7 ms·

I really like your post! It's not rocket science. Too many interest groups are convoluting the issue. But, I think to clearest, easiest way is to just ban "co

I really like your post! It's not rocket science. Too many interest groups are convoluting the issue. But, I think to clearest, easiest way is to just ban "coal, gas, oil". Then let the lack of it "tickle" through the economy. Not by tomorrow, mind you, have it gradually reduce. Where there are problems, help with tax money. We've done it before, with asbestos, lead in gas, ..

Gigachad 5y ago
CFC gasses where a big one. They were hugely useful for many things but were found to be breaking down ozone and were very rapidly banned effectively.
- stephen999 5y ago
  These are good but also poor examples. The solutions to those were much much easier. If carbon reduction were that easy we would have done it already.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Can you support your reasoning here? Do you mean easy as in "technically possible" or easy as in "the people with the current political power and wealth will benefit from this change and will suffer the consequences if they dont?" Climate change is the second type of hard. As was, for example, "freeing the slaves", "giving people the vote" and other such problems that often needed bloody wars and revolutions to be settled.
    - stephen999 5y ago
      Technically possible. There were alternatives developed quickly to the CFC problem that worked about as well and were only slightly more expensive. This lead to support for them politically because it was a no-brainer to switch over. On the other hand, alternatives to oil and gas are much more expensive and require significant sacrifices compared to just using oil. Electric cars are more expensive than ICE. They have less range and there is a lack of equivalent charging infrastructure. Those are being solved but it’s taken 30 years or more of working on battery technology and efficiency to match ICE cars for convenience. Solar panels and wind has been similar. Years of development and billions of dollars to optimize it and still has downsides compared to oil and gas. Things like airplane fuel and plastics there are no easy solutions to still. Even the things that have solutions like electric cars, solar panels, etc require tons of new infrastructure to switch which is expensive both in dollars and carbon cost. Just look at the total dollar amount of replacing all oil-using cars/trains/planes/power plants/factories/etc and compare to all CFC-generating devices it’s a lot more.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Possibly I missed it, but you don't seem to have listed a single technical reason why it's harder than the CFC issue? When you say something is "much more expensive" you're mostly talking politics since basically everyone agrees it's cheaper to deal with climate change.
        stephen999 5y ago
        Well, the alternatives for CFC-generating are already developed and in the marketplace. There are still no equivalent alternatives for many oil-using products. Kind of indicates that it is technically easier. The fact that there are CFC replacements but not oil replacements for all use-cases indicates that it's more difficult, no? > basically everyone agrees it's cheaper to deal with climate change I'm not sure that's the case. Seems like a lot of people are either hoping that it's not going to affect them that much, or that some miracle technology will be developed which will fix the problem more cheaply and not require any change in behavior on their part.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        I think we're still talking past each other. My thesis is that the reason there are not sufficent oil alternatives, is that the people who benefit from oil being burned for fuel have made sure that is the case. The quick and simple way to a) make use of all existing alternatives where feasible and desireable and b) ensure a market exists for people to develop new alternatives is to introduce a carbon tax that accounts for the externalities. That has been a hard task (though we've made some limited headway) and it was not technical challenges that held us back but political. Your argument is the equivalent of a King saying, "Well, that sounds great in theory but democracy is too technically difficult", "No it's not" "Well if it's so easy why hasn't it already happened yet" "Because you murdered anyone who suggested it" "Oh yes, so I did".
    - andrepd 5y ago
      I think it's you that need to support your reasoning. It is true that the capitalist elite wants to maximise profits for themselves with no regard other concerns, and since they don't have to pay for the gruesome externalities they inflict, then they will continue to happily make bank out of gassing the world if they are not forced to stop. On the other hand, it's ridiculous to say that the solution is "just stop bro". It's anything but technically simple. If you outright ban all fossil fuels, how do you make electricity? How do you stock supermarkets? How do all goods get transported? How do people move about? Obviously it's not so simple as that. You need a plan to transition to sustainable energy and a sustainable economy in general. For instance, you need a massive Green New Deal to fund this transition, you need carbon price+cap schemes to force the transition, etc.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Which part of adding a tax to a product or a government investing in stuff are you saying is technically difficult? I can't really think of anything related to this that anyone has ever said "even if the entire human race worked together on this for 3 decades we dont know how to achieve it" (actually, I've seen people say that a lot e.g. modern civilization isn't possible without fossil fuels because of EROEI, but those people are wrong and/or lying)
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    The problem with carbon reduction is that carbon production is a multi-billion dollar global industry whereas CFC production was not. Quite often in human history the hard problems are only hard because people profit from those problems not being solved.
em500 5y ago
Of course, many problems have fairly obvious physical solutions you ignore all costs of said "solutions". Containing a pandemic is also not rocket science. Just have everybody stay at home simulataneously for 2 or 3 months.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  It's not even that simple: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-species_transmission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-species_transmission With pathogens that jump between species, as SARS-CoV-2 has with several populations, including white-tailed deer[1] in the US, you potentially need to isolate all reservoir species from each other as well. [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02110-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02110-8
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    Cross species transmission is rare and while some cases have been reported, they're really the exception rather than the norm. If there was really that big of a risk where we'd need mammals to isolate as well, then veterinarian services the world over would have collapsed under the weight of house pets contracting the virus. edit: curious about the downvotes. Perhaps you have proof that has eluded the virologists researching SARS-CoV-2. Please do speak up ;)
    - Vecr 5y ago
      Why would they get severe disease when they get infected? Even most humans don't, let alone other species with different receptor setups. The virus is absolutely in non-human animal populations almost everywhere, and is not a candidate for eradication.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- nradov 5y ago
  It's not possible to have everyone in the whole world stay home for 2 months. That was never an option.
davewritescode 5y ago
Asbestos and lead in gas were things that had suitable replacements. What you're asking people to do is give up personal transportation, which is to some their sense of freedom and in some cases the ability to head and cool their homes. This isn't going to be easy not because it's technically difficult but because you're going to end up asking humanity to give up much the lifestyle it's grown accustomed to over the last 150 years.
- antris 5y ago
  > give up personal transportation Wtf? Nearly every human has personal transportation built in. It's called having legs. >you're going to end up asking humanity to give up much the lifestyle it's grown accustomed to over the last 150 years. Which is a totally reasonable ask considering the climate.
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    The issue is that you're asking young people to give up a lifestyle that their parents considered normal, in order to compensate for the pollution that past generations have caused.
    - antris 5y ago
      >you're asking young people to give up a lifestyle that their parents considered normal Which has already happened for every generation for the past few centuries. Peoples lifestyles change all the time. There's no need to ask, it is an inevitable thing that happens, you can't freeze time.
- datameta 5y ago
  The vast majority of the world is not accustomed to a car-forward culture like the slowly decreasing majority of the U.S. is.
  - Scarblac 5y ago
    No, but it's primarily the US and other rich western countries that need to change. Those countries where few people drive a car to this day aren't the problem.
uCantCauseUCant 5y ago
Now all we need is a world-government to keep everyone towing that line of thought and not "cheap" out.
Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
The error with lead was the opposite one. It was a moral panic that's lead to the current health crisis, both mental and physical. People need heavy metals, they are essential.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  I’m going to assume for the sake of discussion that you aren’t trolling. Do you have links to some papers explaining why you think this?
  - Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
    The reason why I think so is that the versions of proteins with heavy metals seem to be superior to those with the supposedly "correct" metal, as well as the heavy metal being extremely strongly preferred by the metabolism. In the case of lead, it seems to be necessary for glucose transport, and seems to have effects similar to Rapamycin. It seems that Rapamycin basically only works by compensating for lead deficiency to some degree. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378427419300967 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784...
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
    They’ve been advocating heavy metals for a while. IT’s a really bizarre infatuation, but far enough from reality that it’s unlikely to make any difference and harm anyone. It’s interesting in that I can’t think of any political or cultural conflict it ties into? They just enjoy their daily cadmium, it appears.
    - Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
      It isn't motivated politically. It just seems to be true and declaring them toxic seems like an error. Anyway, give me a better explanation why people don't look like they did only a few decades ago.
      - 5y ago
matkoniecz 5y ago
> But, I think to clearest, easiest way is to just ban "coal, gas, oil". Doing this would result in mass deaths. Food transportation would collapse within hours. And mechanized farming would be unfeasible anyway. Death toll would be in billions. That is nonstarter. And that is without part "people would freeze to death in unheated homes" applying in many places. If you mean "reduce dependency on them slowly over years/decades" then it would more reasonable but it is not "just ban".

Gigachad 5y ago

CFC gasses where a big one. They were hugely useful for many things but were found to be breaking down ozone and were very rapidly banned effectively.

stephen999 5y ago
These are good but also poor examples. The solutions to those were much much easier. If carbon reduction were that easy we would have done it already.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Can you support your reasoning here? Do you mean easy as in "technically possible" or easy as in "the people with the current political power and wealth will benefit from this change and will suffer the consequences if they dont?" Climate change is the second type of hard. As was, for example, "freeing the slaves", "giving people the vote" and other such problems that often needed bloody wars and revolutions to be settled.
  - stephen999 5y ago
    Technically possible. There were alternatives developed quickly to the CFC problem that worked about as well and were only slightly more expensive. This lead to support for them politically because it was a no-brainer to switch over. On the other hand, alternatives to oil and gas are much more expensive and require significant sacrifices compared to just using oil. Electric cars are more expensive than ICE. They have less range and there is a lack of equivalent charging infrastructure. Those are being solved but it’s taken 30 years or more of working on battery technology and efficiency to match ICE cars for convenience. Solar panels and wind has been similar. Years of development and billions of dollars to optimize it and still has downsides compared to oil and gas. Things like airplane fuel and plastics there are no easy solutions to still. Even the things that have solutions like electric cars, solar panels, etc require tons of new infrastructure to switch which is expensive both in dollars and carbon cost. Just look at the total dollar amount of replacing all oil-using cars/trains/planes/power plants/factories/etc and compare to all CFC-generating devices it’s a lot more.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Possibly I missed it, but you don't seem to have listed a single technical reason why it's harder than the CFC issue? When you say something is "much more expensive" you're mostly talking politics since basically everyone agrees it's cheaper to deal with climate change.
      - stephen999 5y ago
        Well, the alternatives for CFC-generating are already developed and in the marketplace. There are still no equivalent alternatives for many oil-using products. Kind of indicates that it is technically easier. The fact that there are CFC replacements but not oil replacements for all use-cases indicates that it's more difficult, no? > basically everyone agrees it's cheaper to deal with climate change I'm not sure that's the case. Seems like a lot of people are either hoping that it's not going to affect them that much, or that some miracle technology will be developed which will fix the problem more cheaply and not require any change in behavior on their part.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        I think we're still talking past each other. My thesis is that the reason there are not sufficent oil alternatives, is that the people who benefit from oil being burned for fuel have made sure that is the case. The quick and simple way to a) make use of all existing alternatives where feasible and desireable and b) ensure a market exists for people to develop new alternatives is to introduce a carbon tax that accounts for the externalities. That has been a hard task (though we've made some limited headway) and it was not technical challenges that held us back but political. Your argument is the equivalent of a King saying, "Well, that sounds great in theory but democracy is too technically difficult", "No it's not" "Well if it's so easy why hasn't it already happened yet" "Because you murdered anyone who suggested it" "Oh yes, so I did".
  - andrepd 5y ago
    I think it's you that need to support your reasoning. It is true that the capitalist elite wants to maximise profits for themselves with no regard other concerns, and since they don't have to pay for the gruesome externalities they inflict, then they will continue to happily make bank out of gassing the world if they are not forced to stop. On the other hand, it's ridiculous to say that the solution is "just stop bro". It's anything but technically simple. If you outright ban all fossil fuels, how do you make electricity? How do you stock supermarkets? How do all goods get transported? How do people move about? Obviously it's not so simple as that. You need a plan to transition to sustainable energy and a sustainable economy in general. For instance, you need a massive Green New Deal to fund this transition, you need carbon price+cap schemes to force the transition, etc.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Which part of adding a tax to a product or a government investing in stuff are you saying is technically difficult? I can't really think of anything related to this that anyone has ever said "even if the entire human race worked together on this for 3 decades we dont know how to achieve it" (actually, I've seen people say that a lot e.g. modern civilization isn't possible without fossil fuels because of EROEI, but those people are wrong and/or lying)
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  The problem with carbon reduction is that carbon production is a multi-billion dollar global industry whereas CFC production was not. Quite often in human history the hard problems are only hard because people profit from those problems not being solved.

em500 5y ago

Of course, many problems have fairly obvious physical solutions you ignore all costs of said "solutions". Containing a pandemic is also not rocket science. Just have everybody stay at home simulataneously for 2 or 3 months.

Frost1x 5y ago
It's not even that simple: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-species_transmission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-species_transmission With pathogens that jump between species, as SARS-CoV-2 has with several populations, including white-tailed deer[1] in the US, you potentially need to isolate all reservoir species from each other as well. [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02110-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02110-8
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Cross species transmission is rare and while some cases have been reported, they're really the exception rather than the norm. If there was really that big of a risk where we'd need mammals to isolate as well, then veterinarian services the world over would have collapsed under the weight of house pets contracting the virus. edit: curious about the downvotes. Perhaps you have proof that has eluded the virologists researching SARS-CoV-2. Please do speak up ;)
  - Vecr 5y ago
    Why would they get severe disease when they get infected? Even most humans don't, let alone other species with different receptor setups. The virus is absolutely in non-human animal populations almost everywhere, and is not a candidate for eradication.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nradov 5y ago
It's not possible to have everyone in the whole world stay home for 2 months. That was never an option.

davewritescode 5y ago

Asbestos and lead in gas were things that had suitable replacements. What you're asking people to do is give up personal transportation, which is to some their sense of freedom and in some cases the ability to head and cool their homes. This isn't going to be easy not because it's technically difficult but because you're going to end up asking humanity to give up much the lifestyle it's grown accustomed to over the last 150 years.

antris 5y ago
> give up personal transportation Wtf? Nearly every human has personal transportation built in. It's called having legs. >you're going to end up asking humanity to give up much the lifestyle it's grown accustomed to over the last 150 years. Which is a totally reasonable ask considering the climate.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  The issue is that you're asking young people to give up a lifestyle that their parents considered normal, in order to compensate for the pollution that past generations have caused.
  - antris 5y ago
    >you're asking young people to give up a lifestyle that their parents considered normal Which has already happened for every generation for the past few centuries. Peoples lifestyles change all the time. There's no need to ask, it is an inevitable thing that happens, you can't freeze time.
datameta 5y ago
The vast majority of the world is not accustomed to a car-forward culture like the slowly decreasing majority of the U.S. is.
- Scarblac 5y ago
  No, but it's primarily the US and other rich western countries that need to change. Those countries where few people drive a car to this day aren't the problem.

uCantCauseUCant 5y ago

Now all we need is a world-government to keep everyone towing that line of thought and not "cheap" out.

Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago

The error with lead was the opposite one. It was a moral panic that's lead to the current health crisis, both mental and physical. People need heavy metals, they are essential.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
I’m going to assume for the sake of discussion that you aren’t trolling. Do you have links to some papers explaining why you think this?
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
  The reason why I think so is that the versions of proteins with heavy metals seem to be superior to those with the supposedly "correct" metal, as well as the heavy metal being extremely strongly preferred by the metabolism. In the case of lead, it seems to be necessary for glucose transport, and seems to have effects similar to Rapamycin. It seems that Rapamycin basically only works by compensating for lead deficiency to some degree. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378427419300967 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784...
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  They’ve been advocating heavy metals for a while. IT’s a really bizarre infatuation, but far enough from reality that it’s unlikely to make any difference and harm anyone. It’s interesting in that I can’t think of any political or cultural conflict it ties into? They just enjoy their daily cadmium, it appears.
  - Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
    It isn't motivated politically. It just seems to be true and declaring them toxic seems like an error. Anyway, give me a better explanation why people don't look like they did only a few decades ago.
    - 5y ago

matkoniecz 5y ago

> But, I think to clearest, easiest way is to just ban "coal, gas, oil". Doing this would result in mass deaths. Food transportation would collapse within hours. And mechanized farming would be unfeasible anyway. Death toll would be in billions. That is nonstarter. And that is without part "people would freeze to death in unheated homes" applying in many places. If you mean "reduce dependency on them slowly over years/decades" then it would more reasonable but it is not "just ban".