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We are at the point of last resort. There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission. People can argue all they want about renewables

We are at the point of last resort. There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission. People can argue all they want about renewables and regulation. Half the world won't give a damn, and we'll be left where we are. Carbon capture is a much more centralized response. It actually might be possible for a few rich nations to get together and implement systems to drive it at scale. Unfortunately, we are already at a point where there might be no other mechanism to intentionally modulate the climate.

tomp 7y ago
> There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission We haven't even tried. Tax all products, in particular imports (China etc) based on their CO2 emissions. The Western worlds (EU + US + a few others) still represents the majority of consumption / buying power, and has the option of enforcing standards on cheap-labour producing countries. We just have to have the will to do it. I hope Trump's anti-China stance (albeit for the wrong reasons) might spur other countries into thinking in this direction. Edit: I'm also terribly annoyed by these stupid "pop-interventions" like "eat less meat" and "use paper straws". I don't want the government to tell me what to do (that's totalitarian and completely unacceptable from my perspective), the government should instead adjust the incentives so that all externalities are properly accounted for; then I'm free to drive less (or buy a Tesla) and eat more meat, whereas someone else (with the same budget but different preferences) can instead adopt a vegan diet and go on frequent roadtrips.
blueadept111 7y ago
No viable way? All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. Not only is it viable, it the solution that will be forced upon humanity if humanity doesn't embrace it on its own terms.
- hedora 7y ago
  A 50% reduction in CO2 isn’t enough, and even if it were, over half the earth’s population would need to die by ~2030 for that plan to work on time.
- walleeee 7y ago
  > All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. This is not how demography works. Even an instant and global halving of the birthrate, holding all else equal, would not even begin to reduce total population. In 2016, global birthrate exceeded deathrate by a factor of ~2.4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate). There is also serious inertia involved when reducing natality to balance mortality. Exponential population growth has momentum. Population leveling could take decades to manifest. "...there is a large time lag between the point at which the fertility rate falls to the replacement level and the point at which the population stops rising." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth) And in any case, it's by no means obvious that population and total carbon emissions are directly proportional. I don't disagree that population reduction will likely be forced upon us by ecological and concomitant socio-political crises: e.g., water/food shortages, extreme weather, war, etc. Does that really deserve to be called a solution, though?
  - blueadept111 7y ago
    Holy nitpick, batman. It's an outcome. "Solution" depends on the goal. If the goal is to have a planet so choked with humanity that almost everything else dies, then no, it's not a solution.
chrisco255 7y ago
We're at historically normal levels of warming. We are cooler now as a planet than we were during the early Neolithic (early Holocene from 10K to 5.5K years ago. Eventually we'll plunge into another glacial period, and no amount of CO2 will stop it.
- pale-hands 7y ago
  > We're at historically normal levels of warming. Misleading. You have to appeal to pre-history to find temperature levels similar to current. > Eventually we'll plunge into another glacial period, and no amount of CO2 will stop it. Eventually, i.e. 10's or 100's of thousands of years, if CO2 levels revert to preindustrial. You are appealing to timescales of thousands of years, but the timescale relevant to the problem and our response is years and decades. Is your comment intended to minimise the problem of current warming? If so why?
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    The early Holocene does predate the alphabet, but it's only 6,000 years ago, a blink of an eye geologically speaking. There were also several cooling and warming episodes in the interim since then, with the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm periods all exceeding modern temperatures. Historically, warm climate has correlated with boom times for civilization and cold periods have brought famine. See research below: (Note: CO2 was at least 100 ppm lower than today yet the Arctic hit much higher temps and had to lose much of its ice as a result) "Peak warmth occurred ~10 ka BP, with temperatures 7 °C warmer than today due to high radiative forcing and intensified inflow of warm Atlantic waters." https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL084384 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...
    - travisporter 7y ago
      From the abstract: During peak warmth, summer temperatures were 7 °C warmer than today as more solar radiation and warm water reached the Arctic. However, Early Holocene warming was much slower than today.
    - 7y ago
buzzkillington 7y ago
We're past the point of last resort by about 20 years. It's just that no one noticed.

tomp 7y ago

> There is no viable way to solve the distributed problem of carbon emission We haven't even tried. Tax all products, in particular imports (China etc) based on their CO2 emissions. The Western worlds (EU + US + a few others) still represents the majority of consumption / buying power, and has the option of enforcing standards on cheap-labour producing countries. We just have to have the will to do it. I hope Trump's anti-China stance (albeit for the wrong reasons) might spur other countries into thinking in this direction. Edit: I'm also terribly annoyed by these stupid "pop-interventions" like "eat less meat" and "use paper straws". I don't want the government to tell me what to do (that's totalitarian and completely unacceptable from my perspective), the government should instead adjust the incentives so that all externalities are properly accounted for; then I'm free to drive less (or buy a Tesla) and eat more meat, whereas someone else (with the same budget but different preferences) can instead adopt a vegan diet and go on frequent roadtrips.

blueadept111 7y ago

No viable way? All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. Not only is it viable, it the solution that will be forced upon humanity if humanity doesn't embrace it on its own terms.

hedora 7y ago
A 50% reduction in CO2 isn’t enough, and even if it were, over half the earth’s population would need to die by ~2030 for that plan to work on time.
walleeee 7y ago
> All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. This is not how demography works. Even an instant and global halving of the birthrate, holding all else equal, would not even begin to reduce total population. In 2016, global birthrate exceeded deathrate by a factor of ~2.4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate). There is also serious inertia involved when reducing natality to balance mortality. Exponential population growth has momentum. Population leveling could take decades to manifest. "...there is a large time lag between the point at which the fertility rate falls to the replacement level and the point at which the population stops rising." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth) And in any case, it's by no means obvious that population and total carbon emissions are directly proportional. I don't disagree that population reduction will likely be forced upon us by ecological and concomitant socio-political crises: e.g., water/food shortages, extreme weather, war, etc. Does that really deserve to be called a solution, though?
- blueadept111 7y ago
  Holy nitpick, batman. It's an outcome. "Solution" depends on the goal. If the goal is to have a planet so choked with humanity that almost everything else dies, then no, it's not a solution.

chrisco255 7y ago

We're at historically normal levels of warming. We are cooler now as a planet than we were during the early Neolithic (early Holocene from 10K to 5.5K years ago. Eventually we'll plunge into another glacial period, and no amount of CO2 will stop it.

pale-hands 7y ago
> We're at historically normal levels of warming. Misleading. You have to appeal to pre-history to find temperature levels similar to current. > Eventually we'll plunge into another glacial period, and no amount of CO2 will stop it. Eventually, i.e. 10's or 100's of thousands of years, if CO2 levels revert to preindustrial. You are appealing to timescales of thousands of years, but the timescale relevant to the problem and our response is years and decades. Is your comment intended to minimise the problem of current warming? If so why?
- chrisco255 7y ago
  The early Holocene does predate the alphabet, but it's only 6,000 years ago, a blink of an eye geologically speaking. There were also several cooling and warming episodes in the interim since then, with the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm periods all exceeding modern temperatures. Historically, warm climate has correlated with boom times for civilization and cold periods have brought famine. See research below: (Note: CO2 was at least 100 ppm lower than today yet the Arctic hit much higher temps and had to lose much of its ice as a result) "Peak warmth occurred ~10 ka BP, with temperatures 7 °C warmer than today due to high radiative forcing and intensified inflow of warm Atlantic waters." https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL084384 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...
  - travisporter 7y ago
    From the abstract: During peak warmth, summer temperatures were 7 °C warmer than today as more solar radiation and warm water reached the Arctic. However, Early Holocene warming was much slower than today.
  - 7y ago

buzzkillington 7y ago

We're past the point of last resort by about 20 years. It's just that no one noticed.