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At the rate we're setting up for a future where the entire ocean blooms, dies, and we're left with nothing. Already jellyfish are taking over. We're killing of

At the rate we're setting up for a future where the entire ocean blooms, dies, and we're left with nothing. Already jellyfish are taking over. We're killing off so many life forms we're essentially going back in time to the precambrian era. Instead of looking for "quick fixes" like iron seeding, which has just as much a chance of going awry as Australia importing cane toads to deal with their crop insects, let's just curtail CO2 emissions.

amadeuspagel 8y ago
Why should we sacrifice the welfare of human beings to prevent jellyfish from taking over the ocean?
philipkglass 8y ago
To stay below 2 degrees of warming via CO2 curtailment alone, serious curtailment would have had to start a generation ago. I wish that we had acted with urgency then, but we didn't. Now we need curtailment and active interventions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- benchaney 8y ago
  Agreed. Many environmentalists like to argue that curtailment is the “proper” way to handle global warming. If the situation is half as dire as they are claiming it is, then that is simply not good enough.
  - Brakenshire 8y ago
    The problem is the existence of these techniques will be used to justify inaction elsewhere. They also do nothing to tackle acidification. And it’s not as if the world has been standing still over the last decades, huge progress has been made and many technologies are at the borderline of being economical or cheaper than the alternatives, and are continually falling in price. Once we push the boulder over the crest of the hill it will roll down unaided. The economy can change much quicker than we think.
    - philipkglass 8y ago
      Some of the active countermeasures contemplated, like ocean fertilization and accelerated olivine weathering, also tackle acidification if they work at scale. Solar radiation management does nothing to fix acidification though it can possibly interrupt feedback loops that would make acidification even worse. I agree that many technologies for replacing fossil usage have now achieved or are close to economic superiority, and that change can come very rapidly with economic superiority. But I also think that reaching this point has taken too long and now we will need active measures as well as emissions cuts.
      - joe_the_user 8y ago
        The problem is that while solar energy may have already achieved superiority over the net cost of finding, drilling-off and extracting hydrocarbons, solar energy is not going achieve superiority over hydrocarbons people already have. The cost of already found oil is just the cost of pumping it out of the ground and with easy fields, no energy source is going to beat that (the cheapest Saudi cost less $10/barrel to pump and that's light, easy to refine oil). So, due to these different marginal costs, there's no way even completely practical, economical solar can stop fossil fuel usage quickly without active regulator intervention.
        philipkglass 8y ago
        Yes, it's harder to out-compete fossil projects that have already been built, already paid off their capital costs, and incur just operational costs going forward. Some of those fossil projects (like Saudi oil fields that cost only $10/barrel) are not going to be economically forced into early retirement by any foreseeable lower-emissions energy source. Note that there is also quite a bit of already-built fossil capacity that can be retired early by economic pressures. Not every big fossil project has operational costs as low as Saudi oil. For example, the Navajo Generating Station is the largest American coal plant west of the Mississippi River. It was built in the 1970s. It has a stable, low cost for coal since it is supplied by the nearby dedicated Kayenta Mine. Just a few years ago it was planned to run until 2044. But the falling costs of gas and renewables have made it economically uncompetitive. It's now going to close at the end of 2019, 25 years early: https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/02/13/utilities-vote-close-navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-2019/97866668/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/0... I agree on the broader point that fossil fuel emissions won't be curbed quickly without active regulator intervention. Since that intervention may arrive late-or-never in different nations, it's one of the reasons that I believe active carbon dioxide removal measures will be necessary in addition to emissions reduction efforts.
  - Tharkun 8y ago
    Here's the thing. Environmentalists have been warning about climate change for generations now. Calling for replacements for fossil fuel and for drastic cuts in emmissions and consumption. Basically nobody acted. And now the situation is becoming dire. Suddenly curtailmennt is off the table because it's no longer enough? It's never even been tried or seriously considered. Pretty much no developed country is on track for reducing CO2 emmissions by a large enough fraction. And yet, somehow, we're now expecting those self same countries to become proficient at geo engineering on a scale massive enough to revert climate change? It's a farce.
    - michaelt 8y ago
      OK, so here's the thing from a politician's point of view: If you do something fairly extreme for curtailment, like a tax on fuel that motorists really notice, the other party will get voted in and they'll undo it. Now you've got kicked out of office, with no environmental benefit to show for it. And if you go further with something like a ban on pet dogs or ban on meat-eating? Same thing but faster and with more certainty.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  Indeed, The problem is that, given we're failing the straightforward task of curtailment even now, what are the chances that we can successfully achieve curtailment and sequestering in the required time-frame? Curtailment is a large task but we know what to do. Sequestering would also be a large task but what to do is uncertain. Curtailment so far has been a corrupt circus with "pledges" and other indirect inducements ("carbon credits") being most of what was done. These indirect inducements primarily served as speculative vehicles and advertising gloss. And here, I just google'd up what you'd expect: A bitcoin-based platform for trading carbon credit. Now you can use the certainty of damaging the environment to make a promise to repair it. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/ibm-and-veridium-transform-carbon-credits-blockchain-based-tokens/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/ibm-and-veridium-transf...
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    Coal consumption has already peaked in the USA, France, UK, Canada, (probably) China, and a number of other countries. Emissions intensity and absolute emissions from the electricity sector has already peaked in multiple countries. The cost of electrifying automobiles and generating low-emissions renewable electricity is much lower than a generation ago. On the other hand, global fossil fuel use has not peaked yet. Global population has not peaked yet. Many countries have worse cost-and-schedule problems with attempted deployments of nuclear reactors than they did 40 years ago. We are barely reaching "maybe starting to flatten out emissions" -- actually trending down toward zero is just a mirage in the distance at present. The opportunity to stabilize the climate just by cutting emissions is now in the past. I feel like humanity is moving toward making the changes it needs, and has a better toolset for those changes than before, but is changing much slower and later than it should have. We're out of completely safe options and have to try to navigate between various risky options. I can understand the perspective of people who feel like we're acting too late and there is no chance of industrial civilization surviving into the 22nd century, even though I don't share that perspective.
    - joe_the_user 8y ago
      On the other hand, global fossil fuel use has not peaked yet. Global population has not peaked yet. Indeed, but if solar power is now the preferred energy source, solar power could be being used for all new energy need as well as help us cut back on fossil fuel's original usage. But it's not. That's a world-killing problem. What we're out of is laize faire options. Neither sequestering nor dramatic winding down of fossil fuel consumption is going to happen without a world level authority dictating things. Sadly, that seems unlikely.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Think about it, a generation ago the ozone layer was the most we did. The rest was impossibly deep in humanity subconscious. And to add the club of rome report came out before most of us were even born...
  - astrodust 8y ago
    I still can't believe that ozone depleting CFCs and putting toxic lead in gasoline were the the inventions of the same guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. Given more time I'm sure he would have come up with other world destroying chemicals.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      Oh yeah, THAT "most impacting" guy in human history..
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  One active intervention would be a permanent individual gasoline-rationing program. No sells, no trades, decreasing allotments year-by-year. Thus encouraging -planned- driving, -smaller- vehicles. The world needs to declare a WAR ON CO2 and put it on a war-time footing. Further considerations of tinkering around with an environment we've already de-stabilized only shows we haven't learned our lesson. We don't know enough to know what's safe... except the way things were.
thereisnospork 8y ago
Sure we could curtail CO2 emissions, but that means lowering people's quality of life which is a hard sell.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  Do all methods of curtailing CO2 emissions lower people's quality of life?
  - intended 8y ago
    Yes or they don’t work. I’ve spent way to much time as lay man trying to penetrate Econ speak to get the issue, but the crux seems to be this: Currently markets and goods don’t price the cost of economic damage into products. So plastics are cheap as hell because they don’t reflect clean up costs. This means we have plastic straws which are so cheap on a per unit basis, that you can sell 100s in a single bundle. Saran Wrap, packaging plastic, tooth brushes, phones, pens, toothpicks, mugs, wires, buttons, and billions of other items are extremely cheap. Now imagine if ALL of them went up by a small amount. Then recall, that for the developing world the difference between a 0.01 cent plastic cost and 0.05, is an increase in packaging cost for cheap goods like single use detergent sachets, or single use shampoo packets. Of course, this will directly reduce usage of those goods, which is the intended purpose, but the fact is that those goods being cheap means people can grow faster without worrying about the issues which arise. Carbon curtailment is fundamentally energy consumptive. We will spend more energy to capture carbon. We would have to create a system which is carbon negative in itself (after power and maintenance costs are calculated), and then pay for the whole thing, Taxing goods to price externalities is probably the most efficient way to achieve it.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      So if I buy a car that has much better gas mileage, my quality of life is lowered? If I buy a product that has less packaging, so there's less waste, my quality of life is lowered? If I take up bicycling, and as a result drive less, is my quality of life lowered? If the hotel I stay at starts using containers of soap instead of single-use packets, is my quality of life lowered?
nostromo 8y ago
> let's just curtail CO2 emissions We are though. Most people I talk to don't know that the US peaked CO2 emissions ten years ago and it's been falling every since - in per capita, per GDP, and absolute terms.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  It's not even nearly enough. According to the recent UN report, we need cut global net emissions by 50% in the next 12 years, and get to zero net CO2 by 2050. This is a slow-motion catastrophe and people aren't nearly worried enough to take the steps necessary to avert it. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genoc... https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...
  - deialtrous 8y ago
    But that UN report is based on predictions we know with 100% certainty to be incorrect. That's politics, not science. Science says "learn to do math before telling everyone the world is ending".
    - igor47 8y ago
      [citation needed]
    - bloaf 8y ago
      All models are wrong. Some are useful. Basically every organization that has looked at the issue and built a serious model has reached the same conclusion. From early studies done by engineers at oil and gas companies, to research undertaken by skeptics, the message is the same: we're not in Kansas anymore, and we're running out of time to turn around. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of...
      - 8y ago
Dylan16807 8y ago
> "quick fixes" like iron seeding, which has just as much a chance of going awry as Australia importing cane toads to deal with their crop insects The iron particles aren't going to breed and make more iron particles. > let's just curtail CO2 emissions So we shouldn't aim for zero (or even less)? Because 'curtail' will never reach zero.
- astrodust 8y ago
  Fucking around with the ocean on a scale that's going to move the needle on CO2 in the atmosphere has a very high probability of serious unintended consequences. Iron particles won't replicate, but the chemistry of the ocean could change dramatically. We don't know what happens at scale, and we probably don't want to find out. Find another solution.
  - random023987 8y ago
    > Iron particles [...] Find another solution. Technically, seeding the ocean with iron particles is a suspension, not a solution. Luckily, the common technique is to use Iron(II) sulfate, which mixed with water does create a solution!
  - btilly 8y ago
    Not doing anything has a certainty of turning the ocean to a mild acid, with disastrous effects that are already becoming visible in coral bleaching and shellfish die offs. And carbon that is already in the atmosphere and not yet dissolved is only going to make it worse. We are at the point of choosing between what disasters we will suffer, rather than figuring out how to not have a disaster.
    - deialtrous 8y ago
      Why are we so concerned about ocean acidification from CO2, when past CO2 levels were far higher than now and all of the shellfish species that currently exist lived back then too? Wouldn't it be a good idea to consider the massive quantities of known toxins we pump into the oceans rather than fixating on a red herring?
natalyarostova 8y ago
Getting worldwide collaboration on c02 emission should be actively worked on, but we can't expect it to succeed. We need other technological strategies to augment diplomatic strategies.

amadeuspagel 8y ago

Why should we sacrifice the welfare of human beings to prevent jellyfish from taking over the ocean?

philipkglass 8y ago

To stay below 2 degrees of warming via CO2 curtailment alone, serious curtailment would have had to start a generation ago. I wish that we had acted with urgency then, but we didn't. Now we need curtailment and active interventions.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
benchaney 8y ago
Agreed. Many environmentalists like to argue that curtailment is the “proper” way to handle global warming. If the situation is half as dire as they are claiming it is, then that is simply not good enough.
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  The problem is the existence of these techniques will be used to justify inaction elsewhere. They also do nothing to tackle acidification. And it’s not as if the world has been standing still over the last decades, huge progress has been made and many technologies are at the borderline of being economical or cheaper than the alternatives, and are continually falling in price. Once we push the boulder over the crest of the hill it will roll down unaided. The economy can change much quicker than we think.
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    Some of the active countermeasures contemplated, like ocean fertilization and accelerated olivine weathering, also tackle acidification if they work at scale. Solar radiation management does nothing to fix acidification though it can possibly interrupt feedback loops that would make acidification even worse. I agree that many technologies for replacing fossil usage have now achieved or are close to economic superiority, and that change can come very rapidly with economic superiority. But I also think that reaching this point has taken too long and now we will need active measures as well as emissions cuts.
    - joe_the_user 8y ago
      The problem is that while solar energy may have already achieved superiority over the net cost of finding, drilling-off and extracting hydrocarbons, solar energy is not going achieve superiority over hydrocarbons people already have. The cost of already found oil is just the cost of pumping it out of the ground and with easy fields, no energy source is going to beat that (the cheapest Saudi cost less $10/barrel to pump and that's light, easy to refine oil). So, due to these different marginal costs, there's no way even completely practical, economical solar can stop fossil fuel usage quickly without active regulator intervention.
      - philipkglass 8y ago
        Yes, it's harder to out-compete fossil projects that have already been built, already paid off their capital costs, and incur just operational costs going forward. Some of those fossil projects (like Saudi oil fields that cost only $10/barrel) are not going to be economically forced into early retirement by any foreseeable lower-emissions energy source. Note that there is also quite a bit of already-built fossil capacity that can be retired early by economic pressures. Not every big fossil project has operational costs as low as Saudi oil. For example, the Navajo Generating Station is the largest American coal plant west of the Mississippi River. It was built in the 1970s. It has a stable, low cost for coal since it is supplied by the nearby dedicated Kayenta Mine. Just a few years ago it was planned to run until 2044. But the falling costs of gas and renewables have made it economically uncompetitive. It's now going to close at the end of 2019, 25 years early: https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/02/13/utilities-vote-close-navajo-generating-station-coal-plant-2019/97866668/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/energy/2017/0... I agree on the broader point that fossil fuel emissions won't be curbed quickly without active regulator intervention. Since that intervention may arrive late-or-never in different nations, it's one of the reasons that I believe active carbon dioxide removal measures will be necessary in addition to emissions reduction efforts.
- Tharkun 8y ago
  Here's the thing. Environmentalists have been warning about climate change for generations now. Calling for replacements for fossil fuel and for drastic cuts in emmissions and consumption. Basically nobody acted. And now the situation is becoming dire. Suddenly curtailmennt is off the table because it's no longer enough? It's never even been tried or seriously considered. Pretty much no developed country is on track for reducing CO2 emmissions by a large enough fraction. And yet, somehow, we're now expecting those self same countries to become proficient at geo engineering on a scale massive enough to revert climate change? It's a farce.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    OK, so here's the thing from a politician's point of view: If you do something fairly extreme for curtailment, like a tax on fuel that motorists really notice, the other party will get voted in and they'll undo it. Now you've got kicked out of office, with no environmental benefit to show for it. And if you go further with something like a ban on pet dogs or ban on meat-eating? Same thing but faster and with more certainty.
joe_the_user 8y ago
Indeed, The problem is that, given we're failing the straightforward task of curtailment even now, what are the chances that we can successfully achieve curtailment and sequestering in the required time-frame? Curtailment is a large task but we know what to do. Sequestering would also be a large task but what to do is uncertain. Curtailment so far has been a corrupt circus with "pledges" and other indirect inducements ("carbon credits") being most of what was done. These indirect inducements primarily served as speculative vehicles and advertising gloss. And here, I just google'd up what you'd expect: A bitcoin-based platform for trading carbon credit. Now you can use the certainty of damaging the environment to make a promise to repair it. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/ibm-and-veridium-transform-carbon-credits-blockchain-based-tokens/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/ibm-and-veridium-transf...
- philipkglass 8y ago
  Coal consumption has already peaked in the USA, France, UK, Canada, (probably) China, and a number of other countries. Emissions intensity and absolute emissions from the electricity sector has already peaked in multiple countries. The cost of electrifying automobiles and generating low-emissions renewable electricity is much lower than a generation ago. On the other hand, global fossil fuel use has not peaked yet. Global population has not peaked yet. Many countries have worse cost-and-schedule problems with attempted deployments of nuclear reactors than they did 40 years ago. We are barely reaching "maybe starting to flatten out emissions" -- actually trending down toward zero is just a mirage in the distance at present. The opportunity to stabilize the climate just by cutting emissions is now in the past. I feel like humanity is moving toward making the changes it needs, and has a better toolset for those changes than before, but is changing much slower and later than it should have. We're out of completely safe options and have to try to navigate between various risky options. I can understand the perspective of people who feel like we're acting too late and there is no chance of industrial civilization surviving into the 22nd century, even though I don't share that perspective.
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    On the other hand, global fossil fuel use has not peaked yet. Global population has not peaked yet. Indeed, but if solar power is now the preferred energy source, solar power could be being used for all new energy need as well as help us cut back on fossil fuel's original usage. But it's not. That's a world-killing problem. What we're out of is laize faire options. Neither sequestering nor dramatic winding down of fossil fuel consumption is going to happen without a world level authority dictating things. Sadly, that seems unlikely.
agumonkey 8y ago
Think about it, a generation ago the ozone layer was the most we did. The rest was impossibly deep in humanity subconscious. And to add the club of rome report came out before most of us were even born...
- astrodust 8y ago
  I still can't believe that ozone depleting CFCs and putting toxic lead in gasoline were the the inventions of the same guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. Given more time I'm sure he would have come up with other world destroying chemicals.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    Oh yeah, THAT "most impacting" guy in human history..
8bitsrule 8y ago
One active intervention would be a permanent individual gasoline-rationing program. No sells, no trades, decreasing allotments year-by-year. Thus encouraging -planned- driving, -smaller- vehicles. The world needs to declare a WAR ON CO2 and put it on a war-time footing. Further considerations of tinkering around with an environment we've already de-stabilized only shows we haven't learned our lesson. We don't know enough to know what's safe... except the way things were.

thereisnospork 8y ago

Sure we could curtail CO2 emissions, but that means lowering people's quality of life which is a hard sell.

greglindahl 8y ago
Do all methods of curtailing CO2 emissions lower people's quality of life?
- intended 8y ago
  Yes or they don’t work. I’ve spent way to much time as lay man trying to penetrate Econ speak to get the issue, but the crux seems to be this: Currently markets and goods don’t price the cost of economic damage into products. So plastics are cheap as hell because they don’t reflect clean up costs. This means we have plastic straws which are so cheap on a per unit basis, that you can sell 100s in a single bundle. Saran Wrap, packaging plastic, tooth brushes, phones, pens, toothpicks, mugs, wires, buttons, and billions of other items are extremely cheap. Now imagine if ALL of them went up by a small amount. Then recall, that for the developing world the difference between a 0.01 cent plastic cost and 0.05, is an increase in packaging cost for cheap goods like single use detergent sachets, or single use shampoo packets. Of course, this will directly reduce usage of those goods, which is the intended purpose, but the fact is that those goods being cheap means people can grow faster without worrying about the issues which arise. Carbon curtailment is fundamentally energy consumptive. We will spend more energy to capture carbon. We would have to create a system which is carbon negative in itself (after power and maintenance costs are calculated), and then pay for the whole thing, Taxing goods to price externalities is probably the most efficient way to achieve it.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    So if I buy a car that has much better gas mileage, my quality of life is lowered? If I buy a product that has less packaging, so there's less waste, my quality of life is lowered? If I take up bicycling, and as a result drive less, is my quality of life lowered? If the hotel I stay at starts using containers of soap instead of single-use packets, is my quality of life lowered?

nostromo 8y ago

> let's just curtail CO2 emissions We are though. Most people I talk to don't know that the US peaked CO2 emissions ten years ago and it's been falling every since - in per capita, per GDP, and absolute terms.

ForHackernews 8y ago
It's not even nearly enough. According to the recent UN report, we need cut global net emissions by 50% in the next 12 years, and get to zero net CO2 by 2050. This is a slow-motion catastrophe and people aren't nearly worried enough to take the steps necessary to avert it. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genoc... https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...
- deialtrous 8y ago
  But that UN report is based on predictions we know with 100% certainty to be incorrect. That's politics, not science. Science says "learn to do math before telling everyone the world is ending".
  - igor47 8y ago
    [citation needed]
  - bloaf 8y ago
    All models are wrong. Some are useful. Basically every organization that has looked at the issue and built a serious model has reached the same conclusion. From early studies done by engineers at oil and gas companies, to research undertaken by skeptics, the message is the same: we're not in Kansas anymore, and we're running out of time to turn around. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of...
    - 8y ago

Dylan16807 8y ago

> "quick fixes" like iron seeding, which has just as much a chance of going awry as Australia importing cane toads to deal with their crop insects The iron particles aren't going to breed and make more iron particles. > let's just curtail CO2 emissions So we shouldn't aim for zero (or even less)? Because 'curtail' will never reach zero.

astrodust 8y ago
Fucking around with the ocean on a scale that's going to move the needle on CO2 in the atmosphere has a very high probability of serious unintended consequences. Iron particles won't replicate, but the chemistry of the ocean could change dramatically. We don't know what happens at scale, and we probably don't want to find out. Find another solution.
- random023987 8y ago
  > Iron particles [...] Find another solution. Technically, seeding the ocean with iron particles is a suspension, not a solution. Luckily, the common technique is to use Iron(II) sulfate, which mixed with water does create a solution!
- btilly 8y ago
  Not doing anything has a certainty of turning the ocean to a mild acid, with disastrous effects that are already becoming visible in coral bleaching and shellfish die offs. And carbon that is already in the atmosphere and not yet dissolved is only going to make it worse. We are at the point of choosing between what disasters we will suffer, rather than figuring out how to not have a disaster.
  - deialtrous 8y ago
    Why are we so concerned about ocean acidification from CO2, when past CO2 levels were far higher than now and all of the shellfish species that currently exist lived back then too? Wouldn't it be a good idea to consider the massive quantities of known toxins we pump into the oceans rather than fixating on a red herring?

natalyarostova 8y ago

Getting worldwide collaboration on c02 emission should be actively worked on, but we can't expect it to succeed. We need other technological strategies to augment diplomatic strategies.