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It’s not as disconnected as you might think. The pandemic is on track to cause a roughly ~7% drop in emissions for 2020. And (depending on the ever changing for

by erentz 6y ago

It’s not as disconnected as you might think. The pandemic is on track to cause a roughly ~7% drop in emissions for 2020. And (depending on the ever changing forecast) something like ~5-7% drop in global GDP for 2020. So the link and magnitude appears pretty strong and the results appear pretty much expected. We know how to do this. One: stop the emissions by switching to renewables and nuclear, and away from fossil fuels for transport. Two: drawdown the carbon we’ve already emitted (and will emit during the transition in One above) through reforestation, rebuilding wetlands, building new carbon sinks, and carbon capture. The market and a political approach are the only solution. How else are you going to institute the subsidies and taxes and government scale infrastructure and environmental programs.

Bakary 6y ago
The point I'm trying to make is that the fact that all of these unsustainable, revolutionary changes only generated a 7% drop indicates a few things: -For political change to be effective, it would have to completely change how the economy functions, and essentially turn into some sort of WWII total war mode where almost all actors are focused on the same outcome, except many more countries have to be corralled together this time -The market might produce the technology we need, but it would have to be black swan level good for it to have an impact, otherwise we are looking at investments in infrastructure so massive that we will need the total war mode described above anyway I don't want to extrapolate too much from a single figure, but that 7% did indeed shatter many of my previously held beliefs. A complete revolution in the way things work for only 7%! I can't emphasize how disturbing that is. We have an albeit limited but at least hard datapoint that the current mindset is doomed. In a technical sense, it will indeed be a market and political approach but it will be so different from what most people mean with this phrase (i.e. carbon taxes will fix it, let's just carry on as usual but more carefully) that it's no longer a meaningful conversation
- saagarjha 6y ago
  What revolution? I-280 still has traffic jams at 3 PM, people are still buying stuff, just through Amazon and DoorDash rather than going to their neighborhood store. Sure, people staying in helps a bit, but given that the changes we made were to keep people away from each other and not actually specifically reduce their emissions (in many cases we are being more "wasteful") it's not surprising that the drop is only 7%.
- erentz 6y ago
  I get what you’re saying but 1) as shocking as the past year may be it hasn’t really been all that revolutionary. Some portion of people got shifted to working from home, but just about nothing else changed. And 2) there isn’t all that much about moving away from fossil fuels that’s going to look revolutionary. It will look pretty boring to most people. The idea that it’ll take a revolution is IMO a bit of fear mongering by vested interests. Things like decarbonizing an electricity grid have been done before, France did it in the 80s. It wasn’t revolutionary. You wouldn’t have noticed except the air was cleaner. Things like converting transport to non fossil fuels are already in progress and there’s nothing revolutionary looking about it. An electric car isn’t revolutionary it looks and (mostly) drives like a regular car. An electric train isn’t revolutionary, it’s already the norm for decades in most places. Planting trees or restoring wetlands isn’t revolutionary. It’s just trees and wetlands. Even carbon extraction is going to look pretty uninteresting to most people if it happens. The only thing that will be revolutionary is what will happen if we don’t do these things soon enough.

by erentz 6y ago

Bakary 6y ago

The point I'm trying to make is that the fact that all of these unsustainable, revolutionary changes only generated a 7% drop indicates a few things: -For political change to be effective, it would have to completely change how the economy functions, and essentially turn into some sort of WWII total war mode where almost all actors are focused on the same outcome, except many more countries have to be corralled together this time -The market might produce the technology we need, but it would have to be black swan level good for it to have an impact, otherwise we are looking at investments in infrastructure so massive that we will need the total war mode described above anyway I don't want to extrapolate too much from a single figure, but that 7% did indeed shatter many of my previously held beliefs. A complete revolution in the way things work for only 7%! I can't emphasize how disturbing that is. We have an albeit limited but at least hard datapoint that the current mindset is doomed. In a technical sense, it will indeed be a market and political approach but it will be so different from what most people mean with this phrase (i.e. carbon taxes will fix it, let's just carry on as usual but more carefully) that it's no longer a meaningful conversation

saagarjha 6y ago
What revolution? I-280 still has traffic jams at 3 PM, people are still buying stuff, just through Amazon and DoorDash rather than going to their neighborhood store. Sure, people staying in helps a bit, but given that the changes we made were to keep people away from each other and not actually specifically reduce their emissions (in many cases we are being more "wasteful") it's not surprising that the drop is only 7%.
erentz 6y ago
I get what you’re saying but 1) as shocking as the past year may be it hasn’t really been all that revolutionary. Some portion of people got shifted to working from home, but just about nothing else changed. And 2) there isn’t all that much about moving away from fossil fuels that’s going to look revolutionary. It will look pretty boring to most people. The idea that it’ll take a revolution is IMO a bit of fear mongering by vested interests. Things like decarbonizing an electricity grid have been done before, France did it in the 80s. It wasn’t revolutionary. You wouldn’t have noticed except the air was cleaner. Things like converting transport to non fossil fuels are already in progress and there’s nothing revolutionary looking about it. An electric car isn’t revolutionary it looks and (mostly) drives like a regular car. An electric train isn’t revolutionary, it’s already the norm for decades in most places. Planting trees or restoring wetlands isn’t revolutionary. It’s just trees and wetlands. Even carbon extraction is going to look pretty uninteresting to most people if it happens. The only thing that will be revolutionary is what will happen if we don’t do these things soon enough.