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I wonder how many of them are putting money into various kinds of Direct Air Capture (DAC) efforts: https://austinvernon.site/blog/carboncapture.html https://au

I wonder how many of them are putting money into various kinds of Direct Air Capture (DAC) efforts: https://austinvernon.site/blog/carboncapture.html https://austinvernon.site/blog/carboncapture.html and how many realize that climate mitigations are possible. I subscribe to Climeworks, but that is only one company in the space. In the meantime, too, https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-did-solar-power-get-cheap-part https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-did-solar-power-g.... Not having kids due to "climate change" seems like cope.

PretzelPirate 3y ago
Let's say I'm avoiding having more children due to the risk of climate change making the world a bad place to live. If I put money into fixing climate change, why would that make me more likely to have children? My contribution doesn't guarantee or noticeably change the liklihood of climate change being solved. The reasonable thing to do would be to still not have children, and if the world doesn't end up horrible, know let the next generation have kids knowing that climate change won't be an issue.
- Mordisquitos 3y ago
  >The reasonable thing to do would be to still not have children, and if the world doesn't end up horrible, know let the next generation have kids knowing that climate change won't be an issue. What next generation?
- filoleg 3y ago
  > Let's say I'm avoiding having more children due to the risk of climate change making the world a bad place to live. If I put money into fixing climate change, why would that make me more likely to have children? They did not claim that putting money into fixing climate change would make you more likely to have children, you missed the point made by the comment you were replying to. The "cope" part they were referencing was that the people surveyed simply used climate change as an excuse for not having children, and it wasn't their real reason (with the real reason being one of bajillion possibilities, just probably a less "socially cool" sounding one, but that's irrelevant). The grandparent comment reasoning was that if those people actually cared that much about climate change and wanted to have children if it wasn't for climate change, are they doing anything to address that problem (with the primary method being funding climate change reversal initiatives)? Mind you, I do not necessarily agree with that reasoning entirely, but you are attacking a strawman here.
Analemma_ 3y ago
I've complained about this before, but "if you actually believed X, you'd be doing Y" is almost never a valid inference. In almost every case, including your comment, it's a failure to understand what your opponents actually believe and instead just projecting your own misunderstandings onto them to feel smug and think that they can be dismissed. Comments of this form should just be downvoted by default as unproductive.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  I think it is a reasonable conclusion that if someone claims they care very much about some thing X but does nothing about that thing when possible routes out exist that any accurate model of their behaviour does not place a high coefficient on their belief about X. In practice, in conversation, this is about smiling and nodding. If pressed, I might say "I don't believe you" but that would be socially ungraceful and, since most statements X subject to this condition are meant to be a socially graceful way to deflect, it is unlikely that I would have to do this. So, sure, I'm not going to challenge anyone but I'm not really going to expect you to behave like an environmentalist if you say you care about climate change but then do nothing about it. And I probably won't believe anything about your reasons for why you don't want kids.
com2kid 3y ago
If I dedicate every free penny I have to fighting climate change, that will do absolutely nothing compared to the impact of unreported gas leaks in natural gas pipelines. Humans aren't good at thinking at scale, so we easily imagine (or wish) that individual donations can make a difference, when we are fighting systematic problems. Or to give another example, home glass recycling does nothing when every nearly company has switched over to selling their products in plastic bottles.
djleni 3y ago
DAC seems like a distraction to me. In what situation does investment in DAC make sense over replacing fossil fuel infrastructure? To run DAC, you need power. Why use dirty coal power to run DAC instead of using that money to replace the coal power? What if the DAC plant is powered by green energy? Use that energy to replace fossil fuel consumption. What if it’s powered by a 100% renewable grid with surplus that’s isolated? Move currently fossil fuel dependent industry to this grid! Put a data center there instead of somewhere that burns coal. Sure, we should research it, but until we’re running 100% renewables it always makes more sense to build a solar farm instead. Maybe an apt analogy: building DAC infrastructure right now is like sending a contractor to a currently burning building to install a fire sprinkler system.

PretzelPirate 3y ago

Let's say I'm avoiding having more children due to the risk of climate change making the world a bad place to live. If I put money into fixing climate change, why would that make me more likely to have children? My contribution doesn't guarantee or noticeably change the liklihood of climate change being solved. The reasonable thing to do would be to still not have children, and if the world doesn't end up horrible, know let the next generation have kids knowing that climate change won't be an issue.

Mordisquitos 3y ago
>The reasonable thing to do would be to still not have children, and if the world doesn't end up horrible, know let the next generation have kids knowing that climate change won't be an issue. What next generation?
filoleg 3y ago
> Let's say I'm avoiding having more children due to the risk of climate change making the world a bad place to live. If I put money into fixing climate change, why would that make me more likely to have children? They did not claim that putting money into fixing climate change would make you more likely to have children, you missed the point made by the comment you were replying to. The "cope" part they were referencing was that the people surveyed simply used climate change as an excuse for not having children, and it wasn't their real reason (with the real reason being one of bajillion possibilities, just probably a less "socially cool" sounding one, but that's irrelevant). The grandparent comment reasoning was that if those people actually cared that much about climate change and wanted to have children if it wasn't for climate change, are they doing anything to address that problem (with the primary method being funding climate change reversal initiatives)? Mind you, I do not necessarily agree with that reasoning entirely, but you are attacking a strawman here.

Analemma_ 3y ago

I've complained about this before, but "if you actually believed X, you'd be doing Y" is almost never a valid inference. In almost every case, including your comment, it's a failure to understand what your opponents actually believe and instead just projecting your own misunderstandings onto them to feel smug and think that they can be dismissed. Comments of this form should just be downvoted by default as unproductive.

renewiltord 3y ago
I think it is a reasonable conclusion that if someone claims they care very much about some thing X but does nothing about that thing when possible routes out exist that any accurate model of their behaviour does not place a high coefficient on their belief about X. In practice, in conversation, this is about smiling and nodding. If pressed, I might say "I don't believe you" but that would be socially ungraceful and, since most statements X subject to this condition are meant to be a socially graceful way to deflect, it is unlikely that I would have to do this. So, sure, I'm not going to challenge anyone but I'm not really going to expect you to behave like an environmentalist if you say you care about climate change but then do nothing about it. And I probably won't believe anything about your reasons for why you don't want kids.

com2kid 3y ago

If I dedicate every free penny I have to fighting climate change, that will do absolutely nothing compared to the impact of unreported gas leaks in natural gas pipelines. Humans aren't good at thinking at scale, so we easily imagine (or wish) that individual donations can make a difference, when we are fighting systematic problems. Or to give another example, home glass recycling does nothing when every nearly company has switched over to selling their products in plastic bottles.

djleni 3y ago

DAC seems like a distraction to me. In what situation does investment in DAC make sense over replacing fossil fuel infrastructure? To run DAC, you need power. Why use dirty coal power to run DAC instead of using that money to replace the coal power? What if the DAC plant is powered by green energy? Use that energy to replace fossil fuel consumption. What if it’s powered by a 100% renewable grid with surplus that’s isolated? Move currently fossil fuel dependent industry to this grid! Put a data center there instead of somewhere that burns coal. Sure, we should research it, but until we’re running 100% renewables it always makes more sense to build a solar farm instead. Maybe an apt analogy: building DAC infrastructure right now is like sending a contractor to a currently burning building to install a fire sprinkler system.