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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#411

Post by haizhung »

tarsinge wrote: post #371
ahnick wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Tr…

I would agree with you, except that the government (eg. in Germany) even battle climate tech when it’s good for the country and the economy. WHO wouldn’t want to be energy independent?

And yet, the Conservative Party in germany once killed the entire solar industry (who then moved to china); and is about to do it again, now! Both times we are losing about 50k jobs in that sector.

The question is: why would they do that, if the economy is oh so important to the conservatives?

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#412

Post by GMoromisato »

ikrenji wrote: post #408
GMoromisato wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more than happy to criticize Elon, but seeing as he's only getting richer, I don't think he needs my advice. But in this post, I'm criticizing people who demonize Tesla to stick it to Elon. That's going to hurt efforts to combat climate change. If you think billionaires getting richer is a bigger problem than climate change, I understand. But that's why global warming is getting worse--because even climate activi…

elon/tesla is not the only EV manufacturer, so idk why you are insisting on framing elon/tesla as some kind of climate messiah... in fact elon helped elect the most climate change denialist president in recent history so one might argue elon is actively hurting the global warming fight...

But that’s my argument. Having Elon support Trump was bad for the environment! We should have done more to keep him on our side!

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#413

Post by mmooss »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #407
mmooss wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't agree. Doing something that's makes very little difference makes you feel better, like you've solved the problem, and soothes the urgent need to actually fix the problem. The city gives out recycling cans, and the populace feels confident that the city is doing something, but that takes pressure off of things the city could do that would actually help but are unpalatable, like shutting down the chemical plant…

> makes very little difference

It does make a difference if lots of people do it. Nothing in the world makes a difference if only one person does it.

> recycling

Because something exists that you don't think makes a significant impact is not evidence that other things don't make an impact. It's an absurd statement to say nothing people do makes an impact - look at almost everything in the world. Look at the Internet, built mostly by self-organizing people and groups.

That dogma does shift power to corporations - then they can claim to be the only ones that can do anything.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#414

Post by scoofy »

GMoromisato wrote: post #403
scoofy wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can be kind, and do our best, and also call a spade a spade: https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5

I don't agree that EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars. But I don't want to digress. My point isn't about a specific policy (carbon tax sounds reasonable to me, and I agree that it is/was a conservative idea). My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservativ…

Oh look what happened today: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/trump-epa-greenho...

Saying this is our fault for not being "nicer" is an absurdity. This is being done intentionally.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#415

Post by GMoromisato »

scoofy wrote: post #410
GMoromisato wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars. But I don't want to digress. My point isn't about a specific policy (carbon tax sounds reasonable to me, and I agree that it is/was a conservative idea). My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservativ…

>My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on. You can't. Liberals aren't going to kowtow to the American right (I don't even want to use small "c" conservative here because fighting climate change is a conservative position ). At every point along th…

100% agree. But that's why I'm trying to convince liberals (I'm in California, FWIW) that they need a new strategy to stop climate change.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#416

Post by GMoromisato »

scoofy wrote: post #414
GMoromisato wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars. But I don't want to digress. My point isn't about a specific policy (carbon tax sounds reasonable to me, and I agree that it is/was a conservative idea). My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservativ…

Oh look what happened today: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/trump-epa-greenho... Saying this is our fault for not being "nicer" is an absurdity. This is being done intentionally.

My point isn't about blame, it's about what should we do differently. And I'm focusing on the left because the left is the side that cares most about climate change. I'm suggesting that the things the left has done to fight climate change have not only not worked but have made things worse (in the sense that the electorate is so polarized).

If blaming Elon or Trump or conservatives in general could solve climate change, then it would have been solved. That's why I'm not interested in blame--not because they don't deserve it but because it's not going to help.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#417

Post by brynnbee »

judahmeek wrote: post #360
brynnbee wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that current energy usage of AI is very likely to plummet in the coming years due to efficiency gains (which we've seem massive improvements on in the last couple years) and most of these large companies building datacenters are looking for and investing in specifically clean energy sources (nuclear) I don't think AI is a meaningful contributor compared to all the other high causes of global emissions.

Jevon's Paradox would like a word

Sure, but I meant consumption on a per-task basis. I would also add that at some point building new software is going to become rather valueless as society trends towards building effectively any variant of software anyone could want relatively instantly and cheaply.

There is also a finite number of consumers of AI content on the planet - sure maybe everyone want 4k-per eye live feed video of anything they want 24/7, but once you accomplish that for all 8 billion humans, there is no further demand for it.

Generation costs are very likely to continue to trends rapidly downward and there is a likely final wall of saturation of demand.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#418

Post by sien »

baq wrote: post #376
sien wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Under construction :

Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, Japan, South Korea and more.

Poland is going to start building soon too.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#419

Post by Mentlo »

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…

Until the problem is politically recognised by the masses with adequate concern there will be no change. Climate collapse is not a problem for the capital and the elites it’s only a problem for the masses, but getting the masses to understand that requires higher levels of complex system understanding and third and fourth order effects - something which is not a majority trait.

I fear the only solution to this is that a climate correcting perverse incentive materialises, such as fusion at scale being more profitable than fossil fuels, but without mass-panic induced traits such that fission has.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#420

Post by myrmidon »

ben_w wrote: post #400
myrmidon wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "square meter of aluminium" is an interesting take. Not sure how much power you'd get over that thing; extrapolating from existing HVDC systems (Inga-Shaba is 1GW over 2x520mm²), I'd expect around 1TW, so twice the US demand? But because Nimbys have no appreciation for beautiful pylons, projects in that direction are doomed for now anyway and everything needs to be buried underground at extra cost :(

Losses are I^2 R, which has the annoying consequence that % loss depends on how much juice you put through it, it isn't a constant percentage. Pylons… eh. Doing this realistically rather than my napkin-maths, it would be a mix of many different solutions in different parts of the world, from competing environmental issues. Some would be pylons, some underground cables. Is the Sahara dry enough to run it on the ground…

I do agree that politics is a big enemy here (with nations historically being most willing to spend big on energy when reducing interdependence, like the french Messmer plan, instead of the reverse).

Honestly the "1m² around the world" is probably a pretty good proxy for what we would need to solve intermittency problems exclusively by boosting grid connectivity (instead of storage), rescaling this to 4m² cumulative cross-section could probably transport the total global electrical energy consumption over ~10000km (but the losses would get uncomfortably high from an economical point of view after crossing the 1000-2000km distance threshold, so you might want even more aluminium when you desire connections that long).

Btw: Underground cables instead of pylons are absolutely a nimby thing. Not only is it much more expensive, because you pay for the earthwork and additional insulator, but it also limits your voltage (to avoid overpaying for insulation even more).

Return current is typically free, either from balancing 3phase AC or because decent electrodes get you <1Ohm over any distance thanks to math for the DC case. Just talking high voltage here; for short range, lower power residential connections the situation is different.

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