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We are a frog being boiled slowly. It seems really impossible to stop right now even though we probably have the technology to do so.
by andy_ppp 7y ago
We are a frog being boiled slowly. It seems really impossible to stop right now even though we probably have the technology to do so.
- hvasilev 7y agoWhat is the technology that we do have, but we refuse to use in order to solve the problem?
- r00fus 7y agoSolar everywhere is a great start. Massive promotion of electric vehicles, combined with carbon taxes pegged to temperature. Contraceptive use promotion to reduce unwanted births.
- ralusek 7y agoNuclear power for energy. Forestation/harvesting for carbon capture.
- hvasilev 7y agoIf I have to choose between mass nuclear to replace fossil fuels or the alternative of global warming .... I choose global warming.
- suprfnk 7y agoCan you elaborate on why?
- krageon 7y agoTo my mind: - We have not solved storage in a way that is reliable enough for nuclear waste - Nuclear uses another limited resource that will run out, then we'll have to switch again - Nuclear isn't much better than renewable, and renewable is also available (and has problems that are currently tractable)
- atorodius 7y agoForestation for the win! But apparently there are a lot of people looking into it (http://trees.org http://trees.org, http://edenprojects.org http://edenprojects.org, https://onetreeplanted.org https://onetreeplanted.org -- which even has awesome mini-crowd-funds for your company/wedding/etc: https://www.classy.org/campaign/tree-ambassadors/c200082 https://www.classy.org/campaign/tree-ambassadors/c200082). How do you get large scale adoption though? Laws? Government projects? Millionaires?
- growlist 7y agoI'm wondering about crowdfunding and putting the land into a national land bank.
- rexpop 7y agoGovernment projects, on the international scale.
- ralusek 7y agoGovernment could subsidize the price of lumber. You want it to be a more economical alternative than farmland. Then leave things like efficient use of water, tree density, and type of fast growing tree to the market, those are probably already optimized.
- claystu 7y agoTax incentives. It's how we encourage a lot of good samaritan behavior. Offer tax deductions for trees and watch forests pop up everywhere.
- realusername 7y agoI've seen some promising research from olivine rocks for carbon capture: https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/. I can't vouch for the science behind it because I'm not knowledgeable in this but it sounds a good idea.
- asdff 7y agoRail transit
- sedachv 7y agoJean-Marc Jancovici has IMO the best analysis of energy options when it comes to climate change (his whole website is excellent reading), and he does not think that rail transit can directly substitute for car and truck use with today's population distribution in developed countries: https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/transportation/could-we-replace-all-cars-by-trains-and-by-river-boats/ https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/transportation/co...
- pyrale 7y agoI don't remember Jancovici having a proposition that lets us sustain the current population distribution, especially for large cities, rail or no rail.
- pyrale 7y agoTech is not the problem here. The problem is that we refuse to adapt our society and standards to external constraints.
- beefield 7y ago> What is the technology that we do have, but we refuse to use in order to solve the problem? Money, laws and maybe some coercion tools.
- growlist 7y agoContraception.
- _ph_ 7y ago"Refuse to use" is the wrong expression, as we are using the technology to solve the problem as in solar, wind, wave, water, etc. It is just that we are refusing to give up on fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) quickly enough. We should be pushing at the maximum possible speeds to make the transition. For an intermediate time, using gas instead of coal and oil also reduces the CO2 footprint, as gas has a 1/3rd less carbon compared to coal. Which is also a reason, why Diesel cars don't save as much carbon as the fuel consumption suggests, as Diesel fuel is about 10% more carbon-rich than gasoline per litre.
- javagram 7y agoGeoengineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injectio...
- harperlee 7y agoOfftopic but I just read that in reality frogs do jump :)
- andy_ppp 7y agoThere’s nowhere for us to jump as far as I’m aware...
- carlmr 7y agoMars is cold, and could be reached (by some humans) in a lifetime. However habitable is another thing.
- masklinn 7y agoYeah we can't even stop ourselves from destroying working ecosystems but we're apparently going to terraform systems which are currently not livable at all. That sounds likely.
- jsharf 7y agoIt does to me.
- imtringued 7y agoWhy would you go to a new planet that requires artificial habitats instead of setting those habitats up on earth?
- est31 7y agoYeah, even if climate change is really bad and means 10 degrees increase, Earth will still be more habitable than Mars. And reversing climate change, while a huge project, will be easier than terraforming Mars (at least from a technological perspective, political perspective is a different question). As much as I think that global warming is a major threat to humanity, Mars won't be more habitable than Earth for a long time. There are already quite hostile places on Earth that require lots of technology to be habitable, like Antarctica, or the surface of the oceans. But both places are far more habitable than Mars is. And if something goes wrong you can send help far more easily.
- a_imho 7y agoIsn't this human nature? Most people should probably lead a much more healthier lifestyle. We are fully aware our bad habits are slowly killing us, yet most do nothing about it.
- elproxy 7y agoIt’s not a technological or even a technical problem