July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa • Hacker News Board

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#271

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

runeb wrote: post #128

snarfy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the problem is there are too many people in a world of finite resources. A solution is less people. I'm not suggesting how this is done, but we probably shouldn't e.g. subsidize growth anymore. You shouldn't get a tax break for having kids. It should go the other way.

It gets problematic, because then you'd basically have a system where the government decides who gets to have kids. A better solution is probably a raised standard of living and more education. edit: By raised standard of living I'm not talking about AC and other energy-intensive luxuries. I mean not having to have 7 kids because many of them will probably die.

You've got two variables you can control. Birthrate and deathrate.

Someone, or something, will ultimately be making decisions.

Why not a government, or government analog?

What about that bothers you? What alternatives do you suggest? Different mechanisms? Different institutions?

Raising standards of livings has always required raising material resource consumption.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#272

Post by larkery » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #249

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Technology never ceases to amaze though. Just last week I replaced the 12 50 watt spotlights in my kitchen with 42 watts total worth of LEDs. For twenty dollars. You can't tell the difference except that maybe it's a bit brighter in there. That was something I wouldn't have predicted being able to do 10 years ago. If something changes in the next 30 years that make this whole climate change panic look like a bunch of…

Unfortunately, the evidence so far:

- A consistent exponential growth in emissions - A consistent improvement in GDP/energy and a mild improvement in energy/CO2

raises the question: can technical efficiency gains reduce emissions? If so, can they do so rapidly enough to prevent catastrophe.

This question has been open since Jevons wrote about the use of coal in the Empire, but it is certainly not cut-and-dried.

In the case of your spotlights, there are several places for a rebound effect:

- You have more spare money; you spend that money on something else, which (perhaps) causes some emissions - You have avoided using some electricity, lowering the cost of electricity. This renders electricity useful for some other customer for whom it was previously marginal

And so on.

For efficiency gains alone to work, the new technology will have to be astounding enough to reduce the cost of energy below the marginal production cost for all the existing sources, and to allow us to chuck away all of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure without discomfort.

Otherwise we will just use astounding new technology along with all our old technologies, and do more stuff.

Efficiency gains (which will come, and are welcome and necessary) need to be coupled with a political limit on extraction of fuels to avoid this outcome, in my opinion.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#273

Post by bsdetector » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #193

nilved wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. No, you really can't, or we wouldn't have year-after-year record breaking temperatures. Regulation has never fixed anything. And especially when it comes to science, we need t…

A simple carbon tax at $X/ton and a little patience would go along way by simply making carbon-lighter solutions more competitive. The problem with pretty much any regulation actually implemented is that politicians have been way too eager picking winners (massively subsidising specific approaches instead of letting a thousand flowers bloom) and protecting losers (assigning emissions trading credits to existing big p…

The question becomes if the taxes are raised high enough to actually impact or reverse climate change, will people abide by them?

If it costs $100/day to heat your home in the winter are you going to pay that or buy black market kerosene or just chop down a tree and burn it when no government inspector is around?

There's a limit to how much can be done with taxes.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#274

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

ythl wrote: post #264

madaxe_again wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion. So yet more air conditioning will ensue, consuming more energy, warming oceans further, raising humidity, and thus exacerbating the problem. Positive feedback cycles sure are…

Well if you don't believe in God, you might want to start since it appears he's the only hope we have left for a doomed climate.

[deleted]

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#275

Post by larkery » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #218

CalRobert wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Live in a multi-unit building in a city where you can commute and do errands by walking or cycling (electric bikes are fine and get around that whole pedaling bit). Source your energy renewably and use little of it (80-300kwh per month isn't crazy depending on your climate). Don't buy much stuff. Eat very little meat. I mean, it doesn't take it to 0 but even if you DO want a comfortable life it doesn't mean living in…

There is a sad counterpoint, though, and one I think of often. There are discretionary purchasers of fossil fuels - people/companies who would buy units of fuel but aren't because it's not cheap enough. All of the actions I named above reduce the demand for fossil fuels (by an infinitesimal amount, but still). Reducing demand reduces the price such that some other user will consume those fuels anyway. In this case it…

You are right about the problem that efficiency in one place will potentially cause consumption in another. In the literature, this is usually called a 'rebound effect' or Jevons' paradox.

It may be that an emissions / extraction cap could be implemented non-globally so long as a large enough block were willing to participate, and so long as they imposed tariffs on any non-participants to price in the emissions happening on the other side of the border.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#276

Post by vijayr » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Didn't Yao Ming single handedly reduce the amount of ivory trade in China by spreading awareness about elephant situation?

Obviously meat is much more dear to people than ivory, we might need a million Mings to spread awareness - it is still worth a shot though. Even if we manage to reduce meat consumption by say 5 to 10%, it would be a huge help.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#277

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

chr1 wrote: post #260

collyw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having kids especially in the west is probably the least environmental friendly thing you could do.

This is what i was thinking ~15 years ago, but now it is painful for me to remember that i could seriously support such an idea. Environmental friendly matters only because it is human friendly. Removing all the humans is not environmental friendly since climate change and extinctions happen a lot without humans too. Reducing number of people to half the current population is not environmental friendly since we were…

I'm with you on everything except for this part:

> Higher sea level is not a problem, it gives more water to create lakes and fill aquifers in places like Sahara, Iran, and central Asia.

Higher sea level is absolutely a problem, as it disproportionately takes away the most valuable, economically productive, and inhabited land, and causes huge refugee crises. There's no shortage of seawater. Everything you mentioned could be done now (if we had enough power for desalination anyway). Higher sea levels don't make it appreciably easier, but they sure make everything else way worse.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#278

Post by harryh » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

losteverything wrote: post #261

harryh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with your slightly lower footprint due to not owning a car you still have a much larger footprint than the world mean. Probably 2-3x. So there are billions of people being "punished" for what you're doing.

I don't like the word "punished" in this climate context.

I don't either. Hence my use of scare quotes.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#279

Post by legulere » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

s_q_b wrote: post #108

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. I've said this before, and the same climate scientists who first discovered anthropogenic global warming agree, that nuclear fission plants are the only technology that can bridge the gap between fossil fuels and fusion.

Even photovoltaics is more economically feasible in western countries today, because construction work has become so expensive. Wind turbines are even cheaper.

And you totally ignore hydropower, which is better than any other energy form in price and following demand. It just needs lots of political will.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#280

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

>> Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

The Achilles heel in all of this is how to make green energy affordable. If you want to really make impact, making these technologies affordable for lower income and the poor is the best way to reduce energy consumption.

Unfortunately, a lot of these technologies are still way way way out of reach of these people to take part in. Last time I checked, getting a small solar array on my house would cost in the neighborhood of $20K just get it installed. With a ten year ROI, this isn't feasible for me to do right now, and our state just ended their solar tax deductions with no signs of it ever coming back - giving me even less incentive to do this.

I'm all for less consumption and green technologies, but most are not affordable, and the long ROI isn't worth it right now.