to start somewhere.

While true we did that years ago and the other side is simply ignoring it.

Worse, the people we sold the idea too are stuck on it: they're convinced the solution must and totally be the performance, not the result.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#264

Post by hackyhacky »

HPsquared wrote: post #259
hackyhacky wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> less beef is probably better for your health, too. Won't matter when it's 120 degrees F every day.

My advice is to install air conditioning, and choose a place to live that will be affected as little as possible. Avoid the Maldives or New Orleans, perhaps choose somewhere a little hilly and cool with good connectivity.

Great suggestions. I will pass your advice on to literally all of humanity.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#265

Post by baq »

logicprog wrote: post #239
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.

No disagreement, but nights and clouds are inconvenient and remedies are also expensive-ish. We need both.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#266

Post by triceratops »

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?

> You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption

No I want them to pay for the negative consequences of the lies they spread. I paid them for fuel, and I got fuel. I did not think I was paying for lies and I never wanted them.

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

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#267

Post by schiffern »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #170
schiffern wrote: post #73

>Despite decades of research and sophisticated computational climate modeling, the magnitude and pace of these events have surprised scientists, raising questions about how well current climate projections capture risk. "Yet again, worse than we predicted." When this always-revise-in-one-direction phenomenon happened with the electron charge, it was considered a priori "proof" that scientists were fudging their data…

What about the possibility that the models so far have always been wrong and if they wrong in the wrong direction you would never hear about them?

Precisely, it's just a selection effect. There's always uncertainty, and scientists are heavily incentivized to "prune" models that show large effect sizes. The result is the observed systematic underestimations, punctuated by (suspiciously monotonic) upward revisions any time the new data comes out.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#268

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

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.

There are actions you can cheer on, like China's quick adoption of renewable energy. You can't make it happen yourself but you can bring peoples' attention to good things, encourage those within your circle of influence, and vote for representation that shares your views.

As for what "we" collectively can do... let's assume you are speaking of areas of research. We may need to focus on researching adaptation techniques for the areas that are going to be the hardest hit, or that have the fewest resources to cope. It's a sad topic but it may be needed. Assume the worst, hope for the best, and plan for what you can.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#269

Post by timschmidt »

throw310822 wrote: post #242
timschmidt wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Would you be ok if stores offered the option between a cheap plastic bag and a more expensive non-plastic one? (All the stores here already do it, btw).

I think the externalities of plastic recycling must be internalized economically by requiring all manufacturers of items to pre-pay for the recycling of said items up front, as part of the manufacturing cost. Similar to how bottle returns are managed, which has been very successful. Items which are provably biodegradable or designed to facilitate repair may be exempt.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#270

Post by jihadjihad »

yongjik wrote: post #215
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.

If you are a US citizen, voting Trump out might be unironically the most significant decision your country could make for the next 100 years of mankind. Not because the alternative is so great, but because Trump is so horrible that it's not even a question. We really don't need someone who doesn't even acknowledge climate change in charge of the world's biggest economy.

Trump is ineligible to run for a third term. The time to vote him out was 15 months ago.
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