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If only we could get such swift global action on greenhouse emissions. Both problems are essentially the same yet the difference in action couldn't be wider.
by A2017U1 8y ago
If only we could get such swift global action on greenhouse emissions. Both problems are essentially the same yet the difference in action couldn't be wider.
- pseudolus 8y agoOne of the significant differences is that in the 1980s when the issue of ozone depletion was being confronted, politics was not as polarized. One of the great successes of those arguing for action was recruiting Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a trained chemist, as an advocate https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/energy/2016/10/will-margaret-thatcher-and-ronald-reagan-be-unlikely-saviours-world-climate https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/energy/2016/10/will-ma...
- EGreg 8y agoThere is another major difference: Fossil fuels contribute a lot of energy to the needs of people and organizations. Solar and wind will take time to take over the infrastructure. CFCs on the other hand could be much more easily replaced.
- tomerico 8y agoThat's the key part. What CPC case teaches us, is that if we could find a good alternative to Fossil fuels, we could likely eliminate their use.
- barry-cotter 8y agoWe have a good alternative. France produces ~80% of its electricity with nuclear power.
- justinator 8y agoTransportation makes up 25% of the carbon emissions worldwide. Cows make up like 8%. The US military is the world's largest polluter. Most of their most serious crime against the environment is detonation of nuclear warheads.
- justinator 8y agoHere are citations to my numbers (since I seem to be downvoted): * Transportation: 28% https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-... * Livestock is 14.5% of all GHG emissions, cows are 65% of that: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ * Stories on how the US Military is the world' biggest polluters: https://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-one-worlds-biggest-polluters-259456.html https://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-on... https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/15/the-worlds-worst-polluter-u-s-military/ https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/15/the-worlds-w... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/america-is-the-worst-polluter-in-the-history-of-the-world-we-should-let-climate-change-refugees-resettle-here/2015/06/25/28a55238-1a9c-11e5-ab92-c75ae6ab94b5_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/america-is-the-worst... Regarding specifically my nuclear detonation comment: https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-2408760609.html https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-240876060... In addition, the U.S., which has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined, is also responsible for the massive amount of radiation that continues to contaminate many islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Marshall Islands, where the U.S. dropped more than sixty nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958, are a particularly notable example. Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and nearby Guam continue to experience an exceedingly high rate of cancer. The American Southwest was also the site of numerous nuclear weapons tests that contaminated large swaths of land. Navajo Indian reservations have been polluted by long-abandoned uranium mines where nuclear material was obtained by U.S. military contractors. TLDR: there's more to greenhouse gas then pollution from power plants. And nuclear power isn't problem free.
- mrfusion 8y ago
- obpacheco 8y agoI don't know if I would call that a good alternative. How many places on the Earth can you no longer go due to radiation? Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island and the list will go on. Also it seams very short sided in terms of planning for out of control cosmic events such as asteroids or coronal mass ejections which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. If we were to get something like the Carrington Event of 1859 [1] we would be much worse off for centuries if we rely on nuclear energy rather then finding a safer fuel source. [1] https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-would-happen-if-solar-storm-wiped-out-technology-geomagnetic-carrington-event-coronal-mass-ejection https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-would-happen-if-sol...
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago> wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide. I don’t understand how nuclear leaks could be a result of grid failure. Also, I read recently that CME could cause DC charge to occur on very long power lines, but that modern systems can handle this. There was a HN thread about this couple days ago, can anyone find it?
- hexane360 8y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18379734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18379734
- bzbarsky 8y agoYou can go to Three Mile Island just fine as long as you don't go inside the Unit 2 containment vessel itself. The meltdown was fully contained inside said containment vessel. Unit 2 has since had its core removed from the site entirely and has had its electrical generator moved to another reactor (in North Carolina), so it's not like people haven't been going in it either. Unit 1 (the other reactor right next to the one that had a meltdown) has remained a fully operational power station and is used as such today; people go there all the time. Chernobyl and Fukushima I will grant (especially Chernobyl!) but Three Mile Island has a no-go zone that's far smaller than most people think. And it's only sort of no-go at that. > which could wipe out our grid, leading to nuclear leaks worldwide Sorry, but citation needed for the causal mechanism via which the grid going down would lead to "nuclear leaks".
- Vinnl 8y agoIs it a good alternative if it is much more expensive?
- barry-cotter 8y agoFrance’s energy prices are lower than Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain. https://1-stromvergleich.com/electricity-prices-europe/ https://1-stromvergleich.com/electricity-prices-europe/
- Kurtz79 8y agoItaly (where nuclear power was banned by referendum many years ago) is not able to meet its internal demand, and need to source energy from neighboring countries (including France), not really surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Italy Germany and Belgium are phasing out their own reactors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out
- Vinnl 8y agoDoes that include government subsidies? What I'm getting at, is: will governments be supporting nuclear, even if it's considered safe enough? As far as I know the Dutch government has cleared the way for a new nuclear power plant, but no company is willing to build it because they can't recoup the investments. If governments have to subsidise it more than they subsidise wind and solar energy, will they do it?
- IMTDb 8y agoThe issue is that "green" parties in Europe (and maybe the US) do not want to hear about nuclear either. Germany even had to shut their nuclear power plants down and go back to coal (!!) which is considered as major victory for the environment by the green parties. It seems impossible to find green political leaders willing to improve our CO2 emissions while accepting that we can't just rely on renewable energy only right now.
- hyperpallium 8y agoDr. Margaret Thatcher EDIT I must apologise to my parent, and to HN in general. Her thesis was undergraduate: > ... four-year Chemistry Bachelor of Science degree, specialising in X-ray crystallography under the supervision of Dorothy Hodgkin. Her dissertation was on the structure of the antibiotic gramicidin. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
- rbg246 8y agoCouldn't see from her wikipedia page where she gained her doctorate?
- bencollier49 8y agoShe may have received honorary doctorates and she was a research chemist, but not a PhD.
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoSurely the Prime Minister title wins out? Actually, that’s an interesting question: since “Dr” usually replaces “Mr” for a man, would a male president with a doctorate be “Dr President”?
- jedberg 8y agoProbably not. President would take precedent. See Chancellor Merkel for a good example (she has a PhD).
- thaumasiotes 8y agoI was under the impression that German titles stacked up rather than overriding one another, like "Herr Professor Doktor". Is that wrong?
- thg 8y agoGenerally that's correct, albeit pretty much only used in writing. There are, however, political titles for which, to my knowledge, that does not apply. Minister, Chancellor and President (of the BRD) should all supersede a PhD title.
- kazinator 8y agoThey are not really the same: eliminate the accidental release of niche refrigerant substances for which substitutes are available, versus the mass spewage of CO2 and hydrocarbons. Note that refrigerants can be substituted without changing the refrigeration hardware at all. No infrastructure changes are required. There is no "tech stack disruption" at all.
- akvadrako 8y agoI don't totally agree. Modern fridges are worse than old ones in terms of noise and I think that has something to do with replacing CFCs with less effective coolants. I know this because I tried several of newest quietest models before discovering ammonia absorption cooling.
- ThomPete 8y agoOne big difference is that you could prove the ozone layers thining and so it was easy to get political backup, plus the solution was fairly simple. The climate debate is mostly political and there is no way to prove the effects only speculate. If just people would let scientists do science and not mix in political agendas we would have been much better of and money could have been spent for things we can actually do rather than being wasted on lofty political projects.
- njarboe 8y agoIf the environmentalists had concentrated their efforts into educating people about CO2 as a pollutant that causes the acidification of the oceans, I think increases in CO2 emissions could have been slowed and reversed a long time ago. The chemistry is very straight forward and the damage to the oceans very easy to show and explain. Unfortunately, instead of trying to find replacements for the energy produced by fossil fuel(nuclear was just sitting their, ready), it seems to me the most vocal environmentalists were basically anti-technology and anti-human and hoped the the huge fear of global warming would be enough to get a huge range of policies they had been pushing of decades passed. No such luck and the other side has now politicize global warming to their benefit.
- awestroke 8y agoNo way to prove the effects? That's a controversial statement, considering the 99%+ scientific consensus that we are headed towards a global catastrophe.
- ThomPete 8y ago1) There isnt a 97% consensus on what you think 2) Science does not work by consensus but falisifaction 3) climate debate is not scientific but political in its core.
- mattygh 8y agoAre you being facetious and saying you can’t prove climate change in the same way you can’t prove gravity exists? Or are you for real? Scientific proof has a different general meaning than what the general population calls proof, but the claim that more CO2 in the atmosphere leads to a warmer planet, and we can quite accurately project that correlation, is not remotely controversial. After a life of following this closely both in and out of academics I’m curious what makes you think differently to everyone that has looked into this closely, including unlikely people like oil companies and Jim Breidenstein. Read Merchants of Doubt if you’re interested in how it got so politicized.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoTackling ozone depletion is a lot easier: we stop using some chemicals. Not a big deal. Tacking climate change is asking everyone to stop using energy (as we know it) which is fundamentally existential. They're not in the same category of proportional impact.
- jandrese 8y agoIt's not quite that severe, but as you note the substitutes are a lot more painful than they were with CFCs. Plus the problem is much much larger. We aren't getting out of this with just a little sunburn.
- akvadrako 8y agoThey are qualitatively the same, but the public and scientific case for ozone depletion is a lot stronger. If I had to guess there is like 5-sigma significance that (1) CFCs damage the ozone layer (2) the ozone layer is worth saving and (3) regulating CFCs will help. Even if you fully accept that regulating CO2 is a good idea, the beneficial effects of that action will barely be noticeable for decades.
- pygy_ 8y agoThere’s a scale difference. CFC was a small part of the economy. As a first approximation, burning fossil fuel is the economy.