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There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering
by Schiendelman 21d ago
There hasn't been a question about this in a decade or more. There was no path, even theoretically, to stopping our CO2 emissions without dramatically lowering quality of life for maybe a couple billion people.
We won't slow climate change. We can build resilience to the effects, and we have good incentives to do so. But we'll keep burning fossil fuels for a very long time.
- whatever1 21d agoMaybe it will be a good incentive to rebuild our global infrastructure without having to go through a world war ?
- __natty__ 21d agoSay this to global warlords not to random user on Hacker News
- benfortuna 21d ago> We can build resilience to the effects Oh yeah, would love to see the resilience that would have prevented the Nepalese disaster
- what_hn 21d agoYeah, not build in the lowest point where there is a glacier upstream
- sagarm 21d agoThe US version: kill the national flood insurance program so we stop subsidizing property owners in disaster prone areas.
- Schiendelman 20d agoResilience isn't prevention. Resilience is the systems to clean up after those events. To be able to build new housing for the people who survive, to route around problems.
- ako 21d agoQuality of life will be dramatically lower for many because we did not take action
- lotsofpulp 21d agoWhat if lots of people stop having kids? Then the amount of people who have a lower quality of life can be reduced.
- Sharlin 21d agoAntinatalism is becoming a more reasonable philosophy every day.
- throw-the-towel 21d agoWhat do you mean, "if"? It's happening worldwide as we speak. It's still not enough.
- Schiendelman 20d agoSame reason we have Social Security. People can't plan on a long horizon.
- mistrial9 21d agofourth airport opening in the DC area this week, the news says
- mrob 21d agoThere was an obvious path that the environmentalists mostly opposed. A decade is plenty of time for massive scale buildout of nuclear power. If we'd started that a decade ago we'd be in a good position now.
- p-e-w 21d agoIndeed. At this point I’d say that the “green movement” has done more damage to the planet than the fossil fuel industry. The entire Western world (with the exception of France) pretty much stopped building nuclear power plants 40 years ago, because of a single accident that by its most pessimistic estimates killed fewer people in total than coal emissions kill every 3 days. It’s madness.
- dfdydx 21d agoWhat was the fossil fuel industry plan to massively shrink the fossil fuel industry exactly?
- ViewTrick1002 21d agoNuclear power had already collapsed due to its own costs and timelines. In hindsight it’s much easier to blame the accidents rather than face the structural problems nuclear power has. Which has only been exacerbated by renewables and storage disrupting the global energy markets, forcing ”baseload” plants to become peakers. Against their will.
- ViewTrick1002 21d agoThe problem is that we attempted to build nuclear power. It just didn’t deliver. There was massive state support behind it. It is hard looking at Vogtle, Virgil C. Summer, Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3, Hinkley Point C, Hanhikivi and the countless cancelled projects and think: ”That’s what I want some more of!!”
- r_lee 21d agoyup. I remember seeing just a few years back, a Greenpeace postlet moaning about dangerous nuclear energy I think it's pretty clear that nothing meaningful will be done because there's no shock value to entertain the "empaths" like there is with war and other stuff
- dariosalvi78 21d agoI was a kid in the early 90s and my school book mentioned climate change and need to change energy sources. This could have been, if not prevented, at least greatly mitigated. We have had plenty of time. But well, I guess that our species is not that intelligent after all. Too bad, maybe the next one will be better...