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Climate change is now climate catastrophism. It's unfortunately many times more doomer today than ever. And while climate itself is not energizing, "doing somet

Climate change is now climate catastrophism. It's unfortunately many times more doomer today than ever. And while climate itself is not energizing, "doing something about it to save the world' is because it's simple even if it's in-effective. A phenomena like Greta Thunberg wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for that. And wind and solar and tesla and other avenue that doesn't really do anything other than let us waste a lot of money on ineffective things.

etrautmann 3y ago
Sorry what? How do renewable energy sources not do anything? The problem is multifaceted abs requires advances in many areas. A thousand partial solutions. Absolutism and cynicism aren’t helpful.
- ThomPete 3y ago
  Wind and solar the two darlings of climate catastrophists is less than 3% of the worlds energy consumption and they will not be able to help getting the 3 billion people who uses less energy than a US fridge per year into the modern era. Fossile fuels is not going anywhere as it's used for the 4 pillars of modern society, steel, fertilizers, concrete and plastic for which there is no realistic alternative. Wind and solar isn't advances, they are regressive technologies that themselves require fossile fuel to even become a reality and still keeps us with our intermittency issues. Keep in mind that only 20% of a countrys energy consumption is electricity. The only big breakthroughs that matter with energy and can work at scale would be things like fusion and molten salt generators. Making our energy grid more and more fragile by pushing wind and solar is what isn't helpful.
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    If there is no alternative for concrete, plastic, fertilizers, and steel, then don't you think we ought to quit burning them for cars and electricty Thom? You have gone so typically and boring boomer contrarian you aren't even making sense, as is normal.
    - ThomPete 3y ago
      Whether you can make sense of what I am writing is out of my control. However there is nothing in what I said that isn't factually correct. If that makes me boomer contrarian the so be it.
  - jterrys 3y ago
    Considering that: The U.S by itself consumes and pollutes an excessive amount even proportionally compared to China, there's definite optimizations in consumption patterns that can be made to reduce total overall carbon footprint. Plastics are still everywhere and recycling is considered a scam here. It's done so by design by oil companies. Yes, every single Styrofoam takeout container accumulates waste, especially for a country so prone on eating out. I get bottles of Mexican coke that show clear signs of wear and multiple usage in Mexico...only to finally end up on American store shelves were they'll be dumped in the trash like everything else here because nobody bothers with glass recycling bottles. Recycling plants are zoned out because the only people even bothering to return plastic bottles for 5 cents in a handful of states are the homeless, and even for them it's barely worth the fucking effort. The amount of car traffic in America is ludicrous and an endemic problem of poor, lobbied city design. This country had better public transit that was muscled out by automobile lobbyists, some of which actually privatized the transit and let the infrastructure die. Asphalt retains heat, and every new damn road built is a contributor to making the world just a little bit more warmer than it used to be. China is a leading adopter of rail commuting and freight transport. We're twiddling our thumbs and letting our rail networks deteriorate and become unusable, because its cheaper to move less material over trucks. These are just two simple examples. There's no zero sum result of completely eliminating plastics, but we can definitely consume much less. But we don't. Because we are lazy. Instead we exploit pollution loopholes where we classify SUVs as light work trucks so they don't have to conform to strict emission standards. This is why Ford cut down most of its car production lines in the U.S and almost exclusively focuses on trucks for their consumer market, and why increasingly more cars on road today are arguably less safer SUVs
    - ThomPete 3y ago
      You have to come up with a better alternative that doesn't take things away. Your examples are good examples of things that are not better alternatives, they are worse. I don't think most people realize just how unique a material plastic for instance is.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    > The only big breakthroughs that matter with energy and can work at scale would be things like fusion and molten salt generators. You don't need to go that far. Fission and geothermal can work at scale today and largely solve the impending climate trainwreck today. We haven't adopted them in droves not because of some technological limitation, but rather because they're more expensive on balance sheets (which don't account for negative externalities) and because the fossil fuel industry has successfully manipulated the public into equating "renewable energy" with "things fundamentally incapable of providing base load".
    - ThomPete 3y ago
      They don't scale and they don't provide enough energy density to do provide energy for new types of solutions.
- frostburg 3y ago
  OP probably means that we should focus on infrastructure like dams and nuclear power, to mitigate the at this point probably unavoidable damage. There should be less emphasis on policing individual behaviour (turn the AC down etc.), which is arguably almost completely a distraction from quantitatively relevant issues and provides cover from political inaction.
jackmott42 3y ago
Figure heads for causes like Greta aren't a new thing, sir.
- ThomPete 3y ago
  agree, whats your point?
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    That phenomena like Greta are possible all the time in all kinds of situations
1827162 3y ago
It appears to me that fears over catastrophic climate change are yet another moral panic. Amplified by social media this time. As with other moral panics (e.g. child abductions, pedophilia), the problem exists, but is blown way out of proportion by the media. In reality, I believe there of course will be changes in the weather patterns due to a relatively small increase in temperature, but it's not going to be the end of the world and there certainly won't be any mass drought or famine from the change. I kind of intuitively know this, and mostly disregard the opinions of those saying that there is impending doom. As I have likely seen this type of hysteria play out before in my life many times already. It will be interesting to see if I'm right about it or not, over the coming decades...
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  I'm not sure what the source of your doubt here is. There is piles and piles of evidence that we are in for a world of hurt in the coming several decades.
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    No there isn't. There isn't a single scientifically proven consequence of climate change we don't know how to deal with.
    - Paul-Craft 3y ago
      That's a big claim. Too big to assert without evidence. Got any?
      - ThomPete 3y ago
        Well provide me with a scientifically proven consequence of climate change and I will tell you how we deal with it.
- simiones 3y ago
  > I kind of intuitively know this, and mostly disregard the opinions of those saying that there is impending doom. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truthiness https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truthiness > It will be interesting to see if I'm right about it or not, over the coming decades... You are wrong. No need to wait, the effects are already starting to be visible.
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
If we weren't pulling oil out of the ground from the sea floor then my old fishing haunts would be available to me today and people wouldn't be worried about stepping into BP-branded tar balls that routinely roll up onto the beaches. There's more to climate change than wind, solar, and tesla.

etrautmann 3y ago

Sorry what? How do renewable energy sources not do anything? The problem is multifaceted abs requires advances in many areas. A thousand partial solutions. Absolutism and cynicism aren’t helpful.

ThomPete 3y ago
Wind and solar the two darlings of climate catastrophists is less than 3% of the worlds energy consumption and they will not be able to help getting the 3 billion people who uses less energy than a US fridge per year into the modern era. Fossile fuels is not going anywhere as it's used for the 4 pillars of modern society, steel, fertilizers, concrete and plastic for which there is no realistic alternative. Wind and solar isn't advances, they are regressive technologies that themselves require fossile fuel to even become a reality and still keeps us with our intermittency issues. Keep in mind that only 20% of a countrys energy consumption is electricity. The only big breakthroughs that matter with energy and can work at scale would be things like fusion and molten salt generators. Making our energy grid more and more fragile by pushing wind and solar is what isn't helpful.
- jackmott42 3y ago
  If there is no alternative for concrete, plastic, fertilizers, and steel, then don't you think we ought to quit burning them for cars and electricty Thom? You have gone so typically and boring boomer contrarian you aren't even making sense, as is normal.
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    Whether you can make sense of what I am writing is out of my control. However there is nothing in what I said that isn't factually correct. If that makes me boomer contrarian the so be it.
- jterrys 3y ago
  Considering that: The U.S by itself consumes and pollutes an excessive amount even proportionally compared to China, there's definite optimizations in consumption patterns that can be made to reduce total overall carbon footprint. Plastics are still everywhere and recycling is considered a scam here. It's done so by design by oil companies. Yes, every single Styrofoam takeout container accumulates waste, especially for a country so prone on eating out. I get bottles of Mexican coke that show clear signs of wear and multiple usage in Mexico...only to finally end up on American store shelves were they'll be dumped in the trash like everything else here because nobody bothers with glass recycling bottles. Recycling plants are zoned out because the only people even bothering to return plastic bottles for 5 cents in a handful of states are the homeless, and even for them it's barely worth the fucking effort. The amount of car traffic in America is ludicrous and an endemic problem of poor, lobbied city design. This country had better public transit that was muscled out by automobile lobbyists, some of which actually privatized the transit and let the infrastructure die. Asphalt retains heat, and every new damn road built is a contributor to making the world just a little bit more warmer than it used to be. China is a leading adopter of rail commuting and freight transport. We're twiddling our thumbs and letting our rail networks deteriorate and become unusable, because its cheaper to move less material over trucks. These are just two simple examples. There's no zero sum result of completely eliminating plastics, but we can definitely consume much less. But we don't. Because we are lazy. Instead we exploit pollution loopholes where we classify SUVs as light work trucks so they don't have to conform to strict emission standards. This is why Ford cut down most of its car production lines in the U.S and almost exclusively focuses on trucks for their consumer market, and why increasingly more cars on road today are arguably less safer SUVs
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    You have to come up with a better alternative that doesn't take things away. Your examples are good examples of things that are not better alternatives, they are worse. I don't think most people realize just how unique a material plastic for instance is.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  > The only big breakthroughs that matter with energy and can work at scale would be things like fusion and molten salt generators. You don't need to go that far. Fission and geothermal can work at scale today and largely solve the impending climate trainwreck today. We haven't adopted them in droves not because of some technological limitation, but rather because they're more expensive on balance sheets (which don't account for negative externalities) and because the fossil fuel industry has successfully manipulated the public into equating "renewable energy" with "things fundamentally incapable of providing base load".
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    They don't scale and they don't provide enough energy density to do provide energy for new types of solutions.
frostburg 3y ago
OP probably means that we should focus on infrastructure like dams and nuclear power, to mitigate the at this point probably unavoidable damage. There should be less emphasis on policing individual behaviour (turn the AC down etc.), which is arguably almost completely a distraction from quantitatively relevant issues and provides cover from political inaction.

jackmott42 3y ago

Figure heads for causes like Greta aren't a new thing, sir.

ThomPete 3y ago
agree, whats your point?
- jackmott42 3y ago
  That phenomena like Greta are possible all the time in all kinds of situations

1827162 3y ago

It appears to me that fears over catastrophic climate change are yet another moral panic. Amplified by social media this time. As with other moral panics (e.g. child abductions, pedophilia), the problem exists, but is blown way out of proportion by the media. In reality, I believe there of course will be changes in the weather patterns due to a relatively small increase in temperature, but it's not going to be the end of the world and there certainly won't be any mass drought or famine from the change. I kind of intuitively know this, and mostly disregard the opinions of those saying that there is impending doom. As I have likely seen this type of hysteria play out before in my life many times already. It will be interesting to see if I'm right about it or not, over the coming decades...

Paul-Craft 3y ago
I'm not sure what the source of your doubt here is. There is piles and piles of evidence that we are in for a world of hurt in the coming several decades.
- ThomPete 3y ago
  No there isn't. There isn't a single scientifically proven consequence of climate change we don't know how to deal with.
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    That's a big claim. Too big to assert without evidence. Got any?
    - ThomPete 3y ago
      Well provide me with a scientifically proven consequence of climate change and I will tell you how we deal with it.
simiones 3y ago
> I kind of intuitively know this, and mostly disregard the opinions of those saying that there is impending doom. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truthiness https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truthiness > It will be interesting to see if I'm right about it or not, over the coming decades... You are wrong. No need to wait, the effects are already starting to be visible.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago

If we weren't pulling oil out of the ground from the sea floor then my old fishing haunts would be available to me today and people wouldn't be worried about stepping into BP-branded tar balls that routinely roll up onto the beaches. There's more to climate change than wind, solar, and tesla.