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It's also somewhat misguided in my opinion. For some reason a large portion of the population have decided that it is categorically impossible to do anything ab
by Thriptic 7y ago
It's also somewhat misguided in my opinion. For some reason a large portion of the population have decided that it is categorically impossible to do anything about global warming from a technical or policy perspective. They have thrown up their hands and have decreed that we must all live awful lifestyles and shouldn't even try to innovate our way out of the problem. We are spending a tiny fraction of available resources fighting this problem, and it is not inconceivable that we could develop solutions which would change the state of the world dramatically if we actually threw money and talent at the problems.
- henrikschroder 7y agoMy biggest source of hope for the climate crisis is that we got into our current state by expending enormous amounts of human labour. Those mines didn't dig themselves, those factories didn't build themselves, those highway networks didn't fill with cars by themselves. It took effort to fuck things up, which means that with effort, we can un-fuck things as well.
- int_19h 7y agoThe problem is that we've spun up a bunch of positive feedback loops in the process, and so un-fucking things is a lot costlier.
- henrikschroder 7y agoIn some cases, yes, in some cases, no. Reforestation for example appears to be very cheap, fast, and simple.
- int_19h 7y agoIs it cheaper in terms of man-hours spent on each kilo of carbon sequestered, compared to man-hours spent on emitting it?
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoand another group of people think some magic technology or wishful political thinking that doesn't exist right now can solve all our problems in the future.
- Thriptic 7y agoWe have technology right now to solve the problem. Carbon capture, planting trees, alternative energies, etc. We have just decided not to properly invest in deploying them or advancing them to make them more efficient. Green new deal might be a step in the right direction.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoCarbon capture is one of the technologies I consider wishful thinking right now. It may well work but I haven't seen anything other than a handful of small scale trials yet people have been talking about it for twenty years. I'm not particularly convinced by the green new deal either: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.15...