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Honestly, the whole point of worrying about climate change is its impact to humans (the earth has survived far worse over its history, and will likely survive w

by JoBrad 10y ago

Honestly, the whole point of worrying about climate change is its impact to humans (the earth has survived far worse over its history, and will likely survive worse in the future). The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself (i.e. doing nothing) - and has a huge upfront cost, to boot. Additionally, such extreme actions will result in large black markets that render those bans moot, and abide by very few or none of the laws and regulations we have in place to mitigate some small amount of impact to our climate, making the situation worse than it is now. The only real solution is to innovate our way out of a large amount of our polluting habits, in a way that is cost-effective. Also, I don't recall any governmental agency saying that we are taking appropriate action to save the planet. Most agencies are saying that we should start taking action, but that we've already passed the point of no return.

blondie9x 10y ago
Can you prove that one of my suggestions would have a negative impact on humanity and economic growth?
- JoBrad 10y ago
  In general, the issue I see is using a hammer to prevent people from surviving in a complex environment, vs using innovation to promote a more sustainable way to make a living. People aren't usually polluting because they love dirty air, water, hate polar bears, or even because they think it's a good thing to do. People drive cars for hours each day because there isn't a viable (cost-effective) alternative. > banning fossil fuels entirely No fossil fuels means the global delivery of goods and services comes to an immediate halt. Medicine, food, clothing, power - everything stops. We are absolutely too reliant on fossil fuels, and we have to change that. But you may be forgetting how long it took to get us hooked on one of the easiest-to-consume energy resources on the planet. Moving to a resource which takes more work to get energy from is not going to happen overnight. And if we did come up with something overnight, it's probably not thought-through enough to be a real solution. > banning deforestation This issue is much more complicated than it seems. Let's take the Amazon rainforest as an example. A large portion of the deforestation is occurring because single-family farms are clearing forest to make a farm, so they can grow crops. How do we handle situations like that without materially affecting the ability of people to support themselves?
  - spdustin 10y ago
    > affecting the ability of people to support themselves Well, that depends. Is it subsistence farming? Or is it for biofuel? Biofuels may, during combustion, cause fewer emissions, but add in the change in land use (with the attendant fertilizing regimen, etc.) and the reduction in carbon sequestration from removing trees... That causes deforestation for biofuel to be worse than just burning fossil fuels in the first place. Burning things isn't the way out, no matter how neatly those things burn. Nuclear power (whose waste products arguably are vastly easier to contain than burning anything), solar power, geothermal power (the benefits of nuclear power without the pesky reactors) ... Even wind/hydroelectric power generation are, kWh-to-kWh, less damaging to our climate overall.
headShrinker 10y ago
> The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts Not eating meat, invest Hyper Loop high speed ground travel, home solar, electric cars, dramatically raise air travel cost, stop cutting down tropical forests, and stop burning coal. These are all doable, and with minimal quality of life impact. If a life is ruined because they can't have a McQuarterPounder, a Chevy big block, and flying to Texas every week, maybe they deserve a scorched planet where the trees are paper products, the water is plastic and fracking residue, and all the large animals are dead. I realize I'm over simplifying but doing NOTHING is a lot different than doing trying something anything with minimal return. We are doing nothing. That's sad.
- tartuffe78 10y ago
  Speaking as an American, not eating meat, buying (currently) much more expensive cars, and not being able to afford to fly are huge quality of life impacts.
  - wang_li 10y ago
    As is the increased population density to make any kind of HyperLoop/high speed train/slow speed train/fixed route transportation effective beyond simply transferring money from tax payers to shysters.
mikeash 10y ago
Why would investing in renewable energy and next-generation nuclear power result in substantial negative impacts to humanity?
NickM 10y ago
> The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself I think that assertion deserves to be examined a bit more closely. We are already effectively subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of 5+ trillion USD per year [1]. This is a figure from the IMF that includes direct monetary subsidies as well as externalities like public health, environmental damage, etc. So the question now becomes this: would switching to renewables cost more than that? If we started dumping that same amount of money into renewables and corresponding infrastructure, how quickly could we switch away from fossil fuels? If we do some impromptu calculations based on current cost of solar panels, batteries, etc., it seems like it might take maybe 20 years. Obviously it's not that simple in practice, but I think this demonstrates that humanity could theoretically switch away from fossil fuels without enduring any severe hardships. This isn't a problem of the technology not being good enough[2], or renewables being too expensive: it's just a political/organizational problem. [1] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0 [2] With the possible exception of jet planes, for which batteries aren't good enough to provide a compelling alternative yet. But I would guess that when the electric car market really starts to take off, battery tech will start improving a lot faster.
- JoBrad 10y ago
  We should stop subsidies for all fossil fuels, and begin phasing in taxation of fossil fuels to account for their cost. But the cost I'm talking about it not just about money. There isn't a viable alternative to a whole host of products that we use. Off the top of my head I can think of plastics (huge) and large equipment. Even using energy-reclamation for garbage trucks is an "innovation" for us. We simply couldn't do it with the current paradigm. You also have to consider that the majority of humanity is evolutionarily wired to be change-averse. Overturning our current infrastructure is not easy, and will require trillions of dollars of investment, for essentially the same level of service that we have today. That's hard to convince people to do. And even the best idea is worth nothing if people won't adopt it.
  - wang_li 10y ago
GVIrish 10y ago
> The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself (i.e. doing nothing) - and has a huge upfront cost, to boot. Not even remotely true. If we experience massive economic pain for several decades as we switch over to renewable energy, big deal, that's a few decades. If climate change displaces hundreds of millions of people, disrupts global weather patterns, and devastates ecosystems across the globe, what do we do then? Some of that damage is irreversible. We simply do not have technology to reverse climate change on any timescale that is going to prevent massive levels of death and misery for most of humankind, not to mention permanent destruction of major ecosystems. We're talking about how habitable Earth is going to be for mankind into the foreseeable future. Damage to the current state of economic markets doesn't even come close to that sort of impact. We can argue about what would be the most effective way to change, but to suggest that expensive changes would be worse than ruining the biosphere for humanity is ludicrous.

by JoBrad 10y ago

blondie9x 10y ago

Can you prove that one of my suggestions would have a negative impact on humanity and economic growth?

JoBrad 10y ago
In general, the issue I see is using a hammer to prevent people from surviving in a complex environment, vs using innovation to promote a more sustainable way to make a living. People aren't usually polluting because they love dirty air, water, hate polar bears, or even because they think it's a good thing to do. People drive cars for hours each day because there isn't a viable (cost-effective) alternative. > banning fossil fuels entirely No fossil fuels means the global delivery of goods and services comes to an immediate halt. Medicine, food, clothing, power - everything stops. We are absolutely too reliant on fossil fuels, and we have to change that. But you may be forgetting how long it took to get us hooked on one of the easiest-to-consume energy resources on the planet. Moving to a resource which takes more work to get energy from is not going to happen overnight. And if we did come up with something overnight, it's probably not thought-through enough to be a real solution. > banning deforestation This issue is much more complicated than it seems. Let's take the Amazon rainforest as an example. A large portion of the deforestation is occurring because single-family farms are clearing forest to make a farm, so they can grow crops. How do we handle situations like that without materially affecting the ability of people to support themselves?
- spdustin 10y ago
  > affecting the ability of people to support themselves Well, that depends. Is it subsistence farming? Or is it for biofuel? Biofuels may, during combustion, cause fewer emissions, but add in the change in land use (with the attendant fertilizing regimen, etc.) and the reduction in carbon sequestration from removing trees... That causes deforestation for biofuel to be worse than just burning fossil fuels in the first place. Burning things isn't the way out, no matter how neatly those things burn. Nuclear power (whose waste products arguably are vastly easier to contain than burning anything), solar power, geothermal power (the benefits of nuclear power without the pesky reactors) ... Even wind/hydroelectric power generation are, kWh-to-kWh, less damaging to our climate overall.

headShrinker 10y ago

> The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts Not eating meat, invest Hyper Loop high speed ground travel, home solar, electric cars, dramatically raise air travel cost, stop cutting down tropical forests, and stop burning coal. These are all doable, and with minimal quality of life impact. If a life is ruined because they can't have a McQuarterPounder, a Chevy big block, and flying to Texas every week, maybe they deserve a scorched planet where the trees are paper products, the water is plastic and fracking residue, and all the large animals are dead. I realize I'm over simplifying but doing NOTHING is a lot different than doing trying something anything with minimal return. We are doing nothing. That's sad.

tartuffe78 10y ago
Speaking as an American, not eating meat, buying (currently) much more expensive cars, and not being able to afford to fly are huge quality of life impacts.
- wang_li 10y ago
  As is the increased population density to make any kind of HyperLoop/high speed train/slow speed train/fixed route transportation effective beyond simply transferring money from tax payers to shysters.

mikeash 10y ago

Why would investing in renewable energy and next-generation nuclear power result in substantial negative impacts to humanity?

NickM 10y ago

> The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself I think that assertion deserves to be examined a bit more closely. We are already effectively subsidizing the fossil fuel industry to the tune of 5+ trillion USD per year [1]. This is a figure from the IMF that includes direct monetary subsidies as well as externalities like public health, environmental damage, etc. So the question now becomes this: would switching to renewables cost more than that? If we started dumping that same amount of money into renewables and corresponding infrastructure, how quickly could we switch away from fossil fuels? If we do some impromptu calculations based on current cost of solar panels, batteries, etc., it seems like it might take maybe 20 years. Obviously it's not that simple in practice, but I think this demonstrates that humanity could theoretically switch away from fossil fuels without enduring any severe hardships. This isn't a problem of the technology not being good enough[2], or renewables being too expensive: it's just a political/organizational problem. [1] http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0 [2] With the possible exception of jet planes, for which batteries aren't good enough to provide a compelling alternative yet. But I would guess that when the electric car market really starts to take off, battery tech will start improving a lot faster.

JoBrad 10y ago
We should stop subsidies for all fossil fuels, and begin phasing in taxation of fossil fuels to account for their cost. But the cost I'm talking about it not just about money. There isn't a viable alternative to a whole host of products that we use. Off the top of my head I can think of plastics (huge) and large equipment. Even using energy-reclamation for garbage trucks is an "innovation" for us. We simply couldn't do it with the current paradigm. You also have to consider that the majority of humanity is evolutionarily wired to be change-averse. Overturning our current infrastructure is not easy, and will require trillions of dollars of investment, for essentially the same level of service that we have today. That's hard to convince people to do. And even the best idea is worth nothing if people won't adopt it.
- wang_li 10y ago

GVIrish 10y ago

> The suggestions you mentioned all have substantial negative impacts to humanity - arguably as much as climate change itself (i.e. doing nothing) - and has a huge upfront cost, to boot. Not even remotely true. If we experience massive economic pain for several decades as we switch over to renewable energy, big deal, that's a few decades. If climate change displaces hundreds of millions of people, disrupts global weather patterns, and devastates ecosystems across the globe, what do we do then? Some of that damage is irreversible. We simply do not have technology to reverse climate change on any timescale that is going to prevent massive levels of death and misery for most of humankind, not to mention permanent destruction of major ecosystems. We're talking about how habitable Earth is going to be for mankind into the foreseeable future. Damage to the current state of economic markets doesn't even come close to that sort of impact. We can argue about what would be the most effective way to change, but to suggest that expensive changes would be worse than ruining the biosphere for humanity is ludicrous.