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Well, its already occurring. We can certainly still aim to reduce the actual continued worsening of climate change, as well as mitigating its effects. If cheap

Well, its already occurring. We can certainly still aim to reduce the actual continued worsening of climate change, as well as mitigating its effects. If cheap, easy commercially viable fusion power was unveiled tomorrow I'd have hope that we could stop climate change in 10 years. A real, cheap commercial way to remove carbon from the atmosphere in massive amounts could also stop it. I can't say that this company feels like they have that.

deleted 8y ago
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pojzon 8y ago
There is only one issue with that thinking. Till people who directly profit from destroying environment can lobby our democratic system, we cant do anything with big enough influence. We would have to introduce totalitarism lead by Gandalfs to change that.
- pault 8y ago
  > We would have to introduce totalitarism lead by Gandalfs Thanks, I'm stealing that line. :)
- Angostura 8y ago
  If you equate concerted international government-lead action to totalitarianism, you are part of the problem.
ForHackernews 8y ago
All of the UN/IPCC proposals for holding warming to "only" +2C (which is still fairly catastrophic--all coral reefs will be dead, for example) are already assuming that magic unproven negative-emissions technology is deployed at scale. So from that perceptive, it's nice to see that somebody is in fact working on inventing this technology. But it's not going to 'stop' climate change. A more honest headline but less-catchy headline would be "Unproven technology might help us avoid our current path to worst-case climate scenarios" ----------------------------------------------------------- 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... > As you can see, in either scenario, global emissions must peak and begin declining immediately. For a medium chance to avoid 1.5 degrees, the world has to zero out net carbon emissions by 2050 or so — for a good chance of avoiding 2 degrees, by around 2065. > After that, emissions have to go negative. Humanity has to start burying a lot more carbon than it throws up into the atmosphere. There are several ways to sequester greenhouse gases, from reforestation to soil enrichment to cow backpacks, but the backbone of the envisioned negative emissions is BECCS, or bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration.
- photoguy112 8y ago
  Any positive effort is good news to me. We need more of this, everywhere, along with the thousands of other moving parts that need to happen to change the world.
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    Yeah, I applaud the efforts of this Swiss team. I guess I'm just grumpy about the disingenuous way the mainstream media still talks about climate change as a 'might happen in the future' problem instead of a 'currently is happening, and will keep getting much worse' problem.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pojzon 8y ago

There is only one issue with that thinking. Till people who directly profit from destroying environment can lobby our democratic system, we cant do anything with big enough influence. We would have to introduce totalitarism lead by Gandalfs to change that.

pault 8y ago
> We would have to introduce totalitarism lead by Gandalfs Thanks, I'm stealing that line. :)
Angostura 8y ago
If you equate concerted international government-lead action to totalitarianism, you are part of the problem.

ForHackernews 8y ago

All of the UN/IPCC proposals for holding warming to "only" +2C (which is still fairly catastrophic--all coral reefs will be dead, for example) are already assuming that magic unproven negative-emissions technology is deployed at scale. So from that perceptive, it's nice to see that somebody is in fact working on inventing this technology. But it's not going to 'stop' climate change. A more honest headline but less-catchy headline would be "Unproven technology might help us avoid our current path to worst-case climate scenarios" ----------------------------------------------------------- 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... > As you can see, in either scenario, global emissions must peak and begin declining immediately. For a medium chance to avoid 1.5 degrees, the world has to zero out net carbon emissions by 2050 or so — for a good chance of avoiding 2 degrees, by around 2065. > After that, emissions have to go negative. Humanity has to start burying a lot more carbon than it throws up into the atmosphere. There are several ways to sequester greenhouse gases, from reforestation to soil enrichment to cow backpacks, but the backbone of the envisioned negative emissions is BECCS, or bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration.

photoguy112 8y ago
Any positive effort is good news to me. We need more of this, everywhere, along with the thousands of other moving parts that need to happen to change the world.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Yeah, I applaud the efforts of this Swiss team. I guess I'm just grumpy about the disingenuous way the mainstream media still talks about climate change as a 'might happen in the future' problem instead of a 'currently is happening, and will keep getting much worse' problem.