Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#51

Post by danjac » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:55 AM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #49

danjac wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. Oligarch money still flowing, then.

I don't think that explains it. Many Green voters experience some sort of self-hatered, they claim humanity is a disease, etc. In particular many voters do not want nuclear power at all.

They don't want it thanks to decades-long misinformation campaign waged with fossil fuel money.

The Finnish Greens are pro-nuclear, perhaps because they are not beholden to the same sources of funding as their German counterparts (and not to just blame the Greens here: look at your former Chancellor Schroeder).

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#52

Post by rhn_mk1 » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:56 AM UTC

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #40

Aerroon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But our oil consumption essentially is our way of life. Changing it will have enormous effects on modern life. A lot of people are going to see a significant drop in their quality of life as a result. This is why it's so hard to change things in the first place, it's not about the companies, but about average people.

That seems disingenuous when the climate catastrophe is going to have far greater effects on modern life. Too many people are clinging to the dream of continuing to dig out and burn as much oil as possible when it's clear that that behaviour is not sustainable. Although personal responsibility is never a bad thing, we need to focus on the big companies that have been deliberately hiding climate science for decades -…

It's the clear tension of keeping our way of life now versus being able to keep parts of it in the future.

Clearly, some people care about the now more than the future.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#53

Post by klipt » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:56 AM UTC

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #40

Aerroon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But our oil consumption essentially is our way of life. Changing it will have enormous effects on modern life. A lot of people are going to see a significant drop in their quality of life as a result. This is why it's so hard to change things in the first place, it's not about the companies, but about average people.

That seems disingenuous when the climate catastrophe is going to have far greater effects on modern life. Too many people are clinging to the dream of continuing to dig out and burn as much oil as possible when it's clear that that behaviour is not sustainable. Although personal responsibility is never a bad thing, we need to focus on the big companies that have been deliberately hiding climate science for decades -…

The solution is a carbon tax, which is unpopular with big oil companies but probably also unpopular with many citizens who vote based on gas prices.

We may just have to use solar radiation management instead.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#54

Post by beefield » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:56 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #20

H8crilA wrote: post #4

At which point do you think humanity will start seriously thinking about radical solutions? Such as detonating thermonuclear weapons to throw enough dust above the troposphere to cool the planet down? I'm thinking we're still really far away. Migration from areas that become uninhabitable is still weak. And it doesn't look like any state that has substantial military/commercial/political power is interested in starti…

The "radical" solutions are not just throwing more technology at the problems. That's how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place. The solution is to stop mindless consumption. We use the same material to wrap and bake food and drink unhealthy drinks as we do to build airplanes. We use plastic for use cases that take place over seconds and minutes and then throw it away. We drive everywhere because of poor…

> It's almost silly how simple the real solutions are.

Simple? Real? Let me give you some numbers. Let's use electricity as a proxy for consumption[1].

Average global per capita electricity consumption is currently about 3000 kWh/a. To put that into context, you can drive your environmentally friendly EV (20kWh/100km) roughly 15 000 km (10 000 miles) and use no more electricity at anything during the year.

US electricity consumption is ~12 000 kWh per year. So if you want to not force third world to poverty forever and keep the global consumption at current levels (I'm not yet discussing decreasing global consumption, just keeping it at current levels). US folks would need to cut their consumption by 75% to allow the poorer to get even.

Sorry, but that is neither simple nor real. If we want to see the poor countries to rise to even mediocre living standards, we will face a huge increase in global consumption. You do not need to like this (I do not), but it is a fact. So please, stop whining about the need to reduce our consumption and start supporting initiatives how we can produce lots more energy and stuff sustainably. Because we need to do that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#55

Post by croes » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:59 AM UTC

danjac wrote: post #28

croes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still no solution for nuclear waste, still depend on external water cooling, security can't handle threads like cyber attacks and airplane crashes. That generation of power plants isn't really helping and new ones need a lot of time to build and produce lots of CO2 in the process.

All true, but right now those risks pale in comparison to the ongoing disasters caused by fossil fuels.

Nuclear is only an intermediate solution but many treat like the final one.

It isn't helpful averting one problem to create another one.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#56

Post by Animats » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 8:00 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#57

Post by pjerem » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 8:02 AM UTC

croes wrote: post #19

danjac wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German Greens are slowly inching towards nuclear, now the original 1980s membership are dying off and the Gazprom funding is running out: https://www.dw.com/en/german-greens-lay-out-nuclear-power-po...

Still no solution for nuclear waste, still depend on external water cooling, security can't handle threads like cyber attacks and airplane crashes. That generation of power plants isn't really helping and new ones need a lot of time to build and produce lots of CO2 in the process.

> Still no solution for nuclear waste

That’s false. In France we have a project to bury them 500m underground in stable geological formations. And even if this site failed to retain the radioactive (which studies says it will not) that would be a minor issue against climate change.

As for security issues since nuclear power exists (~70 years) we can count deadly accidents in some dozens of victims while the pollution due to burning fuels kills several thousands of people every year.

At this point it’s so ridiculous that you have way more chance to die in a plane crash of anything nuclear.

Also contrary to a belief, a plane crashing in a nuclear powerplant, while creating a certain horrible mess would not be really different than crashing it in any petrochemical plant. For comparison that would be way less dramatic than the AZF of Beyrouth explosions.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#58

Post by danjac » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 8:04 AM UTC

croes wrote: post #55

danjac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but right now those risks pale in comparison to the ongoing disasters caused by fossil fuels.

Nuclear is only an intermediate solution but many treat like the final one. It isn't helpful averting one problem to create another one.

If you are wandering the desert, dying of thirst, and you find a bottle of Coke, you should probably drink it and not worry too much about getting diabetes.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#59

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 8:05 AM UTC

uxcolumbo wrote: post #48

jgilias wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual decisions like that are only good for making yourself feel good about doing something, but it’s close to meaningless when it comes to actually solving it. It’s systemic solutions that are needed. Some of those may include disincentivizing consumption. But it’s also not simple given that in many places there’s serious pushback against that. And also the economic cost. Everything is interwoven. I wish people…

This study[0] and several other studies by UN, Oxford Uni etc disagree with you. The single best thing an individual can do is immensely reduce or completely avoid meat and dairy. Imagine millions and millions of people doing this, behavioural change will trigger system’s change. It’s something we can do today, just need to decide whether having a burger is more important or not. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s…

> Imagine millions and millions of people doing this

But they won't. Even here on HN, where some smart people roam, touching their meat (like, eating LESS of it, not quitting altogether) will make them into incoherent angry (I guess) men. And that's of course a big step, smaller steps are even not a thing for many people; not flying, no car, hell, here people even refuse to obey the law of not topping up (or filling) their swimming pools even though there is an huge water shortage.

The only way will be if governments decide to step in. Problem there is; a lot of gov people and the people they support or who support them, are giving the wrong examples; big cars, slabs of meat, villas all over the place, bailing out struggling airlines, making sure the energy/oil companies can make more profits, making sure farmers have to obey nothing of these new rules because export products (so they can keep using whatever amount of water, cut ancient trees down just like that, ...) etc. People pick the govs they like, which means they hope either things will get better for themselves (not the world) or remain the same.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#60

Post by zelphirkalt » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 8:07 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #18

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right has been accused of denialism for decades at this point, but any time solutions they might be in favor of are proposed, the left gives us hysterics about how geo-engineering is too dangerous to contemplate. This leads me to believe that they're lying about how important it is to them. Supposedly, it is a world-ending scenario... at least when it comes to wrecking economies. But the moment real fixes are dis…

> But the moment real fixes are discussed Yeah, Nuh. "detonating thermonuclear weapons to throw enough dust above the troposphere to cool the planet down" isn't a real solution, and we've done this before .. leaving aside the two atomic detonations at the end of WWII and looking just at the 2,000 test detonations since (many larger, much larger, than the H & N explosions) the absolute worst case examples were ground…

Woa! Be careful! Baby making seems like a holy activity for some people on HN and elsewhere. Any time you suggest not having as many children or not making as babies all around the world, some very intelligent person will put words in your mouth and reinterpret your words in bad ways, to be able to call you a murderer or similar. Part of the problem.

And of course when it comes to making babies almost everyone thinks, that their child or they themselves are special and it is OK to have more than one child for them. Especially comfortable when they already have two or more children, or for some ego reason want more children than proposed. Oh and never dare to mention China and one child policy either in this context, or the consequences for the world, if that policy had not existed.