4 ms·

On one hand I wonder what is the breakthrough that is going to happen that will save us all? Some new energy or carbon removing technology. I fear this will not

by 14 8y ago

On one hand I wonder what is the breakthrough that is going to happen that will save us all? Some new energy or carbon removing technology. I fear this will not happen soon enough and that brings me to the other hand at what point will climate change break a nation and what is going to be their response when their back is against the wall and other nations are already strained by climate change. If no one takes them in, what measure will they take to ensure their children live on? At what point will we start seeing other nations carbon emissions as hostile? It seems pretty selfish the way we run the earth now. Perhaps we need to truly pay for our individual emissions. Like sure you want to be a millionaire and run a private jet sure but you will be responsible for not just the cost of it's gas but it's entire emissions as well. You want to sell something that causes emissions, sure but you better add that cost into your products you sell as you will pay for the emissions. And by pay for emissions I mean the true cost. If current world tech costs 100$/kg to remove then you pay 100$ for every kg you release. And by law that money is used for that actual purpose. It seems pretty obvious some industries are reaping the rewards of high emissions with little pay back. That needs to stop. It completely reminds me of the plastic problem where people are selling these products with copious amounts of plastic packaging that ends up in landfills and city's are left trying to deal with the cost of it all.

netsharc 8y ago
Arab Spring happened in part because food prices went up to not-affordable levels (partly because of 2011 forest fires in Russia destroying their grain harvests), and the Syrian civil war was also triggered because drought caused failed farmers to move into the cities looking for other income, causing social tensions. The chaos has triggered the refugee crisis, turning many European nations into right-wing populism. So, break a nation? Climate change broke a few already. The EU governments are already making it hard for refugees to cross the Medditerranean (financing the Libyan Coast Guard to stop "smugglers", as well as camps in Turkey), although all the Neo-Nazis still scream about it, I can imagine that when more right wing governments get voted to "represent" the populace, they'll take even more drastic measures (even more than the Italian government refusing docking rights to ships which rescue refugees).
- so_tired 8y ago
  But could these be just triggers in unstable countries? You only have to take one look at Egypt demographics to understand Arab (counter-)revolution(s) are inevitable. https://www.ined.fr/thumb/?q=90&w=1027&h=768&src=/fichier/s_rubrique/308/graphique_egypte_fin.gif https://www.ined.fr/thumb/?q=90&w=1027&h=768&src=/fichier/s_... This is a desert country, bankrupt for 20 years, and dependent on foreign dollar aid to buy food. Syria is a vicious civil war, with a minority governing sect fighting for its life against an abused majority. After 7 decades of democratic progress in the EU, there are bound to be push backs. Is the Brexit insanity related to climate change? Well-managed China will leverage Green Tech as an economic opportunity. Mis-managed countries will sink lower. Sad but true.
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    Political stability is far, far more fragile than most people would like to imagine. Climate change could be the trigger that breaks an unstable country, but it can also chip away at the foundations of a stable country.
  - netsharc 8y ago
    The whole EU clusterfuck is because of Berlin's policy of Austerity uber Alles, especially in the UK. Plus the stupidity of the Euro, which meant tying your currency to Germany's if you join up. Interesting point about China, do they have a refugee crisis? I suppose being seen as an oppressive regime not scared to shoot at people has its advantages. (I'm a "refugees welcome!" kind of person, although I'm sure the society I live in barely tolerates them, and the situation will not improve.).
AngryData 8y ago
The only way I see for us to save ourselves is either A: Fusion power comes to life and provides near magical amounts of energy for dirt cheap prices, or B: We start building nuclear fission plants all across the globe, dozens if not more opening per year. Most of our technical problems comes down to energy requirements; we need to replace most of the world's current electrical usages, we need to replace the world's oil and gas driven transportation structure with electric, we need to replace our natural gas derived fertilizer with air and water derived fertilizer (which costs 100x the energy to produce at best), and that along with the millions of other fossil-fuel derived chemical reagents and materials that don't get counted in most energy requirement surveys, we need to scrub out 200+ years worth of pollution in the air and also the oceans (which has absorbed most of our CO2, hence the acidification), and still accommodate for future increases in energy requirements across the globe. Quite simply, even if we doubled or tripled our energy production rates tomorrow and it was magically all clean power, we still wouldn't be anywhere near the power requirements we need to build a clean society, and that is before we even start looking at serious CO2 sequestration. It will always take more energy to sequester CO2 than burning the old fuel could ever theoretically produce, and we only harness between 20-50% of the energy released from those fuels even today, with the rest escaping as waste heat, so we have a LOT of extra energy to make up for.

by 14 8y ago

netsharc 8y ago

Arab Spring happened in part because food prices went up to not-affordable levels (partly because of 2011 forest fires in Russia destroying their grain harvests), and the Syrian civil war was also triggered because drought caused failed farmers to move into the cities looking for other income, causing social tensions. The chaos has triggered the refugee crisis, turning many European nations into right-wing populism. So, break a nation? Climate change broke a few already. The EU governments are already making it hard for refugees to cross the Medditerranean (financing the Libyan Coast Guard to stop "smugglers", as well as camps in Turkey), although all the Neo-Nazis still scream about it, I can imagine that when more right wing governments get voted to "represent" the populace, they'll take even more drastic measures (even more than the Italian government refusing docking rights to ships which rescue refugees).

so_tired 8y ago
But could these be just triggers in unstable countries? You only have to take one look at Egypt demographics to understand Arab (counter-)revolution(s) are inevitable. https://www.ined.fr/thumb/?q=90&w=1027&h=768&src=/fichier/s_rubrique/308/graphique_egypte_fin.gif https://www.ined.fr/thumb/?q=90&w=1027&h=768&src=/fichier/s_... This is a desert country, bankrupt for 20 years, and dependent on foreign dollar aid to buy food. Syria is a vicious civil war, with a minority governing sect fighting for its life against an abused majority. After 7 decades of democratic progress in the EU, there are bound to be push backs. Is the Brexit insanity related to climate change? Well-managed China will leverage Green Tech as an economic opportunity. Mis-managed countries will sink lower. Sad but true.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  Political stability is far, far more fragile than most people would like to imagine. Climate change could be the trigger that breaks an unstable country, but it can also chip away at the foundations of a stable country.
- netsharc 8y ago
  The whole EU clusterfuck is because of Berlin's policy of Austerity uber Alles, especially in the UK. Plus the stupidity of the Euro, which meant tying your currency to Germany's if you join up. Interesting point about China, do they have a refugee crisis? I suppose being seen as an oppressive regime not scared to shoot at people has its advantages. (I'm a "refugees welcome!" kind of person, although I'm sure the society I live in barely tolerates them, and the situation will not improve.).

AngryData 8y ago

The only way I see for us to save ourselves is either A: Fusion power comes to life and provides near magical amounts of energy for dirt cheap prices, or B: We start building nuclear fission plants all across the globe, dozens if not more opening per year. Most of our technical problems comes down to energy requirements; we need to replace most of the world's current electrical usages, we need to replace the world's oil and gas driven transportation structure with electric, we need to replace our natural gas derived fertilizer with air and water derived fertilizer (which costs 100x the energy to produce at best), and that along with the millions of other fossil-fuel derived chemical reagents and materials that don't get counted in most energy requirement surveys, we need to scrub out 200+ years worth of pollution in the air and also the oceans (which has absorbed most of our CO2, hence the acidification), and still accommodate for future increases in energy requirements across the globe. Quite simply, even if we doubled or tripled our energy production rates tomorrow and it was magically all clean power, we still wouldn't be anywhere near the power requirements we need to build a clean society, and that is before we even start looking at serious CO2 sequestration. It will always take more energy to sequester CO2 than burning the old fuel could ever theoretically produce, and we only harness between 20-50% of the energy released from those fuels even today, with the rest escaping as waste heat, so we have a LOT of extra energy to make up for.