7 ms·

> This move feels radical My understanding is that, at least depending on your goal, this isn't nearly radical enough. Some experts think we not only need to s

> This move feels radical My understanding is that, at least depending on your goal, this isn't nearly radical enough. Some experts think we not only need to stop selling gas-powered cars _immediately_, but also actively remove existing fossil fuel cars/appliance from the economy. I found this podcast helpful in understanding the level of effort needed to decarbonize in the near future: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/8/27/21403184/saul-griffith-ezra-klein-show-solve-climate-change-green-new-deal-rewiring-america https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/8/27/21403184/saul-griffit...

kristopolous 6y ago
15 years is nonsense because it's beyond the time horizon of political office. Future politicians won't feel obligated by their predecessors commitments and current ones will just kick the can on meaningful action. Unless there's actual measurable promises made by politicians that can be falsified before their next election, it's mostly puffery. Make hard, publicly verifiable 6, 12, and 18 month commitments otherwise it's just fluffy words to get votes. Also this can't be a politics-only solution. We have to dip into ye olden term of "political economy" - that second term is integrally tied to the first. The restructuring has to happen at how the politics And economy operates otherwise it doesn't work - there's no way to do anything meaningful, it's just words on paper if we only look at politics. Personally I think profit maximization for the energy sector has to go. It's not how we run our fire, parks, library, courts, postal service and it can't be how we do energy, at least not right now. Greenhouse gas minimization has to determine things. It's possible. The best universities for instance, aren't determined by the highest profits and the best police aren't the ones that hand out the largest fines and the best parents aren't the ones that extract the highest value labor from their children. We can restructure how energy is done as well.
- Brakenshire 6y ago
  Yes, it will be interesting whether this includes any meaningful action within his term of office. In the EU and UK there are requirements for average emissions for each manufacturer, which get tougher every year, and already are requiring about 5-10% of vehicles to be electric.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > 15 years is nonsense because it's beyond the time horizon of political office. Future politicians won't feel obligated by their predecessors commitments and current ones will just kick the can on meaningful action. Living in California over the past month feels apocalyptic. This year isn't isolated and it's likely to repeat, refreshing in voters minds why this policy was put in place.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    It'll certainly get far worse. The rapidity of the increase has fundamentally destabilized the global climate The Arctic was 65 degrees above average this summer with days reaching over 100. The temperature difference between the latitudes that governed the jet streams and global sea circulation has been fundamentally disrupted That's why you're getting muggy 80 degree nights in California now. Meanwhile that cooling system has wobbled lopsided like a melting hat bringing arctic cold weather and crop failure to a bunch of northern latitudes. In the mid-latitudes, the tropical glaciers in places like the Himalayas that are the water supply for over a billion people are in an accelerating decline causing unprecedented flooding, soil erosion and soon, starvation. Meanwhile ocean acidification is making the bottom of the food chain unable to survive and thus causes a cascading effect leading to a global ocean dieoff. At the same time, the ice sheets are breaking up so rapidly that glaciologists can't even keep up with it and at least one fell to his death this year because things are happening to quickly to survey. And then there's that insect apocalypse. All the while humans are making bold proclamations and patting themselves on the back while they point fingers at the "other countries" as if it's a game. Global feedbacks due to the emissions have chains of effects that can be mapped out over decades. If we magically stopped all emission right now, there's still years of warming and disaster baked in until any kind of stability (reversal in our lifetime is frankly out of the question) We're not doing that though. Instead, pipelines slated to last 40 years are being constructed as I type this. Exploratory missions for drilling that wouldn't even start until years from now are still being done. More coal power plants were funded and greenlit just last month. They won't even start until years from now. We're still committing ourselves to an oil future despite all of this. Over half the greenhouse gases were emitted After we started the annual global climate summits. It has done effectively nothing. So yes, things will be getting worse. These are the good days. Look up "alien resurrection deleted ending"... Except for the space crafts, I don't think the depiction is inaccurate unless we take major life altering action immediately. The window to start an "ambitious" 15-year transition closed somewhere around 1990. The world will eventually recover. The carbon dioxide emitted from the car that just rolled down the street, 90% of it will finally be gone in 100,000 years. The coral reef will recover in 2,000,000 years from the ocean acidification since 1950. We'll get to a level of biodiversity equal to 1930 by about 10,000,000AD. Even the amount of fossil fuels we burned in the past 200 years will eventually come back in 400,000,000 years --- but that's only if we somehow stop today. We're not doing that.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  I'm not sure that makes sense, actually. We didn't remove the profit motive from CFC production or refrigerator companies. We just banned CFCs and moved on. Honestly, we do need a more aggressive approach, but climate won't be the catalyst for totally changing the economy that many on the left hope it will be.
ars 6y ago
> Some experts think we not only need to stop selling gas-powered cars _immediately_, but also actively remove existing fossil fuel cars/appliance from the economy. That's targeting the wrong side of the supply/demand equation. Which is also why this initiative of California's will not work. Just keep building better power sources!! You will never reduce demand, you can only make a better supply. Nuclear nuclear nuclear. There's nothing else that can do it fast enough. If California actually cared about the environment that's what they would do, instead it's only lip service.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  This is not true. Even today, where we haven't done all that much with electric efficiency, US power generation has been virtually flat for over a decade since the last recession: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38572 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38572 Considering how much low-hanging efficiency fruit there is still lying around, reducing demand is a perfectly valid strategy for reducing carbon emissions.
  - ars 6y ago
    Scroll down a bit on that page you link. The entire difference is due to heavy industry moving to other countries.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      No, it's not. In the second graph, industrial sales flatline then decline after 2000, which doesn't match up with the peak electricity generation in 2007. Both residential and commercial slow or stop growing after 2007.
- cure 6y ago
  > Nuclear nuclear nuclear. There's nothing else that can do it fast enough. Maybe in theory, but not in practice. How much new nuclear generation has been brought online in the last decade in the US? How much solar/wind? Clearly, the only carbon-free power generation that is actually actively being brought online is solar/wind. With batteries, we'll actually get somewhere with the decarbonization of our power generation. It still won't be fast enough at the current pace, though...

kristopolous 6y ago

15 years is nonsense because it's beyond the time horizon of political office. Future politicians won't feel obligated by their predecessors commitments and current ones will just kick the can on meaningful action. Unless there's actual measurable promises made by politicians that can be falsified before their next election, it's mostly puffery. Make hard, publicly verifiable 6, 12, and 18 month commitments otherwise it's just fluffy words to get votes. Also this can't be a politics-only solution. We have to dip into ye olden term of "political economy" - that second term is integrally tied to the first. The restructuring has to happen at how the politics And economy operates otherwise it doesn't work - there's no way to do anything meaningful, it's just words on paper if we only look at politics. Personally I think profit maximization for the energy sector has to go. It's not how we run our fire, parks, library, courts, postal service and it can't be how we do energy, at least not right now. Greenhouse gas minimization has to determine things. It's possible. The best universities for instance, aren't determined by the highest profits and the best police aren't the ones that hand out the largest fines and the best parents aren't the ones that extract the highest value labor from their children. We can restructure how energy is done as well.

Brakenshire 6y ago
Yes, it will be interesting whether this includes any meaningful action within his term of office. In the EU and UK there are requirements for average emissions for each manufacturer, which get tougher every year, and already are requiring about 5-10% of vehicles to be electric.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> 15 years is nonsense because it's beyond the time horizon of political office. Future politicians won't feel obligated by their predecessors commitments and current ones will just kick the can on meaningful action. Living in California over the past month feels apocalyptic. This year isn't isolated and it's likely to repeat, refreshing in voters minds why this policy was put in place.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  It'll certainly get far worse. The rapidity of the increase has fundamentally destabilized the global climate The Arctic was 65 degrees above average this summer with days reaching over 100. The temperature difference between the latitudes that governed the jet streams and global sea circulation has been fundamentally disrupted That's why you're getting muggy 80 degree nights in California now. Meanwhile that cooling system has wobbled lopsided like a melting hat bringing arctic cold weather and crop failure to a bunch of northern latitudes. In the mid-latitudes, the tropical glaciers in places like the Himalayas that are the water supply for over a billion people are in an accelerating decline causing unprecedented flooding, soil erosion and soon, starvation. Meanwhile ocean acidification is making the bottom of the food chain unable to survive and thus causes a cascading effect leading to a global ocean dieoff. At the same time, the ice sheets are breaking up so rapidly that glaciologists can't even keep up with it and at least one fell to his death this year because things are happening to quickly to survey. And then there's that insect apocalypse. All the while humans are making bold proclamations and patting themselves on the back while they point fingers at the "other countries" as if it's a game. Global feedbacks due to the emissions have chains of effects that can be mapped out over decades. If we magically stopped all emission right now, there's still years of warming and disaster baked in until any kind of stability (reversal in our lifetime is frankly out of the question) We're not doing that though. Instead, pipelines slated to last 40 years are being constructed as I type this. Exploratory missions for drilling that wouldn't even start until years from now are still being done. More coal power plants were funded and greenlit just last month. They won't even start until years from now. We're still committing ourselves to an oil future despite all of this. Over half the greenhouse gases were emitted After we started the annual global climate summits. It has done effectively nothing. So yes, things will be getting worse. These are the good days. Look up "alien resurrection deleted ending"... Except for the space crafts, I don't think the depiction is inaccurate unless we take major life altering action immediately. The window to start an "ambitious" 15-year transition closed somewhere around 1990. The world will eventually recover. The carbon dioxide emitted from the car that just rolled down the street, 90% of it will finally be gone in 100,000 years. The coral reef will recover in 2,000,000 years from the ocean acidification since 1950. We'll get to a level of biodiversity equal to 1930 by about 10,000,000AD. Even the amount of fossil fuels we burned in the past 200 years will eventually come back in 400,000,000 years --- but that's only if we somehow stop today. We're not doing that.
Robotbeat 6y ago
I'm not sure that makes sense, actually. We didn't remove the profit motive from CFC production or refrigerator companies. We just banned CFCs and moved on. Honestly, we do need a more aggressive approach, but climate won't be the catalyst for totally changing the economy that many on the left hope it will be.

ars 6y ago

> Some experts think we not only need to stop selling gas-powered cars _immediately_, but also actively remove existing fossil fuel cars/appliance from the economy. That's targeting the wrong side of the supply/demand equation. Which is also why this initiative of California's will not work. Just keep building better power sources!! You will never reduce demand, you can only make a better supply. Nuclear nuclear nuclear. There's nothing else that can do it fast enough. If California actually cared about the environment that's what they would do, instead it's only lip service.

bobthepanda 6y ago
This is not true. Even today, where we haven't done all that much with electric efficiency, US power generation has been virtually flat for over a decade since the last recession: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38572 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38572 Considering how much low-hanging efficiency fruit there is still lying around, reducing demand is a perfectly valid strategy for reducing carbon emissions.
- ars 6y ago
  Scroll down a bit on that page you link. The entire difference is due to heavy industry moving to other countries.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    No, it's not. In the second graph, industrial sales flatline then decline after 2000, which doesn't match up with the peak electricity generation in 2007. Both residential and commercial slow or stop growing after 2007.
cure 6y ago
> Nuclear nuclear nuclear. There's nothing else that can do it fast enough. Maybe in theory, but not in practice. How much new nuclear generation has been brought online in the last decade in the US? How much solar/wind? Clearly, the only carbon-free power generation that is actually actively being brought online is solar/wind. With batteries, we'll actually get somewhere with the decarbonization of our power generation. It still won't be fast enough at the current pace, though...