4 ms·

World population is till going up. Economic growth is still going up. Oil and Coal production is still going up. No sign of a peak to me.

by rr808 3y ago

epistasis 3y ago
What the peak means is that economic growth will now decrease emissions. There's a bunch of downright wrong thinking that we can somehow stop climate change with asceticism. But we can't. It's not a solution. It can at best do a marginal decrease in emissions, we need to eliminate and then start massive amounts of carbon removal, on the order of 5 gigatons per year. We need to massively increase economic growth in order to save the environment, because the newer cleaner techs will create cheaper energy and massive economic growth as they massively reduce our environmental impact. There's some sort of weird religious belief that economic growth is tied to environmental destruction, but it is not based in fact, merely faith. And it's a very harmful belief to actually improving the environment.
- rr808 3y ago
  The growth I was talking about was more about the few billion people that have been dragged out of poverty and can now afford cars, AC, flying. I think that will out-emit anything the developed world does in going green.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    I'm not so sure, because the question is how they will get their energy. Will it be from a big grid with natural gas powering it? Most likely not, because in developing areas it's going to be far far far cheaper to power a mini-split with a few cheap solar panels and a small battery than it will be to deploy a massive grid and all the maintenance, etc. The cheapest new energy is carbon free, meaning that new load will be coming from zero carbon sources. As the cost curves change more, this trend will get even more extreme. Right now in developed countries, there's enough entrenched interests, political propaganda, and an older set of decision makers in industry that we don't fully yet see how the technology landscape has changed. But in developing areas of the world, they won't be burdened by our same baggage.
- eigenspace 3y ago
  > There's some sort of weird religious belief that economic growth is tied to environmental destruction, but it is not based in fact, merely faith. And it's a very harmful belief to actually improving the environment. While I definitely agree with this, let's not pretend that the opposite state of mind (the free market will solve it!) isn't also a wildly destructive and misleading point-of-view when externalities aren't priced in to the economic costs of pollution.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    I do not see those as opposite states of mind. However, I may not have the best perception of how the general public thinks. The older I get, the more I think "free market" is a completely incoherent concept that generally gets applied by its advocates to mean "tile the game in favor of me." I view all markets as mostly construction of culture and tradition, and what is "free" requires some conception of "freedom" and for some that means "freedom for me to exploit you" and for others it means "no laws except the special laws and police, for which I won't bother justifying why they are needed other than it feels right."
- nick__m 3y ago
  I wonder how did you get to 5 gigatons per year and for how long do you think CO2 should be removed from the air ? If the emissions magically went to 0 now, would you still suggest that we scrub 5 gigatons per year ?
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Good question, I'm thinking specifically of maintaining 1.5C, as outlined in the IPCC Specialt Report, for example figure 2.5 here: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/ It's quite likely that our delayed reaction we will need to do 10-20GT/year for the second half of this century, indefinitely.
    - nick__m 3y ago
      thanks, I now get where your number are coming from and it make sense

World population is till going up. Economic growth is still going up. Oil and Coal production is still going up. No sign of a peak to me.

by rr808 3y ago

World population is till going up. Economic growth is still going up. Oil and Coal production is still going up. No sign of a peak to me.

epistasis 3y ago

What the peak means is that economic growth will now decrease emissions. There's a bunch of downright wrong thinking that we can somehow stop climate change with asceticism. But we can't. It's not a solution. It can at best do a marginal decrease in emissions, we need to eliminate and then start massive amounts of carbon removal, on the order of 5 gigatons per year. We need to massively increase economic growth in order to save the environment, because the newer cleaner techs will create cheaper energy and massive economic growth as they massively reduce our environmental impact. There's some sort of weird religious belief that economic growth is tied to environmental destruction, but it is not based in fact, merely faith. And it's a very harmful belief to actually improving the environment.

rr808 3y ago
The growth I was talking about was more about the few billion people that have been dragged out of poverty and can now afford cars, AC, flying. I think that will out-emit anything the developed world does in going green.
- epistasis 3y ago
  I'm not so sure, because the question is how they will get their energy. Will it be from a big grid with natural gas powering it? Most likely not, because in developing areas it's going to be far far far cheaper to power a mini-split with a few cheap solar panels and a small battery than it will be to deploy a massive grid and all the maintenance, etc. The cheapest new energy is carbon free, meaning that new load will be coming from zero carbon sources. As the cost curves change more, this trend will get even more extreme. Right now in developed countries, there's enough entrenched interests, political propaganda, and an older set of decision makers in industry that we don't fully yet see how the technology landscape has changed. But in developing areas of the world, they won't be burdened by our same baggage.
eigenspace 3y ago
> There's some sort of weird religious belief that economic growth is tied to environmental destruction, but it is not based in fact, merely faith. And it's a very harmful belief to actually improving the environment. While I definitely agree with this, let's not pretend that the opposite state of mind (the free market will solve it!) isn't also a wildly destructive and misleading point-of-view when externalities aren't priced in to the economic costs of pollution.
- epistasis 3y ago
  I do not see those as opposite states of mind. However, I may not have the best perception of how the general public thinks. The older I get, the more I think "free market" is a completely incoherent concept that generally gets applied by its advocates to mean "tile the game in favor of me." I view all markets as mostly construction of culture and tradition, and what is "free" requires some conception of "freedom" and for some that means "freedom for me to exploit you" and for others it means "no laws except the special laws and police, for which I won't bother justifying why they are needed other than it feels right."
nick__m 3y ago
I wonder how did you get to 5 gigatons per year and for how long do you think CO2 should be removed from the air ? If the emissions magically went to 0 now, would you still suggest that we scrub 5 gigatons per year ?
- epistasis 3y ago
  Good question, I'm thinking specifically of maintaining 1.5C, as outlined in the IPCC Specialt Report, for example figure 2.5 here: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/ It's quite likely that our delayed reaction we will need to do 10-20GT/year for the second half of this century, indefinitely.
  - nick__m 3y ago
    thanks, I now get where your number are coming from and it make sense