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Ok global warming is happening we know it for a long time. But is there a place somewhere that explain how could the world works without emitting too much co2,

• syops 5y ago
  As I see things the only solution is that humans need to stop reproducing so much. There are far too many people for the resources of the planet given current technology.
  • mattrighetti 5y ago
    How do you back that statement?
    • syops 5y ago
      Far fewer people means far less environmental destruction.
  • kmlx 5y ago
    this is a myth from the 1970s. it has been debunked countless times (even by history itself), but people still fall back to this.
    • syops 5y ago
      What is a myth? If there were far fewer people less carbon would be used/extracted. Less trees and natural space would be destroyed. Less plastic would be around. Etc. There are not enough resources for everyone to live like we Americans. As the world gets richer we’ll collectively destroy more of the environment. This is not disputable.
      • burkaman 5y ago
        It is a myth that it is "the only solution". If not everyone can live like Americans (agreed), then we'll all have to find a different way to live. Many of us are working on building that new way of living as we speak. You may also be interested to know that global population growth has been falling for 60 years and will almost certainly continue to do so. There's no need for anyone to take active measures in this area. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-the-world-population-growth-rate-changed https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-t...
        • syops 5y ago
          Thank you for the clarification on what you meant by “myth”. The rate of population growth has been declining but not the growth of the population. There are far more people now than 60 years ago. There are around 8 billion people and global poverty is decreasing. This means consumption is correspondingly increasing. The pressure on the environment that this causes is enormous. Man made chemicals, plastics, etc. are all over the place. We are shitting on ourselves with our profligacy. The pollution and environmental destruction are getting worse. There are too many people as I see things.
      • CyanBird 5y ago
        > If there were far fewer people less carbon would be used/extracted. 1 American releases the same amount of co2 as ten people in Benin, let alone the amount of trash and general consumption This is not about the "amount of people" , it is about percapita numbers and consumption If everyone consumed like Americans do, we'd need like 4, 5 earth's just to maintain that Again, it is a matter of co2/per capita
        • syops 5y ago
          Poverty is on the decline globally and this means consumption correspondingly increases. People in Benin and elsewhere have the same desires as everyone else and they too want to consume at a greater rate. They want things too. Americans are the worst for sure. I think that there are far too many people given humans’ proclivity toward consumption.
  • pyrale 5y ago
    This kind of discourse is simply disregarding facts to promote a not-my-problem ideology. The countries that contribute most significantly to greenhouse gas emissions almost always have very low demography. Because of that, if we were to change demography to reach strict population equilibrium in every country without changing countries' emissions per capita, we would actually emit more greenhouse gases.
    • syops 5y ago
      What facts am I disregarding? As global poverty declines consumption correspondingly goes up. Globalization ensures that the message of consumption wins out. Profits need to be had. Humans are local optimization machines. The only real solution given human psychology is for there to be far fewer people. Until that happens the damage will continue to be done and at an increasing rate.
      • pyrale 5y ago
        > The only real solution given human psychology is for there to be far fewer people. The issue is that even with far fewer people, the emissions for developed countries aren't going to work out. That is why the population control message is simply deflecting from the actual problem towards population which are for the most part way under the recommended emissions per capita considering the current world's population. How hard is it to fix your own problems before you try to tell other people what they should do?
• pptr 5y ago
  I thought Bill Gates' recent book covered all the important problems and how they could be addressed. Here is a good summary: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Lowering-Green-Premiums https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Lowering-Green-Premiums
• ptkd 5y ago
  high level there's a two pronged path: * Clean electricity generation (solar, wind, hydro with some sort of grid storage/distribution mechanism to handle when sun isn't shining/wind isn't blowing) and * Electrification (EVs, non-gas heating) > Can we have planes Yes, at some point. Electric planes are being explored but have difficulties with battery weight. Another possibility is green hydrogen or perhaps some other yet-undiscovered energy source. Planes account for a relatively low percentage of global emissions (maybe 2% right now?) so this is not a priority > Boats? Yes -- electric pleasure crafts exist already. For long haul/shipping I'm not totally sure what's being worked on, but it certainly will be possible > Clothing Another space I'm not super familiar with. Again, it's important to remember that we need to focus on the heavy hitters, which currently are dirty electricity production (ie coal plants) and transportation (gas-powered cars)
  • polote 5y ago
    So basically you say, let's replace most of the energy sources by solar, wind and hydro. And use battery every time we need to get off the grid. As for storage for the grid, are we actually confident that we can transfer that quantity of energy between countries ? Because if everything becomes electricity powered. That means a lot of power over long distance. Do we know if there are enough natural resources to produce that amount of lithium batteries also ?
    • ptkd 5y ago
      Grid-level batteries will likely be made of something else -- check out form energy who does iron-based batteries. > Can we transfer power between countries Certainly possible, but requires infrastructure build out. Most countires can also provide a lot of their own solar/wind
• marcosdumay 5y ago
  Right now? Invest on lowering the price of solar and increasing panel production; Invest on lowering the price of batteries (I'm not sure ramping-up production is wise right now); Invest on nuclear power on the (very few) places it can be ramped-up quickly, and stop taking offline the reactors that have no extraneous safety problems; Invest on electrifying transportation (that's mostly by replacing trucks, buses and cars, but if it's viable to replace things by trains, that's a double gain, I would ignore planes for the time being); Invest on lowering the costs of carbon capture (I would focus on atmospheric capture for chemical usage, but any kind could be great); If you live in a place without them, press for carbon taxes, the government can use the money to pay for the things above or distribute it to the poor. It's easier to get if you make it mildly protectionist, but that has the side effect of impoverishing your local economy (politics is weird). You personally can not do much, unless you have a lot of money. But any reasonably rich government can do a lot of change (it doesn't even to be at the national level).
• sampo 5y ago
  > But is there a place somewhere that explain how could the world works without emitting too much co2, or any gaz which are problematic. Per capita per year CO2 emissions, in tonnes: US 16.06 China 7.1 EU-27 6.56 France 4.97 World 4.72 Sweden 4.26 India 1.91 Maybe the answer is somewhere between Sweden and India.