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I have some hope for a technological solution to the climate change problem. However, I constantly struggle with the question, what if we are wrong? What if we

I have some hope for a technological solution to the climate change problem. However, I constantly struggle with the question, what if we are wrong? What if we will not be able to fix it fast enough? We are sitting on our hands and praying for a deus ex machina to save us from ecological collapse, when we should be actively striving for a sustainable society. So, in addition to being hopeful for technological innovation, we must advocate for widespread systemic change, so that we would not even need technology to fix the problem for us. This includes destroying the inherently unsustainable supply chain and in its place constructing a supply cycle. We need to abolish landfills, and require all (at least industrially) produced goods to have a clear recycling strategy. Sustainability is a problem that needs to be solved socially as well as technologically.

irrational 2y ago
The things you are describing are not going to make a material difference. Ground all plane travel, permanently. Ground all car and truck transportation that is not electric, permanently. No electricity generation except by solar, wind, wave, nuclear, etc., permanently. Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently.
- StephenSmith 2y ago
  AKA kill half the worlds population
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    I have a head sci-fi story of us creating a super powerful AI that solves almost all of humanity's and the Earths problems by curating a selection of 250,000 ideal humans, and then killing everyone else. A quarter million good people living in a near perfect world propped up by AI robots with essentially infinite resources. I'm almost positive I wouldn't make the cut, the top .003% has gotta be a higher bar than me to clear, hah. But still fun to think about.
    - nescioquid 2y ago
      In the early 20th century, arguments against eugenics included pointing out that natural selection works through environmental pressures. Selecting for traits we value currently may well paint us in a corner should the environmental pressures change in some way. I guess that might hint at a fly in the ointment to drive the plot...
      - Workaccount2 2y ago
        The AI would determine the ideal traits/mix of traits, not humans.
        nescioquid 2y ago
        woosh
    - antifa 2y ago
      Maybe the plot twist should be that the AI makes a big deal out of the selection process, then instead just kills those 250,000 people.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  Sounds like solutions straight out of https://play.half.earth/ https://play.half.earth/
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  So, your plan is to get rid of both artificial fertilizers (use methane for Haber-Bosch), and natural fertilizers (livestock manure)?
  - phreeza 2y ago
    The methane feedstocks for Haber-Bosch probably don't come from cow stomach though, right?
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      Presumably they'd come fracking shale. But if you want to hook up a few million hoses to cowbutts, I'm not stopping you.
  - yareal 2y ago
    It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. You've constructed a strawman.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      > It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. You don't even understand. The methane's mostly for the hydrogen, used to make ammonia or some other nitrogen compound. There are other ways of making this, Birkeland Eyde, for instance, but there like one third as efficient, at best. This means people starve. You might make the case that we could efficiently use livestock manure as a substitute (it's the green solution), but not if you're going to turn this into Planet Vegan. Given the necessity of animal manure, it's difficult to think that "get rid of all the livestock" stems from anything other than bizarre vegan tendencies. If you absolutely have to get rid of the livestock, so be it, but then you really do need the fossil fuels. Pick, it's one or the other as far as I can tell. > And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. Nope. You've got livestock (hogs, poultry, etc), or you've got fossil-fuel-based Haber-Bosch. I'm not even really aware of any science fiction concepts "other paths".
- pstuart 2y ago
  Solutions that are not "acceptable enough" are not solutions, they are notions. We can still "have it all" -- flight, meat, etc., if the right incentives exist; this too is more notion than solution but is the only possible path. We can make "sustainable" fuel, and cattle can be fed seaweed and restricted to existing range lands (i.e., don't destroy more forests). A key problem is that this issue and associated solutions have been artfully politicized by their incumbent stakeholders so a significant portion of the population will resist these efforts purely out of spite.
- JPLeRouzic 2y ago
  > "Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently" A dangerous idea, there are fewer cattle than humans on Earth, even if we add sheep, goats and pigs, there are still more humans. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts
alwayscould 2y ago
What was magical about COVID was the ability to see a blue sky in China and India, people still had food, shelter and fornicated. COVID showed you that we could have a cleaner environment and have the basics provided.
- model-15-DAV 2y ago
  COVID also gave us clear knowledge that it is easy to define socially necessary labor. Most jobs out here in the USA are downright bullshit jobs, and our 'labor' only contributes further to the current ecocide.
immibis 2y ago
We definitely won't be able to fix it fast enough. And the answer to "what happens?" is simply: Darwin. There is already historical precedent for what happens when a species makes the planet uninhabitable for nearly everything: after the evolution of photosynthesis, the atmosphere filled up with extremely toxic waste product known as oxygen gas, driving most species to extinction. The ecology recovered, with new species, millions of years later. Rich people won't survive in their bunkers, either.
- model-15-DAV 2y ago
  I reject your argument entirely. Your nihilistic thinking is what continues the crisis. Reject the void, choose productivity, and work to make the world better.
  - immibis 2y ago
    You can if you want, but the rest of the world is still going to continue trying to drive you extinct anyway, so you'd rather have a plan for that, than not.
karaterobot 2y ago
> when we should be actively striving for a sustainable society Sorry to sound frustrated, but this is an argument for 60 years ago. It's irrelevant today. The die is cast. There is no situation when we will not even need technology to fix the problem for us, except the one where we just give up and say "fuck it". No models show an insignificant rise in global temperature, even if all emissions stopped today, and there is no foreseeable scenario in which all emissions stop even in the next 50 years. We need to get with the program. It sucks, we don't want it to be this way, but we are basically down to science and engineering solutions rather than regulatory or ground-level change. Not saying we don't also need systemic change, just that is is not sufficient at this point.
- model-15-DAV 2y ago
  I certainly do not want to go back in time to a pre-industrial society. I do want to go _forward_ into a truly post industrial society though, and not simply hide the dirty industries into the poorer parts of the world. But, the technology must be met with an ideological shift away from technological dependence. We need to create more environmental technology, and less representational technology - interfaces and screens. The software revolution is yet to happen, that is what I aim for.
SamPatt 2y ago
Abolishing landfills? What exactly would this do? There's an ungodly amount of free space on earth. Drive outside a major city sometime. Preventing people from dumping on unused land in order to reduce emissions seems ... ridiculous?
- model-15-DAV 2y ago
  Today, our industries abuse our planet's resources for the short term benefit of all of us. Abolishing landfills is a confirmation that we are past such a myopic technological level. We no longer need them. > Drive outside a major city sometime. Growing up in the suburbs, I understand this quite well. But this land is not ours just because it is there and unused. We need to return a majority of the earth back to the ecology. Monkeys are falling out of trees in Mexico, 50% of bugs and birds are dead due to the ecocide, I could go on. Just referencing 'unused land' as if it is ours to use by default is a gross misunderstanding and human-centric approach to ecology. There is more than us here.
  - SamPatt 2y ago
    I am unabashedly human-centric, and only people suffering from affluenza think otherwise. Read "The Improving State of the World" by Indur Goklany.
    - model-15-DAV 2y ago
      Talk about affluenza, telling someone 'go read theory'. Put your arguments in your own words.
      - 0xdde 2y ago
        That book doesn't even rise to the level of "theory." Just drivel from a notorious climate denier.
squigz 2y ago
> what if we are wrong? Then we're wrong, and it doesn't matter. If we're wrong, what's the point in questioning it? > We are sitting on our hands and praying for a deus ex machina to save us from ecological collapse Well... no, we're not. Millions of people are working every day on the technology needed to solve these issues either directly (i.e., better pollution control on factories) or indirectly (i.e,. developing cleaner energy) This isn't to say we all should just sit back and wait for the scientists to come up with an answer - we do very much need to fix many other issues as well, as you point out - but please let's not pretend that a) WE'RE DOOMED! or b) that we're just waiting for a "miracle" or some kind of "breakthrough" to save us

irrational 2y ago

The things you are describing are not going to make a material difference. Ground all plane travel, permanently. Ground all car and truck transportation that is not electric, permanently. No electricity generation except by solar, wind, wave, nuclear, etc., permanently. Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently.

StephenSmith 2y ago
AKA kill half the worlds population
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I have a head sci-fi story of us creating a super powerful AI that solves almost all of humanity's and the Earths problems by curating a selection of 250,000 ideal humans, and then killing everyone else. A quarter million good people living in a near perfect world propped up by AI robots with essentially infinite resources. I'm almost positive I wouldn't make the cut, the top .003% has gotta be a higher bar than me to clear, hah. But still fun to think about.
  - nescioquid 2y ago
    In the early 20th century, arguments against eugenics included pointing out that natural selection works through environmental pressures. Selecting for traits we value currently may well paint us in a corner should the environmental pressures change in some way. I guess that might hint at a fly in the ointment to drive the plot...
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      The AI would determine the ideal traits/mix of traits, not humans.
      - nescioquid 2y ago
        woosh
  - antifa 2y ago
    Maybe the plot twist should be that the AI makes a big deal out of the selection process, then instead just kills those 250,000 people.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
Sounds like solutions straight out of https://play.half.earth/ https://play.half.earth/
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
So, your plan is to get rid of both artificial fertilizers (use methane for Haber-Bosch), and natural fertilizers (livestock manure)?
- phreeza 2y ago
  The methane feedstocks for Haber-Bosch probably don't come from cow stomach though, right?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    Presumably they'd come fracking shale. But if you want to hook up a few million hoses to cowbutts, I'm not stopping you.
- yareal 2y ago
  It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. You've constructed a strawman.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    > It's expensive but we could absolutely produce green methane with renewable energy. You don't even understand. The methane's mostly for the hydrogen, used to make ammonia or some other nitrogen compound. There are other ways of making this, Birkeland Eyde, for instance, but there like one third as efficient, at best. This means people starve. You might make the case that we could efficiently use livestock manure as a substitute (it's the green solution), but not if you're going to turn this into Planet Vegan. Given the necessity of animal manure, it's difficult to think that "get rid of all the livestock" stems from anything other than bizarre vegan tendencies. If you absolutely have to get rid of the livestock, so be it, but then you really do need the fossil fuels. Pick, it's one or the other as far as I can tell. > And there are natural fertilizer paths that aren't cattle. Nope. You've got livestock (hogs, poultry, etc), or you've got fossil-fuel-based Haber-Bosch. I'm not even really aware of any science fiction concepts "other paths".
pstuart 2y ago
Solutions that are not "acceptable enough" are not solutions, they are notions. We can still "have it all" -- flight, meat, etc., if the right incentives exist; this too is more notion than solution but is the only possible path. We can make "sustainable" fuel, and cattle can be fed seaweed and restricted to existing range lands (i.e., don't destroy more forests). A key problem is that this issue and associated solutions have been artfully politicized by their incumbent stakeholders so a significant portion of the population will resist these efforts purely out of spite.
JPLeRouzic 2y ago
> "Kill all cows and have a giant BBQ and then no more methane producing livestock are allowed, permanently" A dangerous idea, there are fewer cattle than humans on Earth, even if we add sheep, goats and pigs, there are still more humans. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/livestock-counts

alwayscould 2y ago

What was magical about COVID was the ability to see a blue sky in China and India, people still had food, shelter and fornicated. COVID showed you that we could have a cleaner environment and have the basics provided.

model-15-DAV 2y ago
COVID also gave us clear knowledge that it is easy to define socially necessary labor. Most jobs out here in the USA are downright bullshit jobs, and our 'labor' only contributes further to the current ecocide.

immibis 2y ago

We definitely won't be able to fix it fast enough. And the answer to "what happens?" is simply: Darwin. There is already historical precedent for what happens when a species makes the planet uninhabitable for nearly everything: after the evolution of photosynthesis, the atmosphere filled up with extremely toxic waste product known as oxygen gas, driving most species to extinction. The ecology recovered, with new species, millions of years later. Rich people won't survive in their bunkers, either.

model-15-DAV 2y ago
I reject your argument entirely. Your nihilistic thinking is what continues the crisis. Reject the void, choose productivity, and work to make the world better.
- immibis 2y ago
  You can if you want, but the rest of the world is still going to continue trying to drive you extinct anyway, so you'd rather have a plan for that, than not.

karaterobot 2y ago

> when we should be actively striving for a sustainable society Sorry to sound frustrated, but this is an argument for 60 years ago. It's irrelevant today. The die is cast. There is no situation when we will not even need technology to fix the problem for us, except the one where we just give up and say "fuck it". No models show an insignificant rise in global temperature, even if all emissions stopped today, and there is no foreseeable scenario in which all emissions stop even in the next 50 years. We need to get with the program. It sucks, we don't want it to be this way, but we are basically down to science and engineering solutions rather than regulatory or ground-level change. Not saying we don't also need systemic change, just that is is not sufficient at this point.

model-15-DAV 2y ago
I certainly do not want to go back in time to a pre-industrial society. I do want to go _forward_ into a truly post industrial society though, and not simply hide the dirty industries into the poorer parts of the world. But, the technology must be met with an ideological shift away from technological dependence. We need to create more environmental technology, and less representational technology - interfaces and screens. The software revolution is yet to happen, that is what I aim for.

SamPatt 2y ago

Abolishing landfills? What exactly would this do? There's an ungodly amount of free space on earth. Drive outside a major city sometime. Preventing people from dumping on unused land in order to reduce emissions seems ... ridiculous?

model-15-DAV 2y ago
Today, our industries abuse our planet's resources for the short term benefit of all of us. Abolishing landfills is a confirmation that we are past such a myopic technological level. We no longer need them. > Drive outside a major city sometime. Growing up in the suburbs, I understand this quite well. But this land is not ours just because it is there and unused. We need to return a majority of the earth back to the ecology. Monkeys are falling out of trees in Mexico, 50% of bugs and birds are dead due to the ecocide, I could go on. Just referencing 'unused land' as if it is ours to use by default is a gross misunderstanding and human-centric approach to ecology. There is more than us here.
- SamPatt 2y ago
  I am unabashedly human-centric, and only people suffering from affluenza think otherwise. Read "The Improving State of the World" by Indur Goklany.
  - model-15-DAV 2y ago
    Talk about affluenza, telling someone 'go read theory'. Put your arguments in your own words.
    - 0xdde 2y ago
      That book doesn't even rise to the level of "theory." Just drivel from a notorious climate denier.

squigz 2y ago

> what if we are wrong? Then we're wrong, and it doesn't matter. If we're wrong, what's the point in questioning it? > We are sitting on our hands and praying for a deus ex machina to save us from ecological collapse Well... no, we're not. Millions of people are working every day on the technology needed to solve these issues either directly (i.e., better pollution control on factories) or indirectly (i.e,. developing cleaner energy) This isn't to say we all should just sit back and wait for the scientists to come up with an answer - we do very much need to fix many other issues as well, as you point out - but please let's not pretend that a) WE'RE DOOMED! or b) that we're just waiting for a "miracle" or some kind of "breakthrough" to save us