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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#391

Post by shadowfaxRodeo »

Gigachad wrote: post #300
shadowfaxRodeo wrote: post #276

The internet causes around 5% of global carbon emmissions. It's invisible, and difficult to measure, so little gets done about it. But if you're a developer who wants to help. Check out: https://sustainablewebdesign.org/ Pretty much all the solutions to making a greener web would make the web better in general. - Send less data (efficient video, images, fonts, etc) - Make fewer requests - Use a CDN (the greenest one…

Something that almost the entire population uses all day is only using 5%? Sounds incredibly efficient. Repacking fonts to be smaller sounds about as useful as plugging a hand crank generator in to the power point.

Solutions to the climate crisis can all be broken down into smaller and smaller parts — small enough to be ignored — or small enough to be easily fixed.

For web developers that 5% is our responsibility, and we have the means to change it in ways many people cannot.

As for fonts — yes I'm sure it would make a big impact. Font files are a decent chunk of average page weight.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#392

Post by pille »

fouc wrote: post #344
nosianu wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production Not really. For some reason the actually quite simple problem is needlessly complicated in the discussions. Stop digging up ANY carbon from below ground where it was safely buried. Any carbon above ground is part of the cycle that includes atmospheric CO2. You need huge effort to change how much of it is in CO2 form at any time while still ha…

That's not super helpful to the individual. Take an individual that bikes everywhere. What other changes can he make in his life that would reduce the demand of "digging out carbon"? As it turns out, he's relying on rubber wheels for his bicycle, he's relying on synthetic clothing for comfort, and numerous in his life products are made with plastic. What are the highest impact changes he can make?

I realized this additional perverse thing about trying to improve the world by riding a bike, as an individual:

In our market economy designed to get people to consume cars, your foregoing car ownership actually just makes it a little more comfortable for all the car owners out there sharing the road with you. You reduce traffic for them, reduce the wear on the infrastructure, you drive down the price of cars and gas, and you free up a parking space.

Of course this is all on the infinitesimal scale of your own individual influence on the world, its ecosystem, and the economy you live in, but so is your actual reduction in fossil fuel consumption if you give up driving.

Point is, there needs to be something a lot bigger than your individual choice as a consumer. We need an economy that prices in the environmental impact of cars, and I’m pretty sure we need the state for that.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#393

Post by zabatuvajdka »

nosianu wrote: post #201
rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

> It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production Not really. For some reason the actually quite simple problem is needlessly complicated in the discussions. Stop digging up ANY carbon from below ground where it was safely buried. Any carbon above ground is part of the cycle that includes atmospheric CO2. You need huge effort to change how much of it is in CO2 form at any time while still ha…

I think the broader problem is the human mental condition. One of the largest contributors to global emissions is large scale factory farming but how many people are going to stop eating at McDonalds?

Point being: people’s habits need to change across the board, but yet they argue that policy makers have no right dictating what they can/can’t do…

If you ask a big business owner to halt production in the name of climate change, will they? Hell no.

The government can squeeze people financially though so it literally is up to them to force businesses to comply lest they will exhaust their finances for non compliance.

I dunno it’s a pretty interesting dilemma though…

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#394

Post by maxekman »

stinos wrote: post #351
nosianu wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production Not really. For some reason the actually quite simple problem is needlessly complicated in the discussions. Stop digging up ANY carbon from below ground where it was safely buried. Any carbon above ground is part of the cycle that includes atmospheric CO2. You need huge effort to change how much of it is in CO2 form at any time while still ha…

You do not mention methane at all, isn't that oversimplifying things?

Definitely! Vegetarian food is a big part of the solution. Methane from the absurd amount of meat produced is really bad, and also contributes around 10x CO2e.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#395

Post by lucb1e »

belorn wrote: post #346
rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

There were a study done in Sweden a few years ago that looked at the question about an individuals actions and the corresponding CO2 production. No car > skipping flight > buy green energy > Get a electric car > diet. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-lifestyle-choi...

Also note that some of them are easy and you can simply do them today. Buying green energy might not be as good as ditching your car altogether, but it's a lot easier so you might as well start with the quick wins.

And the category of buying shiny new stuff is missing. It's a big part of consumer-influencable emissions, though it's admittedly even harder to make a significant impact on than ditching cars after you bought your essentials second-hand (where possible/reasonable of course). Pushing for products to be produced in a climate-neutral fashion (voting with your wallet) would definitely be something though.

Edit: wait, Sweden. How is space heating not on that list? Surely where the majority of the Swedes live is not too cold for heat pumps with perhaps a bit of aid from pure electrical heat creation for a few days per year, is it?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#396

Post by fsflover »

rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

> It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc).

http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...

But the tax is probably more important still. Also, political action.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#397

Post by modmans2nd »

rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

How about makign a masive push to gen 4 nuclear reactors that can burn what we today call "waste" and then dump coal?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#398

Post by ZeroGravitas »

npteljes wrote: post #370
belorn wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a study done in Sweden a few years ago that looked at the question about an individuals actions and the corresponding CO2 production. No car > skipping flight > buy green energy > Get a electric car > diet. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-lifestyle-choi...

How could you leave out the one with the biggest impact, which is basically "less humans"?

Some would disagree with this on the moral point that its basically a call for genocide, whether that is intentional or not is hard to tell.

I'd disagree on the facts though. There's already such a wild difference in carbon intensity between two humans, that it would be ridiculous to suggest that the first step would be to remove humans rather than the activities that make that difference (and are sometimes wasteful, inefficient or counterproductive)

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#399

Post by belorn »

jokoon wrote: post #329

I'm still very skeptical how the measures will take into effect if they ever happen. In france the yellow vests protest was caused by a planned carbon tax increase on gas. Car dependent citizens rioted. A carbon tax will reduce the living standard of everyone, and it will take time for society to readjust. I really think the economy will tank and take a lot of time to adjust to a green economy, as it's not only elect…

A recent strategy is to add a carbon tax on imports in the form of tariffs. I don't think the yellow vests protest will go up in arms over it, especially since the second effect of tariffs is to encourage national production. It will effect french farmers that rely on exports, but since those tariffs are import taxes that reside in other countries there is not much point to protesting to the french government.

What the yellow vests protest demonstrated is that carbon taxes need to be designed so that individual voters are less impacted directly. Add a carbon tax on power plants and energy prices might go up, but if you already have 50% wind or nuclear, the effect will be quite damped. If energy prices is already quite unstable with huge spike and dips, the effect might not even be noticed in the noise, and the critical application of blame can be directed to the weather when the price do go up.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#400

Post by ForHackernews »

konspence wrote: post #93
matco11 wrote: post #16

> This pact aims to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2C this century and to pursue efforts to keep it under 1.5C. It seems to me that continuing to communicate just the average temperature increase is a missed opportunity to engage with a greater portion of the population. 1.5 or 2 degrees do not seem like much, but once one understands that’s an average made out of much bigger positive and negative sw…

There's nothing to "keep" under 1.5C, we are pretty much already there when error bars are considered. 2C is going to be breached regardless because even if we went carbon neutral today we have decades of locked in warming. Why the scientists are not communicating this information which has been in pop-science (as early as An Inconvenient Truth (2006), which documents the lag between CO2 rise and temp rise) is beyond…

They are not communicating that because they don't want people to lose hope and give up, even when that's probably the rational response.

As you say, these changes are already "baked in" and the natural environment is only to get more hostile to humans from here on out.

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