6 ms·

At this point they are probably not bad, but all models have error bars. That being said, we are just as likely to get it wrong on the optimistic side as on th

by api 5y ago

At this point they are probably not bad, but all models have error bars. That being said, we are just as likely to get it wrong on the optimistic side as on the pessimistic side. I was totally converted on the cause of CO2 by Elon Musk's framing of the question (paraphrasing): We have one planet that is naturally hospitable to human life and capable of sustaining it on large scale. Is it really a good idea to do an uncontrolled experiment in which we dump massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and hope it turns out okay? Maybe we'll get lucky and maybe we won't, but it seems like a crazy gamble.

mooreds 5y ago
I like Musk's framing. For me it is about insurance and avoiding a possible catastrophic outcome.
- api 5y ago
  It also frames it in a cost/benefit analysis where risk is figured as cost. If there were no alternative to fossil fuels then maybe it would be worth the risk, but with today's technology that is not the case. We have numerous alternatives, many of which are becoming price competitive. That makes it a risk we are not required to take.
BoiledCabbage 5y ago
I not seeing it. Could you, or someone, help me and contrast Musk's framing with the more traditional framing?
- Melting_Harps 5y ago
  > Could you, or someone, help me and contrast Musk's framing with the more traditional framing? He is highlighting how foolish and headlong we have collectively been to simply assume that 'everything will be ok' while continuing to utilize the same wasteful habits with reckless abandon. It's written with a clear tinge of irony, but essentially it is saying we're playing Russian Roulette with a nearly loaded gun with the only place we know this Solar System that is capable of maintaining Life, and a beautiful biodiverese one at that.
  - BoiledCabbage 5y ago
    Thanks I appreciate it. And how would you characterize/summarize the traditional framing?
    - Melting_Harps 5y ago
      > Thanks I appreciate it. And how would you characterize/summarize the traditional framing? Characterization: Apt. Summary: It's written with a clear tinge of irony, but essentially it is saying we're playing Russian Roulette with a nearly loaded gun with the only place we know in this Solar System that is capable of maintaining Life, and a beautiful biodiverese one at that. My opinion: Is that Humanity must re-structure it's value system in order to survive on this planet; for some the notion of reducing consumption is akin to death, but the idea of doing nothing and greenwashing (much like Tesla's business model to sell affluent people EVs alone will save the planet) is not enough as ecological collapse and extreme weather as result of climate change is happening before our eyes. I read a few of your posts on cryptocurrency, and one of the reasons I as an environmentalist support Bitcoin is mainly because its is mainly using and thus incentivizing more renewable energy sources to be built. It's hard to explain but I could intuit this tech had this potential if it were to live up to it's potential when I started to take it seriously ~10 years ago--this was even before the whole wasteful energy FUD as it was mainly done by solo miners with GPUs. Alongside this was my time spent in sustainable, and regenerative Agriculture (biodynamic) with a major focus on hemp as a carbon sequestration solution to offset climate change as well as working in solar projects. I'm not trying to sell you on the token, but merely explaining how all the moving parts work in tandem to create a viable solution to a much needed problem: people seldom consider the wasteful nature of the legacy banking system, but this can and should be included wen confronting the reality of the current state of affairs.
      - BoiledCabbage 5y ago
        > Summary: It's written with a clear tinge of irony, but essentially it is saying we're playing Russian Roulette with a nearly loaded gun with the only place we know in this Solar System that is capable of maintaining Life, and a beautiful biodiverese one at that. Thanks - and feel free to ignore if this is getting too tedious, but I feel like I may not be asking my question correctly, as the answer seems to be the same thing. I'm starting from an inability to hear the key difference between Musk's framing of climate change and the traditional framing of climate change that is presented. To me what Musk said sounds no different that what I normally hear. Now since a number of people are saying that Musk's framing resonated with them while the traditional one didn't, I'm looking to understand how it differs from the traditional one. And I appreciate your replies, but I keep seeing a summary of what Musk said (which is accurate and is also how I read it), but nothing on how people hear the traditional framing of climate change. To me the traditional framing is something like: "We only have one planet, let's stop destroying it before it's too late." To my ears those are essentially the same thing. Clearly I'm missing the difference, and I'm looking to hear how someone hears the traditional framing. And then specifically what about the traditional framing is missing. I'm looking for a compare and contrast between A and B. And I do appreciate your replies, but unless I'm missing something, they seem like two summaries of A and no discussion of B. And not how B is different from A. Which is what I'm trying to parse out. ---------- Regarding crypto I do understand your thinking that it has potential to be beneficial. And clearly it's something you've spent a lot of time thinking about. The two concerns I have are this: Crypto does have a high demand and growing demand for energy. That is mainly renewables. But to me, The second part, is that the novel part of the ecosystem to me are programmatic contracts primarily. A distributed database second. 95% of the benefits of crypto for larger society boil down to programmatic contracts once you strip out the hype (and any speculation / get rich quick aspects). [To be very clear bitcoin price appreciation in itself is not a net benefit for society. But it is something that entices people to purchase and spread crypto which has properties that are a net benefit for society.] If someone started from a goal of wanting smart contracts and possibly a distributed db they could come up with something significantly more energy efficient than crypto coin. But back to the first part which is my primary concern and I ask you as someone who does care about this. I'm assuming the reason you want to swap to renewables is because it will produce a lot of solar and provide us with a renewable energy surplus. Clearly this would be a benefit to humanity. The question I ask you, is that Bitcoin (for example) and many others all scale with difficulty. Meaning the more energy available, the more power people will use for mining. We will never have an energy surplus for the remaining future because any additional energy we add will now immediately be used for crypto to increase its difficulty. Solar could be an order of magnitude cheaper tomorrow, and as a result, people will just by 10x as much as they buy today. We won't get almost any surplus value from that hypothetical 10x surplus/improvement. Crypto will be an energy sink for society from now going forward. Do you see anything to contradict that? Because to me that is one of the largest flaws with the approach to crypto.
Melting_Harps 5y ago
> I was totally converted on the cause... Then you only understood a part of what he was trying to say, because CO2 is a necessary precursor for plant life and can be mitigated with rather effective methods which we fail to do at scale; what is a more critical green house gas (there are others like) is Methane, which is a natural byproduct from decomposing organic matter and has been sequestered and utilized for decades but due to short term thinking have been either allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere, or simply burned off as the costs to bring to market have been untenable. Reducing consumption habits on all levels, applying more sustainable approaches to what must be consumed and the re-utilization of previous waste materials is the real take away here because short of that it doesn't make a difference to simply focus on C02. Which seems to be where most have been focused on, and despite being a fan of Tesla, and simply pivoting from one dirty industry to a slightly less dirty one is simply not enough--it's a step in the right direction but not a standalone solution. Sidenote: There are more trees now in N. Hemisphere than there was 100 years ago [0], and with a superficial understanding of ecosystems the C02 levels were a non-trivial contributor for the plant life to do so alongside stricter regulation. 0: https://www.gotreequotes.com/how-many-trees-in-world/ https://www.gotreequotes.com/how-many-trees-in-world/

by api 5y ago

mooreds 5y ago

I like Musk's framing. For me it is about insurance and avoiding a possible catastrophic outcome.

api 5y ago
It also frames it in a cost/benefit analysis where risk is figured as cost. If there were no alternative to fossil fuels then maybe it would be worth the risk, but with today's technology that is not the case. We have numerous alternatives, many of which are becoming price competitive. That makes it a risk we are not required to take.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago

I not seeing it. Could you, or someone, help me and contrast Musk's framing with the more traditional framing?

Melting_Harps 5y ago
> Could you, or someone, help me and contrast Musk's framing with the more traditional framing? He is highlighting how foolish and headlong we have collectively been to simply assume that 'everything will be ok' while continuing to utilize the same wasteful habits with reckless abandon. It's written with a clear tinge of irony, but essentially it is saying we're playing Russian Roulette with a nearly loaded gun with the only place we know this Solar System that is capable of maintaining Life, and a beautiful biodiverese one at that.
- BoiledCabbage 5y ago
  Thanks I appreciate it. And how would you characterize/summarize the traditional framing?
  - Melting_Harps 5y ago
    > Thanks I appreciate it. And how would you characterize/summarize the traditional framing? Characterization: Apt. Summary: It's written with a clear tinge of irony, but essentially it is saying we're playing Russian Roulette with a nearly loaded gun with the only place we know in this Solar System that is capable of maintaining Life, and a beautiful biodiverese one at that. My opinion: Is that Humanity must re-structure it's value system in order to survive on this planet; for some the notion of reducing consumption is akin to death, but the idea of doing nothing and greenwashing (much like Tesla's business model to sell affluent people EVs alone will save the planet) is not enough as ecological collapse and extreme weather as result of climate change is happening before our eyes. I read a few of your posts on cryptocurrency, and one of the reasons I as an environmentalist support Bitcoin is mainly because its is mainly using and thus incentivizing more renewable energy sources to be built. It's hard to explain but I could intuit this tech had this potential if it were to live up to it's potential when I started to take it seriously ~10 years ago--this was even before the whole wasteful energy FUD as it was mainly done by solo miners with GPUs. Alongside this was my time spent in sustainable, and regenerative Agriculture (biodynamic) with a major focus on hemp as a carbon sequestration solution to offset climate change as well as working in solar projects. I'm not trying to sell you on the token, but merely explaining how all the moving parts work in tandem to create a viable solution to a much needed problem: people seldom consider the wasteful nature of the legacy banking system, but this can and should be included wen confronting the reality of the current state of affairs.
    - BoiledCabbage 5y ago
      > Summary: It's written with a clear tinge of irony, but essentially it is saying we're playing Russian Roulette with a nearly loaded gun with the only place we know in this Solar System that is capable of maintaining Life, and a beautiful biodiverese one at that. Thanks - and feel free to ignore if this is getting too tedious, but I feel like I may not be asking my question correctly, as the answer seems to be the same thing. I'm starting from an inability to hear the key difference between Musk's framing of climate change and the traditional framing of climate change that is presented. To me what Musk said sounds no different that what I normally hear. Now since a number of people are saying that Musk's framing resonated with them while the traditional one didn't, I'm looking to understand how it differs from the traditional one. And I appreciate your replies, but I keep seeing a summary of what Musk said (which is accurate and is also how I read it), but nothing on how people hear the traditional framing of climate change. To me the traditional framing is something like: "We only have one planet, let's stop destroying it before it's too late." To my ears those are essentially the same thing. Clearly I'm missing the difference, and I'm looking to hear how someone hears the traditional framing. And then specifically what about the traditional framing is missing. I'm looking for a compare and contrast between A and B. And I do appreciate your replies, but unless I'm missing something, they seem like two summaries of A and no discussion of B. And not how B is different from A. Which is what I'm trying to parse out. ---------- Regarding crypto I do understand your thinking that it has potential to be beneficial. And clearly it's something you've spent a lot of time thinking about. The two concerns I have are this: Crypto does have a high demand and growing demand for energy. That is mainly renewables. But to me, The second part, is that the novel part of the ecosystem to me are programmatic contracts primarily. A distributed database second. 95% of the benefits of crypto for larger society boil down to programmatic contracts once you strip out the hype (and any speculation / get rich quick aspects). [To be very clear bitcoin price appreciation in itself is not a net benefit for society. But it is something that entices people to purchase and spread crypto which has properties that are a net benefit for society.] If someone started from a goal of wanting smart contracts and possibly a distributed db they could come up with something significantly more energy efficient than crypto coin. But back to the first part which is my primary concern and I ask you as someone who does care about this. I'm assuming the reason you want to swap to renewables is because it will produce a lot of solar and provide us with a renewable energy surplus. Clearly this would be a benefit to humanity. The question I ask you, is that Bitcoin (for example) and many others all scale with difficulty. Meaning the more energy available, the more power people will use for mining. We will never have an energy surplus for the remaining future because any additional energy we add will now immediately be used for crypto to increase its difficulty. Solar could be an order of magnitude cheaper tomorrow, and as a result, people will just by 10x as much as they buy today. We won't get almost any surplus value from that hypothetical 10x surplus/improvement. Crypto will be an energy sink for society from now going forward. Do you see anything to contradict that? Because to me that is one of the largest flaws with the approach to crypto.

Melting_Harps 5y ago

> I was totally converted on the cause... Then you only understood a part of what he was trying to say, because CO2 is a necessary precursor for plant life and can be mitigated with rather effective methods which we fail to do at scale; what is a more critical green house gas (there are others like) is Methane, which is a natural byproduct from decomposing organic matter and has been sequestered and utilized for decades but due to short term thinking have been either allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere, or simply burned off as the costs to bring to market have been untenable. Reducing consumption habits on all levels, applying more sustainable approaches to what must be consumed and the re-utilization of previous waste materials is the real take away here because short of that it doesn't make a difference to simply focus on C02. Which seems to be where most have been focused on, and despite being a fan of Tesla, and simply pivoting from one dirty industry to a slightly less dirty one is simply not enough--it's a step in the right direction but not a standalone solution. Sidenote: There are more trees now in N. Hemisphere than there was 100 years ago [0], and with a superficial understanding of ecosystems the C02 levels were a non-trivial contributor for the plant life to do so alongside stricter regulation. 0: https://www.gotreequotes.com/how-many-trees-in-world/ https://www.gotreequotes.com/how-many-trees-in-world/