4 ms·

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 urgenc

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.
        joe_the_user 8y ago
        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. Both regulating carbon emissions and active carbon dioxide removal measures will, in the end, come down to some state or world body acting in a coordinated way to push money at this problem. It seems like people are imagining active removal would be easier in this fashion than basic regulation. Why?
- 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.

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.
      - joe_the_user 8y ago
        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. Both regulating carbon emissions and active carbon dioxide removal measures will, in the end, come down to some state or world body acting in a coordinated way to push money at this problem. It seems like people are imagining active removal would be easier in this fashion than basic regulation. Why?
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.