9 ms·

I don't believe there is anything we can do about the impending climate changes. In my opinion all we can do is learn, prepare, and adapt.

danny_codes 3y ago
I agree there is nothing we can do to prevent the next 30 years or so of climate change. However, there is plenty we can do longer-term. Step 1: USA via coalition (or alone, it doesn't matter) goes Nuclear (Fission). Global energy consumption is 17.4 Terawatts. About 4 Terawatts of that is us. We therefore need about 4000 nuclear power plants to cover our usage (which, given the economy of scale, would probably cost about 4 Trillion or so). It would take 15 years to build them out, so that's about $280 billion a year. Not particularly expensive, given the overall federal budget is $6 trillion. In addition to domestic construction, we offer generous construction deals to all other countries at-cost with shared IP. Any country can sign up, and the US will use it's hegemony to backup all deals in a "too big to fail" kind of way. Note that we only need about $24 trillion to build out power for the rest of the world, which again isn't a substantial component of anyone's budget (except for developing countries, for which we would just provide the reactors for free/via loan schemes). China will probably do it themselves, so that's like another 5TW capacity we don't need to build. Step 2: We change out the infrastructure. Massive funding, drowning-in-money level funding for Hydrogen aircraft. Massive funding for electric cars & electric grid improvements. Build out HSR between all cities & build out public transit to sap down air travel / car travel. Cut energy use & de-carbonize. Step 3: Turn the CO2 in the air back into fossil fuel, or capture it into some other form. We build 17 TWatts of nuclear capacity, so we have plenty of energy. We need only scale up the chemical processes for doing the conversion. Once completed, we can now "tune" CO2 levels, giving us a lever for global weather control. This will likely be a useful tool for humanity & will let us dynamically control mean surface temperature.
myshpa 3y ago
> I don't believe there is anything we can do about the impending climate changes. But there is (something we could do). Climate change is caused by pollution and overconsumption. We're perfectly capable to change that ... we just don't want to. If we don't, the nature will force us. As it does with every species in overshoot. > all we can do is learn, prepare, and adapt But we don't know how it will play out. Imagine building a jenga tower. You'll remove a brick from the base and put it on top. The more you build the less stable the structure becomes. Our society is an extremely complex system. We don't know when and how, but we know it will collapse. And nobody can even know how it will look, what to expect, and what to prepare for. Even those bunkers of our tech elites won't do them much good.
- revscat 3y ago
  We would need to immediately stop the production and sale of all fossil fuels worldwide, at the point of a gun if necessary. The chances of this happening are zero.
  - jhgfjhgfjhfgjhg 3y ago
    That would kill billions of people. Your comment is why people don't take climate change seriously.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    We should use fossil fuels to transition away from fossil fuels asap. And stop using them for things we don't need.
    - BasedAnon 3y ago
      So that people in poorer countries can use more of them in our place to industrialize and then join everyone else in the gangrape of our environment!
      - danny_codes 3y ago
        But this won't happen. Fossil fuels are the cheapest energy source because of they are already established (economy of scale) and are subsidized heavily. In a world were all major economies have shifted to nuclear power, solar power, and wind power, that will no longer be the case. It will be cheaper for developing countries to use green tech. Also, once the powerful countries have moved off fossil-fuels, we'll hypocritically force poor countries not to use them anyway. Come now, be reasonable.
      - myshpa 3y ago
        https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png Source: https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621305/bn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf;jsessionid=D5606408065DFEF96A8D0E4C8CABDA50?sequence=1 https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10...
jfengel 3y ago
We can't adapt to something that keeps changing. If we keep putting out CO2, the climate will keep getting hotter. It's not as if giving up will make it stop here. It really can go to 8C or more, a temperature that will make large parts of the earth uninhabitable. We're going to be forced to make changes -- not just "adapt" but substantially alter society. The longer we wait the worse it will be.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I've seen the analogy be made that it is comparable to avoiding the grounding of a big vessel, say an ocean tanker. The sooner you act the smaller the course and velocity changes will have to be, the later the more extreme and violent they will have to be. We're already well into the territory where we will in all likelihood not escape a grounding. But we can still choose the spot where we ground and indirectly affect how much work it will be to get the boat afloat again once that happens.
  - almostnormal 3y ago
    > We're already well into the territory where we will in all likelihood not escape a grounding. The melting ice will increase sea levels sufficiently to avoid grounding.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That's your best effort at contributing to the discussion?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
  Of course we can adapt to things that keep changing. Noting is static in the universe, change is inevitable. Sure, billons will die and it will be the end of our civilisation as we know it, but either we'll adapt to the new life or we won't.
oezi 3y ago
Adapting is actually a bad decision. If everyone invests into local counter measures such as ACs or flood walls rather than reducing emissions, we might take away resources spend on the cause of climate change. The estimated cost for net zero are only 3-6% of global GDP per year until 2050. Totally doable.
jaybrendansmith 3y ago
Sure we can. We can start spreading Serpentine rock on the Ocean's surface. We just need some billionaires to fund it. Serpentine rock, which is primarily composed of the mineral serpentine, has been considered in the context of climate change mitigation due to its potential to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) through a natural process called mineral carbonation. This process involves the reaction of CO2 with certain minerals, like serpentine, to form stable carbonate minerals like magnesite. The reaction kinetics of carbonation using serpentine rock are generally slow under ambient temperature and pressure conditions, which is one of the main challenges in utilizing serpentine for carbon sequestration. The rate of the natural carbonation process depends on various factors, such as the particle size of the serpentine, temperature, pressure, and availability of CO2. At ambient conditions, the carbonation of serpentine can take from several months to thousands of years to proceed to completion. The slow reaction kinetics is mainly due to the formation of a passivating silica-rich layer on the surface of serpentine minerals, which hinders the further reaction with CO2. However, if we ground up serpentine rock into 1cm pieces and sprinkled it on the Caribbean sea between Cuba and Jamaica, we can estimate how many tons we would need to use to carbonize our deficit of 15 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide: To estimate this, we need to consider the stoichiometry of the carbonation reaction. Serpentine rock primarily contains the mineral serpentine, which has the chemical formula Mg3Si2O5(OH)4. The carbonation reaction involving serpentine can be represented as: Mg3Si2O5(OH)4 + 3CO2 → 3MgCO3 + 2SiO2 + 2H2O Here, one mole of serpentine reacts with three moles of CO2 to form three moles of magnesite (MgCO3) as the primary carbon capture product. Now, let's calculate the molar masses: Serpentine (Mg3Si2O5(OH)4): (3 × 24.305) + (2 × 28.085) + (5 × 15.999) + (4 × 1.008) = 277.24 g/mol CO2: (12.011) + (2 × 15.999) = 44.01 g/mol From the balanced equation, three moles of CO2 react with one mole of serpentine. Therefore, the mass ratio of serpentine to CO2 is: 277.24 g/mol (serpentine) / 3 × 44.01 g/mol (CO2) = 2.087 To sequester 15 Gt of CO2, we would need: 15 Gt × 2.087 = 31.305 Gt (gigatons) of serpentine rock However, this calculation assumes that the carbonation reaction would go to completion, which is unlikely in a real-world scenario, especially with 1 cm pieces of serpentine rock. The reaction kinetics would be extremely slow with such large particles, and the reaction may not proceed effectively in the ocean environment. Grinding the serpentine rock into much finer particles, using catalysts or additives, or applying pressure and temperature could enhance the reaction rate, would perhaps make it go faster.

danny_codes 3y ago

I agree there is nothing we can do to prevent the next 30 years or so of climate change. However, there is plenty we can do longer-term. Step 1: USA via coalition (or alone, it doesn't matter) goes Nuclear (Fission). Global energy consumption is 17.4 Terawatts. About 4 Terawatts of that is us. We therefore need about 4000 nuclear power plants to cover our usage (which, given the economy of scale, would probably cost about 4 Trillion or so). It would take 15 years to build them out, so that's about $280 billion a year. Not particularly expensive, given the overall federal budget is $6 trillion. In addition to domestic construction, we offer generous construction deals to all other countries at-cost with shared IP. Any country can sign up, and the US will use it's hegemony to backup all deals in a "too big to fail" kind of way. Note that we only need about $24 trillion to build out power for the rest of the world, which again isn't a substantial component of anyone's budget (except for developing countries, for which we would just provide the reactors for free/via loan schemes). China will probably do it themselves, so that's like another 5TW capacity we don't need to build. Step 2: We change out the infrastructure. Massive funding, drowning-in-money level funding for Hydrogen aircraft. Massive funding for electric cars & electric grid improvements. Build out HSR between all cities & build out public transit to sap down air travel / car travel. Cut energy use & de-carbonize. Step 3: Turn the CO2 in the air back into fossil fuel, or capture it into some other form. We build 17 TWatts of nuclear capacity, so we have plenty of energy. We need only scale up the chemical processes for doing the conversion. Once completed, we can now "tune" CO2 levels, giving us a lever for global weather control. This will likely be a useful tool for humanity & will let us dynamically control mean surface temperature.

myshpa 3y ago

> I don't believe there is anything we can do about the impending climate changes. But there is (something we could do). Climate change is caused by pollution and overconsumption. We're perfectly capable to change that ... we just don't want to. If we don't, the nature will force us. As it does with every species in overshoot. > all we can do is learn, prepare, and adapt But we don't know how it will play out. Imagine building a jenga tower. You'll remove a brick from the base and put it on top. The more you build the less stable the structure becomes. Our society is an extremely complex system. We don't know when and how, but we know it will collapse. And nobody can even know how it will look, what to expect, and what to prepare for. Even those bunkers of our tech elites won't do them much good.

revscat 3y ago
We would need to immediately stop the production and sale of all fossil fuels worldwide, at the point of a gun if necessary. The chances of this happening are zero.
- jhgfjhgfjhfgjhg 3y ago
  That would kill billions of people. Your comment is why people don't take climate change seriously.
- myshpa 3y ago
  We should use fossil fuels to transition away from fossil fuels asap. And stop using them for things we don't need.
  - BasedAnon 3y ago
    So that people in poorer countries can use more of them in our place to industrialize and then join everyone else in the gangrape of our environment!
    - danny_codes 3y ago
      But this won't happen. Fossil fuels are the cheapest energy source because of they are already established (economy of scale) and are subsidized heavily. In a world were all major economies have shifted to nuclear power, solar power, and wind power, that will no longer be the case. It will be cheaper for developing countries to use green tech. Also, once the powerful countries have moved off fossil-fuels, we'll hypocritically force poor countries not to use them anyway. Come now, be reasonable.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png Source: https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621305/bn-carbon-inequality-2030-051121-en.pdf;jsessionid=D5606408065DFEF96A8D0E4C8CABDA50?sequence=1 https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10...

jfengel 3y ago

We can't adapt to something that keeps changing. If we keep putting out CO2, the climate will keep getting hotter. It's not as if giving up will make it stop here. It really can go to 8C or more, a temperature that will make large parts of the earth uninhabitable. We're going to be forced to make changes -- not just "adapt" but substantially alter society. The longer we wait the worse it will be.

jacquesm 3y ago
I've seen the analogy be made that it is comparable to avoiding the grounding of a big vessel, say an ocean tanker. The sooner you act the smaller the course and velocity changes will have to be, the later the more extreme and violent they will have to be. We're already well into the territory where we will in all likelihood not escape a grounding. But we can still choose the spot where we ground and indirectly affect how much work it will be to get the boat afloat again once that happens.
- almostnormal 3y ago
  > We're already well into the territory where we will in all likelihood not escape a grounding. The melting ice will increase sea levels sufficiently to avoid grounding.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's your best effort at contributing to the discussion?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
Of course we can adapt to things that keep changing. Noting is static in the universe, change is inevitable. Sure, billons will die and it will be the end of our civilisation as we know it, but either we'll adapt to the new life or we won't.

oezi 3y ago

Adapting is actually a bad decision. If everyone invests into local counter measures such as ACs or flood walls rather than reducing emissions, we might take away resources spend on the cause of climate change. The estimated cost for net zero are only 3-6% of global GDP per year until 2050. Totally doable.

jaybrendansmith 3y ago

Sure we can. We can start spreading Serpentine rock on the Ocean's surface. We just need some billionaires to fund it. Serpentine rock, which is primarily composed of the mineral serpentine, has been considered in the context of climate change mitigation due to its potential to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) through a natural process called mineral carbonation. This process involves the reaction of CO2 with certain minerals, like serpentine, to form stable carbonate minerals like magnesite. The reaction kinetics of carbonation using serpentine rock are generally slow under ambient temperature and pressure conditions, which is one of the main challenges in utilizing serpentine for carbon sequestration. The rate of the natural carbonation process depends on various factors, such as the particle size of the serpentine, temperature, pressure, and availability of CO2. At ambient conditions, the carbonation of serpentine can take from several months to thousands of years to proceed to completion. The slow reaction kinetics is mainly due to the formation of a passivating silica-rich layer on the surface of serpentine minerals, which hinders the further reaction with CO2. However, if we ground up serpentine rock into 1cm pieces and sprinkled it on the Caribbean sea between Cuba and Jamaica, we can estimate how many tons we would need to use to carbonize our deficit of 15 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide: To estimate this, we need to consider the stoichiometry of the carbonation reaction. Serpentine rock primarily contains the mineral serpentine, which has the chemical formula Mg3Si2O5(OH)4. The carbonation reaction involving serpentine can be represented as: Mg3Si2O5(OH)4 + 3CO2 → 3MgCO3 + 2SiO2 + 2H2O Here, one mole of serpentine reacts with three moles of CO2 to form three moles of magnesite (MgCO3) as the primary carbon capture product. Now, let's calculate the molar masses: Serpentine (Mg3Si2O5(OH)4): (3 × 24.305) + (2 × 28.085) + (5 × 15.999) + (4 × 1.008) = 277.24 g/mol CO2: (12.011) + (2 × 15.999) = 44.01 g/mol From the balanced equation, three moles of CO2 react with one mole of serpentine. Therefore, the mass ratio of serpentine to CO2 is: 277.24 g/mol (serpentine) / 3 × 44.01 g/mol (CO2) = 2.087 To sequester 15 Gt of CO2, we would need: 15 Gt × 2.087 = 31.305 Gt (gigatons) of serpentine rock However, this calculation assumes that the carbonation reaction would go to completion, which is unlikely in a real-world scenario, especially with 1 cm pieces of serpentine rock. The reaction kinetics would be extremely slow with such large particles, and the reaction may not proceed effectively in the ocean environment. Grinding the serpentine rock into much finer particles, using catalysts or additives, or applying pressure and temperature could enhance the reaction rate, would perhaps make it go faster.