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The solution is precisely the opposite: dial down energy use (from all sources - industry, consumerism, travel etc) in the parts that consume too much. The sol

The solution is precisely the opposite: dial down energy use (from all sources - industry, consumerism, travel etc) in the parts that consume too much. The solution to the risk of societal decline is to force society to decline? No. The solution is to make clean energy (solar, nuclear, etc.) abundant to the point that everyone has more energy available than they know what to do with. We have the scale to change the climate of the entire planet, and the technology to understand that we are doing so. We undoubtedly have the ability to overcome this hurdle, just like the many hurdles faced by humanity before. And yet people's first thought is, "My life is too good, let's (let everyone else but me) go back to subsistence farming and dying of cholera." Nature is indifferent to us. It will not provide for us if we just let it do its thing, with or without CO2 emissions. Its fragility is a problem to be engineered through, not a call to abandon all progress. The solution is to double down on the technological sophistication that allowed for all modern life, not to give up at the first hint of a real challenge.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Fossil fuels have energy densities far in excess of anything except nuclear energy. There is no way for the world to continue consuming as much energy as it is today, with current technologies, but without burning more fossil fuels. There is no fast enough solution to sequester carbon. Remember that, to avoid the bad effects of global warming (1 degree warming), we should have stopped net production of CO2 into the atmosphere entirely a few years ago. From now on, we can only hope to avoid the catastrophic effects of 2+ degrees warming, and the Paris accords, even if they were followed, would not even achieve that. Not to mention, global transportation is currently impossible without fossil fuels, in the current volumes - there is no way to have cargo ships and cargo planes and cargo trucks that deliver anywhere near as much as today without burning fossil fuels, and even futuristic batteries are not going to change that. So, the only possible solution is to reduce our economies in the developed world. We are anyways consuming far, far in excess of needs, to the benefit of no one except the Apples and Amazons and Huaweis of the world. I'm not talking about food necessarily, but much more about goods - changing phones every year, changing cars every 3-5, new computers, new plastic crap, new clothes, new appliances etc. All of this contraction will happen. We can taper off slowly over the next 50 years (?), or keep going at full throttle and have a massive crash. Unless we believe in some magical technology that will somehow create clean energy out of nothing without putting carbon in the air for mining and production, there is no changing this simple reality. Perhaps if we had started seriously investing in renewables 50 years ago when the problem was first discovered, we could have actually built enough to avoid this. Alas, companies who knew chose to bury it, and scientists who knew chose to keep quiet.
- ephbit 5y ago
  Agree, fossil fuels have the energy density and are just sitting there, waiting to be consumed. The only thing really that can overcome this massive temptation that fossil fuels pose right now (until renewables become abundant enough), is strict worldwide regulation to limit and ultimately prohibit their use. The problem is a political one. As long as there's no worldwide regulation and as long as renewable technology isn't competitive in comparison to fossil fuels every single person is incentivized to use fossil fuels, because deep down modern life is based upon manipulation stuff at will through the use of energy. The more energy is available to the individual, the more options they've got. Let's not fools ourselves by pretending, renewables are already able to replace fossil fuels so that every single person on the planet can just switch and continue enjoying the convenience of using massive amounts of energy in their daily life and only use renewable energy instead. Renewables are not competitive yet. But the technology exists. The infrastructure just hasn't been built yet. As most people probably know by now, a rather small proportion of the world's desert land could suffice to generate enough electricity to supply the whole world with energy. If this energy were stored in the form of let's say Methanol, it could be transported relatively easily by ship all over the world (I don't see a worldwide electrical power grid ever being powerful and fail safe enough to transfer all the energy where it's needed). The technology is all there but it's a political challenge to make the transition. > plastic crap Yep, agree ... there's sooo much plastic crap. But I guess buildings are a bigger issue compared to that. Concrete. There needs to be a cultural/architectural shift towards either concrete buildings that last much longer or don't get torn down and rebuilt because the aesthetics aren't favoured anymore or buildings made from wood. Buildings shouldn't be built to last and enable comfortable living for like 40 but rather 250 years. To enable people to make the decision to actually build in this way would require to politics to set the incentives right. To require architectural designs to be assesed from a long term sustainability perspective with the long term cost being included in the price. If wood is too costly in comparison to concrete, people will simply continue building with concrete.

tsimionescu 5y ago

Fossil fuels have energy densities far in excess of anything except nuclear energy. There is no way for the world to continue consuming as much energy as it is today, with current technologies, but without burning more fossil fuels. There is no fast enough solution to sequester carbon. Remember that, to avoid the bad effects of global warming (1 degree warming), we should have stopped net production of CO2 into the atmosphere entirely a few years ago. From now on, we can only hope to avoid the catastrophic effects of 2+ degrees warming, and the Paris accords, even if they were followed, would not even achieve that. Not to mention, global transportation is currently impossible without fossil fuels, in the current volumes - there is no way to have cargo ships and cargo planes and cargo trucks that deliver anywhere near as much as today without burning fossil fuels, and even futuristic batteries are not going to change that. So, the only possible solution is to reduce our economies in the developed world. We are anyways consuming far, far in excess of needs, to the benefit of no one except the Apples and Amazons and Huaweis of the world. I'm not talking about food necessarily, but much more about goods - changing phones every year, changing cars every 3-5, new computers, new plastic crap, new clothes, new appliances etc. All of this contraction will happen. We can taper off slowly over the next 50 years (?), or keep going at full throttle and have a massive crash. Unless we believe in some magical technology that will somehow create clean energy out of nothing without putting carbon in the air for mining and production, there is no changing this simple reality. Perhaps if we had started seriously investing in renewables 50 years ago when the problem was first discovered, we could have actually built enough to avoid this. Alas, companies who knew chose to bury it, and scientists who knew chose to keep quiet.

ephbit 5y ago
Agree, fossil fuels have the energy density and are just sitting there, waiting to be consumed. The only thing really that can overcome this massive temptation that fossil fuels pose right now (until renewables become abundant enough), is strict worldwide regulation to limit and ultimately prohibit their use. The problem is a political one. As long as there's no worldwide regulation and as long as renewable technology isn't competitive in comparison to fossil fuels every single person is incentivized to use fossil fuels, because deep down modern life is based upon manipulation stuff at will through the use of energy. The more energy is available to the individual, the more options they've got. Let's not fools ourselves by pretending, renewables are already able to replace fossil fuels so that every single person on the planet can just switch and continue enjoying the convenience of using massive amounts of energy in their daily life and only use renewable energy instead. Renewables are not competitive yet. But the technology exists. The infrastructure just hasn't been built yet. As most people probably know by now, a rather small proportion of the world's desert land could suffice to generate enough electricity to supply the whole world with energy. If this energy were stored in the form of let's say Methanol, it could be transported relatively easily by ship all over the world (I don't see a worldwide electrical power grid ever being powerful and fail safe enough to transfer all the energy where it's needed). The technology is all there but it's a political challenge to make the transition. > plastic crap Yep, agree ... there's sooo much plastic crap. But I guess buildings are a bigger issue compared to that. Concrete. There needs to be a cultural/architectural shift towards either concrete buildings that last much longer or don't get torn down and rebuilt because the aesthetics aren't favoured anymore or buildings made from wood. Buildings shouldn't be built to last and enable comfortable living for like 40 but rather 250 years. To enable people to make the decision to actually build in this way would require to politics to set the incentives right. To require architectural designs to be assesed from a long term sustainability perspective with the long term cost being included in the price. If wood is too costly in comparison to concrete, people will simply continue building with concrete.