4 ms·

Not gonna happen, unfortunately. I agree that achieving those goals, even at the envisioned costs, would be desirable. But the short term pain of much of the n

Not gonna happen, unfortunately. I agree that achieving those goals, even at the envisioned costs, would be desirable. But the short term pain of much of the necessary measures would be too great to make it politically infeasible. And any "defector" of significant size (China? Russia? US?) would make it even more difficult, politically. The developing nations will feel a lot of the pressure to cut down on their growing emissions. Which is unfair and would also result in more Human suffering, short and midterm. I'm hoping for somebody to prove me wrong!

bestouff 7y ago
Or more realistically business will go on as usual, with a little green-washing here and there, and we will cope as well as we can with the resulting mess. Which means after a period of relative calm (less wars nowadays than before) we'll probably have climate/water exodus and wars in the future. But this will happen gradually.
- xupybd 7y ago
  My hope is all in climate engineering. Not because it's the best solution but because it's the only politically viable one. Not until we've felt the pain will we invest in solving the problem. Governments also have an easier time investing in massive infrastructure projects than curbing pollution. Will will be able to do anything at that point is not certain.
  - bayesian_horse 7y ago
    At the moment the traditional ways of fighting carbon emissions seem to be more practicable... And who is going to pay for those infrastructure? Are the rich countries paying for them to be build in the poorer countries?
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  Wars... may be slightly exaggerated. There are many causes of wars, and I am very conservative about identifying any big factors. Even when people say "it's about the religion" or "it's about democracy", it's really not, most of the time. To me it seems like it's mainly people fng up, internal politics, miscalculations and the sort. Invasions for the sake of conquering resources is increasingly rare. And illegal under international war (as much as that's worth). That's why the invasion of Crimea was such a big thing, these kind of things don't happen anymore. Also Ukraine miscalculated the risk of Russia taking Crimea (or was too paralyzed to prevent it) and Putin probably miscalculated the backlash. On a smaller scale it will be hard to tell why certain militias try to rule/conquer certain regions. Lack of resources may contribute, or not.
chmod775 7y ago
> China? Russia? US? I have a suspicion that none of them would want to be the "guilty" party that kept polluting. Right now, of the three, the US is still the biggest per-capita polluter by far (about 2x more than China). China is already adopting greener policies, so there is a good chance it will never overtake the US on that metric. I do think that the US (or Russia, who aren't too far behind them) will eventually follow either China, or one of the European countries leading by example. Let me preempt something here: I posted a similar comment some time ago, and the response to that was "but total CO2!" - which is a demonstrably absurd way to measure a countries progress on that front. Let's not get into that again.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  The problem right there is that China will increase their pollution just by raising their living standards to the Western levels. So if they don't play ball, the whole game is over. In my understanding China doesn't care about the climate as much as about the air their people have to breath. Their environmental policies seem to be targeted exclusively at public health issues, and then only the more serious ones. The bigger, necessary solutions are not implemented anywhere, yet. Those countries who do not participate will leap ahead in industrial development, while those who do may not be able to slow climate change enough.
  - chmod775 7y ago
    > In my understanding China doesn't care about the climate as much as about the air their people have to breath. Their environmental policies seem to be targeted exclusively at public health issues, and then only the more serious ones. Public health issues like air pollution. That might be the reason they're investing so heavily in renewables, but it doesn't change the fact that they are. The percentage of renewable energy in China has steadily increased over the years. They are now at 25% vs just 11% in the US. I'd have to look up their nuclear numbers though.
    - bayesian_horse 7y ago
      I don't think that a desire for slowing climate change or some kind of compliance with the international trend, is the driver of their renewable energies strategy. China has only very little fossil fuel available, and coal tends to be labor intensive (another thing they are running out of) and very dirty locally. So to meet their energy demands and be less dependent on the oil market, they probably should invest in renewable sources. And it doesn't hurt that they can build up the production capacity for such sources through public investment. They are also building lots of nuclear plants. Which is a lot easier when citizens generally don't feel like objecting much.
Ensorceled 7y ago
Look at the current political landscape: Johnson is trying to force a hard Brexit via shenanigans, Trump is hinting at civil war if impeached, China and Russia are headed by "presidents for life". Basically, significant parts of the world leadership are increasingly tyrannical, leaning fascist and mostly all from the boomer generation. Until the boomers, who don't care because they will be dead, are out of power, this won't change.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  It's not so much about fascism but about citizens neglecting the political sphere. And at least in the US, Trump was a real wake up call. Political participation has risen sharply, not just in terms of voting. I would hope it will be similar in the UK. Their current political system needs to be shaken up to produce a new, larger group of leaders in a more competitive environment. Or at least more competitive around policy specifically. However, this "shaking up" is really hard without breaking a lot.
  - Ensorceled 7y ago
    Agreed, and Gen Z shows some real hope as they are much more active politically.
mikemotherwell 7y ago
The bigger problem is India, Nigeria and Pakistan. India, Nigeria and Pakistan likely should burn more fossil fuels, as those three countries represent a large chunk of the world's desperately poor - with 1.33 Billion, 200 million and 200 million people respectively. It is hard to argue climate change is the biggest issue when your country has most of the world's people living in abject poverty. Anyway, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... shows that India uses 1.7 metric tonnes per capita, Pakistan 0.9 and Nigeria 0.5. China uses 7.5, so that's about break even for a booming economy. Lets be conservative and say all three countries double their carbon output, and that's an extra 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon in India, and an extra half a billion-ish tonnes for the other two. Lets call it 3 billion extra tonnes of carbon as a nice round number. It is hard to see where the reductions will come from to cover just that increase. The EU is unlikely to drop much if any, and even The USA, currently at 16.5 per capita with 330 million people, would need to drop 10 tonnes per capita just to break even with India, Pakistan And Nigeria's increases. Dropping over 50% of carbon usage is a huge ask. I think that the other two solutions need to be proritised, and fast.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  India certainly is a factor, and Nigeria and Pakistan will also contribute. We could hope that they have another incentive to use a lower percentage of fossil fuels: It's going to become more expensive over the next decades, not only to buy them, but also to bear the health problems that come with that. These countries already have a high population density. If they want to meet their demands mostly through fossil fuel, they themselves will be very unhappy long before the climate gets any worse.

bestouff 7y ago

Or more realistically business will go on as usual, with a little green-washing here and there, and we will cope as well as we can with the resulting mess. Which means after a period of relative calm (less wars nowadays than before) we'll probably have climate/water exodus and wars in the future. But this will happen gradually.

xupybd 7y ago
My hope is all in climate engineering. Not because it's the best solution but because it's the only politically viable one. Not until we've felt the pain will we invest in solving the problem. Governments also have an easier time investing in massive infrastructure projects than curbing pollution. Will will be able to do anything at that point is not certain.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  At the moment the traditional ways of fighting carbon emissions seem to be more practicable... And who is going to pay for those infrastructure? Are the rich countries paying for them to be build in the poorer countries?
bayesian_horse 7y ago
Wars... may be slightly exaggerated. There are many causes of wars, and I am very conservative about identifying any big factors. Even when people say "it's about the religion" or "it's about democracy", it's really not, most of the time. To me it seems like it's mainly people fng up, internal politics, miscalculations and the sort. Invasions for the sake of conquering resources is increasingly rare. And illegal under international war (as much as that's worth). That's why the invasion of Crimea was such a big thing, these kind of things don't happen anymore. Also Ukraine miscalculated the risk of Russia taking Crimea (or was too paralyzed to prevent it) and Putin probably miscalculated the backlash. On a smaller scale it will be hard to tell why certain militias try to rule/conquer certain regions. Lack of resources may contribute, or not.

chmod775 7y ago

> China? Russia? US? I have a suspicion that none of them would want to be the "guilty" party that kept polluting. Right now, of the three, the US is still the biggest per-capita polluter by far (about 2x more than China). China is already adopting greener policies, so there is a good chance it will never overtake the US on that metric. I do think that the US (or Russia, who aren't too far behind them) will eventually follow either China, or one of the European countries leading by example. Let me preempt something here: I posted a similar comment some time ago, and the response to that was "but total CO2!" - which is a demonstrably absurd way to measure a countries progress on that front. Let's not get into that again.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
The problem right there is that China will increase their pollution just by raising their living standards to the Western levels. So if they don't play ball, the whole game is over. In my understanding China doesn't care about the climate as much as about the air their people have to breath. Their environmental policies seem to be targeted exclusively at public health issues, and then only the more serious ones. The bigger, necessary solutions are not implemented anywhere, yet. Those countries who do not participate will leap ahead in industrial development, while those who do may not be able to slow climate change enough.
- chmod775 7y ago
  > In my understanding China doesn't care about the climate as much as about the air their people have to breath. Their environmental policies seem to be targeted exclusively at public health issues, and then only the more serious ones. Public health issues like air pollution. That might be the reason they're investing so heavily in renewables, but it doesn't change the fact that they are. The percentage of renewable energy in China has steadily increased over the years. They are now at 25% vs just 11% in the US. I'd have to look up their nuclear numbers though.
  - bayesian_horse 7y ago
    I don't think that a desire for slowing climate change or some kind of compliance with the international trend, is the driver of their renewable energies strategy. China has only very little fossil fuel available, and coal tends to be labor intensive (another thing they are running out of) and very dirty locally. So to meet their energy demands and be less dependent on the oil market, they probably should invest in renewable sources. And it doesn't hurt that they can build up the production capacity for such sources through public investment. They are also building lots of nuclear plants. Which is a lot easier when citizens generally don't feel like objecting much.

Ensorceled 7y ago

Look at the current political landscape: Johnson is trying to force a hard Brexit via shenanigans, Trump is hinting at civil war if impeached, China and Russia are headed by "presidents for life". Basically, significant parts of the world leadership are increasingly tyrannical, leaning fascist and mostly all from the boomer generation. Until the boomers, who don't care because they will be dead, are out of power, this won't change.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
It's not so much about fascism but about citizens neglecting the political sphere. And at least in the US, Trump was a real wake up call. Political participation has risen sharply, not just in terms of voting. I would hope it will be similar in the UK. Their current political system needs to be shaken up to produce a new, larger group of leaders in a more competitive environment. Or at least more competitive around policy specifically. However, this "shaking up" is really hard without breaking a lot.
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  Agreed, and Gen Z shows some real hope as they are much more active politically.

mikemotherwell 7y ago

The bigger problem is India, Nigeria and Pakistan. India, Nigeria and Pakistan likely should burn more fossil fuels, as those three countries represent a large chunk of the world's desperately poor - with 1.33 Billion, 200 million and 200 million people respectively. It is hard to argue climate change is the biggest issue when your country has most of the world's people living in abject poverty. Anyway, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... shows that India uses 1.7 metric tonnes per capita, Pakistan 0.9 and Nigeria 0.5. China uses 7.5, so that's about break even for a booming economy. Lets be conservative and say all three countries double their carbon output, and that's an extra 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon in India, and an extra half a billion-ish tonnes for the other two. Lets call it 3 billion extra tonnes of carbon as a nice round number. It is hard to see where the reductions will come from to cover just that increase. The EU is unlikely to drop much if any, and even The USA, currently at 16.5 per capita with 330 million people, would need to drop 10 tonnes per capita just to break even with India, Pakistan And Nigeria's increases. Dropping over 50% of carbon usage is a huge ask. I think that the other two solutions need to be proritised, and fast.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
India certainly is a factor, and Nigeria and Pakistan will also contribute. We could hope that they have another incentive to use a lower percentage of fossil fuels: It's going to become more expensive over the next decades, not only to buy them, but also to bear the health problems that come with that. These countries already have a high population density. If they want to meet their demands mostly through fossil fuel, they themselves will be very unhappy long before the climate gets any worse.