These articles are great, but preaching to the choir. What should any of us do? I'm seriously and sincerely asking. Are there any suggestions, from a personal stand point i.e. excluding a completely new economic model and government structure? Is it to drive less and cut out meat? (done) Buy less stuff? Support the right organizations and political candidates?
What if one is doing all of those things already, now what? Just sit here and watch our homes go up in flames as the entire place becomes a desert? Some actionable things would be great to have.
It is a grave life error to assign excessive likelihood to the doomsayers. I've been reading about inevitable doom for 25 years now. Some of what I read as a kid dated to the 60s and the guaranteed dates of inevitable doom had already passed by the time I read them in the early 90s.
Even assuming they are completely 100% right about the problems, which is frankly a big assumption, they rarely, if ever, even remotely account for the fact that people and the economy change in reaction to problems.
Also, consider the possibility that this feeling of hopelessness is something that perhaps somebody wants to instill in you. Why? Who benefits? Are their hands as clean as you suppose? Are you sure? I'm a big fan of "follow the money"; where most people fuck that up is that they only want to follow the money sometimes, when it suits them. Nope... always follow it. "Follow the money" is almost always used wrong; you don't need it to debunk the people you already don't trust, you need it to vet the people you do. Doomsaying has been exceedingly profitable over the past ~60 years. (It's been profitable even farther back than that, but mass market doomsaying really took off somewhere around then, which is where the real money is.) Do not forget to take that into account.
(Also, as my post implies, don't assume I'm speaking just to the particular doom de jour, about which you might still have emotional reactions. I'm talking about nuclear war, population bombs, a multitude of claims we're running out of some resource, trash management issues, a wide variety of eschatological claims, all sorts of things I've read in the last 30 years. You may say "But jerf, some of those are still problems and may be problems in the future" and I say, I agree. I often like to say "Stand up. Point in a random direction. You are pointing at a problem." There are always problems and always will be problems. But we're not talking about problems... we're talking about doom. The doom has not happened. I believe fully in environmental problems both in the present and the future. I do not anywhere near fully believe in inevitable doom.)
Maybe we can bandaid or mitigate the worst effects for some people. Probably richer people. But just see Harvey and wildfires and droughts for strong evidence that we will not do anything whatsoever even when cities are being destroyed by inaction.
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Unfortunately every single aspect of modern life is based on the assumption of exponential growth. This just isn't gonna work.
He's also one of the villains.
See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312505967_Olivine_W... for one approach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization for another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering lists several more.
While these are interesting technologies, it's very difficult to see how they make sense economically. The cost/benefit ratio is invariably much worse than simply investing in emissions reductions.
If we have $X to invest in climate mitigation, it's always going to be better to spend it on technologies that reduce carbon emissions: replacing fossil-fuel power plants, electrification of transport, etc. To my knowledge there is no technology that removes a ton of carbon from the atmosphere that comes anywhere close to being competitive with what it costs to not emit that ton of carbon in the first place.
Of course, the day may come when all the easy carbon reductions have been made. If the climate is still not stabilising at that point, then we can start looking at all the climate engineering mega-projects.
There are in fact Republican politicians who support effective measures to address climate change that are compatible with traditional Republican market-based, conservative principles, such as a revenue neutral carbon tax, but they are greatly outnumbered by the ones who think climate change is fake or is just natural cycles that will swing the other way on their own and that we cannot influence anyway.
Consider applying your skills to the renewable energy sector, companies working on transport electrification, and other “clean tech” sectors. These are exciting growth industries and you’ll be making a difference.
Effective greenhouse gas taxation is a single thing that could solve the issue with the current system and be efficient.
* It would have to be significantly higher than today.
* It would tax exported emissions.
* It would be well designed to avoid loopholes. It would include CO2 produced by food production (especially meat) and CO2 emissions from concrete.
An earth of 7.5 billion is more sustainable than an earth of 10 billion. 7.5 will live better lives than a world of 10, given sociopolitical realities.
I’m just REALLY not a fan of the “can’t let the 3rd world have so many people and then develop to 1st world standards” thing. It may technically help the problem, but it feels like soft racism and proto-eugenicism, at least from the perspective of people living in those countries. It gives me the creeps, although I’m sure that’s not your intention.
Also, I’m convinced that the main way to solve these problems is human ingenuity. And that can’t just include people in the Western world.
You don't throw your foe to the ground with brute force alone. You take him off-balance, and move in with good timing and technique.
If your goal is solving climate change, well, the leverage isn't really in the technical solution, but in the political economy. We need a redesign. That's problem one.
But if it's the power structure that needs changing, what affects it? Knowledge. Signalling. Valuation. And then you get into things that you can potentially change as a tech worker, by pushing for information systems that change our valuation metrics to match a philosophy of sustainability. And that positions actors who wish to take sustainable actions to have the leverage to realize it.
That, I think, is the trick to feeling OK about it. At the end of the day, it's a war fought in an abstract, everyday sense: Build up your sense of morality and build your career around those principles. You might not be the hero, but you won't be the villain.
https://jancovici.com/en/climate-change/acting-individually/...
It is relatively practical and takes into account the ratio cost or difficulty vs impact
It boils down to using less energy for transportation or consumption (food or otherwise)
So be inventive.
You've gone wrong at the very start. This isn't a problem that can be solved on an individual level, and the sad truth is that we do, in fact, need a new economic model. The sooner we own up to that the sooner we can move on with building it.
The truly apocalyptic predictions are just not very likely. We are not going to be boiled alive or turn into Venus or whatever. It’s not going to get so hot that all plant matter catches on fire.
If we do nothing, within the next 80 years large parts of the currently inhabited planet will be uninhabitable by humans, however. That's a sort of apocalypse. It's also the consensus view of scientists who study the global pollution epidemic.
What you can do:
- Do not panic. A good life is important for work for improvement.
- Yes to all of your suggestions. You are vegan ? Good for you and the rest of the world.
- Tell other people how important and urgent change is.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGJq0eQZoFSwgcqgxIE9MHw/vid...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJRjK20fHylJyf-HiBtqI2w/vid...
Perhaps the memoirs of terminal cancer patients would be instructive. However, they benefit from frequentist statistics. We've only got Bayes for our experiment.
On the plus side, the worst consequences from climate change will occur after we're dead.
Just enjoy the rest of your life and try not to think about it too much. After all, that's what everyone else has been doing.
Climate change is one of the reasons we're not having kids. In part because they would have had a very bad life, but also because it's the best for the planet.
Reducing consumption of resources is not working, so we should start thinking about controlling population growth.
There are a lot of people who stand to profit from the climate change lobby: professors, alternate energy producers, politicians, government, media. They all want money invested in THEIR pet projects. And conveniently, it serves as a great distraction from issues on the horizon that WILL have a guaranteed negative affect on your children's quality of life, but I wont get into that, since what I'm writing is divisive enough as it is.
When it comes to the climate, you will be fine, we will be fine, our kids will be fine, the sky will not fall, the seas will not swallow up our cities (excluding regular weather), America will not become a desert (unless that super-volcano blows). It is sensationalism.
2. The sun provides lots of energy
3. Therefore, carbon dioxide is able to store lots of solar energy
4. We are releasing lots of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere
5. Therefore, the atmosphere's ability to store solar energy is increasing
What part of this logic don't you understand or disagree with?
The problem with stating and imagining things in terms of binary outcomes is you can't have a reasonable argument about anything.
Most of what is written about Global warming are events that will unfold over long periods of time, but nevertheless should the situation continue, they will eventually come to pass.
We can also get energy from other sources, such as solar radiation, but I think you get the gist - the most cost-effective way to carbon capture is not to release the carbon in the first place.
Besides most of the damage is already done.
EPA: It’s as if you’re sitting in your car, in your garage, with the engine running and the door closed, and you’ve slipped into unconsciousness. And that’s it.
McAvoy: What if someone comes and opens the door?
EPA: You’re already dead.
McAvoy: What if the person got there in time?
EPA: Then you’d be saved.
McAvoy: OK. So now what’s the CO2 equivalent of the getting there on time?
EPA: Shutting off the car 20 years ago.
Emissions affect the climate decades later, some 40 years later. So we're now only seeing the consequences of the emissions from the 70s-80s.
We've emitted more CO2 since the 80s to today, than the previous 150 years.
Because it's too late. Unless magic non-existent carbon capture technology materializes soon, we're basically fucked.
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...
Check out that middle graphic. If we really want to avoid 1.5 degrees, and we can’t rely on large-scale carbon sequestration, then the global community has to zero out its carbon emissions by 2026.
Ten years from now.
That article is two years old and, to state the obvious, global CO2 emissions are not on track to reach zero in the next eight years.
So the billion dollar reward would be quite small sum in the grand scheme of things. And for example with a carbon tax, where collectors could offset emitters, it might also become a quite lucrative business.
Unfortunately we haven't invented the technology to implement your broad brush "solution" either.
In fact, I'm skeptical about the claim Climate Change could have been solved generations ago, given that we still haven't developed the means to do it yet.
Edit: okay, perhaps nuclear could provide us with the masses of power generation we need, but that's been ruled out.
But who would pay for that? If there were the political will we would long have passed a simple carbon tax that, after some adjustment period, would be tied to the price of unburning a ton of CO2.
But it’s a moot point anyway, because trees simply grow too slowly to be an effective carbon buffer at the timescales that are relevant right now.
My takeaway was just like losing weight. It's more effective to eat less than to exercise. Here, it's bound to be better to burn less.
This was an electrochemical approach however. It's possible some bio guy will figure it out using photosynthesis.
This poses it's own problems though, one of which being the enormous amount of land you would need to dedicate to this process to have a meaningful impact.
> A $20 Million global competition to develop breakthrough technologies that will convert CO₂ emissions from power plants and industrial facilities into valuable products like building materials, alternative fuels and other items that we use every day. Teams will be scored on how much CO₂ they convert and the net value of their products.
The EU's ETS [1] is currently the biggest carbon market, regulating about 40% of EU emissions.
It does not grant rights to capturers that take CO2 out of the atmosphere - only to those that reduce the emissions at some plant or factory. Apparently this choice is partly because it's not clear how to make sure that the carbon sink is stable - that the CO2 won't get out again. [2]
Lets assume you could get emissions rights for removing CO2. Would this provide the incentive we want?
The current price for emissions rights is 15€ per 1000 tons of CO2 [3], so an operation to sequester all of the EU's emissions (3.4 * 10^9 t, 2014, [4]) would get a revenue of at most 50 million euro / year. Probably much less since the market would get flooded.
Why is this price so low? The ETS' cap could be too low. Also, the ETS does not really cap emissions at all. Only certain industries, like power or aluminium manufacturing need to present certificates [1b], hence the 40%. Also, industries which would be 'at risk' to leave the EU if they were forced to pay, get free certificates [5] - arguably these would pay the most for rights.
Overall the EU does seem to be doing something right though, since the overall emissions are going down [4]. But the ETS does not seem to internalize the carbon externality.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en
[1b] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/clima/files/factsheet_ets_e...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emission_Tradin...
[3] https://www.theice.com/products/197/EUA-Futures/data?marketI...
[4] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
[5] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets/allowances/leakage_e...
Seems a bit fast given the popularity and the fact that it was posted 2 hours ago (also, compared to those that are present on p1)
-- edit: we're now on page 3 just 30 minutes after my comment.
This story tripped the overheated discussion detector, which we've just turned off. There actually aren't many flags, and one of the main reasons why it isn't ranked higher is that most of the upvotes were dropped by the anti-abuse software.
When users start speculative meta subthreads like this, it foments a kind of disconnected conspiracy thinking that we can't seem to help ourselves from. You can email us and get the answer to exactly what's going on in a few minutes! But that's not what most choose—we'd rather wring our hands and imagine demons. If we could do this a bit less, Hacker News would be more intellectually interesting.
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In general, comment threads like the one you've started generate more heat than light (19/116 comments as of this writing). If you think something odd is going on, contact the mods via the Contact link in the footer, as they're the ones who can actually view what's happening and do something about it.
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Before we attempt to solve climate crisis, first we should solve BIGOTRY CRISIS.
I have seen this happening before too. Why does HN allows anonymous flagging? I bet anything if it were unanimous we would able to frame bigots who only flag because of their stupid personal world view.
Has there been any efforts to make flagging more transparent-perhaps where I can contribute or should we raise a new issue on that?
Maybe they disagree with the article, but the tone of the comments does not frankly reflects this rejection.
It makes me sad.
My first chunk of free time goes into making an automated bigotry-watcher for HN.
This is the purest bullshit I have seen in a while. Had I checked HN half an hour late, I would have never caught this.
For a real-time update on climate change, just look at the canary in the cold-mine - Arctic Sea Ice. I have a look daily in summer to see if we will again break the record minimum and when the summer will be ice-free there - it will happen within a decade or two at the most. For Arctic sea ice voyeurs, check this out: https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/
Even if some people grudge this fact, the Grid is not ready for variable generation that Wind and Solar does, they do buy some time for Grid to become smarter (Grid of MicroGrids) where it can digest Solar and Wind, especially now that viable storage like batteries and fuel cells are coming off age.
In my view, on rich vs poor nations, if China handled its emissions much earlier and more aggressively, we'd still have massive historical emissions and massive per capita emissions in North America and Europe. Rich people tend to decry those not using renewables and not transitioning quickly, however it's easier to transition/decarbonize with EVs and solar PV and energy efficiency when your economy is already developed. Long commutes, western diets, leisure travel, copious heating and air conditioning, and many other factors are not present in other countries which still have "dirty" economies with longer ways to go to both energize their entire populace AND to clean up said energy sources. So, westerners should look in the mirror before they criticize those people just getting electricity or their first car in the last decade.
The rays of hope I see for climate change come from the potential for energizing nations to skip over total fossil fuel dependence in their industrialization and modernization schemes. Furthermore, there are bright spots in electric buses (huge wave of these will come in next decade), in renewable deployments (~2/3 of capacity additions in recent years in USA), and in overall business movement towards low carbon solutions. While national and state policy-makers could move more quickly, surely, there is a lot of innovation occurring in the private and local levels.
Long term, even if we decarbonize very quickly due to technological innovations and S-curves, I foresee needing to use environmental engineering techniques to cool the planet. While risky, I think the level of economic and societal harm from the heating/expansions of the oceans and further ice melt will necessitate some sort of artificial cooling of the planet.
While some may deem this as unethical or playing God with our planet, IMO we've already irrevocably changed our planet's heat content. We need to not only pull our foots of the accelerator, reducing emissions of GH gases, but we also need to put our foots on the brake, somehow cooling the planet and/or sequestering previous emissions. If we don't take these latter steps, no amount of decarbonization will prevent catastrophes of hurricanes, fires, flooding, desertification, and sea-level-rise in the next countless generations.
We've had models before with the CFC / Montreal Treaty, and on a national scale with WW2, and the Sputnik / Apollo missions.
There are very few problems humanity cannot solve by coordinated effort. The trick is to force that coordination, and I don't see that happening in the near future.
I think the concerns about climate change are wildly overstated for the developed world. There are some more concerns when subsistence farming is the primary way of living, but humans (and humanity) adapt, and we adapt with great alacrity.
Can I ask you why you think that is the case? Why would industrialized farming and the food supply chain that feeds the developed world do better?
I went through this search recently - companies at the nexus of software and cleantech in the bay area, here was my shortlist so you can see what kinds of things these companies are working on: AutoGrid, Bidgely, Ohm Connect, Tesla, Utility API, Omnidian, Stem, Advanced Microgrid Solutions
If you're thinking of starting something yourself, energy seems to be an especially idiosyncratic industry that I think doesn't lend itself easily to outside in solutions, it really pays to work in it for a couple years to soak up the knowledge. You'll find tons of opportunities once you're on the inside.
A few of the better opportunities that come to mind from my point of view: 1. Software & analytics based EE and DR (Bidgely, Autogrid, Ohmconnect, First Fuel) 2. Grid analytics, especially around citing and incorporating renewables, controlling batteries to maximize value to the grid and owner (AMS, Stem, Tesla) 3. Customer acquisition for cleantech products - small scale (helping sell devices to homes) and large scale (helping developing projects)
All of these things have significant software and analytics bent and will be key parts of the solution
Animal welfare/rights is most important to me, but I realize that its all connected and can be brought about mostly by investing in clean tech, clean meat, and fighting climate change.
Here a paper to start your research: "Energy Efficiency across Programming Languages How Does Energy, Time, and Memory Relate?" http://greenlab.di.uminho.pt/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/pape...
How much would you be happy to lose in today's practices ? (I'm curious about what people need/want)
And it seems to me the reason why not is economic. At the end of the day, people care more about the roof over their heads than they do about global problems. In the eighties, we didn't have much by way of good substitutes for fossil fuel. So the message people heard was that they would have to accept economic hardship for the sake of the environment. That was not what people wanted to hear.
The lesson to learn from this is that we need to address the economic issues alongside the environmental ones. The message needs to not be that you must accept unemployment and poverty. The message needs to be that the task of transitioning the world to renewable energy is doable but enormous - and has the potential to create millions upon millions of jobs, as well as breaking the resource curse that decoupled the interests of the rulers from those of the people. That successfully turning our hands to the new energy industries will bring more prosperity than holding onto the old ones.
Could we position a sheet, or a carpet of asteroids in a Lagrange point around the Earth, or as a sort of reverse Dyson sphere?
I heard that such a thing could be used to cool down Venus.
That doesn't address the ocean acidification, or mass extinctions, etc. Certain high-light plants would also likely perish without intervention. Also, solar energy on Earth would be stifled.
And one of those problems will see the end of us if not climate change. It is much like playing Russian roulette in the risk of extinction. We just may avert the climate change but some next problem will be our bullet.
This is lying, spreading lies, with malicious intent. There was no scientific uncertainty.
A proper public policy would be to wipe out the Exxon, and all petrol companies, shareholders. Claw back all profits from all shareholders proportionally going back 40 years, all profits on those profits, and unwind the companies over the next 20 years strictly to public benefit. And if that is still not enough to pay for fixing what has been damaged, the corporate veil should be pierced and make every shareholder of these companies personally liable. And I'm one of those shareholders - I've owned BP directly and indirectly through funds.
And it is also quite damning for an unlimited 1st amendment concept that proposes telling lies is a right. Unlimited opinions however unpopular should be protected, but spreading proven falsehoods should not be protected. It should be used as evidence the speaker is culpable, in part, of the ensuing damage. Criminal? Perhaps. Civil? Absolutely.
And then it's like we talked ourselves out of it. Then someone found an old copy of Time magazine at a yard sale, and said, "aha! See, they can't make up their minds!" No, "their minds" were kind of made up, don't let a crap article from a weekly news magazine sway you.
I haven't finished the article; I'll do that tonight, because I'm kind of curious in NYT's take on why we changed our minds.