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> It would take far too much effort, and also far too much cooperation between different nations that all intensely hate each other. I share your pessimistic a
by aeturnum 3y ago
> It would take far too much effort, and also far too much cooperation between different nations that all intensely hate each other.
I share your pessimistic assessment and I would frame it differently. The thing that strikes me, above all, is that this is the first project that really requires cooperation on this scale. Basically everything before was possible with smaller groups following their own incentives (basically bog standard capitalism). The cost of cooperation was not worth the returns.
This is different - we need to learn to cooperate on a previously unheard of scale - and (as you note) we need to learn to cooperate in a way where we don't totally trust others. I just saw Oppenheimer so, to draw a historic analogy, it's like you have to run the Manhatten project...but also actively share work with Russian and Nazi scientists to finish the project earlier than US science could alone. It's on an entirely different level of difficulty that we have never really needed to attempt previously.
For instance - are oil & gas companies being disruptive and acting in bad faith? Yes. Do we need them to stop? Absolutely. Probably the easiest way is to reward their bad faith action if they will really start cooperating. At this stage we need them to be winners. Justice is a luxury for people who are in less dire conditions.
> Even if, for instance, Germany manages to become 100% carbon-neutral, that isn't going to help much
I think you're totally wrong on this and I encourage you to look into the science on it. We can make the planet as hot as we want. Every bit of warming emission hurts. I'd also argue that, in the same way that California standards change things across the US (because they are so big) the developed world truly abandoning carbon would dramatically impact the rest of the world.
- midoridensha 3y ago>I think you're totally wrong on this and I encourage you to look into the science on it. We can make the planet as hot as we want. Every bit of warming emission hurts. It does, but it's not a linear relationship. Everything I've read talks about a "tipping point" and exponential curve: basically, once you get past a certain point, it starts snowballing. Critical ocean currents stop working the normal way, etc. Germany becoming carbon neutral just isn't enough to avoid this. Germany isn't that big an emitter when compared to everyone else. >I'd also argue that, in the same way that California standards change things across the US (because they are so big) the developed world truly abandoning carbon would dramatically impact the rest of the world. Germany is not "the developed world". It's not even much of a leader of it. The US is, and the US is NOT going to become carbon-neutral (or even close to it) in our lifetimes. And even if they did, somehow, there's still China.
- Gasp0de 3y agoChina is currently the country that builds the most renewable energy. Their energy production through solar exceeds that of the rest of the world (!). Thanks to the Biden administration, the US is currently at least trying to catch up to that.