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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#371

Post by tarsinge »

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 problem is not that individual action is not useful, it’s that governments and companies are actively discouraging it, because every success for climate change is a bad news item. People buying less cars? Climate change win, economic problem. People buying less stuff, consumption down? Huge climate change win, very bad economic news. Even on progressive news outlets they’re doing it.

Here in Europe even before Trump’s second mandate it was clear governments didn’t really want individual action to take off. And it’s even worse now. Because short and mid term it’s a choice between climate and GDP. And western governments and companies are fundamentally incapable of long term action that is painful short term.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#372

Post by swiftcoder »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #341
krashidov wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The carbon in our atmosphere is already in the atmosphere and it won't go away. So there really is nothing more you can do other than take it out of the air and store it somewhere for as long as you can. Trees are a good way to store it until we have better technology/can handle climate change better

No. Pick a timeline that is influential, short or long. If it’s long, trees don’t capture carbon. Not in any scenario of population growth, which inevitably leads to some edgelord reductionist “maybe we should all die then for what we’re doing to Gia!” trite. This “climate is a 100 years” thing while using ice core samples to make your case is not in support of science. It is in support of politicians. The latter I’m…

> Not in any scenario of population growth

We're not really in a scenario of population growth - there is a direct correlation between being relatively well off and having less kids. Basically every developed nation hit peak population a long time ago, and the faster we pull other nations out of extreme poverty, the sooner their populations will start falling too

Even the most fatalistic estimates have world population peaking at 10 billion.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#373

Post by swiftcoder »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #163
swiftcoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far all of the carbon capture techniques (apart from growing forests and keeping them protected) have been pretty unsuccessful, and/or don't scale well. That leaves us in the realm of solutions that may be very likely to disrupt our ecosystem themselves, like genetically-engineering algae/phytoplankton to improve ocean carbon sequestration

> apart from growing forests and keeping them protected) I’m in a loop. I must be. How are people still basic at this? No. Forests are not “carbon capture” devices. Plant a big forest and “protect” (which means thinning it, unless you are California) and in 100 years most trees have died, rotted, released their carbon. There is so much wrong with the alarmism here, so much hand waving away of scale when it is inconve…

> in 100 years most trees have died, rotted, released their carbon.

And more trees have grown in their place, capturing an equivalent volume of carbon. Just because the carbon storage isn't static, doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#374

Post by dwb »

Zambyte wrote: post #339
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doing a little better than nothing becomes a big deal when everyone is doing it.

It becomes moderately better than nothing when “everyone” (not even close to everyone) does it. And there are some decisions (taking fewer/no flights, no fossil-fueled car, etc) that are a lot more effective than others. Personally I try to do my best! But in general, individual actions are dwarfed by systems bigger than them. Even being able to shun cars is only feasible if you live in a city with good public transport, for instance.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#375

Post by ikrenji »

GMoromisato wrote: post #358
ikrenji wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what labor issues and regulatory roadblocks? the man is halfway to becoming a trillionaire. if anything there wasn't enough labor legislation and more regulation to spread the wealth a bit

If you care more about preventing Elon from getting richer than getting more EV adoption, then that's exactly what I'm talking about. If climate change is a major problem, then we should fight it, even if it means Elon gets richer. If you don't think it's a major problem, then mission accomplished.

elon could just as easily be producing EV cars as a single digit billionaire

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#376

Post by baq »

sien wrote: post #282
baq wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing, can't be done

France, Sweden and Ontario exist. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/12mo/monthly It literally has been done.

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Building out nuclear requires political will and deregulation which today is not attainable in the west. China is the only one actually building reactors, but that isn't enough.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#377

Post by jhgb »

DonnyV wrote: post #155
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…

The 2 biggest contributors to climate change are ... - US Military - Cargo Ships You fix those 2 things and like 60% of pollution goes away.

Merchant shipping contributes around 3% to CO₂ emissions. That is smaller than, e.g., electricity and heat generation, road transportation, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#378

Post by TrackerFF »

One massive mistake scientists made, was to market it as "global warming". Every climate-denier I've ever met, has pulled out the "If the earth is getting warmer, why are our winters still so cold? Check mate" card.

I live in a colder climate area, and every. single. time. we get some cold weather, these people will come crawling out of the woodwork to point out that "global warming is hoax!"

And, unfortunately, due to the extreme rise of populism the past 10 years, the "climate change is a hoax" mentality has been allowed to prosper.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#379

Post by scoofy »

GMoromisato wrote: post #370
scoofy wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

We can be kind, and do our best, and also call a spade a spade:

https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#380

Post by cassepipe »

GMoromisato wrote: post #359
cassepipe wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No what's crazy is that something as apolitical as "many scientists specialized in climate have come to the conclusion" was successfully turned into something political thanks to a now well proven denialist playbook. We really need to stop both-siding that kind of thing. One side just said "We should do something about it to save us all" and the other side tried to come up with anything that could make them look evil…

I think people who care about climate change should stop doing things that don't work (or even make the problem worse). Demonizing Elon, demonizing nuclear power, demonizing natural gas, forcing people to cut back, supporting de-growth: none of these things have worked to stop climate change. Maybe we should try something different. Unless, of course, the goal isn't to solve climate change but to demonize Elon. In th…

I would love to take the bait to talk about how Elon is very good at demonizing himself and does not need anyone to do it for him but I don't care that much about Elon as I care about climate change.

I would like to agree with you but saying "the people who care about that issue are irrational and should be doing X instead of Y" should not be used in defense of "I will deny the issue even exists and attack anyone who tries to alert about the issue"

That was my whole point and you missed it apparently. You just reformulated yours.

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