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This would take decades at least, we need something else in our back pocket in case millions start to die from heat exhaustion. Even if somehow we stop all CO2

This would take decades at least, we need something else in our back pocket in case millions start to die from heat exhaustion. Even if somehow we stop all CO2 emissions today, the earth will continue to warm for like a couple more centuries.

_heimdall 3y ago
What would take decades? Nearly every business switched to work from home in a matter of weeks because the fear of a pandemic gripped most politicians. Why couldn't we do that now to reduce our use of oil? The fact is we have a massive amount of waste in the system that we just aren't willing to give up. How much could be saved if we didn't expect that every McDonalds in the country could provide the exact same menu anytime, anywhere? Or if we stopping buying new cloths just to kill time? Or if we no longer had holiday traditions based entirely on consumerism of gifts that almost certainly weren't built to last and we didn't need in the first place? None of this has to be all or nothing, but it does require societies to tilt the scales on how highly we prioritize modern economics and convenience. We don't have to get rid of all use of oil, cars, gift giving, etc. We just need to decide that reducing our use as much as possible is worth the effort.
- seiferteric 3y ago
  I don't mean to be rude, but are you aware that CO2 emissions continue to _increase_ year after year? That despite the world's apparent effort, we have actually made _no_ progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions globally? Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame?
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    Our use of oil has also continued. We like to collectively talk about reduction but its incremental at best, and not enough to keep up with increased consumption elsewhere or actually meaningfully reduce anything. > Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame? In the context of this thread, there's a bit of a false dichotomy here. You're asking why I should expect that people can choose to make a meaningful reduction in consumption as an alternative to filling the atmosphere with theoretical solutions that have never been tested before and who's impacts are unknown. Are you proposing that because people don't care enough to reduce consumption we should just let the authorities in charge spray a bunch of chemicals into the atmosphere and hope it works?
    - seiferteric 3y ago
      There is no false dichotomy because we absolutely should be reducing our emissions as much as possible and I never said otherwise, it's just that it probably won't be enough to achieve any significant cooling effect in a reasonable time scale to prevent the scenario described in TFA. It's possible we will see mass death in the coming decades due to extreme heat events. I am just saying we should be preparing alternative courses of action rather than putting all our eggs in the hope basket.
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        Wouldn't it still be leaning on that hope basket to intervene in the entire atmosphere with an untested solution that may help slow or reverse climate change, but may also have unintended side effects that actually make things worse? One interesting example from very recent research. In just the last couple of years we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it? Well it turns out that ocean temperatures actually rose in the open ocean where almost all traffic is diesel. The research I suggesting that the sulfur was actually helping to block out some of the sun's energy and was acting as a cooling agent. The well thought out and well reasoned approach to diesel emissions back fired and made things worse.
        MagnumOpus 3y ago
        > we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it Nice story, but the drive to reduce SOx and other particulate emissions is not because of climate chance but because of localized health concerns: because of the respiratory impact of SOx and soot to the lungs of people on coastlines and in port cities. By the way, Dieselgate is a similar story - the illegally-increased SOx, NOx and particulate emissions of those diesel engines were created in order to decrease fuel consumption and thus climate change impact. Cracking down on Dieselgate helped people living near the car exhausts but hurt the climate as a secondary effect...
  - itishappy 3y ago
    As a counterpoint, the latest IPCC model saw a reduction in the worst case scenario. We seem likely to have missed the 1.5°C average warming cutoff, but the worse case (8.5°C iirc) seems unlikely as well.

_heimdall 3y ago

What would take decades? Nearly every business switched to work from home in a matter of weeks because the fear of a pandemic gripped most politicians. Why couldn't we do that now to reduce our use of oil? The fact is we have a massive amount of waste in the system that we just aren't willing to give up. How much could be saved if we didn't expect that every McDonalds in the country could provide the exact same menu anytime, anywhere? Or if we stopping buying new cloths just to kill time? Or if we no longer had holiday traditions based entirely on consumerism of gifts that almost certainly weren't built to last and we didn't need in the first place? None of this has to be all or nothing, but it does require societies to tilt the scales on how highly we prioritize modern economics and convenience. We don't have to get rid of all use of oil, cars, gift giving, etc. We just need to decide that reducing our use as much as possible is worth the effort.

seiferteric 3y ago
I don't mean to be rude, but are you aware that CO2 emissions continue to _increase_ year after year? That despite the world's apparent effort, we have actually made _no_ progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions globally? Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame?
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Our use of oil has also continued. We like to collectively talk about reduction but its incremental at best, and not enough to keep up with increased consumption elsewhere or actually meaningfully reduce anything. > Given this reality, how do you expect to achieve your goals in a reasonable time-frame? In the context of this thread, there's a bit of a false dichotomy here. You're asking why I should expect that people can choose to make a meaningful reduction in consumption as an alternative to filling the atmosphere with theoretical solutions that have never been tested before and who's impacts are unknown. Are you proposing that because people don't care enough to reduce consumption we should just let the authorities in charge spray a bunch of chemicals into the atmosphere and hope it works?
  - seiferteric 3y ago
    There is no false dichotomy because we absolutely should be reducing our emissions as much as possible and I never said otherwise, it's just that it probably won't be enough to achieve any significant cooling effect in a reasonable time scale to prevent the scenario described in TFA. It's possible we will see mass death in the coming decades due to extreme heat events. I am just saying we should be preparing alternative courses of action rather than putting all our eggs in the hope basket.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      Wouldn't it still be leaning on that hope basket to intervene in the entire atmosphere with an untested solution that may help slow or reverse climate change, but may also have unintended side effects that actually make things worse? One interesting example from very recent research. In just the last couple of years we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it? Well it turns out that ocean temperatures actually rose in the open ocean where almost all traffic is diesel. The research I suggesting that the sulfur was actually helping to block out some of the sun's energy and was acting as a cooling agent. The well thought out and well reasoned approach to diesel emissions back fired and made things worse.
      - MagnumOpus 3y ago
        > we began enforcing reduced sulfur emissions from diesel motors in international waters. The expectation was that would help with climate change, how couldn't it Nice story, but the drive to reduce SOx and other particulate emissions is not because of climate chance but because of localized health concerns: because of the respiratory impact of SOx and soot to the lungs of people on coastlines and in port cities. By the way, Dieselgate is a similar story - the illegally-increased SOx, NOx and particulate emissions of those diesel engines were created in order to decrease fuel consumption and thus climate change impact. Cracking down on Dieselgate helped people living near the car exhausts but hurt the climate as a secondary effect...
- itishappy 3y ago
  As a counterpoint, the latest IPCC model saw a reduction in the worst case scenario. We seem likely to have missed the 1.5°C average warming cutoff, but the worse case (8.5°C iirc) seems unlikely as well.