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This whole charade is so ill conceived. Honestly, the top 20 developed nations are literally THE problem. It's a demand side problem not a supply side one. We n

This whole charade is so ill conceived. Honestly, the top 20 developed nations are literally THE problem. It's a demand side problem not a supply side one. We need to stop buying container loads of virtually disposable electronics from China every week, stop driving to the shops, stop running energy intensive appliances, you get the drift. Of course if people actually did this it would tank our developed economies.

nobodywillobsrv 2y ago
I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario. Low TFR countries should continue to shrink. But high TFR countries are likely to get less poor. They are the problem. If people are truly fungible like they say, migrating low consumption people to high consumption states despite local resistance is the worst idea ever. I wish they would focus on these points.
- sabbaticaldev 2y ago
  > I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario. I wish you had defined TFR so we can understand if you are attacking poor countries or defending the riches
  - igorkraw 2y ago
    TFR is total fertility rate. GP is saying "the problem is not the overconsumption in the rich countries with low TFR, it's the poor countries with high TFR getting richer and consuming more and people migrating to countries where they consume more". Which falls apart looking at the map of highest ghg emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions vs the negative impact caused by climate change and the ability to mitigate https://gain-new.crc.nd.edu/ranking https://gain-new.crc.nd.edu/ranking . curtailing migration without massive reduction in the overconsumption by the rich countries amounts to having the poorer nations pay bills (via enduring disasters) for damage they didn't cause, which I find an injustice. Doing that and limiting economic growth and thus limiting the capability of dealing with the disasters would just be cruelty. If you want to reduce migration without injustice or cruelty, you need to make sure other countries remain livable and thrive, hence the OPs hook.
    - sabbaticaldev 2y ago
      By the tone I could imagine GP was being xenophobic, thanks for clarifying. Checking his comments history is nauseating. HN has such a specific kind of troll that makes one lose hope for humanity a bit.
newsclues 2y ago
If there was a better and cheaper option to replace fossil fuels for transportation and energy, the transition would naturally happen. Why would anyone buy a gas car if electric was better and cheaper in every way? Maybe a few petrolhead enthusiasts but everyone would switch if it was cheaper and better and the infrastructure was in place. But instead of doing the work (infrastructure) and making the technology better and cheaper, a strategy of carrots and sticks was employed ($ incentives and taxation) that haven’t progressed the technology. The reason we burn gas in our cars is because it was better and cheaper than the previous fuels.
- darkwater 2y ago
  Maybe because it's not that simple? A new technology and a new infrastructure will be more expensive initially, until it reaches a critical mass. So, to reach that critical mass you need early adopters who take the hit, and to help sweeten the hit, you give them money under the form of incentives to buy the new EV or create the charging infrastructure. That's one of the main duties of a welfare state.
- mjevans 2y ago
  IMO: as an answer to your question of why: Inertia, Investment, (existing) Infrastructure, and greed. Investment and profit to be made off of it also relate to lobbying, laws, and further investment. Some related issues for electric vehicles are the increased load on power grid/supply, how Internal Combustion Engines provide (relatively) free heat in cold climates, and that cold snaps require vehicles with batteries to self-heat. They're issues that have some solutions, but it's not wave a wand at things and they're fixed. The problem also reminds me of connectivity in houses, where by now we should have at least gigabit ports in every room, but increasingly consumers see houses barely suitable for wifi and cell connections. There are things the market just won't self select despite the good involved for consumers. Maybe if we vote for non-idiots there will eventually be regulation to help.
  - newsclues 2y ago
    Why is it so hard to admit or understand that the transition hasn’t happened yet at critical mass scale because the technology is more expensive and not equal or better than ICE for consumers? When a product is better and cheaper, inertia is overcome and consumers switch! Go look up the historical transitions of fuel sources!

nobodywillobsrv 2y ago

I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario. Low TFR countries should continue to shrink. But high TFR countries are likely to get less poor. They are the problem. If people are truly fungible like they say, migrating low consumption people to high consumption states despite local resistance is the worst idea ever. I wish they would focus on these points.

sabbaticaldev 2y ago
> I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario. I wish you had defined TFR so we can understand if you are attacking poor countries or defending the riches
- igorkraw 2y ago
  TFR is total fertility rate. GP is saying "the problem is not the overconsumption in the rich countries with low TFR, it's the poor countries with high TFR getting richer and consuming more and people migrating to countries where they consume more". Which falls apart looking at the map of highest ghg emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions vs the negative impact caused by climate change and the ability to mitigate https://gain-new.crc.nd.edu/ranking https://gain-new.crc.nd.edu/ranking . curtailing migration without massive reduction in the overconsumption by the rich countries amounts to having the poorer nations pay bills (via enduring disasters) for damage they didn't cause, which I find an injustice. Doing that and limiting economic growth and thus limiting the capability of dealing with the disasters would just be cruelty. If you want to reduce migration without injustice or cruelty, you need to make sure other countries remain livable and thrive, hence the OPs hook.
  - sabbaticaldev 2y ago
    By the tone I could imagine GP was being xenophobic, thanks for clarifying. Checking his comments history is nauseating. HN has such a specific kind of troll that makes one lose hope for humanity a bit.

newsclues 2y ago

If there was a better and cheaper option to replace fossil fuels for transportation and energy, the transition would naturally happen. Why would anyone buy a gas car if electric was better and cheaper in every way? Maybe a few petrolhead enthusiasts but everyone would switch if it was cheaper and better and the infrastructure was in place. But instead of doing the work (infrastructure) and making the technology better and cheaper, a strategy of carrots and sticks was employed ($ incentives and taxation) that haven’t progressed the technology. The reason we burn gas in our cars is because it was better and cheaper than the previous fuels.

darkwater 2y ago
Maybe because it's not that simple? A new technology and a new infrastructure will be more expensive initially, until it reaches a critical mass. So, to reach that critical mass you need early adopters who take the hit, and to help sweeten the hit, you give them money under the form of incentives to buy the new EV or create the charging infrastructure. That's one of the main duties of a welfare state.
mjevans 2y ago
IMO: as an answer to your question of why: Inertia, Investment, (existing) Infrastructure, and greed. Investment and profit to be made off of it also relate to lobbying, laws, and further investment. Some related issues for electric vehicles are the increased load on power grid/supply, how Internal Combustion Engines provide (relatively) free heat in cold climates, and that cold snaps require vehicles with batteries to self-heat. They're issues that have some solutions, but it's not wave a wand at things and they're fixed. The problem also reminds me of connectivity in houses, where by now we should have at least gigabit ports in every room, but increasingly consumers see houses barely suitable for wifi and cell connections. There are things the market just won't self select despite the good involved for consumers. Maybe if we vote for non-idiots there will eventually be regulation to help.
- newsclues 2y ago
  Why is it so hard to admit or understand that the transition hasn’t happened yet at critical mass scale because the technology is more expensive and not equal or better than ICE for consumers? When a product is better and cheaper, inertia is overcome and consumers switch! Go look up the historical transitions of fuel sources!