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So, okay. We have a problem. Climate change likely with an significant anthropogenic component. I hear a lot about magic solutions like electric cars whose batt

So, okay. We have a problem. Climate change likely with an significant anthropogenic component. I hear a lot about magic solutions like electric cars whose batteries are incredibly polluting to produce, solar farms that are super expensive and require crazy amounts of acres per watt, wind farms that kill birds and have toxic materials inside to operate. The problem, almost certainly, is mostly fossil fuels and to a lesser extent the meat/dairy industry. Let's say, hypothetically, I accept all of this. Let's say the USA and Europe do everything, everything that climate advocates suggest. It won't matter. The vast majority of carbon emissions and almost all of the carbon emission growth over the last 50 years has come from the developing world. Thats right. CO2 emissions haven't grown in the West for 50 years. They've shrunk in fact. [1] Seriously. Are we really talking about crushing the energy production of the poorest, most disadvantaged places in the world? My point isn't that we shouldn't do anything. My point is the problem is way, way, way bigger and more complicated than is commonly phrased. We have to stop the developing world from accelerating out of poverty, and fast--if the climate projections are indeed correct. This, my friends, is what we call a tragedy. The next time I hear something about the West harming the planet disproportionally, I'm going to collapse into a neutron star. The only solution I see with any chance of working is if we start a global project to flood the world with nuclear reactors. Everywhere. Nothing else will deliver the gigawatts in time to stop the developing world from burning the planet alive. Assuming, of course, the climate models are correct. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis...

flukus 8y ago
> This, my friends, is what we call a tragedy. The next time I hear something about the West harming the planet disproportionally, I'm going to collapse into a neutron star. The west is harming the planet disproportionately. We've been doing it a lot longer, so most of the existing and baked in future warming was produced by the west. Apart from that we still produce a lot more CO2 per capita. The united states alone produces 15% of emissions today. The rest of the world is just trying to catch up to where we are. The buck doesn't stop there though, a huge chunk of the developing worlds emissions are producing stuff for the west. They aren't responsible for that, we are for buying it. It seems like you expect the poorest developing countries to lead the way. Has the west become so incapable of actually leading?
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  You should look at the impartial nonpartisan data I provided and do simple integration before you claim that, moving forward, the West will be what matters WRT climate change. WRT the past, your "baked in" argument makes no sense and is in any case irrelevant. Moving forward, if the West drops to zero emissions today, the developing world will burn the planet alive, if the climate models are correct.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > You should look at the impartial nonpartisan data I provided and do simple integration before you claim that, moving forward, the West will be what matters WRT climate change. Your source looked at cumulative emissions per country, not per capita, even then the west is way over represented in your own source. > WRT the past, your "baked in" argument makes no sense and is in any case irrelevant. We have 1.5-2 degrees of warming baked in, even if the world stopped pumping out CO2 tomorrow. Most of that is from the West so we are responsible for that. > Moving forward, if the West drops to zero emissions today, the developing world will burn the planet alive, if the climate models are correct. If we drop to zero emissions tomorrow we will have created the technology and the model for the developing world to also get there. That's what leadership is.
tasty_freeze 8y ago
(My response is from a US perspective) You make a lot of very strong claims that you think are fair handed but are terribly biased. "solar farms that are super expensive and require crazy amounts of acres per watt". We can afford to cut taxes by $100B a year despite having a budget deficit. How crazy expensive is it for the US to maintain a vast military to secure our access to oil and gas (among other things)? We can afford $700B every single year to do that, but spending tens of billions of dollars on green energy would be crazy expensive. As for acres, we have lots of them to spare. Yes, wind farms kill birds. Do the people who point this out ever weigh that against the number of dead animals and people and reduced health from coal and oil? Do they really care about the birds? Have they ever made an omelette? Classifying electric cars as a "magic solution" is silly; they are just one small part of an incremental solution. Nobody says they are magic or the total solution. Your verbiage is emotion based and not fact based. Apparently these tactics worked on you, but I find them lazy and not compelling. Finally, addressing your overall point: If I'm fat, I should eat better. You are right to say that cutting out sugar from my coffee won't solve my problems if I continue eating two hamburgers and fries for lunch. But to reason that I might as well have the sugar in my coffee because I haven't cut down on everything else is just factually wrong. Incomplete solutions may still buy time to address those other issues, and incrementally reducing use may mean we still suffer terrible consequences, but perhaps not quite as intensely.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  They absolutely will not buy time. The developing world is, right now, growing in carbon emissions at what appears an exponential rate while the West is reducing emissions, both absolutely and per capita. We can't succeed at what the climate advocates think we need to do without addressing the problem of the developing world. Let me state the point more clearly: if the West drops to ZERO carbon emissions yesterday, it won't matter.
adrianN 8y ago
The developed countries have the means to pioneer technology that can then be adopted by poorer countries without having to do the R&D. Preventing catastrophic climate change is not cheap, it only makes sense to have the rich countries pay for it. BTW, developed countries are harming the planet disproportionally. Per capita emissions are way higher. What you write about solar and wind is mostly FUD.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  My normative argument is twofold: 1) we don't have the time to dither around with the latest silver reflective fads. If the climate models are correct, we must act now. 2) we already have the technology to solve the problem at scale, we merely don't have the money. The technology is nuclear power. We don't have to worry about the real estate for solar and wind. The biggest problem is rolling back the nonsense nuclear power scares from the 70s. The second biggest problem is who will fund, build, own, audit, and operate the plants. Wrt solar and wind, they require an ungodly amount of real estate per watt. They see untenable as a primary source of power as a result.

flukus 8y ago

> This, my friends, is what we call a tragedy. The next time I hear something about the West harming the planet disproportionally, I'm going to collapse into a neutron star. The west is harming the planet disproportionately. We've been doing it a lot longer, so most of the existing and baked in future warming was produced by the west. Apart from that we still produce a lot more CO2 per capita. The united states alone produces 15% of emissions today. The rest of the world is just trying to catch up to where we are. The buck doesn't stop there though, a huge chunk of the developing worlds emissions are producing stuff for the west. They aren't responsible for that, we are for buying it. It seems like you expect the poorest developing countries to lead the way. Has the west become so incapable of actually leading?

squirrelicus 8y ago
You should look at the impartial nonpartisan data I provided and do simple integration before you claim that, moving forward, the West will be what matters WRT climate change. WRT the past, your "baked in" argument makes no sense and is in any case irrelevant. Moving forward, if the West drops to zero emissions today, the developing world will burn the planet alive, if the climate models are correct.
- flukus 8y ago
  > You should look at the impartial nonpartisan data I provided and do simple integration before you claim that, moving forward, the West will be what matters WRT climate change. Your source looked at cumulative emissions per country, not per capita, even then the west is way over represented in your own source. > WRT the past, your "baked in" argument makes no sense and is in any case irrelevant. We have 1.5-2 degrees of warming baked in, even if the world stopped pumping out CO2 tomorrow. Most of that is from the West so we are responsible for that. > Moving forward, if the West drops to zero emissions today, the developing world will burn the planet alive, if the climate models are correct. If we drop to zero emissions tomorrow we will have created the technology and the model for the developing world to also get there. That's what leadership is.

tasty_freeze 8y ago

(My response is from a US perspective) You make a lot of very strong claims that you think are fair handed but are terribly biased. "solar farms that are super expensive and require crazy amounts of acres per watt". We can afford to cut taxes by $100B a year despite having a budget deficit. How crazy expensive is it for the US to maintain a vast military to secure our access to oil and gas (among other things)? We can afford $700B every single year to do that, but spending tens of billions of dollars on green energy would be crazy expensive. As for acres, we have lots of them to spare. Yes, wind farms kill birds. Do the people who point this out ever weigh that against the number of dead animals and people and reduced health from coal and oil? Do they really care about the birds? Have they ever made an omelette? Classifying electric cars as a "magic solution" is silly; they are just one small part of an incremental solution. Nobody says they are magic or the total solution. Your verbiage is emotion based and not fact based. Apparently these tactics worked on you, but I find them lazy and not compelling. Finally, addressing your overall point: If I'm fat, I should eat better. You are right to say that cutting out sugar from my coffee won't solve my problems if I continue eating two hamburgers and fries for lunch. But to reason that I might as well have the sugar in my coffee because I haven't cut down on everything else is just factually wrong. Incomplete solutions may still buy time to address those other issues, and incrementally reducing use may mean we still suffer terrible consequences, but perhaps not quite as intensely.

squirrelicus 8y ago
They absolutely will not buy time. The developing world is, right now, growing in carbon emissions at what appears an exponential rate while the West is reducing emissions, both absolutely and per capita. We can't succeed at what the climate advocates think we need to do without addressing the problem of the developing world. Let me state the point more clearly: if the West drops to ZERO carbon emissions yesterday, it won't matter.

adrianN 8y ago

The developed countries have the means to pioneer technology that can then be adopted by poorer countries without having to do the R&D. Preventing catastrophic climate change is not cheap, it only makes sense to have the rich countries pay for it. BTW, developed countries are harming the planet disproportionally. Per capita emissions are way higher. What you write about solar and wind is mostly FUD.

squirrelicus 8y ago
My normative argument is twofold: 1) we don't have the time to dither around with the latest silver reflective fads. If the climate models are correct, we must act now. 2) we already have the technology to solve the problem at scale, we merely don't have the money. The technology is nuclear power. We don't have to worry about the real estate for solar and wind. The biggest problem is rolling back the nonsense nuclear power scares from the 70s. The second biggest problem is who will fund, build, own, audit, and operate the plants. Wrt solar and wind, they require an ungodly amount of real estate per watt. They see untenable as a primary source of power as a result.