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> Scaling up the mining operations to the necessary level alone would be tangled in politics for decades, since it implies strip-mining the planet for the raw m

> Scaling up the mining operations to the necessary level alone would be tangled in politics for decades, since it implies strip-mining the planet for the raw materials. Better to resign ourselves to poverty and lower living standards than try to actually solve the problem quickly because it seems hard, right?

tsimionescu 3y ago
You don't need to live in poverty to live in a carbon-neutral world. The vast majority of the problem could be tackled by some reduction in the massive over-consumption and over-production of goods currently happening all over the world.
- enraged_camel 3y ago
  All that consumption drives GDP though. As long as we continue to worship that (both economically and politically), we are unlikely to voluntarily consume less at the national level.
- concordDance 3y ago
  Could it really? The biggest CO2 producer in the world is China (who emits more CO2 than the USA, EU and India combined), a big chunk of that on building buildings, are they massively overconsuming? I don't see how modern productive agriculture (without which the supportable world population without completely destroying the remaining natural areas of the world goes down to 2-3 billion) would work in a carbon neutral world without using giant solar or wind farms to essentially produce artificial fossil fuels from atmospheric CO2... which sounds like carbon capture tbh.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    China is producing the majority of junk the rest of the world consumes. Also, while of course, China needs to be a partner in reducing emissions, but it's also important to remember that they are emitting less per capita then many EU nations, not to mention than the USA. The ideal here would be for the world's richest countries, whose wealth has been built off of emitting the majority of the CO2 already in the atmosphere, to fund massive green energy projects in countries like China and India. There's no reason why China should be building new coal plants to bring electricity to their population while the already electrified EU and USA twiddle their thumbs and import another hundred million tonnes of plastic doodads.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    >modern productive agriculture Industrial Agriculture is responsible for effectively burning off most of the carbon captured in the soil. Using no-till, regenerative techniques can capture carbon back into the soil, improve water retention, reduce soil temperatures, reduce the need for chemical feedstocks (fertilizer, herbicides, etc.), and simultaneously produce livestock (and their feed), all while producing comparable amounts of crop. The only increased input required is active local management, which requires downscaling production, but as an upside allows diversifying the nature of crops produced.
brazzy 3y ago
Some problems don't just "seem" hard, they are hard, and there simply is no quick solution, and no amount of wishing for it and pretending there is, nor even ingenuity and venture capital, can make a feasible solution manifest.
- concordDance 3y ago
  We won't know until we try. Cheap reusable rockets seemed hard until SpaceX came along and made them routine.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Except there was plenty of trying and a whole lot of nothing.
  - barrysteve 3y ago
    SpaceX had a huge and long runway, took over from ex-NASA guys who worked on the Shuttle. Thrust vectoring and other key technologies already had been developed in similar companies. John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace worked in the space. Carbon capture is not exactly picking up where the Shuttle left off. The most interesting part of carbon capture is the offshoot technologies.
esarbe 3y ago
Does your kid you really need that $5 throwaway toy that breaks within 20 minutes of playtime? Do you really need 20 low-quality shirts a year that rip with the third usage because the fabric is so flimsy? We've put too much emphasis on consumption of low-quality goods. We are drowning in shitty stuff. Getting rid of shitty stuff isn't "lower living standard" or "poverty".
- concordDance 3y ago
  How much CO2 is actually needed to make that toy or T-Shirt though? I expect uts pretty minimal.
  - esarbe 3y ago
    It's not. [0] Especially if you consider a) the sheer amount of pieces of clothing produced and b) the expected use one gets from one such T-Shirts (see [1]). These are examples of systemic waste product that are only useful for consumerism churn. Besides T-Shirts and plastic waste, there are tons of products that are produces with the least concern for long-term usage. Because it not "economic" - only because we allow to externalize all the associated costs. [0] https://goodfair.com/blogs/nonewthings/did-you-know-that-one-t-shirt-guzzles-over-700-gallons-of-water https://goodfair.com/blogs/nonewthings/did-you-know-that-one... [1] https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/ https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/
    - concordDance 3y ago
      While I appreciate you providing citations, please link to the original sources in the future. In the case the original source of the first link is page 10 of this: https://ctprodstorageaccountp.blob.core.windows.net/prod-drupal-files/documents/resource/public/International%20Carbon%20Flows%20-%20Clothing%20-%20REPORT.pdf https://ctprodstorageaccountp.blob.core.windows.net/prod-dru... The first link has been victim of a game of telephone, where the original source had 15kg per T-Shirt, more than half of that was washing costs, assuming 50 hot washes (and this from over 15 years ago when washing machines were less efficient and electricity much less green). 6kg from T-shirt production being their actual estimate. Is 6kg "a lot"? Depends what you're comparing it to. Worldwide clothing industry in general seems to be around 1% of total CO2 according to the above link. I would love it if we had a sensible estimate for what the sum of CO2 externalities is, but my understanding is estimates can differ by over two orders of magnitude.

tsimionescu 3y ago

You don't need to live in poverty to live in a carbon-neutral world. The vast majority of the problem could be tackled by some reduction in the massive over-consumption and over-production of goods currently happening all over the world.

enraged_camel 3y ago
All that consumption drives GDP though. As long as we continue to worship that (both economically and politically), we are unlikely to voluntarily consume less at the national level.
concordDance 3y ago
Could it really? The biggest CO2 producer in the world is China (who emits more CO2 than the USA, EU and India combined), a big chunk of that on building buildings, are they massively overconsuming? I don't see how modern productive agriculture (without which the supportable world population without completely destroying the remaining natural areas of the world goes down to 2-3 billion) would work in a carbon neutral world without using giant solar or wind farms to essentially produce artificial fossil fuels from atmospheric CO2... which sounds like carbon capture tbh.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  China is producing the majority of junk the rest of the world consumes. Also, while of course, China needs to be a partner in reducing emissions, but it's also important to remember that they are emitting less per capita then many EU nations, not to mention than the USA. The ideal here would be for the world's richest countries, whose wealth has been built off of emitting the majority of the CO2 already in the atmosphere, to fund massive green energy projects in countries like China and India. There's no reason why China should be building new coal plants to bring electricity to their population while the already electrified EU and USA twiddle their thumbs and import another hundred million tonnes of plastic doodads.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  >modern productive agriculture Industrial Agriculture is responsible for effectively burning off most of the carbon captured in the soil. Using no-till, regenerative techniques can capture carbon back into the soil, improve water retention, reduce soil temperatures, reduce the need for chemical feedstocks (fertilizer, herbicides, etc.), and simultaneously produce livestock (and their feed), all while producing comparable amounts of crop. The only increased input required is active local management, which requires downscaling production, but as an upside allows diversifying the nature of crops produced.

brazzy 3y ago

Some problems don't just "seem" hard, they are hard, and there simply is no quick solution, and no amount of wishing for it and pretending there is, nor even ingenuity and venture capital, can make a feasible solution manifest.

concordDance 3y ago
We won't know until we try. Cheap reusable rockets seemed hard until SpaceX came along and made them routine.
- ilyt 3y ago
  Except there was plenty of trying and a whole lot of nothing.
- barrysteve 3y ago
  SpaceX had a huge and long runway, took over from ex-NASA guys who worked on the Shuttle. Thrust vectoring and other key technologies already had been developed in similar companies. John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace worked in the space. Carbon capture is not exactly picking up where the Shuttle left off. The most interesting part of carbon capture is the offshoot technologies.

esarbe 3y ago

Does your kid you really need that $5 throwaway toy that breaks within 20 minutes of playtime? Do you really need 20 low-quality shirts a year that rip with the third usage because the fabric is so flimsy? We've put too much emphasis on consumption of low-quality goods. We are drowning in shitty stuff. Getting rid of shitty stuff isn't "lower living standard" or "poverty".

concordDance 3y ago
How much CO2 is actually needed to make that toy or T-Shirt though? I expect uts pretty minimal.
- esarbe 3y ago
  It's not. [0] Especially if you consider a) the sheer amount of pieces of clothing produced and b) the expected use one gets from one such T-Shirts (see [1]). These are examples of systemic waste product that are only useful for consumerism churn. Besides T-Shirts and plastic waste, there are tons of products that are produces with the least concern for long-term usage. Because it not "economic" - only because we allow to externalize all the associated costs. [0] https://goodfair.com/blogs/nonewthings/did-you-know-that-one-t-shirt-guzzles-over-700-gallons-of-water https://goodfair.com/blogs/nonewthings/did-you-know-that-one... [1] https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/ https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/
  - concordDance 3y ago
    While I appreciate you providing citations, please link to the original sources in the future. In the case the original source of the first link is page 10 of this: https://ctprodstorageaccountp.blob.core.windows.net/prod-drupal-files/documents/resource/public/International%20Carbon%20Flows%20-%20Clothing%20-%20REPORT.pdf https://ctprodstorageaccountp.blob.core.windows.net/prod-dru... The first link has been victim of a game of telephone, where the original source had 15kg per T-Shirt, more than half of that was washing costs, assuming 50 hot washes (and this from over 15 years ago when washing machines were less efficient and electricity much less green). 6kg from T-shirt production being their actual estimate. Is 6kg "a lot"? Depends what you're comparing it to. Worldwide clothing industry in general seems to be around 1% of total CO2 according to the above link. I would love it if we had a sensible estimate for what the sum of CO2 externalities is, but my understanding is estimates can differ by over two orders of magnitude.