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There is something that you can do. Advocate that governments cut down on soot emissions. This accounts for a significant portion of the current temperature r
by pjkundert 7y ago
There is something that you can do.
Advocate that governments cut down on soot emissions.
This accounts for a significant portion of the current temperature rise in the Arctic -- but, most importantly -- an unknown amount of the loss of snow and ice cover.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-track-the-source-of-soot-that-speeds-arctic-melt/?redirect=1 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-track-...
Unfortunately, this form of carbon (soot) is not as useful for funds transfer...
Between cutting down soot (all Chinese power plants could be outfitted with soot collectors in one year), and planting trees (which is the least expensive, most accessible option for sequestering carbon dioxide at planetary scale), we could actually start to impact arctic snow cover and permafrost within a couple of years, within a budgetary envelope that every developed country could easily manage.
But, once again -- unfortunately, neither of these options appear to be politically attractive, because the primary goal seems to be wealth transfer, not actual harm mitigation...
- aaronbrethorst 7y agoAdvocate that governments cut down on soot emissions. i.e. vote. There are extremely important elections coming up in several states in November that will indirectly decide who controls Congress for the next ten years. Voting in this off-year election, especially if you live in Virginia can make a material difference in how the United States responds to this crisis.
- hsavit1 7y agoAnd vote in the democratic primaries for politicians that don't take a moderate position on the issue. cough cough, Joe Biden is a moderate, cough cough
- xvedejas 7y agoIt's really not so simple as moderate vs progressive. For instance, Bernie Sanders does not support levying a carbon tax. I doubt he would seriously support any climate change effort that isn't ultimately part of a jobs / labor bill.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoHe supports the Green New Deal, which while part of a jobs program, is still relevant and effective policy. I don't see the problem with it being a jobs program; we need trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment, and people need jobs. A carbon tax alone is untenable, as citizens are already adverse to taxes of any sort due to irrationality. https://berniesanders.com/issues/combat-climate-change-and-pass-a-green-new-deal/ https://berniesanders.com/issues/combat-climate-change-and-p...
- api 7y agoVoting won't help in China, and most democratic countries have scrubbers on coal plants and tend to be phasing out coal.
- aaronbrethorst 7y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/climate/epa-coal-power-scrubbers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/climate/epa-coal-power-sc...
- api 7y agoThis doesn't even touch Chinese coal emissions. The latter are easily visible from space, and unlike ours are recently deployed and continue being built.
- xoraes 7y agoCan you elaborate on what you meant by "funds transfer" or "wealth transfer"? I'm genuinely curious.
- wpears 7y agoI took the parent comment to be making the assumption that politically attractive options for responding to emissions and climate change tend to be "market-based" solutions or activities that are picking winners between industries (say solar manufacturers and installers vs. coal plant workers). If there is a choice where there is a "winner" with money on the line there will also be lobbying money put toward that effort and so consensus building is easier. There isn't necessarily anything nefarious about this, just that it may be incapable of dealing with the enormity of climate climate and also, as OP intimates, there may be a class of solutions that are better/cheaper/more efficient from a policy perspective, but that don't have anyone positioned to gain financially from them and so are harder to garner support for.
- ridgeguy 7y agoI took it to mean that a different form of carbon (diamond) is more suitable for wealth transfer than soot.
- gervase 7y agoPollution is a commonly-used example of a negative externality [0], or a way to shift business costs onto a third party. In the parent example, the implication is that rather than investing money in reducing pollution, that money can instead by returned to the investors as dividends, and the global public must bear the impact of the unmitigated soot emissions. The "wealth transfer" in this case is represented by the costs absorbed by the public (in terms of increased healthcare costs, endangered coastal real estate, disaster relief costs, etc which may result from pollution and/or anthropogenic climate change) being transferred to the investors/owners/operators of the polluting companies in the form of reduced spending on mitigation technology. That was my interpretation of the parent's meaning, at least. At the time I posted this comment, there were three different interpretations of the same comment, which is very interesting. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative
- jseliger 7y agoAlso, subscribe to bury CO2: https://www.climeworks.com/ https://www.climeworks.com/
- graeme 7y agoThat looks more advanced than I would have expected. Do you have any details on the project beyond what’s on their site? I’d be interested to know if this can be scaled up if societies started investing in it.
- jseliger 7y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/magazine/climeworks-business-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/magazine/climeworks-busin...
- Gravityloss 7y agoOn the other hand it's a fix with a limited potential, and an investment in coal plants. Usually many coal advocates try to sugar coat "clean coal".