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> as I always say 'tragedy of the commons is our Great Filter'. it requires a massive unified effort by everybody to reduce fossil consumption. aint gonna happe

> as I always say 'tragedy of the commons is our Great Filter'. it requires a massive unified effort by everybody to reduce fossil consumption. aint gonna happen It’s already happening, but it’s occurring too slow. There were efforts by smaller groups to convert the US to renewable energy since the 1970s. Around that time, there was even an effort by the US government to address it, and the US Naval Observatory famously published a book series detailing different technologies, such as wave power. Simultaneously, this is also when the oil companies first started funding so-called “think tanks”, which were lobbying fronts to stop climate regulation. They were tasked with infiltrating the universities, the media, and finally the government, where they helped draft policies to stop climate change legislation. This is all academic and many books have been written about these efforts. > imo its much easier politically to remove CO2 or geoengineer planet when shtf I’ve been following the geoengineering debate since the early 1990s, when there were only a few people talking about it. There are no working scientists that I know of that think this will solve the problem in time, with the major issue being the interregnum between the time the new technology goes online and the time it takes for the climate to stabilize. People generally get upset when I tell them this, but it is widely believed that this time period will take at least a /century/, which means in many cases, people will either have to move into shelters or even underground, work only at night, or migrate by the hundreds of millions to safer areas, depopulating entire areas of the world to survive. This is the known reality, and most people refuse to confront it head on. In other words, no matter what technological magic you work, it will take 100 years to see the result, during which time humanity will face a bottleneck event. When these facts have been brought to the attention of leaders, time and time again, the people presenting them have been dismissed as alarmists and sent packing. This is not the way to prepare for the future.

DesiLurker 4y ago
>It’s already happening, but it’s occurring too slow. the problem is more subtle than it just being slow. its the distributed nature of it. everyone must reduce their consumption also its unclear by how much, as developed nations have achieved much using their 'carbon budgets' but developing nations are yet to. or should it just be an even percent reduction per capita, what about disproportionate consumption by income segments. now you start to see the tragedy of the commons angle of it? same decision tree applies at all levels including states & cities. in the end you need just a few bad actors (bolsenaro for instance) for the majority of reductions to be offsetted. the only way I can even imagine it work out in my head is if there is some sort of global carbon pricing & the gains from that are strictly limited to preservation & geoengineering works. I know you dont think geoengineering is workable but imo humanity is good at focused efforts like moon landing & manhatten project. for instance today cost to pull a pound of co2 from air is $100-200 but if scaledup and more R&D (i.e.. more money thrown at it) it can potentially fall below $10. at that point it is at least thinkable in terms of global economy.

DesiLurker 4y ago

>It’s already happening, but it’s occurring too slow. the problem is more subtle than it just being slow. its the distributed nature of it. everyone must reduce their consumption also its unclear by how much, as developed nations have achieved much using their 'carbon budgets' but developing nations are yet to. or should it just be an even percent reduction per capita, what about disproportionate consumption by income segments. now you start to see the tragedy of the commons angle of it? same decision tree applies at all levels including states & cities. in the end you need just a few bad actors (bolsenaro for instance) for the majority of reductions to be offsetted. the only way I can even imagine it work out in my head is if there is some sort of global carbon pricing & the gains from that are strictly limited to preservation & geoengineering works. I know you dont think geoengineering is workable but imo humanity is good at focused efforts like moon landing & manhatten project. for instance today cost to pull a pound of co2 from air is $100-200 but if scaledup and more R&D (i.e.. more money thrown at it) it can potentially fall below $10. at that point it is at least thinkable in terms of global economy.