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Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

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Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Existential threat means things can’t get worse (you just stop existing). Ignoring the potential of geoengineering implies you are sure that we have a better solution which will work. I hope we don’t have to use geoengineering but I am certain the status quo of hoping renewables and batteries in the 1st world will save us is not going to work.

Threat is not certainty. If somebody is out there to kill you, you are under an existential threat, until they are caught. It's not a reason to start playing Russian roulette, saying "I'm already in danger, cannot get worse than that!"

The same logic applies to shutting down oil and gas production: if we are not certain, then why risk the downsides?

I’m not saying this is a good way to think, just that it shows the fault in your logic.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being against Carbon Capture and geo-engineering is just following the science. Carbon capture has constantly been shown to just not work at any scale. and geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point.

> geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point. This doesn't sound like a terribly scientific assessment. Climate change is either an environmental disaster and geoengineering would be a huge risk - or climate change is an existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose. Which is it?

Climate change can be an existential threat to humanity and Geo-Engineering can make it worse at the same time.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#93
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t know how bad it will get, how can you balance the negatives of remediation? For example, if the world was ending next year it might make sense to turn off all fossil fuels and eradicate most of the human population. But if it is only a few degrees per century we can consider… better options.

Holy strawman, who said anything about eradicating most of humans? Let me rephrase: realistically speaking, the things humanity will manage to do in the next 10 years will be such a lukewarm attempt that the chance we will "accidentally" overshoot and create more misery is close to zero.

Again, If you don’t know how bad it will get, how can you balance the negatives of remediation?

We already created misery via starvation due to biomass subsidies, what makes you think our future policies will be harmless?

Of course my example was absurd, but it illustrates the trade offs involved.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#94

Title is a little misleading (for me at least), this is not one of the many cases where a group of young people sued their government for a broad violation of their rights. This is a more narrow case where the plaintiffs said the government is supposed to consider emissions impact when approving oil and gas projects, and did not. There aren't really any youth directly involved. The court didn't say Norway can't drill…

> new oil field

I was surprised because I assumed Norway wouldn’t open new oil fields. I’d say it’s “interesting,” but what I actually mean isn’t publishable.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#95
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norwegian GDP just took a hit

It boggles my mind that we allow GDP to not account for externalities to the environment. Like burning a wick, we cheer the flame with no consideration for the dynamite at the other end.

The cost of oil production in Norway is high compared to most OPEC countries, so net production will mostly flat. They can just loosen their grip a bit. The GDP would drop for nothing.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand “following the science” arguments are stupid right?

No. Why?

It’s a process not an end state.

“Follow science” and ‘follow “the” science’ are two different things, and we just need to go back in history to understand that humans did some horrible stuff because of “the” science.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being against Carbon Capture and geo-engineering is just following the science. Carbon capture has constantly been shown to just not work at any scale. and geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point.

can you make a scientific argument that carbon capture and geo engineering will not work at scale. if not, then you are just littering with words.

Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture if you account for the resource use for production and construction. Even when they do slightly better than breaking even the margin is so low that scaling it up is not a meaningful contribution relative to the amount of emissions we would need to counteract. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Geo engineering to the degree necessary to revert climate change is bad sci-fi, not science, no matter what billionaires selling personal EVs are telling you.

On the other hand we know that we are seeing an immense problem of overproduction which is incentivized by the economic system and impossible to tackle by blaming consumers for bad choices and asking the industry nicely to reduce waste or letting them get away with greenwashing by planting trees and raising honey bees. We could change that but it would require significant market intervention, which we (most Western nations at least) have been ideologically opposed to for decades.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#98
post #71
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that we allow GDP to not account for externalities to the environment. Like burning a wick, we cheer the flame with no consideration for the dynamite at the other end.

If we're going to include negative externalities then someone has to figure out all the positive ones too. The economic upside of cheap energy isn't being accounted for in the price either, because low prices tautologically can't capture high value per unit and flows on to people further down the value chain. The challenge of doing so is insurmountable, that way is the madness of centralised planning.

The first order negative impact of burning fossil fuels is stuff like pollution, global warming etc. This is not accounted for by the price of these fuels.

The first order positive impacts of burning fossil fuels are accounted for in the price of the fuels. That's what people are paying for. I need to drive a car, here is some money for oil.

What you are apparently talking about are the second order positive impact of fossil fuels. Some upside due to living in an environment of abundant cheap energy. I think you will have to argue more that these second order effects are comparable in size to the first order effects.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Why?

Because science just updates our beliefs, it doesn’t produce ‘truths’ that we can follow. See the Problem of Induction or the Duhem–Quine thesis.

What do you think truth is other than confident beliefs?

Nothing can produce "truths". If you want absolute truths, pick a holy text and decide for yourself what absolute truth you can pin on it.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't if you aren't a scientist in that field. As you're not qualified to do otherwise. As a physicist in quantum sensing. I follow the science (opinion) of climate scientists as they're the experts of that field. And that opinion is constantly evolving, but I follow that. Anything else is just being an armchair scientist.

Surely a physicist is best placed to ‘Nullius in Verba’ and to do his own research. Climate models are fundamentally physical simulations after all…

Climate models are fundamentally physical, but I don't have the insight in the field to have the deep insight to make qualified opinions.

I could after significant research as suggested. But that is a significant endeavour, hence following the opinion of the field is typically sufficient.

It's like a fronted developer making comments on kernel development and vice versa. It's both fundamentally code, but different fields.

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