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Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty, wars over resources and land, and so on. Moreover, if we do away with carbo

Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty, wars over resources and land, and so on. Moreover, if we do away with carbon subsidies (i.e., implement carbon pricing and border adjustments), then yes the cost of fossil fuel energy goes up, the consequence is the society adapts to using power more efficiently. We make less disposable shit, our industrial processes improve to keep costs down, etc. Further still, nuclear fission is still a perfectly good option, and we have reactor designs that are dramatically smaller, safer, and cheaper than previous generations (with projections for the levelized cost of energy comparing favorably with that of fossil fuels today).

ransom1538 5y ago
"Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty" The only way to end climate change is to have a serious debate about population control. But no one wants difficult debates (at least people that matter). Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. I foresee a population explosion into areas once uninhabitable.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  You can either cull billions of people or transition to clean energy, and yeah, people are rightly fixated on the latter. > Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. What a foolish thing to say.
  - ransom1538 5y ago
    > Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. Doubling the population will make things worse in 40 years. How is this hard? Double chickens? Double cows? Double coal plants? wtf? lol. You are the fool. Trying googling "when does population double".
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      > Doubling the population will make things worse in 40 years. How is this hard? Double chickens? Double cows? Double coal plants? wtf? lol. You are the fool. Trying googling "when does population double". Ooooff. 1. The population isn't projected to double even in the next century much less the next 40 years. In the next eighty years, the population is expected to increase by only 40%. If you took your own advice ("Google") then you'd know this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow... 2. You're incorrectly assuming that the greenhouse gas emissions scales linearly with the population size *even as the emissions per MWh approaches zero. The demand for energy does indeed scale with population (probably sublinearly, but not going to pick that nit right now), but the goal is to drive down the emissions per unit energy to nearly zero much faster than population grows. Better luck in the future.
      - ransom1538 5y ago
        Ok! I will google for you. "a doubling time of 49 years" https://theconversation.com/7-5-billion-and-counting-how-many-humans-can-the-earth-support-98797 https://theconversation.com/7-5-billion-and-counting-how-man... "You're incorrectly assuming that the greenhouse gas emissions scales linearly with the population size *even as the emissions per MWh approaches zero." No it will not be linear. If you have a population that is exponential.
        drdeca 5y ago
        They said “linearly with the population size” not “linearly in time”. Do you know what that means? The way you responded seems to suggest you didn’t.
- devdas 5y ago
  An actual debate on population control would be looking at reducing the number of children in the developed world even more, and discouraging suburban housing.
- diordiderot 5y ago
  Pretty sure you could just price in carbon. Poverty is more like not driving an f150 2 hours to your job at office, not max eating 6 steaks a week, taking shorter showers, and turning your AC in south Texas in August from 62 to 78
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Your point is excellent, but ironically (of all vehicles to pick on) Ford is coming out with an all-electric F150 next year. Which kind of makes an even more profound point: we don't need to give up our luxuries, but we do need our luxuries to become more efficient. If you switch to an electric water heater, you can enjoy your long, hot showers without worrying about carbon pricing driving up your bill.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  a really serious conversation about population control is an armed conflict and only a fool will think otherwise. I think you can choose to not have children, but if you want to force others to not have children, prepare to be at war because that's what it will come to.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > The only way to end climate change is to have a serious debate about population control. It’s always disturbing how quickly this stuff goes from here to “we have to prevent other people from having kids rather than having Americans stop consuming”. Get your neighbor out of their F150 before trying to sterilize the global south. > Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. Fusion. Fission has been done for your entire lifetime. > I foresee a population explosion into areas once uninhabitable. Apparently your foresight doesn’t involve actually bothering to check the fertility rate in any nation. If you’d done that, you’d realize that birth rates drop as nations get richer. Most of the world is below replacement rate, and world populations are expected to peak in the year 2100 and begin falling. The thing that actually limits reproduction isn’t resources, but child mortality and interest. Once you can expect your children to survive infancy, most people want fewer of them.
  - ransom1538 5y ago
    "F150 before trying to sterilize the global south" Right. So people not buying a f150 will help combat the climate destruction of a doubling population in the next 40 years. Is this a joke? I don't understand how a smart group can say such stupid things.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      The parent was clearly exaggerating. The point was pretty obviously that Americans should curb their appetite for carbon before proposing extreme population control policies for others. Which is an eminently reasonable point, and sad that it has to be articulated explicitly. More seriously, "getting your neighbor out of their F150" or any other "personal responsibility" approach is doomed to fail because citizens don't have appropriate information to make informed environmental choices (we can't accurately estimate how much carbon goes into the manufacture of the products and services they consume) which is why carbon pricing is necessary.
xondono 5y ago
> Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty That may be true, but I was referring to the effects of switching to renewables too early. Since given our technology, the cost per MW is higher from renewables, switching to renewables (as a society) has massive costs. If we rise the price of the MW a 10%, that's a +10% on every MW from now until we find something better. That could be a long time, which means the impact of these costs could be gigantic. As I've commented elsewhere in this article, a 0.75% reduction on GDP over 100 years is equivalent to losing more than the entire (current) annual GDP, that's not nothing! Growth is how we've managed to move millions out of poverty, we should think it through before sacrificing growth.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  I hope we could agree though, that the cost of switching to renewables too early is negligible compared to the cost of switching too late. If that can be agreed on by all, the relevant questions are 1) when do we think it would be too late? 2) how certain are we of that date? 3) how long will it take to switch to renewables? and 4) How certain are we of that date? I don't disagree with your basic premise. Personally I think the answer to 1) is 140 years, so no reason to panic or dawdle. But it's important to remember that the more the economy grows before the switch to renewables is complete, the harder it becomes to make the switch. And, a better invention in renewables without the energy to scale it up won't do us much good, a significant part of our nonrenewables needs to be invested in renewables or the next 140 years of invention won't be much use.
  - xondono 5y ago
    > that the cost of switching to renewables too early is negligible compared to the cost of switching too late. Smaller yes, but I wouldn't call it negligible. > the more the economy grows before the switch to renewables is complete, the harder it becomes to make the switch. That one I think you got reversed. Think that one through, the economy now is way greater than it was in 1980, do you really think we were better prepared for the switch back then?
    - 5y ago

ransom1538 5y ago

"Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty" The only way to end climate change is to have a serious debate about population control. But no one wants difficult debates (at least people that matter). Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. I foresee a population explosion into areas once uninhabitable.

throwaway894345 5y ago
You can either cull billions of people or transition to clean energy, and yeah, people are rightly fixated on the latter. > Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. What a foolish thing to say.
- ransom1538 5y ago
  > Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. Doubling the population will make things worse in 40 years. How is this hard? Double chickens? Double cows? Double coal plants? wtf? lol. You are the fool. Trying googling "when does population double".
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    > Doubling the population will make things worse in 40 years. How is this hard? Double chickens? Double cows? Double coal plants? wtf? lol. You are the fool. Trying googling "when does population double". Ooooff. 1. The population isn't projected to double even in the next century much less the next 40 years. In the next eighty years, the population is expected to increase by only 40%. If you took your own advice ("Google") then you'd know this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow... 2. You're incorrectly assuming that the greenhouse gas emissions scales linearly with the population size *even as the emissions per MWh approaches zero. The demand for energy does indeed scale with population (probably sublinearly, but not going to pick that nit right now), but the goal is to drive down the emissions per unit energy to nearly zero much faster than population grows. Better luck in the future.
    - ransom1538 5y ago
      Ok! I will google for you. "a doubling time of 49 years" https://theconversation.com/7-5-billion-and-counting-how-many-humans-can-the-earth-support-98797 https://theconversation.com/7-5-billion-and-counting-how-man... "You're incorrectly assuming that the greenhouse gas emissions scales linearly with the population size *even as the emissions per MWh approaches zero." No it will not be linear. If you have a population that is exponential.
      - drdeca 5y ago
        They said “linearly with the population size” not “linearly in time”. Do you know what that means? The way you responded seems to suggest you didn’t.
devdas 5y ago
An actual debate on population control would be looking at reducing the number of children in the developed world even more, and discouraging suburban housing.
diordiderot 5y ago
Pretty sure you could just price in carbon. Poverty is more like not driving an f150 2 hours to your job at office, not max eating 6 steaks a week, taking shorter showers, and turning your AC in south Texas in August from 62 to 78
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Your point is excellent, but ironically (of all vehicles to pick on) Ford is coming out with an all-electric F150 next year. Which kind of makes an even more profound point: we don't need to give up our luxuries, but we do need our luxuries to become more efficient. If you switch to an electric water heater, you can enjoy your long, hot showers without worrying about carbon pricing driving up your bill.
LegitShady 5y ago
a really serious conversation about population control is an armed conflict and only a fool will think otherwise. I think you can choose to not have children, but if you want to force others to not have children, prepare to be at war because that's what it will come to.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ashtonkem 5y ago
> The only way to end climate change is to have a serious debate about population control. It’s always disturbing how quickly this stuff goes from here to “we have to prevent other people from having kids rather than having Americans stop consuming”. Get your neighbor out of their F150 before trying to sterilize the global south. > Nuclear fission once pulled off will make things much much worse. Fusion. Fission has been done for your entire lifetime. > I foresee a population explosion into areas once uninhabitable. Apparently your foresight doesn’t involve actually bothering to check the fertility rate in any nation. If you’d done that, you’d realize that birth rates drop as nations get richer. Most of the world is below replacement rate, and world populations are expected to peak in the year 2100 and begin falling. The thing that actually limits reproduction isn’t resources, but child mortality and interest. Once you can expect your children to survive infancy, most people want fewer of them.
- ransom1538 5y ago
  "F150 before trying to sterilize the global south" Right. So people not buying a f150 will help combat the climate destruction of a doubling population in the next 40 years. Is this a joke? I don't understand how a smart group can say such stupid things.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    The parent was clearly exaggerating. The point was pretty obviously that Americans should curb their appetite for carbon before proposing extreme population control policies for others. Which is an eminently reasonable point, and sad that it has to be articulated explicitly. More seriously, "getting your neighbor out of their F150" or any other "personal responsibility" approach is doomed to fail because citizens don't have appropriate information to make informed environmental choices (we can't accurately estimate how much carbon goes into the manufacture of the products and services they consume) which is why carbon pricing is necessary.

xondono 5y ago

> Of course, the consequences of climate change are billions cast into abject poverty That may be true, but I was referring to the effects of switching to renewables too early. Since given our technology, the cost per MW is higher from renewables, switching to renewables (as a society) has massive costs. If we rise the price of the MW a 10%, that's a +10% on every MW from now until we find something better. That could be a long time, which means the impact of these costs could be gigantic. As I've commented elsewhere in this article, a 0.75% reduction on GDP over 100 years is equivalent to losing more than the entire (current) annual GDP, that's not nothing! Growth is how we've managed to move millions out of poverty, we should think it through before sacrificing growth.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago
I hope we could agree though, that the cost of switching to renewables too early is negligible compared to the cost of switching too late. If that can be agreed on by all, the relevant questions are 1) when do we think it would be too late? 2) how certain are we of that date? 3) how long will it take to switch to renewables? and 4) How certain are we of that date? I don't disagree with your basic premise. Personally I think the answer to 1) is 140 years, so no reason to panic or dawdle. But it's important to remember that the more the economy grows before the switch to renewables is complete, the harder it becomes to make the switch. And, a better invention in renewables without the energy to scale it up won't do us much good, a significant part of our nonrenewables needs to be invested in renewables or the next 140 years of invention won't be much use.
- xondono 5y ago
  > that the cost of switching to renewables too early is negligible compared to the cost of switching too late. Smaller yes, but I wouldn't call it negligible. > the more the economy grows before the switch to renewables is complete, the harder it becomes to make the switch. That one I think you got reversed. Think that one through, the economy now is way greater than it was in 1980, do you really think we were better prepared for the switch back then?
  - 5y ago