Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' • Hacker News Board

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

#501

Post by bbddg » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:33 PM UTC

1337shadow wrote: post #424

jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Each human being emits 25 tons of CO2 per year just by breathing, should the businesses also be taxed based on their number of employees? People often forget the good parts about the little CO2 increase from the past century, I care a lot about environment (I'm a countryside person) but CO2 - many people forget it is the food of the plants that we need to eat - just takes all the place in the environmental debate and…

"Durable/fixable hardware" is a more important matter than climate change? Only on hackernews folks...

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

#502

Post by bko » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:34 PM UTC

alexgmcm wrote: post #491

bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

But how much of this is due to Western nations essentially outsourcing emissions to China by shifting manufacturing etc. there? The per-capita emissions are important because countries with high per-capita emissions likely have a lot of low-hanging fruit. I mean reducing per-capita emissions in the USA could be done by improving public transport etc. whereas in China it would likely be condemning millions of people t…

Read the second part of my comment. It's about 10% from trade based manufacturing. Of course this is difficult to measure, but I think its safe to say the lion's share of CO2 emissions are from consumption.

> And it's not that China is producing emissions during manufacturing goods the entire world consumes. Take a look at "China: Consumption-based accounting: how do emissions compare when we adjust for trade?" and you'll see ~90% of their emissions are for consumption [2]

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china

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

#503

Post by Bodell » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:34 PM UTC

jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Here’s a long article addressing this idea specifically. Though this person was chastised quite brutally for being “negative”.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-w...

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

#504

Post by kumarvvr » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:34 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #436

The notion that humanity would go extinct from any of this is absolutely unrealistic. What we are talking about is at worst massive economic damage and loss of life, similar to a very serious war. Which is horrible, but really not the threat it is made out to be. Moreover, since these changes happen relatively slowly (compared to bombs and such) much of the loss of life can be mitigated. So we are talking economic da…

>The notion that humanity would go extinct from any of this is absolutely unrealistic

Why not?

With the current societal focus on materialism and luxury, perpetuation of greed and glorification of power, climate need not do much. Wipe out some fraction of the population is all it needs to do.

The rest will be done by us.

The last two people will fire bombs at each other and kill each other for sure.

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

#505

Post by agent327 » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:35 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #447

jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

The West lowered their CO2 production by moving all manufacturing to China, so this isn't too surprising. Also, China, like most of the world except for Afrika, has a shrinking population (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate).

China needs to start building nuclear power plants and replace all those coal plants.

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

#506

Post by bko » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:35 PM UTC

vlkr wrote: post #464

bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

China is less troubling than US if you look at per capita numbers: US 15.52, China 7.38 tons of CO2

Why does it matter? You should care about the absolute numbers. The amount of CO2 the earth can reasonably sustain doesn't go up as the global population grows...

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

#507

Post by jstsch » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

ihuk wrote: post #478

We bought an expensive washing machine 3 years ago thinking it will last us a long time. It already broke down twice. It's been broken for almost a month now waiting for parts and whatnot. There's a good chance we'll have to get another one. Does Electrolux/AEG care? No. They don't care about the environment, their only obligation is to their shareholders. But frankly neither do I anymore. Next time, I'll buy the che…

That's not normal. Both my Siemens washer & dryer will reach 10 years this December and both are working like new. Price wise in the 75th percentile models (of Siemens).

The dryer is a heat pump model, which was quite a bit more expensive than other models at the time. The salesperson at the local MediaMarkt even recommend against it, since you would never 'make the money back' in energy costs from it. This is quite wrong. In fact, with EU energy prices you recoup the difference within 2 years using it twice a week.

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

#508

Post by realce » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

Where is the company that specializes in retrofitting combustion vehicles to electric?

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

#509

Post by syshum » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

>> collective action isn't something we can rely on

hmmm

>>Governments need to

You do understand that government is collective action, and you should not rely on it right?

> tax CO2 emissions on the business side

I am still opposed to Co2 taxation in most of the implementations proposed. it ends up just creating perverse incentives for companies to game the system, Just look at how destructive ewaste regulations have been for the environment were you have companies preventing the repair of their products to ensure they get "credit" for the destruction (aka recycle) of reparable electrics that then simply end up in some 3rd world nation for children to pick through

I just cation that you need to fully look at the unintended consequences of taxation and government regulation, the road to hell is paves with good intentions. If you think the world has problems, what until you see government solutions to those problems...

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

#510

Post by dangoor » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

ihuk wrote: post #478

We bought an expensive washing machine 3 years ago thinking it will last us a long time. It already broke down twice. It's been broken for almost a month now waiting for parts and whatnot. There's a good chance we'll have to get another one. Does Electrolux/AEG care? No. They don't care about the environment, their only obligation is to their shareholders. But frankly neither do I anymore. Next time, I'll buy the che…

I completely agree and think pricing should reflect more of the externalities.

Side note: I do not consider myself a "handy" person. Never cared much for fixing things around the house. However, thanks to YouTube and (at least in the US) RepairClinic, I have found that certain kinds of repairs to appliances are actually easy and I can get them done much more quickly than when calling a repair service because RepairClinic has the parts in stock. (I have the added benefit of living ~30 minute drive from RepairClinic.)

Also, I haven't personally found a correlation between price and reliability.