4 ms·

>That's true of every industry. It's all 1% here and 2% there. We can't ignore something just because it's 'small' in regard to the total. And if we apply that

>That's true of every industry. It's all 1% here and 2% there. We can't ignore something just because it's 'small' in regard to the total. And if we apply that logic to every industry, we end up driving people's standards of living back centuries.

chopin 6y ago
If we do nothing that's going to happen anyway.
- logicchains 6y ago
  Not within the next couple hundred years, even going by the worst case climate change predictions.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  You have to applaud people that spent decades telling us that climate change didn't exist, only to switch their stance to "well it's too late, there's nothing we can do now" once the evidence of climate change became too obvious in our day to day.
  - alvah 6y ago
    "once the evidence of climate change became too obvious in our day to day." Citation?
onion2k 6y ago
We're talking about flying. You don't need to go back very far (less than 50 years) to get to a point where the majority of people in western countries never took a flight. We're absolutely not talking about resetting life to what it was like in the 1700s. We might possibly be talking about going back to what it was like in the 1980s, where flights where mostly for the very wealthy or something people did 4 or 5 times in their lifetime, but it's more likely it'd be nothing as dramatic as that.
- logicchains 6y ago
  I said if we applied that logic to every industry, we'd set standards of living back centuries. The vast vast majority of what humans produce and consume is not essential for living, but if we cut it all out there wouldn't be much to live for.
- ulfw 6y ago
  People don't need computers either, nor software engineers. Let's be honest. We don't really need any of this. Right?
  - Isinlor 6y ago
    We can do computing and everything that works on electricity in 100% sustainable way. We don't know how to fly in a sustainable way, nor is flying necessary.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    I suspect the efficiency and productivity gains from information technology mean computers and software engineering actually reduce the effect of climate change by improving most industries more than they contribute to climate change directly, but I don't have any hard evidence for that.
  - baron_harkonnen 6y ago
    Food production is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. We have used fossil fuels to prop up the carrying capacity of humans on the planet quite a bit. This is why it is really important to ask questions about what we really need, and if we're at all interested in human survival in the future, we need make serious decision to scale down the economy soon. Of course I'm not very optimistic that this will happen.
    - Vecr 6y ago
      How much of that fossil fuel use in regards to food would be impossible to replace with nuclear power and/or mobile batteries?
542354234235 6y ago
> And if we apply that logic to every industry, we end up driving people's standards of living back centuries. That assumes that the only way to reduce CO2 is to halt the industry, and that is not true for most industries. The problem is that most industries have no cost associated with CO2 emissions. So they have no profit incentive to reduce those emissions. Simply adding in the full cost of operation, including CO2, would drive industry to innovate more efficient technology, reduce CO2 waste, and yes, some industries would be revealed as being too costly in CO2 production to be viable at the current levels of use. There are many industrial processed that are horribly inefficient and wasteful, but the cost of that inefficiency is not paid by the company, so switching would only hurt profit margins. Any company competing would be at a massive price disadvantage. If the full cost fell on the company, consumers would quickly buy products and services that used efficient tech and reduced waste, because those would be the cheaper options. Most industries are not CO2 producers because it is required to maintain that standard of living. I pay for my garbage to be collected and properly disposed of, but if I could just dump it in my neighbor’s yard for free, I could save money. Forcing me to pay for it myself keeps us all from having our yard filled with garbage.
baron_harkonnen 6y ago
wait until you see what happens to the standard of living if we don't! All IPCC targets assume getting to 0 emissions relatively soon. If we can't take economic hits to get there, then we'll take a fantastically more wild economic hit once we miss those goals. I suggest you spend some time researching a bit what happens with each degree C we get to. It's far worse then just rising sea-levels.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  The cost of diking every susceptible mile of seashore has been calculated before and it is a rounding error in terms of global GNP. The Netherlands was doing it in the 12th century with 12th century technology, and I don't think there is any nation today with average living standards below 12th century europe.
  - sbierwagen 6y ago
    https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838 >Our survey of the climate record from station data reveals many global TW exceedances of 31° and 33°C and two stations that have already reported multiple daily maximum TW values above 35°C. These conditions, nearing or beyond prolonged human physiological tolerance, have mostly occurred only for 1- to 2-hours’ duration (fig. S2). [...] >Steep and statistically significant upward trends in extreme TW frequency (exceedances of 27°, 29°, 31°, and 33°C) and magnitude are present across weather stations globally (Fig. 2). Each frequency trend represents more than a doubling of occurrences of the corresponding threshold between 1979 and 2017. [...] >The southern Persian Gulf shoreline and northern South Asia are home to millions of people, situating them on the front lines of exposure to TW extremes at the edge of and outside the range of natural variability in which our physiology evolved (36). I feel like air conditioning millions (and soon, billions) of people will be more than a rounding error of GNP. Indeed, economic activity may be... slightly curtailed... in countries where going outside results in death.
    - missedthecue 6y ago
      there is a lot more land in the northern hemisphere than at the equator. People will move over the next hundred years. Populations will look much more different in 2100 just like they looked very different in 1900. Countries like Canada will become more than 90 km in vertical length. Countries like Russia and Norway and Finland and the United States will also become more habitable. There is a lot more land that will become accessible than land that will become too harsh.

chopin 6y ago

If we do nothing that's going to happen anyway.

logicchains 6y ago
Not within the next couple hundred years, even going by the worst case climate change predictions.
jeromegv 6y ago
You have to applaud people that spent decades telling us that climate change didn't exist, only to switch their stance to "well it's too late, there's nothing we can do now" once the evidence of climate change became too obvious in our day to day.
- alvah 6y ago
  "once the evidence of climate change became too obvious in our day to day." Citation?

onion2k 6y ago

We're talking about flying. You don't need to go back very far (less than 50 years) to get to a point where the majority of people in western countries never took a flight. We're absolutely not talking about resetting life to what it was like in the 1700s. We might possibly be talking about going back to what it was like in the 1980s, where flights where mostly for the very wealthy or something people did 4 or 5 times in their lifetime, but it's more likely it'd be nothing as dramatic as that.

logicchains 6y ago
I said if we applied that logic to every industry, we'd set standards of living back centuries. The vast vast majority of what humans produce and consume is not essential for living, but if we cut it all out there wouldn't be much to live for.
ulfw 6y ago
People don't need computers either, nor software engineers. Let's be honest. We don't really need any of this. Right?
- Isinlor 6y ago
  We can do computing and everything that works on electricity in 100% sustainable way. We don't know how to fly in a sustainable way, nor is flying necessary.
- onion2k 6y ago
  I suspect the efficiency and productivity gains from information technology mean computers and software engineering actually reduce the effect of climate change by improving most industries more than they contribute to climate change directly, but I don't have any hard evidence for that.
- baron_harkonnen 6y ago
  Food production is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. We have used fossil fuels to prop up the carrying capacity of humans on the planet quite a bit. This is why it is really important to ask questions about what we really need, and if we're at all interested in human survival in the future, we need make serious decision to scale down the economy soon. Of course I'm not very optimistic that this will happen.
  - Vecr 6y ago
    How much of that fossil fuel use in regards to food would be impossible to replace with nuclear power and/or mobile batteries?

542354234235 6y ago

> And if we apply that logic to every industry, we end up driving people's standards of living back centuries. That assumes that the only way to reduce CO2 is to halt the industry, and that is not true for most industries. The problem is that most industries have no cost associated with CO2 emissions. So they have no profit incentive to reduce those emissions. Simply adding in the full cost of operation, including CO2, would drive industry to innovate more efficient technology, reduce CO2 waste, and yes, some industries would be revealed as being too costly in CO2 production to be viable at the current levels of use. There are many industrial processed that are horribly inefficient and wasteful, but the cost of that inefficiency is not paid by the company, so switching would only hurt profit margins. Any company competing would be at a massive price disadvantage. If the full cost fell on the company, consumers would quickly buy products and services that used efficient tech and reduced waste, because those would be the cheaper options. Most industries are not CO2 producers because it is required to maintain that standard of living. I pay for my garbage to be collected and properly disposed of, but if I could just dump it in my neighbor’s yard for free, I could save money. Forcing me to pay for it myself keeps us all from having our yard filled with garbage.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago

wait until you see what happens to the standard of living if we don't! All IPCC targets assume getting to 0 emissions relatively soon. If we can't take economic hits to get there, then we'll take a fantastically more wild economic hit once we miss those goals. I suggest you spend some time researching a bit what happens with each degree C we get to. It's far worse then just rising sea-levels.

missedthecue 6y ago
The cost of diking every susceptible mile of seashore has been calculated before and it is a rounding error in terms of global GNP. The Netherlands was doing it in the 12th century with 12th century technology, and I don't think there is any nation today with average living standards below 12th century europe.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/19/eaaw1838 >Our survey of the climate record from station data reveals many global TW exceedances of 31° and 33°C and two stations that have already reported multiple daily maximum TW values above 35°C. These conditions, nearing or beyond prolonged human physiological tolerance, have mostly occurred only for 1- to 2-hours’ duration (fig. S2). [...] >Steep and statistically significant upward trends in extreme TW frequency (exceedances of 27°, 29°, 31°, and 33°C) and magnitude are present across weather stations globally (Fig. 2). Each frequency trend represents more than a doubling of occurrences of the corresponding threshold between 1979 and 2017. [...] >The southern Persian Gulf shoreline and northern South Asia are home to millions of people, situating them on the front lines of exposure to TW extremes at the edge of and outside the range of natural variability in which our physiology evolved (36). I feel like air conditioning millions (and soon, billions) of people will be more than a rounding error of GNP. Indeed, economic activity may be... slightly curtailed... in countries where going outside results in death.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    there is a lot more land in the northern hemisphere than at the equator. People will move over the next hundred years. Populations will look much more different in 2100 just like they looked very different in 1900. Countries like Canada will become more than 90 km in vertical length. Countries like Russia and Norway and Finland and the United States will also become more habitable. There is a lot more land that will become accessible than land that will become too harsh.