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I do believe that included in "only action" is: keep fossil fuels in the ground. The idea that we can only mitigate is insane. Yes we've already signed up for

I do believe that included in "only action" is: keep fossil fuels in the ground. The idea that we can only mitigate is insane. Yes we've already signed up for a lot of pain as a civilization, but as long we keep burning fossil fuels we are looking at an increasingly worse future. It's not like a smoker who has gotten lung cancer, where the best we can do is try to ease the pain, and more smoking won't really matter. The biggest first step in preventing the worse case is to be able to point to an established oil field and say "that will never be extracted, and will remain in the earth for at least a 1000 years." Every ton of carbon we can keep in the ground that way, the better of our future, even if that future is already slated to be bad.

robnado 3y ago
We can slow down the use of fossil fuels, but as long as we are 8 billion people on the planet and we find no better way to produce ammonia, steel, concrete and plastics, we will keep needing huge amounts of fossil fuels. Personally, I feel that the solution is to gradually raise the tax rate on fossil fuels in order to disincentives their use and incentivize the production of alternatives. We've done this for cigarettes and it has worked. However, you will probably have the vaping equivalent of petrol that will come out and gain more marketshare. The second solution is to make energy so cheap and abundant that petrol becomes unattractive. To massively and suddenly restrict petrol use is a great way to start riots and ensure that your government will either be overthrown or has to descend into tyranny.
- sgu999 3y ago
  > However, you will probably have the vaping equivalent of petrol that will come out and gain more marketshare. I believe that's electric SUVs and solar roofs on single family homes :D
- thworp 3y ago
  I would like to add a point that is rarely spelled out: A shock-therapy style stop to fossil fuel extraction will kill millions of people through starvation, economic collapse and insufficient heating in winter. Depending how shocking the shock therapy is it could be billions.
  - IKantRead 3y ago
    Wait until you see what climate change does with continued carbon emissions! But this has always been the problem with stopping climate change. We are choosing between lesser, but certain immediate pain vs larger but less certain future pain. In the 1880s we could have easily stopped climate changed, but been forced to slow growth. The pain would have been minimal for those living, but the probability of extreme catastrophe seemed remote so nothing was done. As we move forward the probability of extreme catastrophe becomes more certain, but so too does the immediately pain.
    - robnado 3y ago
      Without modern fertilizers which heavily rely on fossil fuels to produce, roughly half of the world population cannot be fed. Further, agriculture becomes much more labor intensive and we pretty much revert to the past where the majority of the population on earth were farmers. If you don't know how to farm effectively using past methods, you probably also get added to the "cannot be fed" list. That is a substantial immediate pain. I would much rather work to gradually reduce carbon emissions while mitigating the damage done. I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this.
      - IKantRead 3y ago
        > I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this. Oh, much worse. First off we, fertilizer or no, we're already facing crop failures in the US [0] and will continue to face even more extreme crop failures [1]. Even if we had unlimited fertilizer we've already signed up for massive famine. But if you really want to talk about the unmitigated climate change path, which is what happens if we choose not to keep hydrocarbons in the ground, I really recommend reading Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky [2]. He's a respected geologist that makes a compelling case that the vast majority of mass extinction events were caused by rapid rises in CO2. One of the realistic scenarios we're facing, he argues, is the break down of the AMOC ultimately leading to the oceans becoming anoxic and releasing hydrogen sulfide rather than oxygen. The entire marine ecosystem is essentially wiped out except for some cyanobacteria. The oceans are the foundation of all of our food systems. It would make the planet uninhabitable my most complex life of today. This has happened before in Earth's climate history. All of the "bad-awful" but not-extinction event scenarios assume that we do not burn all of the fossil fuel reserves currently leased. We are already looking at a grim future, but given that we're rapidly pumping millions of years of stored CO2 into the atmosphere, upper bounds for the damage we can do are tremendous. 0. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/kansas-wheat-harvest-drought.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/kansas-wheat-harvest-d... 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/4/scientists-warn-of-crop-failure-uncertainties-as-earth-heats-up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/4/scientists-warn-of-c... 2. https://www.amazon.com/Under-Green-Sky-Warming-Extinctions/dp/0061137928 https://www.amazon.com/Under-Green-Sky-Warming-Extinctions/d...
- hkt 3y ago
  Steel and concrete aren't necessary for the most part: other materials that don't emit (or even actively sequester) carbon are available and have been for a long, long time. It doesn't even preclude building densely either: just look at cross laminated timber.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    We're going to build bridges and trains and rails and roads and ships out of cross laminated timber? And yes, you can build pretty tall structures out of CLT, but there's still smaller than what you can build with steel and concrete. The tallest one built that I know of is 25 stories. But at least 6 or so of those floors are all concrete+steel, and it still uses concrete+steel emergency stairwells. https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/apply/worlds-tallest-timber-building-opens https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/apply/w... But what is the foundation made from? What do you think the elevator shafts are made from? Its not like its 100% wood. I would like to see more CLT construction, and modern building codes are allowing taller and larger stick construction as well, but arguing that steel and concrete aren't necessary is ignoring all the rest of the things supporting that structure along with all the other things that still need steel and concrete. How did all the building materials arrive at the site? What harvested the wood? What were the machines making the CLT made out of? What are the fireproof stairwells usually made out of? Steel and concrete. We'll probably see more and more construction which looks like this, where some CLT offsets some concrete and steel, but chances are the whole building isn't entirely wood: https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/styles/fs_wysiwyg_width_360px/public/2022-07/apply-crosslaminatedtimberascentbuilding-wisconsin-02.jpg?itok=1rJXy9Mx https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/styles/fs_wysiwy... Using modern materials and building codes can let us reduce our usage of things like steel and concrete for more buildings, but its not going to fully eliminate their usage in our world.
    - hkt 3y ago
      For foundations, lime stabilised soil has been used in civil engineering projects for a very, very long time: https://www.geoengineer.org/education/ground-improvement/lime-stabilization https://www.geoengineer.org/education/ground-improvement/lim... As for the rest, I was referring to buildings. I don't think anything is so worthy of being built that wrecking the environment is a fair trade. Railways are an honourable exception, since they displace (far more wasteful) cars. Light rail is especially good for this. The fact is that we need to question what we build, as well as the materials used to build it.

robnado 3y ago

We can slow down the use of fossil fuels, but as long as we are 8 billion people on the planet and we find no better way to produce ammonia, steel, concrete and plastics, we will keep needing huge amounts of fossil fuels. Personally, I feel that the solution is to gradually raise the tax rate on fossil fuels in order to disincentives their use and incentivize the production of alternatives. We've done this for cigarettes and it has worked. However, you will probably have the vaping equivalent of petrol that will come out and gain more marketshare. The second solution is to make energy so cheap and abundant that petrol becomes unattractive. To massively and suddenly restrict petrol use is a great way to start riots and ensure that your government will either be overthrown or has to descend into tyranny.

sgu999 3y ago
> However, you will probably have the vaping equivalent of petrol that will come out and gain more marketshare. I believe that's electric SUVs and solar roofs on single family homes :D
thworp 3y ago
I would like to add a point that is rarely spelled out: A shock-therapy style stop to fossil fuel extraction will kill millions of people through starvation, economic collapse and insufficient heating in winter. Depending how shocking the shock therapy is it could be billions.
- IKantRead 3y ago
  Wait until you see what climate change does with continued carbon emissions! But this has always been the problem with stopping climate change. We are choosing between lesser, but certain immediate pain vs larger but less certain future pain. In the 1880s we could have easily stopped climate changed, but been forced to slow growth. The pain would have been minimal for those living, but the probability of extreme catastrophe seemed remote so nothing was done. As we move forward the probability of extreme catastrophe becomes more certain, but so too does the immediately pain.
  - robnado 3y ago
    Without modern fertilizers which heavily rely on fossil fuels to produce, roughly half of the world population cannot be fed. Further, agriculture becomes much more labor intensive and we pretty much revert to the past where the majority of the population on earth were farmers. If you don't know how to farm effectively using past methods, you probably also get added to the "cannot be fed" list. That is a substantial immediate pain. I would much rather work to gradually reduce carbon emissions while mitigating the damage done. I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this.
    - IKantRead 3y ago
      > I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this. Oh, much worse. First off we, fertilizer or no, we're already facing crop failures in the US [0] and will continue to face even more extreme crop failures [1]. Even if we had unlimited fertilizer we've already signed up for massive famine. But if you really want to talk about the unmitigated climate change path, which is what happens if we choose not to keep hydrocarbons in the ground, I really recommend reading Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky [2]. He's a respected geologist that makes a compelling case that the vast majority of mass extinction events were caused by rapid rises in CO2. One of the realistic scenarios we're facing, he argues, is the break down of the AMOC ultimately leading to the oceans becoming anoxic and releasing hydrogen sulfide rather than oxygen. The entire marine ecosystem is essentially wiped out except for some cyanobacteria. The oceans are the foundation of all of our food systems. It would make the planet uninhabitable my most complex life of today. This has happened before in Earth's climate history. All of the "bad-awful" but not-extinction event scenarios assume that we do not burn all of the fossil fuel reserves currently leased. We are already looking at a grim future, but given that we're rapidly pumping millions of years of stored CO2 into the atmosphere, upper bounds for the damage we can do are tremendous. 0. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/kansas-wheat-harvest-drought.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/us/kansas-wheat-harvest-d... 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/4/scientists-warn-of-crop-failure-uncertainties-as-earth-heats-up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/4/scientists-warn-of-c... 2. https://www.amazon.com/Under-Green-Sky-Warming-Extinctions/dp/0061137928 https://www.amazon.com/Under-Green-Sky-Warming-Extinctions/d...
hkt 3y ago
Steel and concrete aren't necessary for the most part: other materials that don't emit (or even actively sequester) carbon are available and have been for a long, long time. It doesn't even preclude building densely either: just look at cross laminated timber.
- vel0city 3y ago
  We're going to build bridges and trains and rails and roads and ships out of cross laminated timber? And yes, you can build pretty tall structures out of CLT, but there's still smaller than what you can build with steel and concrete. The tallest one built that I know of is 25 stories. But at least 6 or so of those floors are all concrete+steel, and it still uses concrete+steel emergency stairwells. https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/apply/worlds-tallest-timber-building-opens https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/apply/w... But what is the foundation made from? What do you think the elevator shafts are made from? Its not like its 100% wood. I would like to see more CLT construction, and modern building codes are allowing taller and larger stick construction as well, but arguing that steel and concrete aren't necessary is ignoring all the rest of the things supporting that structure along with all the other things that still need steel and concrete. How did all the building materials arrive at the site? What harvested the wood? What were the machines making the CLT made out of? What are the fireproof stairwells usually made out of? Steel and concrete. We'll probably see more and more construction which looks like this, where some CLT offsets some concrete and steel, but chances are the whole building isn't entirely wood: https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/styles/fs_wysiwyg_width_360px/public/2022-07/apply-crosslaminatedtimberascentbuilding-wisconsin-02.jpg?itok=1rJXy9Mx https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/styles/fs_wysiwy... Using modern materials and building codes can let us reduce our usage of things like steel and concrete for more buildings, but its not going to fully eliminate their usage in our world.
  - hkt 3y ago
    For foundations, lime stabilised soil has been used in civil engineering projects for a very, very long time: https://www.geoengineer.org/education/ground-improvement/lime-stabilization https://www.geoengineer.org/education/ground-improvement/lim... As for the rest, I was referring to buildings. I don't think anything is so worthy of being built that wrecking the environment is a fair trade. Railways are an honourable exception, since they displace (far more wasteful) cars. Light rail is especially good for this. The fact is that we need to question what we build, as well as the materials used to build it.