20 ms·

The biggest takeaway here for me is that we collectively achieved something previously considered impossible: by making different behavioral choices, as a speci

The biggest takeaway here for me is that we collectively achieved something previously considered impossible: by making different behavioral choices, as a species, we achieved the largest cut in CO2 emissions in 75 years. It's tragic that only the threat of a deadly disease could compel such a change, but perhaps we may find other levers to help us achieve such widespread beneficial changes in the future?

breakfastduck 6y ago
All it does it prove how fruitless the prevention of climate change is. A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale still doesn't track enough to prevent climate change. If that isn't a clear indicator of how severe the situation is then I don't know what else is.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  When you're driving, there are two kinds of accidents; the ones that happen suddenly with no warning, and the ones where you realize things are going wrong but you still have some control over your vehicle. In the latter case, going off the road or being involved in a collision is still very unpleasant, but you can mitigate a lot of the damage as long as you don't panic. In many cases you can even get back on the road and resume your journey safely.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nostrademons 6y ago
  Unpopular prediction: we're going to solve global warming by the 22nd century, but we're going to "solve" it with nuclear winter and the destruction of 80-90% of humanity. Once we're down to a billion people or so and most of what passes for advanced civilization has been destroyed, carbon emissions and warming won't be a problem.
  - hammock 6y ago
    Bill Gates wants to test an artificial nuclear winter... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7350713/Bill-Gates-wants-spray-millions-tonnes-dust-stratosphere-stop-global-warming.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7350713/Bill...
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Albedo modification is the obvious response to the situation. Of course testing should start small, but the idea that 2 kg of material in one location could lead to a runaway deep-freeze earth situation is not plausible. Those global warming enthusiasts who oppose this research seem more interested in political implications than in actually reducing warming.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        There are simple ways to avoid resorting to desperate measures like these. Just do them and stop worrying about extreme situations.
        jessaustin 6y ago
        If you can (non-violently) convince everyone on earth to suffer massive setbacks in health and material comforts, then by all means go ahead. In the meantime, something that has a chance of actually happening should be pursued, even if it isn't "simple" by some arbitrary measure.
      - csnover 6y ago
        > Those global warming enthusiasts who oppose this research seem more interested in political implications than in actually reducing warming. There are serious and legitimate concerns about albedo modification research which have nothing to do with politics. I don’t think that anyone in the field is concerned that this small-scale experiment will lead to global catastrophe, but it’s a stepping stone to something which could lead to those bad outcomes—and it’s not clear that a small test like this would be able to answer the most important questions that we’d need answered before actually embarking on a global albedo modification programme. Of the various issues already covered by the Daily Mail story, one thing it doesn’t really talk about is that albedo modification requires a functioning human civilisation capable of injecting aerosols to the atmosphere to exist, without ever stopping, for thousands of years. A single disruption could cause up to 0.7°C of warming in one year[0]. About the only case in which something like this makes sense is if we’ve solved the emissions problem, but a bit too late, so only need a bridge for a few decades while we are actively pulling CO2 from the atmosphere. If you want to learn more, away from the sensationalism of the Daily Mail, the podcast Brave New Planet had an episode about this last October[1], which is where most of my current knowledge comes from. [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045103 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045... [1] https://www.bravenewplanet.org/episodes/a-radical-approach-climate-change https://www.bravenewplanet.org/episodes/a-radical-approach-c...
- joseph_grobbles 6y ago
  "A total shutdown of the entire world economy" GDP has barely taken a hit the world over. Trade is virtually unchanged. Hell, some indicators went positive though the pandemic. I don't really think there was a "shutdown". Passenger car miles might have gone down, but I suspect deliveries and cargo went way up.
  - sterlind 6y ago
    Redistribution. I try to support local stores, and yet I've had to use Amazon much more now. The pandemic has centralized the economy and harmed small businesses - tons of restaurants shutting down here, hair stylists out of work, etc.
- openasocket 6y ago
  Meh, the effect of COVID on the economy was pretty specific. You've got a drop in commuters, and a lot of office space going empty and not using a lot of energy. But now people are staying home all day, so they're still using electricity, just in their homes and not the office. According to the article, the demand for electricity only dropped 2%, the 10% drop in power plant emissions was largely due to the continued transition to renewables. And while a lot of people stopped commuting and traveling, there was plenty of shipping (including a big bump in deliveries) which is a substantial source of emissions. I'm still optimistic. Just replacing coal with renewable power would put emission levels back to like the 1960s (maybe 1970s, trying to find that damn statistic), and that's likely to happen in the US in a few decades just by market forces.
  - joseph_grobbles 6y ago
    I'm being pummeled far to the negatives below, but any notion that there was a "total shutdown" is farcical. A small segment of the economy got hit -- small retail. Outside of that, everything else is BOOMING.
- fbelzile 6y ago
  I don't think it's fruitless, but it shows how much we'll need to rely on clean technology rather than a change in human behaviour to curb climate change.
- blake1 6y ago
  I disagree with a lot of this, except the conclusion. The economy never came close to a “total shutdown.” In most places, the overwhelming majority of jobs were classified as essential—maybe 2/3rds—even while certain sectors did shut down. You can look at various stats, but a very simple one is the output gap, estimated to be 6%, which is potential GDP minus actual. This is a fair proxy for how shut down the economy was. The severe shutdowns were relatively brief. Mostly, we massively changed the mix of activities we engage in, substituting relatively cleaner ones for more polluting ones. Maybe you purchased more manufactured goods and used more electricity, while driving less. A different conclusion from yours is that simple behavior changes—like more telework—can have significant impacts on emissions. It proves that we can cut emissions without living a prehistoric lifestyle. And given that renewable energy sources are cheaper than polluting ones, this gives me reason to be optimistic.
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    I said this back when the emissions for the UK were announced, the reduction in emissions due to lockdown show the upper limit of what could be achieved through individual choice. And the bottom line is its trivially wiped out by a few years of ordinary growth. Real change needs to come through regulatory, industrial and technological change.
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    See, I disagree. We've shut down the most we could, essentially. Which means most things need to stay open and active. What could we possibly do to make a bigger impact?
- Ancalagon 6y ago
  Actually I think my view on climate change is more optimistic now. The article mentioned the majority of the carbon reduction wasnt actually due to reduced demand, but rather from lowered emissions from using renewables (and more specifically the closures of coal plants). This seems like pretty good news to me. You can continue to grow and operate the economy while reducing carbon emissions to levels they need to be at by switching everything to renewables.
- pasquinelli 6y ago
  we haven't had a total shutdown of the entire world economy. that would imply no one's making anything or buying anything. as far as what we need, we're still producing more than enough. we could cut more than we have and still have ample. no one would be getting rich though. so there it is, the driver of climate change from the beginning remains the driver of climate change now.
- epistasis 6y ago
  > A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale Where did that happen? US GDP is down a few percent, yet emissions plummeted far far further.
- manfredo 6y ago
  Adoption of nuclear power akin to France, and electrification of transportation (both road and rail) solves most of it. There's some additional work for things like replacing steam reformation with electrolysis or thermochemical hydrogen production. Decarbonization of air and sea transportation presents a bigger challenge but it's not unsolvable.
bluGill 6y ago
Most of the people I know have no interest in the current state of affairs. They are just coping because death is seen as even worse. However they are reaching the breaking point and getting ready to just give up and hope they are not one of the dead (or a long-hauler). IF this is what it takes, then we will never get there. We need to do better. I don't know what better is, but it cannot mean travel restrictions and no ability to see friends.
ppeetteerr 6y ago
It's wishful to say that we achieved this, or that we were compelled to do this. Emissions were reduced as a consequence of social distancing, not as a desired goal. I suspect we'll look back at 2020 as the year we generated the most waste from all that packaging that went into shipping products to individual homes. I'll remind that there are airlines booking flights to literally nowhere: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/travel/airlines-pandemic-flights-to-nowhere.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/travel/airlines-pandemic-...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sigzero 6y ago
If there was no threat, it would not have happened.
rmk 6y ago
We did not simply make "behavioral choices". Whole swathes of humanity were ordered indoors! It was achieved at untold cost (actually, much greater than the trillions of dollars that have been given away already by governments) that will be paid by generations to come. Only people who were lucky to hold a job that wasn't affected made a conscious decision to cut down. I am willing to bet that come 2022 or so, emissions will rebound and exceed peaks as people 'catch up' on travel, including simply visiting near and dear ones, that they have missed out on.
- hcurtiss 6y ago
  And watching so many small businesses in my small town close, that was not at all a thing I hope climate change policy replicates.
  - rmk 6y ago
    One can wish, but I know that there is huge pressure on the current administration to appease the left wing of the party. Keystone XL is canceled, and the US has rejoined the Paris agreement on the first day of Biden's Presidency. A multi-trillion dollar Green New Deal that will further saddle future generations with debt is looking likely at this point. Whether it will provide the benefits it purports to do is far from certain.
    - huragok 6y ago
      Trillions used for the GND is debt but trillions sunk into tax cuts for the top 1% is just good economics.
      - splintercell 6y ago
        Unironically, yes. Remember tax cuts isn't money just given away, the 1% didn't cause the spending part of the equation. You just think 1% should pay that tab.
        6y ago
adrianN 6y ago
I suspect that we would have had a bigger impact on the climate if we took all the money the governments printed as stimulus and built wind turbines and solar panels with it, or insulated buildings and installed heat pumps.
djrogers 6y ago
It’s also tragic that the changes we made cost 20+ million jobs, and dramatically increased income inequality.
- WalterGR 6y ago
  Could there have been structural issues that existed before COVID that led to this outcome, but that COVID itself revealed? Much like certain pre-existing conditions lead to a greater chance of loss of life from COVID? Some people blame COVID and some people blame the pre-existing conditions. Is COVID to blame for the economic costs that you mention, or are the pre-existing conditions?
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Absolutely, yes. In normal nations, mechanisms existed to pay for both health care and lost wages for all citizens. Those mechanisms don't exist in USA. We only have mechanisms to give lots of money to the already-rich people who control our elections. So, we got "The CARES Act".
    - djrogers 6y ago
      To say that we have no mechanism to pay for unemployment or health care for the unemployed is disingenuous at best. The poor are exactly the people whose healthcare the government does pay for. And the CARES act largely just expanded existing welfare and unemployment benefits.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        Perhaps you haven't spent much time on unemployment or Medicaid? I work in a dental clinic, and it seems like every month there's another wrinkle added to the Medicaid system to make it stingier and to chase away more providers. Unemployment only helps a quarter of those who are unemployed, and it pays those people on average a third of what they were making while employed. This diagram shows that "CARES Act" was very much not about "expanding existing welfare and unemployment benefits". [0] Americans who haven't traveled have no concept of how a functioning polity cares for citizens during a pandemic. If our government doesn't care for us, why do we tolerate it? [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/CARES_Act_Sankey_Diagram.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/CARES_Ac...
yrimaxi 6y ago
We live in economies that rely on consumption. So it isn’t exactly strange that we make the “behavioral choices” that we do during normal times. There’s been plenty of fretting regarding slowing down the economy, and for good reason.

breakfastduck 6y ago

All it does it prove how fruitless the prevention of climate change is. A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale still doesn't track enough to prevent climate change. If that isn't a clear indicator of how severe the situation is then I don't know what else is.

anigbrowl 6y ago
When you're driving, there are two kinds of accidents; the ones that happen suddenly with no warning, and the ones where you realize things are going wrong but you still have some control over your vehicle. In the latter case, going off the road or being involved in a collision is still very unpleasant, but you can mitigate a lot of the damage as long as you don't panic. In many cases you can even get back on the road and resume your journey safely.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nostrademons 6y ago
Unpopular prediction: we're going to solve global warming by the 22nd century, but we're going to "solve" it with nuclear winter and the destruction of 80-90% of humanity. Once we're down to a billion people or so and most of what passes for advanced civilization has been destroyed, carbon emissions and warming won't be a problem.
- hammock 6y ago
  Bill Gates wants to test an artificial nuclear winter... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7350713/Bill-Gates-wants-spray-millions-tonnes-dust-stratosphere-stop-global-warming.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7350713/Bill...
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Albedo modification is the obvious response to the situation. Of course testing should start small, but the idea that 2 kg of material in one location could lead to a runaway deep-freeze earth situation is not plausible. Those global warming enthusiasts who oppose this research seem more interested in political implications than in actually reducing warming.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      There are simple ways to avoid resorting to desperate measures like these. Just do them and stop worrying about extreme situations.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        If you can (non-violently) convince everyone on earth to suffer massive setbacks in health and material comforts, then by all means go ahead. In the meantime, something that has a chance of actually happening should be pursued, even if it isn't "simple" by some arbitrary measure.
    - csnover 6y ago
      > Those global warming enthusiasts who oppose this research seem more interested in political implications than in actually reducing warming. There are serious and legitimate concerns about albedo modification research which have nothing to do with politics. I don’t think that anyone in the field is concerned that this small-scale experiment will lead to global catastrophe, but it’s a stepping stone to something which could lead to those bad outcomes—and it’s not clear that a small test like this would be able to answer the most important questions that we’d need answered before actually embarking on a global albedo modification programme. Of the various issues already covered by the Daily Mail story, one thing it doesn’t really talk about is that albedo modification requires a functioning human civilisation capable of injecting aerosols to the atmosphere to exist, without ever stopping, for thousands of years. A single disruption could cause up to 0.7°C of warming in one year[0]. About the only case in which something like this makes sense is if we’ve solved the emissions problem, but a bit too late, so only need a bridge for a few decades while we are actively pulling CO2 from the atmosphere. If you want to learn more, away from the sensationalism of the Daily Mail, the podcast Brave New Planet had an episode about this last October[1], which is where most of my current knowledge comes from. [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045103 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045... [1] https://www.bravenewplanet.org/episodes/a-radical-approach-climate-change https://www.bravenewplanet.org/episodes/a-radical-approach-c...
joseph_grobbles 6y ago
"A total shutdown of the entire world economy" GDP has barely taken a hit the world over. Trade is virtually unchanged. Hell, some indicators went positive though the pandemic. I don't really think there was a "shutdown". Passenger car miles might have gone down, but I suspect deliveries and cargo went way up.
- sterlind 6y ago
  Redistribution. I try to support local stores, and yet I've had to use Amazon much more now. The pandemic has centralized the economy and harmed small businesses - tons of restaurants shutting down here, hair stylists out of work, etc.
openasocket 6y ago
Meh, the effect of COVID on the economy was pretty specific. You've got a drop in commuters, and a lot of office space going empty and not using a lot of energy. But now people are staying home all day, so they're still using electricity, just in their homes and not the office. According to the article, the demand for electricity only dropped 2%, the 10% drop in power plant emissions was largely due to the continued transition to renewables. And while a lot of people stopped commuting and traveling, there was plenty of shipping (including a big bump in deliveries) which is a substantial source of emissions. I'm still optimistic. Just replacing coal with renewable power would put emission levels back to like the 1960s (maybe 1970s, trying to find that damn statistic), and that's likely to happen in the US in a few decades just by market forces.
- joseph_grobbles 6y ago
  I'm being pummeled far to the negatives below, but any notion that there was a "total shutdown" is farcical. A small segment of the economy got hit -- small retail. Outside of that, everything else is BOOMING.
fbelzile 6y ago
I don't think it's fruitless, but it shows how much we'll need to rely on clean technology rather than a change in human behaviour to curb climate change.
blake1 6y ago
I disagree with a lot of this, except the conclusion. The economy never came close to a “total shutdown.” In most places, the overwhelming majority of jobs were classified as essential—maybe 2/3rds—even while certain sectors did shut down. You can look at various stats, but a very simple one is the output gap, estimated to be 6%, which is potential GDP minus actual. This is a fair proxy for how shut down the economy was. The severe shutdowns were relatively brief. Mostly, we massively changed the mix of activities we engage in, substituting relatively cleaner ones for more polluting ones. Maybe you purchased more manufactured goods and used more electricity, while driving less. A different conclusion from yours is that simple behavior changes—like more telework—can have significant impacts on emissions. It proves that we can cut emissions without living a prehistoric lifestyle. And given that renewable energy sources are cheaper than polluting ones, this gives me reason to be optimistic.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  I said this back when the emissions for the UK were announced, the reduction in emissions due to lockdown show the upper limit of what could be achieved through individual choice. And the bottom line is its trivially wiped out by a few years of ordinary growth. Real change needs to come through regulatory, industrial and technological change.
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  See, I disagree. We've shut down the most we could, essentially. Which means most things need to stay open and active. What could we possibly do to make a bigger impact?
Ancalagon 6y ago
Actually I think my view on climate change is more optimistic now. The article mentioned the majority of the carbon reduction wasnt actually due to reduced demand, but rather from lowered emissions from using renewables (and more specifically the closures of coal plants). This seems like pretty good news to me. You can continue to grow and operate the economy while reducing carbon emissions to levels they need to be at by switching everything to renewables.
pasquinelli 6y ago
we haven't had a total shutdown of the entire world economy. that would imply no one's making anything or buying anything. as far as what we need, we're still producing more than enough. we could cut more than we have and still have ample. no one would be getting rich though. so there it is, the driver of climate change from the beginning remains the driver of climate change now.
epistasis 6y ago
> A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale Where did that happen? US GDP is down a few percent, yet emissions plummeted far far further.
manfredo 6y ago
Adoption of nuclear power akin to France, and electrification of transportation (both road and rail) solves most of it. There's some additional work for things like replacing steam reformation with electrolysis or thermochemical hydrogen production. Decarbonization of air and sea transportation presents a bigger challenge but it's not unsolvable.

bluGill 6y ago

Most of the people I know have no interest in the current state of affairs. They are just coping because death is seen as even worse. However they are reaching the breaking point and getting ready to just give up and hope they are not one of the dead (or a long-hauler). IF this is what it takes, then we will never get there. We need to do better. I don't know what better is, but it cannot mean travel restrictions and no ability to see friends.

ppeetteerr 6y ago

It's wishful to say that we achieved this, or that we were compelled to do this. Emissions were reduced as a consequence of social distancing, not as a desired goal. I suspect we'll look back at 2020 as the year we generated the most waste from all that packaging that went into shipping products to individual homes. I'll remind that there are airlines booking flights to literally nowhere: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/travel/airlines-pandemic-flights-to-nowhere.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/travel/airlines-pandemic-...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sigzero 6y ago

If there was no threat, it would not have happened.

rmk 6y ago

We did not simply make "behavioral choices". Whole swathes of humanity were ordered indoors! It was achieved at untold cost (actually, much greater than the trillions of dollars that have been given away already by governments) that will be paid by generations to come. Only people who were lucky to hold a job that wasn't affected made a conscious decision to cut down. I am willing to bet that come 2022 or so, emissions will rebound and exceed peaks as people 'catch up' on travel, including simply visiting near and dear ones, that they have missed out on.

hcurtiss 6y ago
And watching so many small businesses in my small town close, that was not at all a thing I hope climate change policy replicates.
- rmk 6y ago
  One can wish, but I know that there is huge pressure on the current administration to appease the left wing of the party. Keystone XL is canceled, and the US has rejoined the Paris agreement on the first day of Biden's Presidency. A multi-trillion dollar Green New Deal that will further saddle future generations with debt is looking likely at this point. Whether it will provide the benefits it purports to do is far from certain.
  - huragok 6y ago
    Trillions used for the GND is debt but trillions sunk into tax cuts for the top 1% is just good economics.
    - splintercell 6y ago
      Unironically, yes. Remember tax cuts isn't money just given away, the 1% didn't cause the spending part of the equation. You just think 1% should pay that tab.
      - 6y ago

adrianN 6y ago

I suspect that we would have had a bigger impact on the climate if we took all the money the governments printed as stimulus and built wind turbines and solar panels with it, or insulated buildings and installed heat pumps.

djrogers 6y ago

It’s also tragic that the changes we made cost 20+ million jobs, and dramatically increased income inequality.

WalterGR 6y ago
Could there have been structural issues that existed before COVID that led to this outcome, but that COVID itself revealed? Much like certain pre-existing conditions lead to a greater chance of loss of life from COVID? Some people blame COVID and some people blame the pre-existing conditions. Is COVID to blame for the economic costs that you mention, or are the pre-existing conditions?
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Absolutely, yes. In normal nations, mechanisms existed to pay for both health care and lost wages for all citizens. Those mechanisms don't exist in USA. We only have mechanisms to give lots of money to the already-rich people who control our elections. So, we got "The CARES Act".
  - djrogers 6y ago
    To say that we have no mechanism to pay for unemployment or health care for the unemployed is disingenuous at best. The poor are exactly the people whose healthcare the government does pay for. And the CARES act largely just expanded existing welfare and unemployment benefits.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Perhaps you haven't spent much time on unemployment or Medicaid? I work in a dental clinic, and it seems like every month there's another wrinkle added to the Medicaid system to make it stingier and to chase away more providers. Unemployment only helps a quarter of those who are unemployed, and it pays those people on average a third of what they were making while employed. This diagram shows that "CARES Act" was very much not about "expanding existing welfare and unemployment benefits". [0] Americans who haven't traveled have no concept of how a functioning polity cares for citizens during a pandemic. If our government doesn't care for us, why do we tolerate it? [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/CARES_Act_Sankey_Diagram.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/CARES_Ac...

yrimaxi 6y ago

We live in economies that rely on consumption. So it isn’t exactly strange that we make the “behavioral choices” that we do during normal times. There’s been plenty of fretting regarding slowing down the economy, and for good reason.