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Being against Carbon Capture and geo-engineering is just following the science. Carbon capture has constantly been shown to just not work at any scale. and geo

Being against Carbon Capture and geo-engineering is just following the science. Carbon capture has constantly been shown to just not work at any scale. and geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point.

madsbuch 3y ago
can you make a scientific argument that carbon capture and geo engineering will not work at scale. if not, then you are just littering with words.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture if you account for the resource use for production and construction. Even when they do slightly better than breaking even the margin is so low that scaling it up is not a meaningful contribution relative to the amount of emissions we would need to counteract. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Geo engineering to the degree necessary to revert climate change is bad sci-fi, not science, no matter what billionaires selling personal EVs are telling you. On the other hand we know that we are seeing an immense problem of overproduction which is incentivized by the economic system and impossible to tackle by blaming consumers for bad choices and asking the industry nicely to reduce waste or letting them get away with greenwashing by planting trees and raising honey bees. We could change that but it would require significant market intervention, which we (most Western nations at least) have been ideologically opposed to for decades.
  - madsbuch 3y ago
    > Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture No, this statement only work under a certain set of assumptions (eg. source of energy). As I wrote to the sibling comment: Let's not mix up beliefs and scientific reasoning.
- stubish 3y ago
  It takes orders of magnitude more power to capture the carbon from the atmosphere than was gained putting it there in the first place. It requires sucking in and processing inconceivable quantities of air requiring inconceivable amounts of land for the facilities, because the carbon we need to capture has been released and distributed into the earths atmosphere. The engineering required to scale out any existing or envisioned technology to put a meaningful dent just on our yearly emissions is more than simply replacing the worlds energy production with zero emissions generation and storage.
  - madsbuch 3y ago
    Whether you can conceive the amounts of air and energy it requires is not really scientific arguments. A scientific argument transcends personal beliefs. You might believe that such a feat is inconceivable, but lets agree not to pollute the language any more by using the word "scientific" when we mean "believe".
newsclues 3y ago
You understand “following the science” arguments are stupid right?
- codetrotter 3y ago
  No. Why?
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    Because science just updates our beliefs, it doesn’t produce ‘truths’ that we can follow. See the Problem of Induction or the Duhem–Quine thesis.
    - hnbad 3y ago
      What do you think truth is other than confident beliefs? Nothing can produce "truths". If you want absolute truths, pick a holy text and decide for yourself what absolute truth you can pin on it.
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        You summarised my point nicely. What we call ‘truth’ is just the beliefs we think are most accurate. ‘Just follow the science’ is silly because it essentially means following beliefs on faith without questioning whether they are the best theory. In many cases the better theory goes against the consensus. E.g. mothers who ‘just followed the science’ and took Thalidomide caused their children untold suffering. They could have been skeptical but instead they had faith in science, which was unfortunately done badly.
  - newsclues 3y ago
    It’s a process not an end state. “Follow science” and ‘follow “the” science’ are two different things, and we just need to go back in history to understand that humans did some horrible stuff because of “the” science.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wahnfrieden 3y ago
Ideologues won’t accept it because they are waiting for a technology solution and these are the best they’ve seen offered so far. Their optimism is predicated on market driven technology solutions saving us quickly enough. Negativity toward their favorite technology solutions is interpreted as pessimism toward their ideology.
brutusborn 3y ago
Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. It’s in its infancy, but so were solar panels decades ago, and we didn’t give up on them. We don’t have enough data on geoengineering to judge yet, there is no real science to follow. Also I don’t understand this attitude of rejecting potential solutions outright. Science doesn’t “prove” things, we can’t ‘follow’ it due to the problem of induction. So we should stay open minded and support all potential solutions, not just those we like best.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Without a massive amount of renewable energy we won’t be able use CCS at scale.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    Why not? If we burn gas using CCS and develop a lot of nuclear, we wouldn’t even need renewable energy. I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it’s not essential (and may actually be a distraction in e.g. Germany where it has displaced nuclear development and resulted in coal plants being reopened).
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      I should have said "clean energy", you are obviously right about nuclear power.
- bertil 3y ago
  > Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. [Citation needed]
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    If I must spoon feed you… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_storage_projects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_s...
legitster 3y ago
> geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point. This doesn't sound like a terribly scientific assessment. Climate change is either an environmental disaster and geoengineering would be a huge risk - or climate change is an existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose. Which is it?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
  >existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose Being under threat doesn't justify making things worst. I know I'll die some day but that's not a reason to be suicidal.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    Existential threat means things can’t get worse (you just stop existing). Ignoring the potential of geoengineering implies you are sure that we have a better solution which will work. I hope we don’t have to use geoengineering but I am certain the status quo of hoping renewables and batteries in the 1st world will save us is not going to work.
    - IlliOnato 3y ago
      Threat is not certainty. If somebody is out there to kill you, you are under an existential threat, until they are caught. It's not a reason to start playing Russian roulette, saying "I'm already in danger, cannot get worse than that!"
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        The same logic applies to shutting down oil and gas production: if we are not certain, then why risk the downsides? I’m not saying this is a good way to think, just that it shows the fault in your logic.
        3y ago
barbazoo 3y ago
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?CCPAOptOut=true&campaign_id=54&free_trial=0&instance_id=112863&nl=climate-forward&paid_regi=1&segment_id=155689&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F8db1b143-cb3f-5bff-b3c9-a57600403119 https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/ren... The rich love using future carbon capture to justify present day inaction.
downWidOutaFite 3y ago
Trying to capture carbon out of the air makes zero sense besides as anti climate change propaganda. Why wouldn't you capture the carbon at the source of the emission where it is much more concentrated? I'll tell you why, because then the cost is born by the emitter but they'd rather shift that cost onto society as a whole.

madsbuch 3y ago

can you make a scientific argument that carbon capture and geo engineering will not work at scale. if not, then you are just littering with words.

hnbad 3y ago
Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture if you account for the resource use for production and construction. Even when they do slightly better than breaking even the margin is so low that scaling it up is not a meaningful contribution relative to the amount of emissions we would need to counteract. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Geo engineering to the degree necessary to revert climate change is bad sci-fi, not science, no matter what billionaires selling personal EVs are telling you. On the other hand we know that we are seeing an immense problem of overproduction which is incentivized by the economic system and impossible to tackle by blaming consumers for bad choices and asking the industry nicely to reduce waste or letting them get away with greenwashing by planting trees and raising honey bees. We could change that but it would require significant market intervention, which we (most Western nations at least) have been ideologically opposed to for decades.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  > Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture No, this statement only work under a certain set of assumptions (eg. source of energy). As I wrote to the sibling comment: Let's not mix up beliefs and scientific reasoning.
stubish 3y ago
It takes orders of magnitude more power to capture the carbon from the atmosphere than was gained putting it there in the first place. It requires sucking in and processing inconceivable quantities of air requiring inconceivable amounts of land for the facilities, because the carbon we need to capture has been released and distributed into the earths atmosphere. The engineering required to scale out any existing or envisioned technology to put a meaningful dent just on our yearly emissions is more than simply replacing the worlds energy production with zero emissions generation and storage.
- madsbuch 3y ago
  Whether you can conceive the amounts of air and energy it requires is not really scientific arguments. A scientific argument transcends personal beliefs. You might believe that such a feat is inconceivable, but lets agree not to pollute the language any more by using the word "scientific" when we mean "believe".

newsclues 3y ago

You understand “following the science” arguments are stupid right?

codetrotter 3y ago
No. Why?
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Because science just updates our beliefs, it doesn’t produce ‘truths’ that we can follow. See the Problem of Induction or the Duhem–Quine thesis.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    What do you think truth is other than confident beliefs? Nothing can produce "truths". If you want absolute truths, pick a holy text and decide for yourself what absolute truth you can pin on it.
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      You summarised my point nicely. What we call ‘truth’ is just the beliefs we think are most accurate. ‘Just follow the science’ is silly because it essentially means following beliefs on faith without questioning whether they are the best theory. In many cases the better theory goes against the consensus. E.g. mothers who ‘just followed the science’ and took Thalidomide caused their children untold suffering. They could have been skeptical but instead they had faith in science, which was unfortunately done badly.
- newsclues 3y ago
  It’s a process not an end state. “Follow science” and ‘follow “the” science’ are two different things, and we just need to go back in history to understand that humans did some horrible stuff because of “the” science.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wahnfrieden 3y ago

Ideologues won’t accept it because they are waiting for a technology solution and these are the best they’ve seen offered so far. Their optimism is predicated on market driven technology solutions saving us quickly enough. Negativity toward their favorite technology solutions is interpreted as pessimism toward their ideology.

brutusborn 3y ago

Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. It’s in its infancy, but so were solar panels decades ago, and we didn’t give up on them. We don’t have enough data on geoengineering to judge yet, there is no real science to follow. Also I don’t understand this attitude of rejecting potential solutions outright. Science doesn’t “prove” things, we can’t ‘follow’ it due to the problem of induction. So we should stay open minded and support all potential solutions, not just those we like best.

barbazoo 3y ago
Without a massive amount of renewable energy we won’t be able use CCS at scale.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Why not? If we burn gas using CCS and develop a lot of nuclear, we wouldn’t even need renewable energy. I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it’s not essential (and may actually be a distraction in e.g. Germany where it has displaced nuclear development and resulted in coal plants being reopened).
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    I should have said "clean energy", you are obviously right about nuclear power.
bertil 3y ago
> Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. [Citation needed]
- brutusborn 3y ago
  If I must spoon feed you… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_storage_projects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_s...

legitster 3y ago

> geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point. This doesn't sound like a terribly scientific assessment. Climate change is either an environmental disaster and geoengineering would be a huge risk - or climate change is an existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose. Which is it?

rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
>existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose Being under threat doesn't justify making things worst. I know I'll die some day but that's not a reason to be suicidal.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Existential threat means things can’t get worse (you just stop existing). Ignoring the potential of geoengineering implies you are sure that we have a better solution which will work. I hope we don’t have to use geoengineering but I am certain the status quo of hoping renewables and batteries in the 1st world will save us is not going to work.
  - IlliOnato 3y ago
    Threat is not certainty. If somebody is out there to kill you, you are under an existential threat, until they are caught. It's not a reason to start playing Russian roulette, saying "I'm already in danger, cannot get worse than that!"
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      The same logic applies to shutting down oil and gas production: if we are not certain, then why risk the downsides? I’m not saying this is a good way to think, just that it shows the fault in your logic.
      - 3y ago

barbazoo 3y ago

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?CCPAOptOut=true&campaign_id=54&free_trial=0&instance_id=112863&nl=climate-forward&paid_regi=1&segment_id=155689&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F8db1b143-cb3f-5bff-b3c9-a57600403119 https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/ren... The rich love using future carbon capture to justify present day inaction.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago

Trying to capture carbon out of the air makes zero sense besides as anti climate change propaganda. Why wouldn't you capture the carbon at the source of the emission where it is much more concentrated? I'll tell you why, because then the cost is born by the emitter but they'd rather shift that cost onto society as a whole.