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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#361

Post by mmooss »

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…

It's another claim of powerlessness, which is exactly what the 'fossil energy industry' wants people to say - it's demoralizing, paralyzing, and like any disinformation it's a distraction from actually doing something; now we're debating this stuff instead of doing something. So is the victim debate - who is at fault, assessing blame, etc.

Nobody, as a single human being, can accomplish much in any field. Every significant thing humanity does happens in large groups. The good news is, we are hardwired to work in groups - you see it all over, all the time. People naturally organize and work together; think of FOSS projects, for example. And that is what democracy is, and democracy is the most dynamic, effective, changeable method of government in human history.

Let's stop wasting time debating it and get to work. A simple thing to do is to reduce personal climate output. Again, you can't have much effect alone, but humans act together, and we all can do our part. That's why there isn't trash covering the streets - one person can't prevent that, but everyone is putting their garbage in the bin.

I am responsible for the consequences of my actions and words, and for my community - we all are, of course. The victim / blame perspective is the opposite of that - victimhood is a justification / rationalization for a lack of responsibility, for inaction. As anyone with experience of decent management knows, that is the last thing you do. The problem needs to be solved.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#362

Post by mmooss »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #324
vaylian wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That puts recycling on the "I'm helping to spread awareness by temporarily adding a note to my Twitter bio" tier of action. It's better than nothing, but it's only a little better.

It's a lot better; it's actually doing work: Things are accomplished by people acting together. The social aspect is the mechanism of how we do it.

You can see how every step of the way, people try to tell everyone to quit. The fossil fuel industry couldn't design a better plan.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#363

Post by Rebelgecko »

timmg wrote: post #65
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.

> I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right Is it the "far right"? Or is it that technology and fertility have actually lowered the risks substantially? Solar plus batteries, right now, seems to be the cheapest form of new energy. Given that, you would expect most of new energy to be "green". (And if you look at the stats, that seems to be coming true.) Electrifica…

The far right leader of my country just created a new policy forcing the military to buy electricity from coal plants, even when it's more expensive

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#364

Post by mmooss »

ahnick wrote: post #328
vaylian wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We know there is a real problem, awareness is not the issue. (I've been aware of it since the mid 90's) It is ignored by large industries and governments. The incessant pounding of the useless drum of individual action continues to go absolutely nowhere. We need government and industry to take action not individuals. I will no longer placate this idea that individual action is at all useful.

> The incessant pounding of the useless drum of individual action continues to go absolutely nowhere. We need government and industry to take action not individuals.

It's the incessent pounding of your drum that goes nowhere, of course. Lots of people acting individually is what makes things happen - including in government. They won't act unless people demonstrate they are serious about it.

> I will no longer placate this idea that individual action is at all useful.

Very brave!

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#365

Post by mmooss »

conductr wrote: post #338
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…

It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. Just like you can’t give industry the ability to mass produce these things that are so inherently bad for current but especially future humans. Only governments are responsible for playing that kind of long game.

> It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly.

Who is government responsible to and responsive to? Individuals.

> You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them.

That is exactly how the world and responsibility works. You have the choice to do right or wrong, and are responsible for the consequences - in Abrahamic religions, it goes back to Eden.

You personally have endless choices every day where you can do wrong with no penalty to you. Unless you are sociopathic, you generally do the right thing.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#366

Post by scoofy »

GMoromisato wrote: post #356
scoofy wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but allowing climate action to become a political issue What the hell are you talking about? What?!? This entire issue was a solved problem with a simple carbon tax (which is a conservative leaning policy ) and then one party decided their strategy was going to be deny, then delay, then pose it as a fait accompli. I was pretty damn conservative on a lot of issues when I started college... as it became more and more…

I think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax). Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservative…

>The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support.

Literally nothing. Environmentalists can have done literally nothing different. If an entire party is going to take it upon themselves to make "climate change is a hoax" and their constituents are going to go along with it, you just have a large section of the electorate making terrible decision that will make us all poorer.

This isn't something that's a negotiation. The leftist solutions were rejected, the liberal solutions were rejected, the conservative solutions were rejected, and even the right-wing "end our dependency on foreign powers" was rejected. This was a deliberate policy choice by the right, and it was an asinine one.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#367

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

eitau_1 wrote: post #110
blueflow wrote: post #2

Its not a "risk". Water vapor (clouds) is a stonger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We already got measurably higher temperatures, so we also have higher water evaporation, and from the last 5 years it looks like it happens every year. So the runaway is already happening, until something stops it near hothouse conditions or hopefully earlier than that.

True runaway (i.e. oceans boiling / Venus) cannot happen on Earth unless you significantly increase incoming radiation stream (or alternatively halve the planet's albedo). The runaway effect is scary b/c at certain temperature (~400K) atmosphere consisting predominantly of water vapor looses its ability to radiate out more heat up until 1600K. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1892 (see fig. 2b) (edit: the figu…

Are you certain we can't become Venus? Venus itself has such a high albedo that it effectively receives less radiation than Earth does.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#368

Post by conductr »

mmooss wrote: post #365
conductr wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. Just like you can’t give industry the ability to mass produce these things that are so inherently bad for current but especially future humans. Only governments are responsible for playing that kind of long game.

> It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. Who is government responsible to and responsive to? Individuals. > You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. That is exactly how the world and responsibility works. You have the choice to do right or wrong, and are responsible for the consequences - in Abrahamic religions, it goes back to Eden. You personally have endless choices every day where y…

This was a tailored response to this context. You trying to apply it generally is quite ridiculous.

Governments exist so that individuals can function as a society. Your point is circular (GovernmentIndividual). Governments are responsible to a collection of individuals, a society. We enable our governments to oversee safety of toys, vehicles, toxic materials, etc. because it is quite inconvenient to make those evaluations at a individual level on a daily basis. We are also human who have short-term value systems, governments are supposed to force us to act with a longer-term outlook. Eg. caring about the next generation.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#369

Post by baq »

Ancalagon wrote: post #262
Mordisquitos wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI which helps us design a commerciallizable fusion reactor might buy us a century.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#370

Post by GMoromisato »

scoofy wrote: post #366
GMoromisato wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax). Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservative…

>The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support. Literally nothing. Environmentalists can have done literally nothing different. If an entire party is going to take it upon themselves to make "climate change is a hoax" and their constituents are going to go along with it, you just have a large section of the electorate making terrible decisi…

This is anger and hatred, not logic or strategy. I don’t blame you, honestly. And there are many who feel exactly the same way.

But this is why we won’t stop global warming. Because beating our enemies is more important than saving the planet.

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