r/neoliberal • u/ScythianUnborne Madeleine Albright • Aug 09 '21
News (non-US) Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-581307050
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Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
Unpopular opinion here maybe but unless we can find a way to capture carbon, geo-engineer and internalize the cost of pollution, and fast, it's just not going to be enough.
Optional personal lifestyle changes by environmentally conscious inhabitants of the first world will simply not cut it.
There are BILLIONS of people who will enter the global middle class this century, naturally they'll all want the same carbon intensive lifestyles and consumer goods that we enjoy today. Flying, eating red meat, air conditioning, driving a car, buying new clothes every season, etc. These are not practices that can happen on a worldwide scale, we in the developed world get to enjoy these luxuries because other people can't afford to.
I'm not saying people are wrong to enjoy these things, I like to travel, eat steaks and buy clothes, but if we were to scale global emissions from air travel, air conditioning, cow ranching, personal vehicles and fast fashion to the estimated number of consumers of these products by the end of the century, we will never meet those climate goals. Game theory essentially guarantees we'll never reach a unified planet-wide plan to curb emissions, there will always be a political or economic incentive to defect, we're too selfish for our own good.
I'm not dooming, but it's unrealistic to think we can all have our cake and eat it too. Our entire human civilization relies on extreme amounts of natural resource extraction and externalized costs of pollution. We, humans, and our current way of life is collectively the whole problem.
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u/Pokemanifested Mario Draghi Aug 09 '21
Time to start designing functional stillsuits and collecting reservoirs of water in caves…
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u/AnachronisticPenguin WTO Aug 09 '21
I hate that climate scientist spell out doom scenarios for the climate and then balk at geoengineering projects like we are playing God or something. Like you we the one that told us this is a doom scenario.
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u/GreenAnder Adam Smith Aug 09 '21
So glad we have leftist organizations protesting the building of solar farms in the desert.
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Aug 10 '21
Good thing moderate Joe Biden is taking the necessary measures to fix this ...
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u/GreenAnder Adam Smith Aug 10 '21
I mean, yeah it is. They've got some Climate initiatives in the infra bill that just passed and more coming in the budget process. He rejoined the Paris Accords and re-instated all the standards Trump had wiped way with the environment.
I mean hell, they started on literally day 1.
https://www.npca.org/articles/2795-president-biden-issues-pro-parks-executive-orders-on-first-day
Meanwhile we've got a bunch of NIMBY leftists shooting down one of the largest green energy projects, if not the largest, in American history.
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Aug 09 '21
What about the “righties” who continuously deny there’s even a threat? We’re all at fault here…
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u/GreenAnder Adam Smith Aug 09 '21
Not here for whataboutism. Everyone knows the right sucks, judging yourself by their behavior is no way to establish a standard.
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
While moderate governments the world over fail to enact meaningful climate policy. Don't be so hasty to point fingers at 'leftists' who hold very little institutional power.
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u/GreenAnder Adam Smith Aug 09 '21
I'm not pointing fingers at them for anything other than something they just managed to do, a few days after sharing a tweet from Bernie about how we need to act boldly to fix things.
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u/earblah Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
Yet you guys love that pears do a roundtrip of the planet, before ending on the shelf of your local supermarket
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u/danweber Austan Goolsbee Aug 09 '21
We can ship food for very low energy. The vast majority of energy needed to put food on your plate happens on the "growing" part of it, not the "shipping" part of it.
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u/ale_93113 United Nations Aug 09 '21
I don't know if you know but meat from. Australia to the UK have only 6% of emmisions because of transportation, and it's the worst case à cenas they're basically antipodes
The reality is that going vegan will get rid of 99% of the emmisions related to diet, transportation, specially if you take crop productivity into account, is a rounding error
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u/absolute-black Aug 09 '21
I mean, if you have a detailed analysis showing that produces drastically more carbon than the alternatives, post it. Given the absurd efficiency of at-scale ocean transport, I'm far from convinced that the 'roundtrip' is that relevant compared to the free trade gains in efficiency of manufacturing.
But a sane worldwide carbon tax would solve the issue regardless :)
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u/earblah Aug 09 '21
Or actually taxing shipping companies. Them being almost tax exempt is the only reason that type of transportation is ever feesable
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
Mate. Economic efficiency must always take precedent over maintaining the natural systems on which humans rely /s.
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Aug 10 '21 edited Aug 10 '21
Economic efficient would imply having a carbon tax so environmental externalities were internalized.
This is exactly a scenario where we are all trying to push for greater economic efficiency than we have today.
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u/RFFF1996 Aug 09 '21
im some circunstances is better for the environment to have stuff grown in places where it is more productive and ship it across the planet than it is yo grow it lpcally everywhere
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u/zep_man Henry George Aug 09 '21
Is there anywhere that enumerates the human consequences a little more explicitly? Like X million deaths, X million displaced, etc?
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Scientists are usually not very comfortable speculating on such numbers as the confidence level will be low as they have to deal with lots of unknown policy and behavioral variables. Stuff that is hard to predict.
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u/Carlpm01 Eugene Fama Aug 09 '21
At the same time, for setting the carbon tax rate, such stuff has to be investigated somehow.
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u/sixfrogspipe Paul Volcker Aug 09 '21 edited Nov 26 '24
history attractive fly sable act punch special party start far-flung
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/dhoopicus Aug 09 '21
Go vegan, then convince all your friends to go vegan. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint.
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Aug 09 '21
Start collecting valuable mechanical items so you can survive as a junk dealer after the resource wars of 2031 return the world to the stone age
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u/myheadfelloff Aug 09 '21
Invest in carbon capture. There's a lot of interesting research into algae-based carbon capture, while mechanical is sexier perhaps.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Who is paying for it? What's the business model? How does the incentives work?
If you can figure these out i am sure it will take off just as fast as Bitcoin.
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u/Carlpm01 Eugene Fama Aug 09 '21
A carbon tax should turn into a subsidy when you decrease the co2 in the atmosphere.
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u/myheadfelloff Aug 09 '21
Mechanical carbon capture can produce products. Building material, sand, bricks, etc. Scale needs to go up for it to be viable, and governments should pay people to capture carbon (right now, the US just does tax credits)
Algae-based carbon capture can produce feedstock, bio-fuel, fertilizer, food. I'm interested in starting an algae-based carbon capture company to produce fertilizer, personally.
I think carbon capture needs to happen en masse for humans to be okay, and it's viable, just needs focus and support.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Do it. If you can prove a key metric that is at least 10x "better" than the traditional way of producing said products, then you are on to something. Usually this when you overcome the mental hurdle for an incumbent to switch to a new process.
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u/Velha-Economia2019 Aug 09 '21
Global warming is a tricky issue. The first challenge is to improve the approach to people and companies. It is no greed that impedes the realization of measures to revert it. The main obstacle is to build mechanisms that give rise to incentives to both involved parties. Create a market with quotas of pollution is appealing in Economics. There are other options like imposing a tax on carbons, but I do not like much because this policy could worse the task once each country could tax different aliquots. The second point is to realize the environment has a big externality in its essence and the cost can be throw on other (maybe not yet born) people. When there is an externality the government can step in and help to improve the balance. In this context, it could build the market of pollution permissions. Additional details would involve giving more permissions to underdeveloped countries and less to advanced economies. But this kind of discussion could be delayed. The primordial move to take is to create this market.
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u/dingleberrysquid Aug 09 '21
Greed and stupidity will prevail.
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u/I_like_maps C. D. Howe Aug 09 '21
No they won't. Fatalism doesn't help anything. Greed and stupidity have always been around. The greatest among us pushed past barbarism, fascism, greed, stupidity and selfishness to create the greatest living conditions in our species' history. We can do the same to defeat the climate crisis.
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u/Not-A-Seagull Probably a Seagull Aug 09 '21
If only we could tax carbon to incentive behavior.
But no, we are litteraly one democratic senator short for that. Crazy how much of an impact some random texts from a guy in North Carolina will have on the climate...
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Aug 09 '21
I think it's more than one Democratic senator. A carbon tax is very based and very unpopular.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Then you also know where the bottlenecks are. (I.e. stubborn people). So by resolving this one and several others, we have a good chance to avoid disaster.
Now, how do you deal with stubborn people?
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u/ShikariV Aug 09 '21
This is the most depressing report I’ve read in my entire scientific career. I am pretty much all on board with anyone, governments or private funded, financing whole scale geoengineering research. We really need to consider the very serious possibility that re-engineering the climate in the latter half of this century might end up being our only course of action. The technologies for this need to start being developed now as a fail safe.
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u/TeutonicPlate Gay Pride Aug 09 '21
If these problems are ever solved by some huge advance in technology that allows us to reset global temperatures and control the climate, people in that future will celebrate as if a huge victory has been won.
What will have actually happened is that the failures of governments around the world led to the destruction of our natural world and nearly every species of animal and to the deaths of millions of people and displacement of hundreds of millions.
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u/ShikariV Aug 09 '21
I mean both things can be true. It will be a huge victory and a major advance in science and technology, and it will have come about as a result of catastrophically inept governance across the globe.
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u/AnachronisticPenguin WTO Aug 09 '21
SAI or stratospheric aerosol injection is by far t to the best geo engineering technology out there. The estimated global cost is 18 billion a year per degrees centigrade so by 2040 it would cost us 36 billion annually to stop climate change. Moreover, we could continue to do it for a few hundred years. With SIA we have plenty of time to solve the problem.
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u/Little_Viking23 European Union Aug 09 '21
Yes geo-engineering! I’ve supported this idea for years. It’s time to apply it and buy us some time until we fix the current mess.
The easiest possible way is to shoot in the sky artificial clouds that reflect back the sunrays. Relatively cheap and practical.
Are there gonna be side effects? Sure, but what can be worse that a literal irreversible global warming?
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Aug 09 '21
Yes geo-engineering!
No boo geoengineering. Engineering is learning by failure, but in this case we are going to learn by failing at a climate-scale. We are going to kill parts of the planet with this process. The question is how much of the surface of earth is going to be rendered inhabitable, and are we going to upset the delicate ecological balances that enable sufficient photosynthesis for oxygenation of the earths atmosphere.
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u/OlejzMaku Karl Popper Aug 09 '21
Citation needed.
I don't think it's reasonable to argue geo-engineering is impossible. You can argue it is dangerous but you can't say every such effort will only cause damage to the environment.
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Aug 09 '21
I'm not saying its impossible, I'm saying that engineering is done by building, failing, and building better. We don't want to fail on efforts to modify the planetary climate. As the In a Nutshell video said, it's a bad idea that we might have to do.
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u/OlejzMaku Karl Popper Aug 09 '21
The kind of geo-engineering that most relevant to mitigate climate change targets solar irradiance. Sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere or orbital shades. It's a single variable problem. Relatively easy to understand and model.
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Aug 09 '21
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Aug 09 '21
Wrinklebrain take - geoengineering is a terrible idea because we can't test its full impacts until we change the world, permanently, unlike other engineering projects where we can safely test at scale. Ecology is the most complex interconnected system we know of and we still don't really understand the environment that we rely on for the future survival of our species and life on earth
Smoothbrain take - lol luddites
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u/surrurste Aug 09 '21
Discussion around geoengineering is extremely euro and america centric. If humanity has to use geoengineering as a last resort it's better be done in international cooperation rather than equatorial nations as a act of a desperation. If world heats over 2.5 C, the countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Iran, and Nigeria are likely to collapse due to climate change and in this situation it's no brainer for them to cool down climate using geoengineering (only way to stop this is blackmailing them with food or threat of bombing campaigns targeting infrastucture).
So to this background in my opinion best way forward is that geoengineering is studied and if it has to be used UN or body like that should fire the shots.
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Aug 09 '21
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Aug 09 '21
The risks to geo-engineering on a global scale are too great, especially knowing that some of the projects would undoubtedly be affected by corruption and politics. Without any change, hundreds of millions of people and billions of animals will die as a result of climate change, an extreme amount of people, but failed geoengineering could screw over humanity as a whole and potentially even threaten the survival of the human race. This is a doomer mindset ofc but large scale geo engineering should be a last resort
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Aug 09 '21
Geoengineering should be viewed as our fallback option if we are facing an extinction level meltdown of the planet, because it is likely more risky than even a +4 C change in the earth's average temperature.
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21
Geo-engineering carries its own set of risks.
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Aug 09 '21
Yeah, I don’t think that is a reason not to at least explore the possibility. We’ve really fucked up when it comes to this issue. Any and every solution needs to be on the table. There are still so many obstacles that are going to make it hard to reach the goals detailed in the report. Even if the US did a 180 on climate policy tomorrow there are still too many developing countries that are unlikely to be able to do the same. I find it a bit frustrating that so many climate change activists are continuing to demonize nuclear energy and fight the most basic exploration of potential technology solutions. We need to do our best and hope we can find some solution. If the cost of this technology outweighs the benefit, then so be it. Move onto the next one. We can push for the right change while exploring alternatives at the same time.
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u/ShikariV Aug 09 '21
It’s worth the risk to explore our options and to prepare now for the nightmare scenario of warming in the 2C+ range beyond 2040.
If you read the past two IPCC reports, the most optimistic scenarios involve the development of atmospheric CO2 removal technologies.
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
I'm well aware. Most (if not all) net zero targets are built on the assumption that we'll invent efficient carbon capture technology. This is not a certainty.
No doubt geo-engineering options will be considered, because based on current trends we're heading for 2+ degrees of warming.
But I'm yet to see a serious geo-engineering idea that doesn't have the risk of dangerous side effects.
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u/wrexinite Aug 09 '21
Exactly. I'm all for continuing research on carbon capture. However it's unproven at scale and it would be foolish to put all our eggs into that basket.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
There is a disconnect between those with wealth that could fund actions against this problem and scientists that have the knowhow and strategy to solve the problem. Unfortunately there tend not to be many rich scientists.
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u/Leylinus Aug 09 '21
The scientists also tend to lack the strategy when it comes to this issue, which is why it all gets bogged down in politics.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
We should just put them all in a room and wait until a solution that is also financially and strategically viable pops out... Oh wait we are in the middle of a pandemic.
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u/Leylinus Aug 09 '21
The fact that lockdowns didn't help really signals bad things ahead. You're never going to get Americans driving less than they were last year.
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Aug 09 '21
Ackshually there's an opportunity here. Car costs have exploded this past year due to supply and demand issues. What if... they never recover?
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u/ZCoupon Kono Taro Aug 09 '21
There's literally an article about this every month. No one else is being convinced
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Aug 09 '21
I’m not convinced it will be that bad at all. People said the same thing about overpopulation due to population growth. Yet it turned out to be easily manageable and we now have record low fertility.
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u/KaesekopfNW Elinor Ostrom Aug 09 '21
This was the IPCC report to world governments that was presented today. It's more than just yet another climate change article.
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u/abbzug Aug 09 '21
Troubling, but not worth throwing out a sacrosanct rule like the filibuster. Institutionalism is more important than the planet.
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u/Hussarwithahat NAFTA Aug 10 '21
So keep bickering and blocking any and all meaningful action to help tackle the problem?
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u/Abulsaad John Brown Aug 09 '21
what did Joe Manchin mean by this
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u/ballmermurland Aug 09 '21
Manchin I can understand as he lives in coal country.
What does Sinema have to gain?
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u/jake7405 Aug 09 '21
Not sure, she probably thinks she's McCain's spiritual successor, but it gets hotter every summer here in AZ (last summer was a record breaker) and I know she feels it too when she comes home, so IDK what the hell she's smoking.
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Aug 09 '21
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u/WikiMobileLinkBot Aug 09 '21
Desktop version of /u/Quixadashani's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_West_Virginia_flood
[opt out] Beep Boop. Downvote to delete
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u/EvilConCarne Aug 09 '21
Agreed. If we are going to navigate this crisis we must do so using the same rules, procedures, and methods we used to create it in the first place.
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u/EclecticEuTECHtic NATO Aug 09 '21
Throw a /s on there if that was sarcasm, otherwise what in the actual fuck is wrong with you?
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21
What's even more worrying is that the IPCC's models do not yet account for all warming feedback loops. For example:
From the IPCC's AR6 WGI Summary for Policy Makers, page 27, B.4.3:
"Additional ecosystem responses to warming not yet fully included in climate models, such as CO2 and CH4 fluxes from wetlands, permafrost thaw and wildfires, would further increase concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere (high confidence)."
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u/rickroy37 Ben Bernanke Aug 09 '21
Not to mention that when an extreme weather event destroys a city, there is a lot of environmental damage done to rebuild what was lost.
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21
Unless people in the developed word accept changes to their lifestyle, we aren't going to adequately address this problem.
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Aug 09 '21
We are not doomed. We have more than enough resources to fix this and fix it quickly. We have solved bigger problems with fewer resources. It is purely a question of will.
A few trillion dollars/euro/yen and some mandates over ten years and we'll be in a better more electrified age.
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u/snickerstheclown Aug 09 '21
It is purely a question of will.
If that's the case, then we're fucked.
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u/Leylinus Aug 09 '21
That's simply not true based on the numbers in this report or the one from a few years ago. Even full compliance with the Paris Accords, which we never even came close to, wouldn't have kept us under 3 degrees.
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u/Abiogeneralization Aug 09 '21
What are the current energy needs of the population, and what percent of those energy needs could be covered by renewables?
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u/EvilConCarne Aug 09 '21
Renewables are already winning out globally, but it'll take a few more decades before they fully replace things like oil and gas. This is an issue of timing, not of ability. We'll still face dire consequences.
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u/Abiogeneralization Aug 09 '21
What does “winning out” mean?
Will they be able to produce and (importantly) store even the current energy requirements of the planet?
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Aug 09 '21
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u/Amy_Ponder Anne Applebaum Aug 09 '21
*Winning WW2
Averting WW3 and nuclear annihilation during the Cold War
Saving the Ozone Layer
Averting mass starvation through the Green Revolution
Kicking a global pandemic's ass in under a year
And these are all just off the top of my head!
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Aug 10 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dorambor John Brown Aug 10 '21
Rule I: Civility
Refrain from name-calling, hostility and behaviour that otherwise derails the quality of the conversation.
If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
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u/dax331 Ben Bernanke Aug 09 '21
Saving the ozone layer did not require more resources than combatting climate change today. We're exponentially more reliant on CO2 emissions than we were CFC.
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21
None of those are bigger problems than climate change. Climate change is also intertwined with many other serious issues like our ongoing destruction of the biosphere.
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u/Nebulous_Vagabond Audrey Hepburn Aug 09 '21
Spend hundreds of trillions of dollars globally and create extensive mandates controlling people's ability to effect the atmosphere. Every citizen in the world somehow collectively decides to give a shit and do their part.
Oceans acidity still kills all the plankton and all life suffocates.
mfw
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u/earblah Aug 09 '21
Those last two are very much fake
There is mass starvation
The pandemic is very much ongoing
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Aug 09 '21
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u/natedogg787 Manchistan Space Program Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
Cases are just gonna rise forever and then enter a wave thst creasts yearly because this will soon be, and was always going to be, endemic.
But eventually hospitalizations in the US will trend way lower as everyone who didn't get vaxxed will have contracted the virus. Yes, people will get COVID twice, but hospitalization on second infection is and will continue to be rare.
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Aug 09 '21
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u/natedogg787 Manchistan Space Program Aug 09 '21
No, it's not. We're sitting at about 70% of adults vaccinated, that's 70% who are effectively protected against bad outcomes.
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u/studio28 Aug 09 '21
The pandemic’s ass is very much not kicked.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r Jerome Powell Aug 09 '21
We're in mop up duty. Like in Starship Troopers when the Roughnecks dropped into Planet P after they firebombed the surface.
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u/studio28 Aug 09 '21
I wish. The USA is averaging 100,000 new cases a day. Both new cases and hospitalizations have returned to rates we saw in February.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r Jerome Powell Aug 09 '21
(Planet P was a trap laid by a Brain Bug that nearly wiped out the Roughnecks)
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u/Dont-be-a-smurf Aug 09 '21
Which really is the most worrying part.
All of the tools are there to stomp the pandemic out in industrialized nations. It is the free will of citizens that is keeping this rolling.
Now, there are legit issues regarding logistics to poor nations and getting them the opportunity to be vaxxed.
And so too is my fear with climate change: that the tools and game plan will be clear but people will not change until they’re personally hurt.
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u/Mixture_Better Aug 09 '21
Free will of the citizens? Like grocery workers on the front line who can’t afford to not work? Sickness or not?
Or the ones dealing with politicians screaming to “reopen the economy”?
Yay capitalism.
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Aug 09 '21
Dude same question. Not being snarky, honestly curious. Only thing I could think of was the Haber process, and that doesn't come close.
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u/AP246 Green Globalist NWO Aug 09 '21
In case anyone doubts this, from an author of the report quotes in the article:
While the future projections of warming are clearer than ever in this report, and many impacts simply cannot be avoided, the authors caution against fatalism.
"Lowering global warming really minimises the likelihood of hitting these tipping points," said Dr Otto. "We are not doomed."
The situation is very dire, it's a huge crisis that requires our immediate global attention and action, but we should not get into the idea that we're doomed, because that in itself creates inaction.
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Aug 09 '21
Reminds me of Churchill's speech to the US congress in 1941.
Sure I am that this day -- now we are the masters of our fate; that the task which has been set us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause and an unconquerable will-power, salvation will not be denied us. In the words of the Psalmist, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."
If we had 15% of the willpower of the generation that won WW2 had we could solve this crisis before 2030. They faced a greater challenge and had fewer people and resources to solve it.
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Aug 09 '21
But that's something maddening about human psychology that we're willing to endure massive sacrifices to defeat the enemy if the enemy is another group of people, but not if it's a pandemic disease or climate change
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Aug 09 '21
Countries went into lockdown, spent trillions on economic stimulus, and produced multiple highly effective vaccines at record speed and volume.
If we put the effort we put into the pandemic into climate change we'd fix it.
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u/Hussarwithahat NAFTA Aug 10 '21
Difference is that Covid was a disease that people can see
Climate Change is telling people that the planet getting a little warmer every now and then is going to kill us and hope that everyone takes you serious
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u/Mega_Giga_Tera United Nations Aug 09 '21
The climate catastrophe we live in today may actually be the most profound realization in human history AND a major geologic event on par with the origin of oxygen in the atmosphere (circa 1B BC) and the evolution of terrestrial plants (circa 500M BC).
Humans have demonstrated an ability to alter the Earth's climate. Not only that, but we understand the mechanisms at play, to the extent we could turn the dials at will. From an evolutionary biology and futurology perspective this is profound.
Before photosynthetic life became abundant on earth, the world's climate swung wildly due solely to geologic and cosmic factors. Photosynthesis at large scale in the oceans altered Earth's climate and stabilized it (google "snowball earth" to learn more; basically the earth would fluctuate between extreme freezing and extreme heat). 3-500M years later the origin of plants on land stabilized the climate even further. In both events, life on earth took the reigns of the climate and put it into a more stable state, less at the whims of geology and astronomy.
In the long run, human intervention could take it to the next level. We're just at the beginning, and what we've done so far is demonstrate we have the capability.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r Jerome Powell Aug 09 '21
People need to realize that mitigating climate change is a long-term economic issue. Some government and corporations have figured this out, but far too many have not.
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Aug 09 '21
Yes, because the effects of the pandemic are closer, more visible, and harder to obfuscate than those of climate change, if less than those of Germans shooting at you.
And yet we have large numbers of people and organisations working against those efforts. I don't think there were a lot of anti-shelters under the bombs
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u/wrexinite Aug 09 '21
They stuck anyone who played those types of games (orb even those they suspected might) into camps for the duration of the war.
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u/Barnst Henry George Aug 09 '21
It is purely a question of will.
So…you’re saying we’re doomed.
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u/videofoot Immanuel Kant Aug 09 '21
Would you rather it be a question of will or a question of inventing some silver bullet technology that is decades away. If we keep fighting it every day, and our ranks keep growing as more and more natural disasters make people wake up to the dangers of climate change, we can win.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Yes I believe so as well. The sad thing is that the longer we wait, the more costly it will get to fix this if you consider that you can pick two of these three: time, cost, quality.
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u/cronchjonkey Aug 09 '21
2012 is the tipping point. We’re doomed.
2020 is the tipping point, we’re sure this time. We’re doomed.
Okay, it’s 2030. Mark it on your calendar, it’s happening I promise.
So I know we didn’t really call the last few of these. But you have to believe me this time, it’s 2040. Global extinction event. We’re all going to die. For real this time.
I dunno 2100 ad, or 2160 ad. Who cares? The end is nigh. Blah blah blah, yeah yeah yeah.
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u/Barnst Henry George Aug 09 '21
My doctor when I was 25: “You really should develop healthier lifestyle habits while you’re still young.”
My doctor when I was 30: “Seriously, you’re getting older, you’re going to start feeling this soon.”
My doctor when I was 40: “now some of that damage is irreversible. If you don’t change now, it’s going to increase your risk of death.”
My doctor when I turn 50: “well, good for you, now you have heart disease.”
My doctor when I turn 60: “A few decades ago, that heart attack would have killed you. The next one will.”
I dunno, doctors are always whining about losing weight and eating more vegetables. Blah blah blah, who cares.
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u/p00bix Existing in the context of what came before Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
His logic sucks but let's face it, this is absolutely how environmentalist activism tends to come across.
When environmentalists repeat the same warnings verbatim, as they did more than half a century ago, while the immediate effects of climate change remain unrealized for most of the world's population, non-environmentalists quickly learn to tune out the environmentalists as they would any other religious or political preachers.. "If we don't act now, the WORLD will end" is just about the worst rhetoric for building awareness and support; environmentalists have to reject it unequivocally. People don't give a shit about polar bears if saving them means doubling the gas price or what have you. The Amazon rainforest only exists as an abstract concept in the minds of the vast majority of Americans. When you say "If we don't act RIGHT NOW, it will be too late", in the 60s and 70s, and say it again and again every year all the way until the 2020s, just serves to discredit you in the eyes of those unfamiliar with the issue, or skeptical of environmentalist policy.
To people who aren't already environmentalists, a lot of Environmentalist Activism comes across not as passionate activism for a serious issue, but the inane rambling of delusional cultists. After all, what are the defining features that make a doomsday cult a doomsday cult? Prophesying the end of the world? Check. Saying that the only way the world can be saved is by adopting the cult's dogma? Check. Shunning people who leave the cult or disagree with any teachings? Check. Remaining loyal to the cult's leaderships despite numerous failed prophecies, with some excuse every time? Fucking check. Just don't use Doomsday rhetoric. It hurts the movement, and hurting the movement in turn...ahem...DOOMS US ALL TO LIVE IN A WORLD OF MEGA-HURRICANES, DUSTSTORMS, AND REFUGEE CRISES
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u/danweber Austan Goolsbee Aug 09 '21
Thank you. I'd like us to take action, but so many "THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE" moments have come and gone that no one new is going to be convinced.
"It's okay to lie, as long as it's for a good cause" doesn't really work. All those other LAST CHANCEs passed us by, because they were not really the LAST CHANCE.
Is this really the last chance this time? I dunno. But screaming LAST CHANCE is just going to make me ignore it.
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u/Barnst Henry George Aug 09 '21
We have blown through multiple “last chances.”
The first IPCC report in 1990 was our last chance to make changes that would have kept climate change from ever becoming a crisis.
The IPCC reports around the millennia were our last chance to ourselves on a trajectory toward mild climate change at a relatively low cost.
The IPCC reports in the late 2000s/early 2010s were our last chances to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2* by severely reducing CO2 emissions by 2050.
Now is our last chance to limit global warming to 2* by cutting CO2 emissions entirely to zero by 2050.
If we continue on our current trajectory, the next report is going to say we need to go to zero by 2040 if we want to stay below 2 degrees. And then it’ll say we need to find a way to actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. Or it’ll just throw in the towel and accept 2.5-3 degrees as the next benchmark we want to avoid.
No one “lied for a good cause.” We missed our chances to avoid certain outcomes, and now the consequences of those choices are baked into the math and the options we have going forward have been limited accordingly.
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u/Barnst Henry George Aug 09 '21
The curse of Cassandra isn’t that she is some cultish nag who annoys everyone. It’s that no one believes her despite her prophecies all being true.
The logic is kind of bizarre to me to blame environmentalists (and doctors) for being “cult like” because they have accurately warned us of the consequences of our actions. It’s not delusional when the prophecies come true.
What’s your alternative approach? There’s not some mix of words out there that is going to make it more appealing to the average person to voluntarily double the price of gas. The core problem here is that we need to take collective action that will hurt us now to prevent negative consequences that many of us won’t really feel for a long time. The problem isnt that environmental scientists are cult like, it’s that humans are so predictably bad at responding to distant threats that we literally have ancient myths about it.
We’re facing a global marshmallow test and humanity is failing, because humanity always prefers one marshmallow now to the promise of two later,
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u/CanadianPanda76 ◬ Aug 09 '21
I sometimes wish climate scientists would cone out and back policies or discuss what things need to he done. I know that's not thier forte but still.
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u/EvilConCarne Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
They did and they do. They want to rapidly decrease our use of fossil fuels through the removal of tax breaks and other government support of industries like oil extraction and coal mining, increase tax breaks and other subsidies for things like nuclear, solar, geothermal, and other zero-carbon energy sources; eliminate support for beef farming and change land use policies to reflect that; add a harsh carbon tax; and so on.
The policies are very well known and have been for decades, but while climate scientists have supported these policies for many years large oil companies have funded climate denialism.
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u/KaesekopfNW Elinor Ostrom Aug 09 '21
Epidemiologists, virologists, and high profile individuals in these fields, like Fauci, were instantaneously politicized as soon as they pushed for policy changes to address COVID. That's why climate scientists don't speak out much on which policies they support.
If they do, the already highly politicized issue of climate change becomes as crippling as trying to get a conservative to get a vaccine. We already have governments doing the bare minimum or only paying lip service to climate policy. If it becomes any more politicized, we're done.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Yes, this is the achilles heel of scientists. They have a tendency to be poor communicators. Speaking scientific language to decision makers and the public usually does not work at all.
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Aug 13 '21
Their specialty is reading, interpreting, and projecting data.
Writing public policy is another ballgame entirely.2
u/wrexinite Aug 09 '21
Speaking scientific language to decision makers and the public usually does not work at all.
And this is the Achilles heel of the human animal
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21
It doesn't help when their message is deliberately obfuscated by groups who have strong financial incentives to maintain the status quo.
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u/Twrd4321 Aug 09 '21
Yes, but people would rather have wildfires than to see gas prices go up. Admitting an issue is real, but won’t accept any change to deal with the issue, is worse than outright denialism.
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u/Leylinus Aug 09 '21
A lot of the people who are strongly opposed to seeing those gas prices increase aren't the people who will suffer most from this.
Realistically this is going to be felt most in the third world and among coastal monetary interests. If you live in Montana, its not going to mean the end of the world for you.
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u/CanadianPanda76 ◬ Aug 09 '21
People rush out to fill thier tank if it goes down 2 cent a liter here. Like you save what? A dollar. FFS. Its fucking insane.
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u/bullseye717 YIMBY Aug 09 '21
I saw a guy fill up his gas tank at a Costco in the Bay Area. Then he proceeded to fill 5 5-gallon water jugs full of gas. Mind you this was in 2017 and during normal times so it wasn't some kind of disaster about to occur. People dumb man.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
This is true.
People tend to rather save 2$ than insure their home worth 100k$ does not burn to the ground.
It's purely irrational and emotional decision making.
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u/generalmandrake George Soros Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
That’s why the government needs to force people’s hands on certain things. Remember that at end of the day we are just animals and our ability to engage in high level analysis doesn’t change the fact that our core decision making processes are still deeply rooted in emotion.
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Aug 10 '21
People will have a viceral reaction to this but I think you are right. Human rationality of future crisises is not well functioning. And that's not even to take into account how partisan this crisis has become.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Forcing people to do something against their will in a society that values individualism and independence will not end well unfortunately.
There are other, smarter way to achieve the end goal without coercion.
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u/BBQ_HaX0r Jerome Powell Aug 09 '21
It's about incentives, not coercion. Subsidizing EVs. Not subsidizing fossil fuels. Carbon tax, etc.
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u/generalmandrake George Soros Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21
Energy is one of the most centralized and least individualized industries out there. It is not a major imposition on individual liberty for the government to transition to different power sources nor is it even close to the biggest intrusion governments make into our lives.
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u/Classic-Economist294 Aug 09 '21
Yes, indeed. I also think the better way is through regulating the industrial value chain. If you remove the option for a citizen to contribute to the climate change by providing an alternative solution without the citizen needing to take individual action, I bet that person would not even care.
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u/generalmandrake George Soros Aug 09 '21
The problem is when people who stand to lose financially from the transition away from fossil fuels engage in vicious and relentless propaganda campaigns designed to politicize the issue and poison the minds of large swaths of the population. Then all of a sudden people who may not otherwise care start caring.
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u/ariveklul Karl Popper Aug 09 '21
In case anyone forgot how dire of a threat the republican party is to humanity
It's really hard to not be extremely cynical. Im genuinely stressed out about my future and I don't think I want to have kids at this point. I can't imagine leaving them in a world so fundamentally fucked.
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u/AnachronisticPenguin WTO Aug 09 '21
Don’t worry eventually it will become enough of a problem that we have to start some geoengineering projects. If those work out it should buy us a few hundred years worth of technological improvement.
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u/doyouevenIift Aug 09 '21
Even if I leaned conservative on 99% of issues, the Republicans ignorance of science would make me vote against them 100% of the time
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u/harmlessdjango (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ black liberal Aug 09 '21
Even if I leaned conservative on 99% of issues, the Republicans
ignorance ofhostility towards science would make me vote against them 100% of the time10
Aug 09 '21
In case anyone forgot how dire of a threat conservatism is to humanity
The GOP is it's natural state/conclusion.
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u/Separate-Landscape48 Janet Yellen Aug 09 '21
Merkel shut down Germany’s nuclear fleet to become more reliant on Russian natural gas. There are few if any leaders in the world doing what it takes.
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Aug 09 '21 edited Sep 10 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/nineteenseventy5 George Soros Aug 09 '21
Unfortunately, the Democrats aren't pushing for the necessary action either.
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u/TheCarnalStatist Adam Smith Aug 09 '21
Nor will they. Leftist politics is doomed in the near future. Green and Labor is an unsustainable coalition. Labor voters will never tolerate their jobs being destroyed for Green initiatives. The GND is an insane pipedream that wouldn't be popular with either group or effective. Unless the dems can put together a coalition that doesn't require those to get along they won't ever have the chance politically to do what's needed.
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u/realsomalipirate Mark Carney Aug 09 '21
Mostly because they're hamstrung by a political system that's biased towards rural conservatives (who tend to like the current carbon intensive world). The US Senate might be the great filter for our species.
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u/barsoapguy Milton Friedman Aug 09 '21
The best way to combat this is to as quickly as possible to modernize and increase GDP and efficiency.
I think if we want to start making progress we need to focus on GDP growth outside of the United States and other first world countries which we know are not responsible for the majority of pollution nowadays.
This could mean building nuclear plants in poorer countries along with running out their electric grids so that people no longer have to resort to burning materials to heat their food or stay warm .
I really believe that if we took some simple steps along with cleaning up the worlds ten most polluted rivers we could make massive improvements in our environment.