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> Honestly we even have the technology to do it now just limited will if things ever get real bad that would change very quickly. COVID tells me that’s highly

> Honestly we even have the technology to do it now just limited will if things ever get real bad that would change very quickly. COVID tells me that’s highly unlikely. We literally have a movement rejecting known-to-save-lives technology for non-scientific reasons. If things get real bad people will dig deeper to try to protect their own lifestyle right now, even if that means screwing things up 10 years from now. And enough of those people have enough wealth and power to effectively counter even movements supported by the majority of humanity.

tick_tock_tick 5y ago
> COVID tells me that’s highly unlikely. We literally have a movement rejecting known-to-save-lives technology for non-scientific reasons. COVID is different because you need a massive majority, 80%+, to follow certain guidelines (vaccine, masks, etc). For carbon it just needs to happen, anyone can do it. If the tech gets cheap enough Bill Gates will just setup shop in the desert and start sucking.
- ponyfleisch 5y ago
  I think your perception of the ease of/effort required for atmospheric carbon capture is off by a few orders of magnitude.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    I don't get what you want to say. Decarbonizing is happening, at least to electricity generation and transportation. There is a group insisting on denying this, but it's just your usual form of denialism. There is reasonable freedom to debate the last 10% of emissions. Those are not being replaced right in front of our eyes. There is also room to claim that decarbonization is not enough. But then you'll have to claim that stopping things as they are is either catastrophic or won't stop the consequences from changing. That's not unthinkable, but not a reasonable default assumption either. I imagine you are talking about that last one assumption. If so, starting from it is kind of an extreme position. Anyway, it's not clear what kind of cost you are classifying as insurmountable and why governments that are used to spend real amounts of money on all kinds of projects just can't spend on those.
    - ponyfleisch 5y ago
      What I want to say is: atmospheric carbon capture is not the deus ex machina that one might be tempted to believe it is after seeing news of startups like Climeworks doing it. I responded to a comment implying that if there is a philantropist like Bill Gates camping out in the desert sucking CO2 out of the air, we won’t need a massive collective effort. Maybe this will be a somewhat effective solution one day for areas where fuel energy density is important (e.g. flight), but that’s about it. Carbon neutrality will still need a distributed effort as point source capture is massively more economical where feasible.
- obiefernandez 5y ago
  See "Termination Shock" by Neal Stephenson (his latest novel) for a close variation on this scenario.

tick_tock_tick 5y ago

> COVID tells me that’s highly unlikely. We literally have a movement rejecting known-to-save-lives technology for non-scientific reasons. COVID is different because you need a massive majority, 80%+, to follow certain guidelines (vaccine, masks, etc). For carbon it just needs to happen, anyone can do it. If the tech gets cheap enough Bill Gates will just setup shop in the desert and start sucking.

ponyfleisch 5y ago
I think your perception of the ease of/effort required for atmospheric carbon capture is off by a few orders of magnitude.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  I don't get what you want to say. Decarbonizing is happening, at least to electricity generation and transportation. There is a group insisting on denying this, but it's just your usual form of denialism. There is reasonable freedom to debate the last 10% of emissions. Those are not being replaced right in front of our eyes. There is also room to claim that decarbonization is not enough. But then you'll have to claim that stopping things as they are is either catastrophic or won't stop the consequences from changing. That's not unthinkable, but not a reasonable default assumption either. I imagine you are talking about that last one assumption. If so, starting from it is kind of an extreme position. Anyway, it's not clear what kind of cost you are classifying as insurmountable and why governments that are used to spend real amounts of money on all kinds of projects just can't spend on those.
  - ponyfleisch 5y ago
    What I want to say is: atmospheric carbon capture is not the deus ex machina that one might be tempted to believe it is after seeing news of startups like Climeworks doing it. I responded to a comment implying that if there is a philantropist like Bill Gates camping out in the desert sucking CO2 out of the air, we won’t need a massive collective effort. Maybe this will be a somewhat effective solution one day for areas where fuel energy density is important (e.g. flight), but that’s about it. Carbon neutrality will still need a distributed effort as point source capture is massively more economical where feasible.
obiefernandez 5y ago
See "Termination Shock" by Neal Stephenson (his latest novel) for a close variation on this scenario.