6 ms·

Honestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed. You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the e

by CM30 4y ago

Honestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed. You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, no matter how much activists keep trying to push that. And so if drastic measures like this are what's needed, then those are what's needed. We can either argue about responsibilities and sustainability for years with little effect, or accept that technological methods are probably going to be the solution here. Plus it's not like this would have to go on forever. Once all sources of energy are 'green' and carbon capture has removed enough of the CO2 from the atmosphere, then any means of reflecting back sunlight or reducing the amount that reaches Earth can be gradually scaled back.

rjzzleep 4y ago
I think it might get a bit more buy-in if there was some acknowledgement of the biggest producers of these problems. At this point a certain part of society gets to profit from these policies and it's worse for everyone else. It's always easy to get OTHERS to make sacrifices for you.
- blitzar 4y ago
  Yes, but I have this circular from Big Polluter Inc. that makes it clear that they are not to blame and it is just the centerists/alt right/leftists/green/blm/nra/anti-gun/foreigners/locals/state/deep state/vested interests/think tanks/academics/regulators/lobbyists/dea/cartels that are behind it all. So excuse me it I dont buy into the lies because I know the truth.
erpellan 4y ago
The driving cost for solar pv is the structure and the land, the panels are now so cheap (and getting cheaper) that the economic recommendation is to install 3x the generation capacity of the inverter. Sizing for hitting capacity on the darkest days basically. Living in a draft proof, highly insulated home with mechanical air filtration and heat recovery, driving an EV that’s powered by the roof of your house doesn’t sound like any kind of worse life to me. Abundant, locally generated electricity is a game changer. You can even extract drinking water from the air inside your house in all but the driest of locations.
- fullstackchris 4y ago
  > You can even extract drinking water from the air inside your house in all but the driest of locations. That's some Fremen-level tech right there!
  - erpellan 4y ago
    It's a dehumidifier welded to a water filter. Simple tech. Bonus if you're in a cold climate, it helps to heat your home up too. I wish these guys, or someone would get beyond the 'call us for pricing' vaporware stage and actually start selling to retail customers: https://www.watergen.com/home-office/ https://www.watergen.com/home-office/
    - RaiausderDose 4y ago
      These dehumidifiers produce half a liter a day and need around 72 watt which is maybe 1€ per liter drinking water for my area The tech is cool but not really new or a solution to all water problems, the energy cost is relatively high. More about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns
      - dontlaugh 4y ago
        AC does it as a side-effect of cooling the interior, but it's still a miserly amount not worth capturing.
      - erpellan 4y ago
        Dehumidifiers come in a variety of capacities. Extraction of 4-8L per day with a 400W power consumption is typical, more if humidity is high. Larger communal units would be more efficient. If you have abundant power literally coming from the sky, why not use some of it to make clean water? https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dehumidifiers+for+home https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dehumidifiers+for+home
        RaiausderDose 4y ago
psychphysic 4y ago
I'm not at all conspiratorial and I see the idea of trying to change the colour of clouds is not going to go down well. Surely the close the blocking object is to the sun the better how close could we get a parasole?
- tchaffee 4y ago
  As the costs and damage of flooding quickly rise into the trillions per year, changing the color of clouds will look more and more attractive.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    Depends how attached your are to heterosexual amphibians.
- wcoenen 4y ago
  > Surely the close the blocking object is to the sun the better how close could we get a parasole? Moving an object closer to the sun will enlarge its penumbra, but this does not mean that it will block more light. Because its apparent size relative to the sun will also get smaller. For example, mercury and the moon are roughtly the same size. Yet a Mercury transit will not block much light; it looks like a small dot moving across the sun[1]. While a solar eclipse caused by the moon will block a lot of light.[2] That doesn't mean that a space sunshade is completely infeasible. But you do need something very large, e.g. a 1000km diameter object (or cloud of smaller objects) placed at the L1 Lagrange point. It would probably cost at least trillions of dollars[3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury [2] https://i.stack.imgur.com/5E5fZ.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/5E5fZ.png [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576521001995 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652...
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    Makes sense! Great diagrams too.
jstummbillig 4y ago
> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse. Agreed. > Honestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed. Disagreed. I think it would be a really bad idea to ignore the power legislation has. People don't exactly agree on taxes. They just don't disagree enough to want to suffer the consequences (direct and societal) Legislate things that people don't disagree with too much.
- YetAnotherNick 4y ago
  Legislation doesn't work on global level, unless you are ready to go to war. And I think world war 3 will kill more people than climate change could. At the very least Russia and China will flat out deny to follow any legislation related to this, with even US not very keen to legislate themselves.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    China will. They're an importer of energy and they're suffering from air pollution. They show no ideological opposition to reducing CO2. Russia won't, but they're a smaller country and the impact isn't as big. Also, legislation isn't a thing on a world level. You have treaties and agreements. And if that doesn't work, you impose a carbon tarriff. There won't be a need for war.
- CM30 4y ago
  The problem with that is that anything that most things that have the biggest effect here (not eating meat, not travelling a ton, etc) are also things that no government in the world would have support for limiting, and if they tried to regulate them, would probably get destroyed in the next election. Could you regulate some stuff? Sure, but anything that's remotely unpopular feels like a recipe for the opposing party to win by a landslide just by promising to remove said regulation. Or for someone who doesn't give a toss/is basically anti environmentalist to get elected, ala Bolsonaro in Brazil.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, no matter how much activists keep trying to push that You left out a word: wealthy people. The lower 50% of the world's people income-wise are responsible for 15% of global CO2 emissions, and the top 10% for 34% of total emissions. It won't matter how many people are riding around on e-bikes instead of cars if we have rich assholes flying half-way around the world 3-4x a year for vacation.
- snthd 4y ago
  Exactly. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-cause-global-aviation-emissions-study-covid-19 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-caus... >Frequent-flying “‘super emitters” who represent just 1% of the world’s population caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018, according to a study. >Airlines produced a billion tonnes of CO2 and benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, the researchers estimated.
pif 4y ago
> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, This. The sooner we understand this, the sooner it will be possible to have useful propositions. > no matter how much activists keep trying to push that. A huge part of the problem are the (usually) most vocal among the activists, who spit utter idiocies like: "It's too late: run!" No! If it is too late, there's no point in running. If global warming is irreversible, there's no point in freaking up the whole word economy. Propose something that works and we will discuss the benefit-cost ratio. Going around howling nonsense only creates noise and lessen the credibility of the great people who are trying, with their heart, to solve the biggest problem humanity has ever had to deal with.

by CM30 4y ago

rjzzleep 4y ago

I think it might get a bit more buy-in if there was some acknowledgement of the biggest producers of these problems. At this point a certain part of society gets to profit from these policies and it's worse for everyone else. It's always easy to get OTHERS to make sacrifices for you.

blitzar 4y ago
Yes, but I have this circular from Big Polluter Inc. that makes it clear that they are not to blame and it is just the centerists/alt right/leftists/green/blm/nra/anti-gun/foreigners/locals/state/deep state/vested interests/think tanks/academics/regulators/lobbyists/dea/cartels that are behind it all. So excuse me it I dont buy into the lies because I know the truth.

erpellan 4y ago

The driving cost for solar pv is the structure and the land, the panels are now so cheap (and getting cheaper) that the economic recommendation is to install 3x the generation capacity of the inverter. Sizing for hitting capacity on the darkest days basically. Living in a draft proof, highly insulated home with mechanical air filtration and heat recovery, driving an EV that’s powered by the roof of your house doesn’t sound like any kind of worse life to me. Abundant, locally generated electricity is a game changer. You can even extract drinking water from the air inside your house in all but the driest of locations.

fullstackchris 4y ago
> You can even extract drinking water from the air inside your house in all but the driest of locations. That's some Fremen-level tech right there!
- erpellan 4y ago
  It's a dehumidifier welded to a water filter. Simple tech. Bonus if you're in a cold climate, it helps to heat your home up too. I wish these guys, or someone would get beyond the 'call us for pricing' vaporware stage and actually start selling to retail customers: https://www.watergen.com/home-office/ https://www.watergen.com/home-office/
  - RaiausderDose 4y ago
    These dehumidifiers produce half a liter a day and need around 72 watt which is maybe 1€ per liter drinking water for my area The tech is cool but not really new or a solution to all water problems, the energy cost is relatively high. More about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGTRX6pZSns
    - dontlaugh 4y ago
      AC does it as a side-effect of cooling the interior, but it's still a miserly amount not worth capturing.
    - erpellan 4y ago
      Dehumidifiers come in a variety of capacities. Extraction of 4-8L per day with a 400W power consumption is typical, more if humidity is high. Larger communal units would be more efficient. If you have abundant power literally coming from the sky, why not use some of it to make clean water? https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dehumidifiers+for+home https://www.amazon.com/s?k=dehumidifiers+for+home
      - RaiausderDose 4y ago

psychphysic 4y ago

I'm not at all conspiratorial and I see the idea of trying to change the colour of clouds is not going to go down well. Surely the close the blocking object is to the sun the better how close could we get a parasole?

tchaffee 4y ago
As the costs and damage of flooding quickly rise into the trillions per year, changing the color of clouds will look more and more attractive.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Depends how attached your are to heterosexual amphibians.
wcoenen 4y ago
> Surely the close the blocking object is to the sun the better how close could we get a parasole? Moving an object closer to the sun will enlarge its penumbra, but this does not mean that it will block more light. Because its apparent size relative to the sun will also get smaller. For example, mercury and the moon are roughtly the same size. Yet a Mercury transit will not block much light; it looks like a small dot moving across the sun[1]. While a solar eclipse caused by the moon will block a lot of light.[2] That doesn't mean that a space sunshade is completely infeasible. But you do need something very large, e.g. a 1000km diameter object (or cloud of smaller objects) placed at the L1 Lagrange point. It would probably cost at least trillions of dollars[3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Mercury [2] https://i.stack.imgur.com/5E5fZ.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/5E5fZ.png [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576521001995 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652...
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Makes sense! Great diagrams too.

jstummbillig 4y ago

> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse. Agreed. > Honestly, at this point tech is probably the only way climate change will be fixed. Disagreed. I think it would be a really bad idea to ignore the power legislation has. People don't exactly agree on taxes. They just don't disagree enough to want to suffer the consequences (direct and societal) Legislate things that people don't disagree with too much.

YetAnotherNick 4y ago
Legislation doesn't work on global level, unless you are ready to go to war. And I think world war 3 will kill more people than climate change could. At the very least Russia and China will flat out deny to follow any legislation related to this, with even US not very keen to legislate themselves.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  China will. They're an importer of energy and they're suffering from air pollution. They show no ideological opposition to reducing CO2. Russia won't, but they're a smaller country and the impact isn't as big. Also, legislation isn't a thing on a world level. You have treaties and agreements. And if that doesn't work, you impose a carbon tarriff. There won't be a need for war.
CM30 4y ago
The problem with that is that anything that most things that have the biggest effect here (not eating meat, not travelling a ton, etc) are also things that no government in the world would have support for limiting, and if they tried to regulate them, would probably get destroyed in the next election. Could you regulate some stuff? Sure, but anything that's remotely unpopular feels like a recipe for the opposing party to win by a landslide just by promising to remove said regulation. Or for someone who doesn't give a toss/is basically anti environmentalist to get elected, ala Bolsonaro in Brazil.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, no matter how much activists keep trying to push that You left out a word: wealthy people. The lower 50% of the world's people income-wise are responsible for 15% of global CO2 emissions, and the top 10% for 34% of total emissions. It won't matter how many people are riding around on e-bikes instead of cars if we have rich assholes flying half-way around the world 3-4x a year for vacation.

snthd 4y ago
Exactly. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-cause-global-aviation-emissions-study-covid-19 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-caus... >Frequent-flying “‘super emitters” who represent just 1% of the world’s population caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018, according to a study. >Airlines produced a billion tonnes of CO2 and benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, the researchers estimated.

pif 4y ago

> You won't get people to agree to make their life worse for the sake of the environment, This. The sooner we understand this, the sooner it will be possible to have useful propositions. > no matter how much activists keep trying to push that. A huge part of the problem are the (usually) most vocal among the activists, who spit utter idiocies like: "It's too late: run!" No! If it is too late, there's no point in running. If global warming is irreversible, there's no point in freaking up the whole word economy. Propose something that works and we will discuss the benefit-cost ratio. Going around howling nonsense only creates noise and lessen the credibility of the great people who are trying, with their heart, to solve the biggest problem humanity has ever had to deal with.