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"What man has broken man can fix." No evidence to support such a bold and frankly uninformed claim. If we could have fixed this we would have - but right now

"What man has broken man can fix." No evidence to support such a bold and frankly uninformed claim. If we could have fixed this we would have - but right now we have so many complex systems which we only think we have some semblance of control. "The massive carbon reductions being called for won't happen once people realize the massive toll in human suffering they would cause. A pre-industrial Earth couldn't support anywhere near 8 billion humans." << -- More troll lunacy.

tb_technical 4y ago
> more troll lunacy The Haber-Bosch process requires nitrogen pulled from petrochemicals (there are no other large sources of nitrogen we can use at scale) to feed a large portion of the worlds population. We literally *CANNOT* go back to guano - people would starve to death. Edit: I made a grave error in the above. I misremembered nitrogen as the scarce material in the reaction, when in fact it's hydrogen. We get hydrogen from hydrocarbons that we then use for synthesizing fertilizer. I'm going to leave the above error so future humans can laugh at my idiocy.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bittercynic 4y ago
  "The Haber process consumes 3–5% of the world's natural-gas production (around 1–2% of the world's energy supply)"[1] Seems like we could cut out most fossil-fuel consumption without making any sacrifice on this front. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Economic_and_environmental_aspects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Economic_and_env...
  - tb_technical 4y ago
- kortex 4y ago
  Even if we don't figure out green hydrogen for some time, I'd be okay with diverting some amount of fossil fuel consumption to essential chemical processes, like Haber-Bosh ammonia and plastics, while cutting drastically the systems that don't strictly need hydrocarbons for their purpose. Hydrocarbons are wildly useful chemical precursors, it's kind of a shame they are mostly used just for burning.
tgflynn 4y ago
The real lunatics are the ones claiming you can shut down production of internal combustion engines and the use of fossil fuels overnight and long before equivalent alternatives are available without causing societal collapse and the humanitarian disasters that will entail.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Are people seriously suggesting that, though? We already have an equivalent alternative for internal combustion engines for passenger cars, plus some other types of vehicles in some situations. No, not every situation and every vehicle, but if we could replace all passenger cars with EVs overnight, that would make a huge dent in emissions. Yes, we'd still have all sorts of construction equipment, 18-wheelers, etc. running off gasoline. But that's ok, for now. Of course we can't even replace passenger cars; most legal efforts to phase out ICEs in passenger cars have timelines that we should have already hit, but are still years, and in some places decades, away -- if they exist at all. On electricity generation, new renewable plants are coming online at a decent pace, but we could be so much farther along by now if it wasn't for special interest groups and lobbyists clinging to the status quo. At the very least, we should have our daylight-hour needs 100% met by renewable sources by now, but we're nowhere near there. It's pathetic.
  - tinco 4y ago
    A huge dent would be nice, but it's not a solution to anything. We need a full reversal, not just stopping emissions but actively recovering emissions that have already been expended. Cars and electricity generation are but a fraction. We need heating, shipping, goods production, agriculture all to become climate neutral or we'll simply continue on this path of ever increasing catastrophe. What is your argument for electrifying cars being ok for now?

tb_technical 4y ago

> more troll lunacy The Haber-Bosch process requires nitrogen pulled from petrochemicals (there are no other large sources of nitrogen we can use at scale) to feed a large portion of the worlds population. We literally *CANNOT* go back to guano - people would starve to death. Edit: I made a grave error in the above. I misremembered nitrogen as the scarce material in the reaction, when in fact it's hydrogen. We get hydrogen from hydrocarbons that we then use for synthesizing fertilizer. I'm going to leave the above error so future humans can laugh at my idiocy.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bittercynic 4y ago
"The Haber process consumes 3–5% of the world's natural-gas production (around 1–2% of the world's energy supply)"[1] Seems like we could cut out most fossil-fuel consumption without making any sacrifice on this front. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Economic_and_environmental_aspects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Economic_and_env...
- tb_technical 4y ago
kortex 4y ago
Even if we don't figure out green hydrogen for some time, I'd be okay with diverting some amount of fossil fuel consumption to essential chemical processes, like Haber-Bosh ammonia and plastics, while cutting drastically the systems that don't strictly need hydrocarbons for their purpose. Hydrocarbons are wildly useful chemical precursors, it's kind of a shame they are mostly used just for burning.

tgflynn 4y ago

The real lunatics are the ones claiming you can shut down production of internal combustion engines and the use of fossil fuels overnight and long before equivalent alternatives are available without causing societal collapse and the humanitarian disasters that will entail.

kelnos 4y ago
Are people seriously suggesting that, though? We already have an equivalent alternative for internal combustion engines for passenger cars, plus some other types of vehicles in some situations. No, not every situation and every vehicle, but if we could replace all passenger cars with EVs overnight, that would make a huge dent in emissions. Yes, we'd still have all sorts of construction equipment, 18-wheelers, etc. running off gasoline. But that's ok, for now. Of course we can't even replace passenger cars; most legal efforts to phase out ICEs in passenger cars have timelines that we should have already hit, but are still years, and in some places decades, away -- if they exist at all. On electricity generation, new renewable plants are coming online at a decent pace, but we could be so much farther along by now if it wasn't for special interest groups and lobbyists clinging to the status quo. At the very least, we should have our daylight-hour needs 100% met by renewable sources by now, but we're nowhere near there. It's pathetic.
- tinco 4y ago
  A huge dent would be nice, but it's not a solution to anything. We need a full reversal, not just stopping emissions but actively recovering emissions that have already been expended. Cars and electricity generation are but a fraction. We need heating, shipping, goods production, agriculture all to become climate neutral or we'll simply continue on this path of ever increasing catastrophe. What is your argument for electrifying cars being ok for now?