5 ms·

I believe the causation runs the other way. The IPCC was founded in 1988, when CO2 emissions were 22 gigatons per year. Nearly four decades later it's 40 gt/y,

I believe the causation runs the other way. The IPCC was founded in 1988, when CO2 emissions were 22 gigatons per year. Nearly four decades later it's 40 gt/y, and continuing to rise. Doomerism is the reaction to our utter failure to even pretend to try. It did not cause that failure. Nor are people looking at the data and going, "yeah, I ought to do something, but people on Hacker News were gloomy so I'm going to buy a bigger SUV instead." EVs and solar and suchlike are much, much, much too little and much, much, much too late. Doomerism doesn't help, except in the extremely limited sense of helping someone express their frustration. But it also isn't hurting because we'd be doing exactly the same nothing if they were cheerful.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
We were asleep at the wheel for maybe 20 years too long on renewables, but the pace over the last 10+ years has been mind-boggling, and especially the pace the last 4 years. Nothing is going to turn that tide meaningfully. I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. Rome wasn't built in a day.
- silver_silver 2y ago
  In my mind the only realistic solution left is to make up the difference with solar radiation management, and I would bet it’s what will end up happening
  - rwyinuse 2y ago
    Yes, global geoengineering will be probably deployed to buy us some time to get off fossil fuels.
  - idunnoman1222 2y ago
    You won’t be able to stop poor countries from spraying aerosol into the stratosphere if it gets too hot on the ground
- cogman10 2y ago
  > I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. Depends on what you mean by "ounce of reality". In reality, there's little that can be currently done mainly because of political policy. That's unlikely to change. But, assuming policy could be changed, then there is actually quite a bit that could reduce emissions substantially much faster. Carbon taxes, better policies around railways (perhaps nationalizing and expanding ala india), more subsidies for renewable generation and battery production (perhaps funded by carbon taxes?). Stronger regulations on private vehicles (perhaps ban personal private ownership of large trucks and suvs?). But also trade deals and modernization efforts/investments with lagging countries to help them develop carbon free economies. Now, I don't think policy change is likely. I do however think there are quiet a few policies that could significantly drive change faster than it is already going.
  - rob74 2y ago
    Well, when even moderate gas price increases lead to either mass protests (e.g. https://apnews.com/article/colombia-protests-fuel-price-hikes-petro-82d56dd2b3b43e6551e91b6373b95a73 https://apnews.com/article/colombia-protests-fuel-price-hike...) or the election of climate deniers (such as in the US), policy is (unfortunately for the climate) not going to change fast enough.
    - cogman10 2y ago
      A 50% gas hike isn't moderate. But I agree, it's something that'd have to be delicately done. Ideally phased in over time. I also agree, probably wouldn't be fast enough, just faster to significantly faster than what we are currently doing.
- leptons 2y ago
  Emissions will reduce substantially when the average temperature is 60C/140F across the globe. Life will be very different then.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > Rome wasn't built in a day. We only have a day. > I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. The problem is political. The idea that politics is fixed, unchangeable, is obviously false. For example, look at the radical changes since 2015.
- sillywalk 2y ago
  > We were asleep at the wheel for maybe 20 years too long on renewables, but the pace over the last 10+ years has been mind-boggling, and especially the pace the last 4 years. The construction of "renewables" requires massive amounts of emissions. "Renewables" do not move us towards 'net zero', because the critical part of the NET is the removal and storage of tens of billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, every year. Forever. At least that's my non-technical understanding of what "net zero" means. > I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. For anyone with "an ounce of reality"' we aren't reducing emissions. We haven't reduced our emissions at all. It's the opposite, they've gone up every year, I believe around 50-60 % since 1990 when we agreed to reduce them.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
    Emissions per kwh has gone down.
nojvek 2y ago
China is currently at the forefront of deploying renewable energy. They install more Solar than rest of the world combined. They are investing 100s of Billions in manufacturing cheaper solar panels and batteries. China now has >50% new cars sold as EVs. China sees this as an opportunity and delivering on it. Meanwhile majority of Americans voted for Trump, the sentiment is anti climate change and 'drill baby drill!'. The cheaper Solar and batteries become, the more they get deployed. Like we solved hole in the Ozone, I'm optimistic we'll transition to a net zero energy future but pessimistic that US may get left behind and it'll be too late for many of the industries to compete with China. We are too short term focused.
- rwyinuse 2y ago
  With upcoming US government it's starting to feel like the Chinese Communist party isn't all that bad in comparison. At least they aren't actively trying to kill future generations simply to protect big oil profits and to oppose democrats. I wouldn't be surprised if China overtakes the US completely in science and technology with the way things are going.
  - tap-snap-or-nap 2y ago
    People believed the same about Germany about a century ago, we know the path ahead did not end so well for anybody. This time around though, many nations possess nuclear weapons.
  - lovecg 2y ago
    Give it time. Centrally commanded dictatorships always seem to hum along right to the point of sudden collapse.
    - griffzhowl 2y ago
      Hmm, on the other hand you could argue that China has been a centrally commanded dictatorship in one form or another for over 2000 years
ericd 2y ago
The comically named Inflation Reduction Act included a tremendous amount of money for scaling up clean tech manufacturing in the US, and it’s been getting deployed quickly. The DOE Loan Programs Office got something like $400B in loan authority. Overall, the IRA was probably the largest single bit of climate action the US govt has ever taken. Unfortunately, people mostly hear about that work when it becomes part of political football (Solyndra and Tesla both got money from the DOE LPO to help them scale up, and the political fallout from Solyndra was the first time most people had heard of it). But it’s happening.
- einpoklum 2y ago
  > included a tremendous amount of money for scaling up clean tech manufacturing It included a moderate amount of money as stimulus to commercial companies which manufacture clean(? clean-er?) tech. The Biden administration has also "balanced" this by allowing for massive amounts of further drilling for fossil fuels. And even without the "balancing" - this is not remotely like an actual plan to convert the US to near-zero-emission energy production, in the immediate future, which is what's actually necessary.
  - ericd 2y ago
    $400B is moderate? Have there been other bills that have come anywhere close?
    - einpoklum 2y ago
      Did I say moderate? I should have said small. Remember this is $400B over a 10-year period, i.e. $40B per year. The US federal budget is $6.1T per year, so not even 1% of the annual budget. It is also small in terms of the extent of expenditure needed for such a conversion of the US energy production system. A cost estimate from 2019 suggested somewhere between $4.5T - $5.7T over the whole period: * https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/cost-of-transitioning-to-100-percent-renewable-energy/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/cost-of... * https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/renewable-us-grid-for-4-5-trillion https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/renewable-us-gr... so $400B - even if we could assume that all goes directly to achieving the goal, which it does not - is under 10%:
api 2y ago
No, doomerism discourages people from trying. It also comes from the same place intellectually as the luddite wing of the green movement, which is one major reason we didn't replace coal with nuclear energy decades ago. (The others being that coal is cheap and fossil fuel lobbyists are powerful. But without the luddite greens opposing it we might have gotten somewhere.) Doomerism leads people to go ahead and buy a ridiculous gas hog SUV they don't need because why not, we're all gonna die. Doomerism means we should cancel all our green and next-generation nuclear development because it doesn't matter. We're all gonna die. Look up the Moore's law like progress of solar, wind, and batteries. Look up how much renewable energy we're adding, the uptake rate for EVs, etc. We are not doing enough but we are not doing nothing. The previous poster is right. The global average is below the threshold and the global average is the only number that matters re: physics. Physics doesn't care about politics. The goal now must be to keep chipping away at those higher numbers in developed economies and to make sure the developing world gets renewable and nuclear energy before they decide to industrialize with coal like China did. Either that or at least make sure we're cutting emissions in mature economies as fast or faster than developing economy emissions are increasing so the average does not exceed the limit.
Retric 2y ago
Global warming will cause suffering, but extreme poverty was worse for billions than any projections from 2.0C above baseline. The global population grow by 3 billion people since 1988 yet extreme poverty is way down. What nobody talks about is there’s not enough oil and natural gas left to miss 2C by much. At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years. Coal isn’t competitive with renewables and as soon as we stop pumping hydrocarbons the associated influx of Methane also stops. So we’re almost guaranteed to miss 2.5C of global warming, and stopping at 2C is likely. So congratulations humanity, all that money spent on R&D instead of directly cutting emissions without any solid alternatives actually worked!
- jordanthoms 2y ago
  Humans can be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Except we actually did do the right thing. US CO2 emissions in 2007 peaked at 6,016 million metric tons before consistently falling since down to 4,807 in 2023. Per capita numbers are even better, but everyone assumes its from imports seemingly ignoring the massive reduction in coal use and vastly improved efficiency of just about everything. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...
    - jordanthoms 2y ago
      Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming. I just got back from a off-grid island here in New Zealand - 20 years ago, generators were everywhere and as soon as it got dark you'd hear nothing but the buzzing of running them all around you. Now there is solar everywhere and it's completely silent.
radicalbyte 2y ago
We've cut our emissions down massively, our electricity is pure solar, our meat consumption is 30% of what it was and we've flown once in 5 years (and then a fairly short flight). Home heating is still gas but we've halved usage by dropping the temp to 18c (from 21c) and better insulation. Cars are still petrol but we've gone from 50k km / year to 10k km / year most made in a tiny 1 litre car (the other is a Prius). We don't have enough solar to cover that and the electric mix here is carbon intensive enough that we're better off using the petrol car until it needs replacing before switching to electric. Hopefully at some point America will start taking their emissions seriously; it's crazy that you guys are so inefficient.
- gtvwill 2y ago
  Eh it's not actually you that needs to change all that much but more industrial processes need to be change. E.g. I worked on a exploration drill rig that hunted gold core. We burnt well over 400,000 litres of diesel a year keeping that thing running. Closer to 500,000 after you count all the fuel burnt to keep the operator alive, fed and transported. 1 rig. It looked for gold that mostly didn't end up in electronics. Arguably it provided bugger all actual physical good for society in return for its consumption. It got some fat cats rich and employed a half dozen humans. It consumed insane amounts of resources. Your consumption is nothing compared to these ends of industry, they just try and make you think it does. Industrial industries worldwide need drastic changes.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ralphhughes 2y ago
    I assume all that diesel went straight into a generator for electricity? So in your opinion, could the drill rig have added a trailer full of fold out solar panels and battery storage and still functioned? (I know nothing about drilling for gold, just curious)
  - radicalbyte 2y ago
    Whilst I agree with you that the major changes need to come from industry, there absolutely is a level of personal responsibility. Most people shouldn't drive an SUV or eat a lot of red meat. They need to change. I need to cut meat (and food) consumption and cut reductions from our heating. Also as I do want to travel in ways which are not workable without flying (too much of the world to see).
baxtr 2y ago
> But it also isn't hurting because we'd be doing exactly the same nothing if they were cheerful. Of course it is hurting. If we really want people to change then we need to understand human psychology. We need to create hope and not fear. Ask Kamala how fearmongering worked for her.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - baxtr 2y ago
    Most people I know who voted for Trump did so because they hope for a better version of the country. Most people I know who voted for Biden stayed at home this time. Fear causes paralysis, hope drives action.
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      Stop lying.
Tade0 2y ago
Considering that since 1988 world population went from a little over 5bln to 8bln, our output per capita rose by around 10%, which is not great, but also not terrible. Meanwhile the number of infants globally peaked around 2013-2017 and according to revised estimates overall population will peak late this century reaching 10.4bln - largely in countries with a small carbon footprint anyway. We're going to blow past that 2°C target and millions will die due to extreme weather, but I firmly believe life on Earth and our species will survive, especially now that the "business as usual" scenario is considered highly unlikely due to how differently e.g. China's coal usage changed compared to projections.
- layer8 2y ago
  > I firmly believe life on Earth and our species will survive Few people are doubting that. The issue is that > millions will die due to extreme weather and due to climate-related wars, and life in general will become less pleasant. Just breathing air with higher CO2 concentration already isn’t that great.
  - hartator 2y ago
    > Just breathing air with higher CO2 concentration already isn’t that great. Or less O2. I wonder if there any study that does show any impact already or these are still speculations?
    - Filligree 2y ago
      There isn't less O2. Even if all plants on earth disappeared (and animals somehow survived that), it would take millions of years before there's any measurable impact on O2 concentrations. Moreover, there's no physiological impact whatsoever until you drop several percent.
      - hartator 2y ago
        O2 does decrease and is measurable: https://www.oxygenlevels.org/ https://www.oxygenlevels.org/ I think this is a more marketable concern than CO2 as without O2 most know that you can’t live.
kortilla 2y ago
Nope, being a doomer makes you look dumb and people dismiss your whole message when your overblown predictions don’t come true. Think about the illegal immigration hawks talking about how people will cross the borders and start raping and pillaging everything in their path. When that of course turns out to be false, people dismiss their position entirely rather than look at actual issues.
- rrix2 2y ago
  > When that of course turns out to be false, people dismiss their position entirely rather than look at actual issues. this flies in the face of a lifetime of experience talking about immigration with family who lives in a southern border state...
consteval 2y ago
With a new conservative presidency, oil subsidies, and a climate change denier as the proposed head of the Department of Energy, it's looking like the US will have a regression for the next four years, in the best case.
tim333 2y ago
>Nor are people looking at the data and going, "yeah, I ought to do something... Seems to me the answer is a global plan that will actually control emissions in a cost effective way - say taxes on carbon, free trade in solar/batteries/evs and trade tariffs for countries that try to ignore that. I'd vote for that. Failing that, me cancelling the trip to Thailand is not going to make a noticable difference, so whatever. In the UK we mostly do dumb stuff to make our electricity almost the costliest in the world, kill industry and make no global dent in CO2. Stuff like that is why emissions have gone from 22 to 40 gt/y.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago

We were asleep at the wheel for maybe 20 years too long on renewables, but the pace over the last 10+ years has been mind-boggling, and especially the pace the last 4 years. Nothing is going to turn that tide meaningfully. I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. Rome wasn't built in a day.

silver_silver 2y ago
In my mind the only realistic solution left is to make up the difference with solar radiation management, and I would bet it’s what will end up happening
- rwyinuse 2y ago
  Yes, global geoengineering will be probably deployed to buy us some time to get off fossil fuels.
- idunnoman1222 2y ago
  You won’t be able to stop poor countries from spraying aerosol into the stratosphere if it gets too hot on the ground
cogman10 2y ago
> I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. Depends on what you mean by "ounce of reality". In reality, there's little that can be currently done mainly because of political policy. That's unlikely to change. But, assuming policy could be changed, then there is actually quite a bit that could reduce emissions substantially much faster. Carbon taxes, better policies around railways (perhaps nationalizing and expanding ala india), more subsidies for renewable generation and battery production (perhaps funded by carbon taxes?). Stronger regulations on private vehicles (perhaps ban personal private ownership of large trucks and suvs?). But also trade deals and modernization efforts/investments with lagging countries to help them develop carbon free economies. Now, I don't think policy change is likely. I do however think there are quiet a few policies that could significantly drive change faster than it is already going.
- rob74 2y ago
  Well, when even moderate gas price increases lead to either mass protests (e.g. https://apnews.com/article/colombia-protests-fuel-price-hikes-petro-82d56dd2b3b43e6551e91b6373b95a73 https://apnews.com/article/colombia-protests-fuel-price-hike...) or the election of climate deniers (such as in the US), policy is (unfortunately for the climate) not going to change fast enough.
  - cogman10 2y ago
    A 50% gas hike isn't moderate. But I agree, it's something that'd have to be delicately done. Ideally phased in over time. I also agree, probably wouldn't be fast enough, just faster to significantly faster than what we are currently doing.
leptons 2y ago
Emissions will reduce substantially when the average temperature is 60C/140F across the globe. Life will be very different then.
mmooss 2y ago
> Rome wasn't built in a day. We only have a day. > I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. The problem is political. The idea that politics is fixed, unchangeable, is obviously false. For example, look at the radical changes since 2015.
sillywalk 2y ago
> We were asleep at the wheel for maybe 20 years too long on renewables, but the pace over the last 10+ years has been mind-boggling, and especially the pace the last 4 years. The construction of "renewables" requires massive amounts of emissions. "Renewables" do not move us towards 'net zero', because the critical part of the NET is the removal and storage of tens of billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, every year. Forever. At least that's my non-technical understanding of what "net zero" means. > I'd like to know how anyone with an ounce of reality thinks we're going to reduce emissions substantially faster than we already are. For anyone with "an ounce of reality"' we aren't reducing emissions. We haven't reduced our emissions at all. It's the opposite, they've gone up every year, I believe around 50-60 % since 1990 when we agreed to reduce them.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
  Emissions per kwh has gone down.

nojvek 2y ago

China is currently at the forefront of deploying renewable energy. They install more Solar than rest of the world combined. They are investing 100s of Billions in manufacturing cheaper solar panels and batteries. China now has >50% new cars sold as EVs. China sees this as an opportunity and delivering on it. Meanwhile majority of Americans voted for Trump, the sentiment is anti climate change and 'drill baby drill!'. The cheaper Solar and batteries become, the more they get deployed. Like we solved hole in the Ozone, I'm optimistic we'll transition to a net zero energy future but pessimistic that US may get left behind and it'll be too late for many of the industries to compete with China. We are too short term focused.

rwyinuse 2y ago
With upcoming US government it's starting to feel like the Chinese Communist party isn't all that bad in comparison. At least they aren't actively trying to kill future generations simply to protect big oil profits and to oppose democrats. I wouldn't be surprised if China overtakes the US completely in science and technology with the way things are going.
- tap-snap-or-nap 2y ago
  People believed the same about Germany about a century ago, we know the path ahead did not end so well for anybody. This time around though, many nations possess nuclear weapons.
- lovecg 2y ago
  Give it time. Centrally commanded dictatorships always seem to hum along right to the point of sudden collapse.
  - griffzhowl 2y ago
    Hmm, on the other hand you could argue that China has been a centrally commanded dictatorship in one form or another for over 2000 years

ericd 2y ago

The comically named Inflation Reduction Act included a tremendous amount of money for scaling up clean tech manufacturing in the US, and it’s been getting deployed quickly. The DOE Loan Programs Office got something like $400B in loan authority. Overall, the IRA was probably the largest single bit of climate action the US govt has ever taken. Unfortunately, people mostly hear about that work when it becomes part of political football (Solyndra and Tesla both got money from the DOE LPO to help them scale up, and the political fallout from Solyndra was the first time most people had heard of it). But it’s happening.

einpoklum 2y ago
> included a tremendous amount of money for scaling up clean tech manufacturing It included a moderate amount of money as stimulus to commercial companies which manufacture clean(? clean-er?) tech. The Biden administration has also "balanced" this by allowing for massive amounts of further drilling for fossil fuels. And even without the "balancing" - this is not remotely like an actual plan to convert the US to near-zero-emission energy production, in the immediate future, which is what's actually necessary.
- ericd 2y ago
  $400B is moderate? Have there been other bills that have come anywhere close?
  - einpoklum 2y ago
    Did I say moderate? I should have said small. Remember this is $400B over a 10-year period, i.e. $40B per year. The US federal budget is $6.1T per year, so not even 1% of the annual budget. It is also small in terms of the extent of expenditure needed for such a conversion of the US energy production system. A cost estimate from 2019 suggested somewhere between $4.5T - $5.7T over the whole period: * https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/cost-of-transitioning-to-100-percent-renewable-energy/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/cost-of... * https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/renewable-us-grid-for-4-5-trillion https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/renewable-us-gr... so $400B - even if we could assume that all goes directly to achieving the goal, which it does not - is under 10%:

api 2y ago

No, doomerism discourages people from trying. It also comes from the same place intellectually as the luddite wing of the green movement, which is one major reason we didn't replace coal with nuclear energy decades ago. (The others being that coal is cheap and fossil fuel lobbyists are powerful. But without the luddite greens opposing it we might have gotten somewhere.) Doomerism leads people to go ahead and buy a ridiculous gas hog SUV they don't need because why not, we're all gonna die. Doomerism means we should cancel all our green and next-generation nuclear development because it doesn't matter. We're all gonna die. Look up the Moore's law like progress of solar, wind, and batteries. Look up how much renewable energy we're adding, the uptake rate for EVs, etc. We are not doing enough but we are not doing nothing. The previous poster is right. The global average is below the threshold and the global average is the only number that matters re: physics. Physics doesn't care about politics. The goal now must be to keep chipping away at those higher numbers in developed economies and to make sure the developing world gets renewable and nuclear energy before they decide to industrialize with coal like China did. Either that or at least make sure we're cutting emissions in mature economies as fast or faster than developing economy emissions are increasing so the average does not exceed the limit.

Retric 2y ago

Global warming will cause suffering, but extreme poverty was worse for billions than any projections from 2.0C above baseline. The global population grow by 3 billion people since 1988 yet extreme poverty is way down. What nobody talks about is there’s not enough oil and natural gas left to miss 2C by much. At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years. Coal isn’t competitive with renewables and as soon as we stop pumping hydrocarbons the associated influx of Methane also stops. So we’re almost guaranteed to miss 2.5C of global warming, and stopping at 2C is likely. So congratulations humanity, all that money spent on R&D instead of directly cutting emissions without any solid alternatives actually worked!

jordanthoms 2y ago
Humans can be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.
- Retric 2y ago
  Except we actually did do the right thing. US CO2 emissions in 2007 peaked at 6,016 million metric tons before consistently falling since down to 4,807 in 2023. Per capita numbers are even better, but everyone assumes its from imports seemingly ignoring the massive reduction in coal use and vastly improved efficiency of just about everything. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...
  - jordanthoms 2y ago
    Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming. I just got back from a off-grid island here in New Zealand - 20 years ago, generators were everywhere and as soon as it got dark you'd hear nothing but the buzzing of running them all around you. Now there is solar everywhere and it's completely silent.

radicalbyte 2y ago

We've cut our emissions down massively, our electricity is pure solar, our meat consumption is 30% of what it was and we've flown once in 5 years (and then a fairly short flight). Home heating is still gas but we've halved usage by dropping the temp to 18c (from 21c) and better insulation. Cars are still petrol but we've gone from 50k km / year to 10k km / year most made in a tiny 1 litre car (the other is a Prius). We don't have enough solar to cover that and the electric mix here is carbon intensive enough that we're better off using the petrol car until it needs replacing before switching to electric. Hopefully at some point America will start taking their emissions seriously; it's crazy that you guys are so inefficient.

gtvwill 2y ago
Eh it's not actually you that needs to change all that much but more industrial processes need to be change. E.g. I worked on a exploration drill rig that hunted gold core. We burnt well over 400,000 litres of diesel a year keeping that thing running. Closer to 500,000 after you count all the fuel burnt to keep the operator alive, fed and transported. 1 rig. It looked for gold that mostly didn't end up in electronics. Arguably it provided bugger all actual physical good for society in return for its consumption. It got some fat cats rich and employed a half dozen humans. It consumed insane amounts of resources. Your consumption is nothing compared to these ends of industry, they just try and make you think it does. Industrial industries worldwide need drastic changes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ralphhughes 2y ago
  I assume all that diesel went straight into a generator for electricity? So in your opinion, could the drill rig have added a trailer full of fold out solar panels and battery storage and still functioned? (I know nothing about drilling for gold, just curious)
- radicalbyte 2y ago
  Whilst I agree with you that the major changes need to come from industry, there absolutely is a level of personal responsibility. Most people shouldn't drive an SUV or eat a lot of red meat. They need to change. I need to cut meat (and food) consumption and cut reductions from our heating. Also as I do want to travel in ways which are not workable without flying (too much of the world to see).

baxtr 2y ago

> But it also isn't hurting because we'd be doing exactly the same nothing if they were cheerful. Of course it is hurting. If we really want people to change then we need to understand human psychology. We need to create hope and not fear. Ask Kamala how fearmongering worked for her.

meiraleal 2y ago
[flagged]
- baxtr 2y ago
  Most people I know who voted for Trump did so because they hope for a better version of the country. Most people I know who voted for Biden stayed at home this time. Fear causes paralysis, hope drives action.
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    Stop lying.

Tade0 2y ago

Considering that since 1988 world population went from a little over 5bln to 8bln, our output per capita rose by around 10%, which is not great, but also not terrible. Meanwhile the number of infants globally peaked around 2013-2017 and according to revised estimates overall population will peak late this century reaching 10.4bln - largely in countries with a small carbon footprint anyway. We're going to blow past that 2°C target and millions will die due to extreme weather, but I firmly believe life on Earth and our species will survive, especially now that the "business as usual" scenario is considered highly unlikely due to how differently e.g. China's coal usage changed compared to projections.

layer8 2y ago
> I firmly believe life on Earth and our species will survive Few people are doubting that. The issue is that > millions will die due to extreme weather and due to climate-related wars, and life in general will become less pleasant. Just breathing air with higher CO2 concentration already isn’t that great.
- hartator 2y ago
  > Just breathing air with higher CO2 concentration already isn’t that great. Or less O2. I wonder if there any study that does show any impact already or these are still speculations?
  - Filligree 2y ago
    There isn't less O2. Even if all plants on earth disappeared (and animals somehow survived that), it would take millions of years before there's any measurable impact on O2 concentrations. Moreover, there's no physiological impact whatsoever until you drop several percent.
    - hartator 2y ago
      O2 does decrease and is measurable: https://www.oxygenlevels.org/ https://www.oxygenlevels.org/ I think this is a more marketable concern than CO2 as without O2 most know that you can’t live.

kortilla 2y ago

Nope, being a doomer makes you look dumb and people dismiss your whole message when your overblown predictions don’t come true. Think about the illegal immigration hawks talking about how people will cross the borders and start raping and pillaging everything in their path. When that of course turns out to be false, people dismiss their position entirely rather than look at actual issues.

rrix2 2y ago
> When that of course turns out to be false, people dismiss their position entirely rather than look at actual issues. this flies in the face of a lifetime of experience talking about immigration with family who lives in a southern border state...

consteval 2y ago

With a new conservative presidency, oil subsidies, and a climate change denier as the proposed head of the Department of Energy, it's looking like the US will have a regression for the next four years, in the best case.

tim333 2y ago

>Nor are people looking at the data and going, "yeah, I ought to do something... Seems to me the answer is a global plan that will actually control emissions in a cost effective way - say taxes on carbon, free trade in solar/batteries/evs and trade tariffs for countries that try to ignore that. I'd vote for that. Failing that, me cancelling the trip to Thailand is not going to make a noticable difference, so whatever. In the UK we mostly do dumb stuff to make our electricity almost the costliest in the world, kill industry and make no global dent in CO2. Stuff like that is why emissions have gone from 22 to 40 gt/y.