7 ms·

My biggest hope on climate is India, China and Africa are soon in a position to put pressure on the West for how little we're doing. As prices continue to drop

My biggest hope on climate is India, China and Africa are soon in a position to put pressure on the West for how little we're doing. As prices continue to drop there'll be less and less incentive for them to continue installing polluting power.

deskamess 10y ago
The West is very good at pointing to the equation that benefits them while sidelining the historical path that was taken to get here. The narrative and finger pointing is strongest if the focus is on per-country impact versus per-person impact. Very "electoral college-ish", and inappropriate when the core underlying problem has no borders. The choice of words and numbers have made it plausible for an 'us' versus 'them' scenario. You do have to give credit to the wing of the PR machine that runs this so effectively. Going forward, controlling the narrative, and the associated "baseline" on geopolitical issues is going to be huge. Western countries have an unparalleled advantage thanks to the English and other Euro-languages which can reach a large portion of the globe.
- adrianN 10y ago
  The historical path is completely irrelevant. We need to stop producing CO2 (completely stop) within the next 30+-30 years if we want to limit global warming to ~2 degrees. The fact that "first world" countries have historically polluted much more during their development doesn't change that. We have to stop pointing fingers and start massively investing in change.
  - drcross 10y ago
    There's no way avoid finger pointing. There are tens of millions of people without electricity for their basic needs (think warming a babies milk or light for security), yet there are people in the west dumping a single use coffee cup (unheard of in poorer nations). People cannot continue to drive 5 liter vehicles for fashionable reasons and still expect poorer nations to live in abject poverty. What i'm saying is that finger pointing is exactly what we need to do.
    - toast0 10y ago
      FWIW, you can train most babies to accept cold or room temperature milk or formula by simply not offering it warmed. This saves a lot of parental effort of warming bottles, although the energy savings are minimal. Maybe refrigeration would be a better critical energy use? Storing milk (human or otherwise) safely is a big enabler.
  - pflanze 10y ago
    > We need to stop producing CO2 (completely stop) within the next 30+-30 years if we want to limit global warming to ~2 degrees. It could be cool if you could provide a reference for this statement (both because I don't know what the current best source of such information is and because the climate discussion is entirely dependent on scientific research).
    - adrianN 10y ago
      http://www.trillionthtonne.org/ http://www.trillionthtonne.org/
  - mrow84 10y ago
    How do you propose working out whether each country is investing an appropriate amount in the change?
    - adrianN 10y ago
      It's pretty simple. CO2 emissions need to be 0 in (say) 2050. So each year we need to reduce emissions by about 3%. Make it 5% for a safety margin. If we miss the target, we're not investing enough. I think some variant of Cap-and-Trade can be a reasonable strategy to achieve that.
- hueving 10y ago
  Per country is the only thing that matters if it's each country's government deciding what to do in their domain.
calvinbhai 10y ago
Very unlikely in the near term. US at least, has enough meddling through lobbies killing solar based projects (eg: Florida). Do checkout David Letterman's show on NGC that kind of delves into this issue. If west starts talking in terms of per capita consumption instead of per country consumption, the reality will smack them in the face and get them moving. But they don't.
brandon272 10y ago
Really? If I believe my relatives sharing things on my Facebook feed, we should do nothing because China has a billion times more polluting coal plants than we do and are building hundreds more in the next year alone.

deskamess 10y ago

The West is very good at pointing to the equation that benefits them while sidelining the historical path that was taken to get here. The narrative and finger pointing is strongest if the focus is on per-country impact versus per-person impact. Very "electoral college-ish", and inappropriate when the core underlying problem has no borders. The choice of words and numbers have made it plausible for an 'us' versus 'them' scenario. You do have to give credit to the wing of the PR machine that runs this so effectively. Going forward, controlling the narrative, and the associated "baseline" on geopolitical issues is going to be huge. Western countries have an unparalleled advantage thanks to the English and other Euro-languages which can reach a large portion of the globe.

adrianN 10y ago
The historical path is completely irrelevant. We need to stop producing CO2 (completely stop) within the next 30+-30 years if we want to limit global warming to ~2 degrees. The fact that "first world" countries have historically polluted much more during their development doesn't change that. We have to stop pointing fingers and start massively investing in change.
- drcross 10y ago
  There's no way avoid finger pointing. There are tens of millions of people without electricity for their basic needs (think warming a babies milk or light for security), yet there are people in the west dumping a single use coffee cup (unheard of in poorer nations). People cannot continue to drive 5 liter vehicles for fashionable reasons and still expect poorer nations to live in abject poverty. What i'm saying is that finger pointing is exactly what we need to do.
  - toast0 10y ago
    FWIW, you can train most babies to accept cold or room temperature milk or formula by simply not offering it warmed. This saves a lot of parental effort of warming bottles, although the energy savings are minimal. Maybe refrigeration would be a better critical energy use? Storing milk (human or otherwise) safely is a big enabler.
- pflanze 10y ago
  > We need to stop producing CO2 (completely stop) within the next 30+-30 years if we want to limit global warming to ~2 degrees. It could be cool if you could provide a reference for this statement (both because I don't know what the current best source of such information is and because the climate discussion is entirely dependent on scientific research).
  - adrianN 10y ago
    http://www.trillionthtonne.org/ http://www.trillionthtonne.org/
- mrow84 10y ago
  How do you propose working out whether each country is investing an appropriate amount in the change?
  - adrianN 10y ago
    It's pretty simple. CO2 emissions need to be 0 in (say) 2050. So each year we need to reduce emissions by about 3%. Make it 5% for a safety margin. If we miss the target, we're not investing enough. I think some variant of Cap-and-Trade can be a reasonable strategy to achieve that.
hueving 10y ago
Per country is the only thing that matters if it's each country's government deciding what to do in their domain.

calvinbhai 10y ago

Very unlikely in the near term. US at least, has enough meddling through lobbies killing solar based projects (eg: Florida). Do checkout David Letterman's show on NGC that kind of delves into this issue. If west starts talking in terms of per capita consumption instead of per country consumption, the reality will smack them in the face and get them moving. But they don't.

brandon272 10y ago

Really? If I believe my relatives sharing things on my Facebook feed, we should do nothing because China has a billion times more polluting coal plants than we do and are building hundreds more in the next year alone.