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Many Climate 'Solutions' Are Dead Ends or Niches and Should Be Ignored
- c22 3y agoWe might need multiple 'Solutions' working together to solve this one...
- jbotz 3y agoThe problem is that implementing solutions, especially multiple solutions, requires a functioning civilization with reasonable amount of international cooperation and capacity for compromise. But our civilization is set up such that these mechanisms only work so long as there is enough growth that the surplus can be spread around, and while its never been spread around very fairly, right now we're in the double whammy of having less and less surplus to spread around (for multiple reasons, but the costs of the climate crisis alone are already a significant part of that) and at the same time the elites are grabbing ever larger portions of that shrinking surplus. The consequence is that global civilization is becoming too dysfunctional to actually implement the "multiple solutions" that are needed with the urgency that's needed. Or maybe it never functioned that well in the first place, but with each passing day and each additional crisis that goal is moving further into an unattainable future.
- bitwize 3y agoThat's because the solution is radical degrowth. There's no way out of this that doesn't involve massive energy consumption reduction and abandonment of not just fossil fuels, but fossil fuel byproducts. Since the global food supply is both energy-intensive and reliant on petroleum-derived fertilizers (thank you, Green Revolution), that means the earth will support far fewer humans than it does today.
- Tarsul 3y agoI'm with you on the first part ("degrowth", at least in terms of energy consumption), but not on the second part. Since most CO2 is consumed by the relatively rich, just going Thanos and killing half of the earth wouldn't help if it was the poor half. Thus, we have to start consuming less. I feel like all the solutions right now are only band-aid and no one is honest enough to talk about the elefant in the room. The elefant is clearly saying we could consume less but we don't wanna. So we are still prioritising the present at the cost of the future. We try to have a little more luxury today but by doing this bring misery down the road. The narrative (and politics) has to change dramatically for us as citizens to change. Less consumption means a livable future.
- jamincan 3y agoMoreover, a lot of the solutions seem to entail increased consumption.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dimitar 3y agoDeveloped countries have grown their GDP while reducing their CO2 emissions. Degrowth is a dangerous distraction
- anon25783 3y agoThey have grown their GDP how, exactly? Those emissions haven't been reduced; they've been outsourced to China and India, for the most part.
- jvanderbot 3y agoThe emissions per killowatt-hour of consumption has gone down, even as energy use has gone up. It has gone down so much that absolute emissions are down, even as absolute energy use is up. It's not clear to me how this would change if we got more manufacturing here. Energy use would go up, but emissions may not given the continuing decrease per unit energy.
- anon25783 3y agoHalf of the net CO2 added to the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution has been in the past thirty years. I'm not saying we need more domestic manufacturing, I'm saying we need less petroleum production, worldwide. That will mean less manufacturing in general, all over the world. Perpetual economic growth is a physical and logical impossibility, and pursuing it is a danger to the individual livelihood of every human being on Earth.
- jvanderbot 3y agoI understand. The argument here is not that we don't need less petroleum use. The argument is that we are accelerating a reduction in petroleum use while still growing the economy, which implies that it's perhaps not true that we need less manufacturing all over the world.
- lazide 3y ago
- meany 3y agoWhat are you suggesting we optimize for? Is it maintaining CO2 levels at all costs? Highest quality of life for the largest number? something else?
- api 3y agoIf that's the only solution, then get ready for 800ppm CO2 because there is precisely zero chance you're going to sell the whole world on that. Even if you did that to the developed world, you're not going to get the developing world to follow. "Hey yall, we know we colonized you for a long time and stuff but could you please stay poor so we can fix a problem that we mostly created? You cool with that? Thanks!" Yeah, that's going to work. The laws of physics don't care who emits CO2 or where it's emitted. Fantasies just distract and make people feel like they're doing something by engaging in performative ideological posturing and theatrics.
- dalyons 3y agoNot only is it not a viable solution (we as mankind just ain’t gunna voluntarily degrow ever, sorry), but it’s not even necessary. We have the technology to decarbonize the majority of the economy already. We already put 1% of the worlds gdp into solar and it’s taking over at an incredible rate. Up that to say 5% and we’d make huge innovations on battery scale, storage , synthetic fuels, etc within short years. I believe we could be 70% transitioned in 10 years if we wanted to, and we would have MORE abundant energy than today. No degrowth nessecary. We won’t do that either of course.
- Dig1t 3y agoYou are welcome to radically degrow yourself, but as soon as you start talking about degrowing other people you are not going to end up in a good place.
- sacnoradhq 3y ago95% correct. "Planting a lot of trees" has been proven dead wrong because of simple math, plant matter decay, and increasing fucking forest fires. Instead, #teamtrees couldn't face reality while doing the disservice of misinforming and lying to millions of people for egotistical and aspirational post-factual rhetoric. https://youtu.be/gqht2bIQXIY https://youtu.be/gqht2bIQXIY
- pvaldes 3y ago> "Planting a lot of trees" has been proven dead wrong because of simple math Planting a lot of trees and let the trees grow still looks a much better plan that most of the other options and magical solutions. We just need to find the courage to try it seriously. Forest fires are a crime in 90% of the times. The idea that we can't do what we need to do because criminals exist is not acceptable. We just need to make this crime much more expensive, painful and unprofitable for that people
- soupbowl 3y agoForest fires are a natural state of forest and required for a healthy forest for many types of forest.
- pvaldes 3y agoThen we will need to unblock and support the grow of the other types of forest. Forests shouldn't be composed of a 99% of <10 Years old trees Do people know that there is an humid Mediterranean forest ecosystem? Do people know that some Eucaliptus species evolved as part of humid ecosystems?
- tuatoru 3y agoYes of course people know this. But policymakers "flatten" knowledge when making policy. See James C. Scott's "Seeing Like A State" for discussion of how this plays out in development projects. What we have got is exactly what we can expect. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State Required reading for anyone who seeks to understand what happens at the scale of a city, or larger.
- paul_milovanov 3y agoWind/solar don't produce baseload power absent storage. If you can't scale storage proportionately to wind/solar, you can't compare w/s to nuclear because baseload and non-baseload supply are not mutually substitutable.
- tuatoru 3y agoI was speed-watching a couple of videos on YouTube about this fifteen minutes ago. Search for "The Limiting Factor". Battery capacity will be a minor constraint, but only minor, as there are constraints in the PV and wind turbine supply chains as well. Those constraints are primarily NIMBY, the consenting processes for mines, refineries, and assembly factories in the case of PV and batteries, and for deployment in the case of wind. NIMBY applies ten-fold to nuclear.
- _aavaa_ 3y agoPart of the way this problem is solved is addressed by the article: - overbuild renewables - connect grids together If regional grids are connected together, then excess capacity in one region can be used by another. You don’t have to store your own electricity for later if you your neighbour can sell you their excess.
- YmiYugy 3y agoExcept we need to use electricity for heating and the availability of solar inversely correlates with demand for heating and wind isn’t really able to make up for it. Because the effect is seasonal neighboring regions can’t really help each other. So yew either need to build an incredible amount of transport capacity over a really long distance or come up with some kind of storage solution. Doing both on scale is unimaginably expensive. Yes, nuclear power isn’t able to adjust as quickly as renewables or coal/gas, but if required it can add reduce about 10 percentage points per minute. This isn’t done because of the economics. Fixed costs are much higher.
- _aavaa_ 3y agoSolar energy is not zero in the winter months, it’s just reduced. Whether solar remains viable in the winter months is an economic question regarding the final price after overbuilding. Wind being unable to work in to winter is an assertion that will need some backing up. Unimaginably expensive is not accurate description. A) hydro is an already existing solution that can work as storage. B) HVDC lines are unimaginably expensive compared to what? Nuclear, while dependable is not exactly cheap either.
- ramesh31 3y agoThe solution depends on what you think the problem is. Climate change is just that. Not the end of the world. The earth is warming, that's a fact. But regardless of the cause, there doesn't seem to be much we can realistically do about it. So we'll adapt, and humanity will keep growing regardless. The solutions I'm interested in are along the lines of how we'll deal with that. It's an unprecedented area of possible innovation. Anywhere you have a gradient of net energy to a system, growth is inevitable.
- lolive 3y agoGrowth is a direct consequence of energy consumption. Lack of cheap energy will diminish growth.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 3seashells 3y agoWe need biome transplants to accelerate nature's adaption to the new normal.
- fomine3 3y agoNiches shouldn't be ignored but also not be overrated. I wonder does the author counts airplane as niche