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The climate problem isn't entirely a coal problem, but coal is by far the single largest contributor. It's also quite replaceable. Phasing out coal remains the

by api 7y ago

The climate problem isn't entirely a coal problem, but coal is by far the single largest contributor. It's also quite replaceable. Phasing out coal remains the simplest, most straightforward mitigation. Once we do that we can tackle the other stuff.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Once we do that we can tackle the other stuff. We kind of have to do it all at the same time. It's pretty easy at this point to stop generating power from coal, but that doesn't do anything about ICE vehicles, or oil and gas used for heating. And a lot of this stuff has long lead-times. If you manufacture an ICE car instead of an electric car, it's on the road for another 20 years. If you install a new oil furnace in a building, it too has a lifetime measured in decades. Getting people to crush a three year old ICE car is not realistically going to happen, but why are we still making new ones?
- dylan604 7y ago
  >We kind of have to do it all at the same time. I totally disagree. The all or nothing concept means nothing will be done. There will always be a single reason someone can come up with to not do something. Why let that one thing stop other advances? I much prefer the accomplish a goal, move to the next goal concept. In the 70s, it would literally rain acid. Luckily, we realized that making a few small changes would have a drastic affect. The ozone layer was getting destroyed, and again we make a few small changes with great affect. The proof is there that incremental changes are worthwhile.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > Why let that one thing stop other advances? Is somebody suggesting that we stop replacing coal fired power plants because we could replace ICE cars with electric cars instead? The entire point is that we have to do both. They don't both have to be in the same bill (though a carbon tax would do both), but they have to be done in parallel rather than sequentially because we don't have time to entirely solve one of them before starting any work on the others.
    - api 7y ago
      We shouldn't not do other things if we can. I was just arguing that coal is more than 50% of the problem and that getting rid of it is do-able. If we can phase out coal we're halfway there. Electrification of transport is happening for multiple reasons: climate, high oil prices (they've fallen for now but they'll go back up), the maturing of modern EV tech, and the fact that IVs actually drive better and are lower maintenance. The drive better part is no joke. It's just physics. I have an older 2013 Leaf, which is a wimpy EV, and it can out accelerate a lot of higher end cars if I want it to.

by api 7y ago

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> Once we do that we can tackle the other stuff. We kind of have to do it all at the same time. It's pretty easy at this point to stop generating power from coal, but that doesn't do anything about ICE vehicles, or oil and gas used for heating. And a lot of this stuff has long lead-times. If you manufacture an ICE car instead of an electric car, it's on the road for another 20 years. If you install a new oil furnace in a building, it too has a lifetime measured in decades. Getting people to crush a three year old ICE car is not realistically going to happen, but why are we still making new ones?

dylan604 7y ago
>We kind of have to do it all at the same time. I totally disagree. The all or nothing concept means nothing will be done. There will always be a single reason someone can come up with to not do something. Why let that one thing stop other advances? I much prefer the accomplish a goal, move to the next goal concept. In the 70s, it would literally rain acid. Luckily, we realized that making a few small changes would have a drastic affect. The ozone layer was getting destroyed, and again we make a few small changes with great affect. The proof is there that incremental changes are worthwhile.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Why let that one thing stop other advances? Is somebody suggesting that we stop replacing coal fired power plants because we could replace ICE cars with electric cars instead? The entire point is that we have to do both. They don't both have to be in the same bill (though a carbon tax would do both), but they have to be done in parallel rather than sequentially because we don't have time to entirely solve one of them before starting any work on the others.
  - api 7y ago
    We shouldn't not do other things if we can. I was just arguing that coal is more than 50% of the problem and that getting rid of it is do-able. If we can phase out coal we're halfway there. Electrification of transport is happening for multiple reasons: climate, high oil prices (they've fallen for now but they'll go back up), the maturing of modern EV tech, and the fact that IVs actually drive better and are lower maintenance. The drive better part is no joke. It's just physics. I have an older 2013 Leaf, which is a wimpy EV, and it can out accelerate a lot of higher end cars if I want it to.