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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#61

Post by mym1990 »

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…

I think if the hope is that the whole world comes together to reduce emissions to a meaningful level, there is little to no chance of that. Even in the face of clear evidence, many leaders either do not believe it or do not think it will affect them in their lifetime. Capitalism and globalization march to a different drum.

The hope becomes that we can innovate our way out of the problem with technology, that is the race to the finish. AI will likely help us get there faster, but 2nd place will not be an option.

You could say industrialization was a solution to a problem we didn't have...but efficiency and profit is always the pursuit of business, and unfortunately that is a lot of the world we live in.

And I say this as someone who loves the idea of energy that doesn't come from burning things.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#62

Post by rienbdj »

aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

Significant emissions are from ground transportation. Advocate for walkable neighbourhoods, bike infrastructure and public transit.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#63

Post by swiftcoder »

adolph wrote: post #42
Carrok wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started composting. I'm sure that'll outweigh the average Vegas visitor's emissions. /s I'm being a bit facetious obviously, but it does feel a bit like tilting against windmills. We need policy and systemic changes, if we're relying on individuals to all collectively start doing the "right thing", we're sunk.

Sorry to be a debbie-downer but the composting process is also a source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9933540/

So are humans (we breathe out CO2 constantly!). A process emitting greenhouse gases is not an inherent reason to eschew it, so long as the entire end-to-end process isn't net-positive.

Use that compost to fertilise a tree, and you are still net negative on carbon, versus sending those food scraps to the local trash incinerator.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#64

Post by wiz21c »

j0ba wrote: post #52

If only there was a clean, nearly limitless source of energy, where the waste for hundreds of years of energy could be stored in less than a square kilometer. If such a thing existed, we could be sure that environmentalists and leftists would have openly embraced it, rather than nip it at the bud 50 years ago. Because they are Good People™. And we should definitely listen to them now because they Follow The Science™.

CO2 seems very threatening but loss of biodiversity is also a problem, and it has nothing to do with energy...

We're in deep s*t

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#65

Post by timmg »

aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

> I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right

Is it the "far right"? Or is it that technology and fertility have actually lowered the risks substantially?

Solar plus batteries, right now, seems to be the cheapest form of new energy. Given that, you would expect most of new energy to be "green". (And if you look at the stats, that seems to be coming true.)

Electrification of transportation is happening quickly. China is cranking out cheap electric cars that are generally better than ICE cars of yesterday. And the world seems to be transitioning.

And fertility rates are dropping everywhere. So the amount of people we will need to support in the future continues to decline.

I've mostly stopped worrying about climate change. Not because I don't think it is real. But because I think we are clearly on the path to mitigating the worse scenarios.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#67

Post by ericd »

davidw wrote: post #48
aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

Work on local things to make your own city better. Plenty of stuff that's not too difficult, even if it won't fix everything: * Multifamily housing is much more energy efficient. Is it legal to build throughout your city, or does zoning prevent it? * Is there good bicycle infrastructure so people don't have to drive for everything? * Does your city still have expensive parking mandates that lock in car dependency? Ge…

Great list!

For those in the US, I'd add lobbying your congresspeople to support the revival of the Energy Permitting Reform Act. It's something that didn't make it across the line before the end of the last congress, but basically, making it easier to bring new generation capacity on the electrical grid disproportionately benefits renewables, because they make up the vast majority of wattage waiting in the queue. As we've seen by the explosion of deployment in less regulated grids (Texas, and most of the world), the economics now favor solar+storage and wind, we just have to let people build as much of it as they want to.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#68

Post by JoshTriplett »

eptcyka wrote: post #13
JoshTriplett wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that policymakers are unaware. It's that some of them are allergic to true things that they find inconvenient, and have made false premises a pillar of their platform. Calling that "unaware" is giving them too much credit and understanding.

Most policy makers will not live to bear the fruit of their labor.

Many may also believe that they and the only parts of their con$tituency they care about will be able to avoid the consequences. And some may have come to believe the party line; if you repeat a falsehood often enough as a loyalty test, you may forget that it's a falsehood.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#69

Post by panarchy »

SoftTalker wrote: post #31
blueflow wrote: post #2

Its not a "risk". Water vapor (clouds) is a stonger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We already got measurably higher temperatures, so we also have higher water evaporation, and from the last 5 years it looks like it happens every year. So the runaway is already happening, until something stops it near hothouse conditions or hopefully earlier than that.

Water vapor (clouds) also reflects sunlight. So it's complicated. We know the planet has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures in the past, and it did not "run away"

We can't say for sure that the current feedback loops will be identical to those that did or did not exist in the past. Differences in the initial state could result in different outcomes.

For example was there as much methane trapped in the arctics during the last time CO2 was high?

Does the rate of the increase of CO2 and temperature have an effect? Because it's currently getting hotter far faster (absurdly so) than any other period we have records for.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#70

Post by TheOsiris »

aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

the west is regressing on climate because, quite frankly, almost anything we do is pointless. we're not the ones who need to do anything to have an impact on the world. the entities that must do something don't want to
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