This argument is so tired. Can we just be realists about climate change? Hoping politicians all around the world suddenly stop acting out of self interest is counterproductive, as is expecting...
This argument is so tired. Can we just be realists about climate change?
Hoping politicians all around the world suddenly stop acting out of self interest is counterproductive, as is expecting corporations to put anything else over profit.
We need to begin preparing for the most likely scenario, which is 2+ degree warming, though not at the expense of continuing to fund research into direct air captured and other technologies.
Honestly, I think the emotions we need to appeal to is fear and rage. On a recent episode of the Factually podcast, Adam Conover interviewed a person who described herself as an "apocolyptic...
Honestly, I think the emotions we need to appeal to is fear and rage.
On a recent episode of the Factually podcast, Adam Conover interviewed a person who described herself as an "apocolyptic optimist". Her reasoning is that both dispair and hopefulness lead to inaction, and the thing that actually gets people to move is when catastrophe happens. If you've ever been involved with getting a government to implement safety measures, you would know that most of them are paid with the blood of innocent people before the cash budget gets approved to implement those changes. The environment is no different.
I do agree with her in a lot of her opinions on this (especially how I think it's foolish to put faith in technology that functionally doesn't exist to stop climate change), but I think that we shouldn't have to wait for the next big climate catastrophe to happen to push for stronger legislation. We are lobsters in a pot of water; our world is boiling but somehow many of us are complicit and unwilling to see what's happening. We know that the hurricanes and wildfires are directly linked to climate change but we're not storming the capital to force them to make real changes. But that's kind of what we should be doing. There should be mass demonstrations. We should block the roads and occupy the places our legislature is written. We should all be extremely angry because our world is literally dying.
I wouldn't argue on what emotions are logically or psychologically justified. I just don't think fear and rage are very productive from a practical standpoint. Especially for constructive long...
I wouldn't argue on what emotions are logically or psychologically justified. I just don't think fear and rage are very productive from a practical standpoint. Especially for constructive long term goals which require continuous effort and investment.
Fear is paralyzing. Rage is destructive, and should be employed for negative goals. Against something obvious and specific. Not for something that is broad and complex.
Here's a narrative we could start pushing that would put the fear of God in them. We need to legally define "ecocide" as a crime against humanity right up there with genocide. Sure, it would be...
Here's a narrative we could start pushing that would put the fear of God in them.
We need to legally define "ecocide" as a crime against humanity right up there with genocide. Sure, it would be difficult to actually determine who is culpable enough to be guilty of such a heinous crime, but the same applies to crimes like genocide. How involved does an individual need to be before they can be charged with genocide or ethnic cleansing? It's not like we haven't written laws for hard-to-define concepts before.
The people who have fought tooth and nail to keep fossil fuels going, the people who funded disinformation campaigns, all knowing full well what that would lead to? These people deserve the Nuremberg treatment. They have committed crimes against humanity. And they should be dealt with as such.
This is the kind of rage we should be feeling. We should be telling ourselves, "someone needs to hang for this." Because that is the magnitude of the crime we are dealing with.
We need to add ecocide to the list of crimes against humanity.
But the world isn't dying! The fauna of the world is dying. And humankind will wither. We're currently growing faster than we're dying but that is unlikely to be sustainable unless: We stop...
But the world isn't dying! The fauna of the world is dying. And humankind will wither. We're currently growing faster than we're dying but that is unlikely to be sustainable unless:
We stop deterraforming Earth.
We spread significantly beyond Earth, in a survivable way, before Earth can no longer sustain us.
(1) is low probability. Governments are largely captured by capital. Capital only cares about creating more capital. The welfare of the planet is only of interest insofar as it generates more capital. By this reasoning, (1) only occurs if it somehow becomes profitable to stop deterraforming Earth.
(2) is of questionable probability. We are slowly cultivating the means to leave the planet and set up small outposts off-Earth. However, we still lack proof that we are capable of long term thriving beyond Earth. Until and without that, this is also likely low probability.
Radical solutions seem necessary. But without unity, there can only be unilateral or ineffective impact. Unilateral impacts invite war. Ineffective impact speaks for itself.
Agreed that the optimism is absurd. But preparing? The impact of these changes are going to be catastrophic. How do we prepare? Relocating whole countries of people to somewhat safer places? If...
Agreed that the optimism is absurd.
But preparing? The impact of these changes are going to be catastrophic.
How do we prepare? Relocating whole countries of people to somewhat safer places? If it's every country for itself, as it has been, we're going to see more war, more pollution, more disease, more famine.
Realistically, I don't see technology saving us unless it's profitable.
I've quoted this before but “We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective.” – Kurt Vonnegut
How doesn't this become a slow apocalypse? That seems realistic.
Seems as though we should be preparing for another Dark Age to occur within the next 100-200 years. Except we won't because it's not cost effective and won't seem necessary until imminent.
There are inroads being made into direct air capture (DAC). Now I'm not a climate scientist, so these numbers may be a bit off: According to the 2022 Global Carbon Budget, the cumulative fossil...
continuing to fund research into direct air capture
There are inroads being made into direct air capture (DAC). Now I'm not a climate scientist, so these numbers may be a bit off:
According to the 2022 Global Carbon Budget, the cumulative fossil CO₂ emissions for 1850–2021 were 465 ± 25 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC).
Over 171 years of CO₂ emissions we spewed on average 2.7 GtC emitted annually. This number is much higher today (see below).
A federally funded DAC in Ector County is slated to capture 1 million metric tons of carbon (MtC) per year.
Using DAC alone would require 2.7 GtC / 1 MtC, which is 2700 installations to net zero humanity's global annual CO₂ emissions. This does not claw back today's 424.72 ppm to 1850s levels.
Occidental’s DAC plant in Ector County will cost $1 billion.
Ballpark cost to build 2700 plants is on the order of $2.7 trillion?
Doing something is better than maintaining the status quo. What effect would spending $1 billion have on spurring the growth of phytoplankton, whales, and trees — to say nothing of $2.7 trillion?
From NOAA: "The researchers found that organic carbon production captures roughly 3 billion tons of carbon per year, which is equivalent to about one quarter of total human emissions, while particulate inorganic carbon production diminishes CO2 uptake by about 270 million tons per year."
From NOAA: "This process allows whales to store more carbon in their bodies than trees. One whale can capture an average of 33 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifespan. A live oak tree, one of the most efficient carbon-capturing tree species, captures roughly 12 tons of carbon dioxide over a maximum 500-year lifespan."
Phytoplankton, whales, and trees sequester carbon naturally, without hardly any effort on our part.
By my back of the napkin math, wouldn't we need over 8 million whales to equal the same carbon capture as the 2,700 plants? The whale population is something like 15,000. I fully support...
By my back of the napkin math, wouldn't we need over 8 million whales to equal the same carbon capture as the 2,700 plants? The whale population is something like 15,000. I fully support increasing whale populations as much as possible, but it's got nothing to do with the solution to climate change.
Did mentioning whales bury the lede? Phytoplankton sequesters 3 billion GtC annually. CO2 DAC requires long-term maintenance, will take decades to build to scale, requires power, emits CO2 during...
but it's got nothing to do with the solution to climate change.
Did mentioning whales bury the lede? Phytoplankton sequesters 3 billion GtC annually.
CO2 DAC requires long-term maintenance, will take decades to build to scale, requires power, emits CO2 during construction, and my math of 2,700 was based on average annual emissions since 1850, which doesn't reflect today's emissions. In 2022, we emitted 36.8 GtC, which is an order of magnitude higher than my paltry 2.7 GtC annual average. DAC alone to reach net zero would be $36.8 trillion (or 36,800 plants). The global GDP was $101.3 trillion in 2022, for comparison.
Making massive phytoplankton blooms doesn't require long-term maintenance, needs no power (hello sunshine), would emit comparatively little CO2, and maybe could be accomplished in under a decade? I can't imagine sprinkling a mother lode of rust to seed the blooms would cost anywhere near $3 trillion.
Frankly it is going to cost of wildly more money to not solve the problems we are facing.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, that was incredibly informative. I still have some concerns like phytoplankton blooms potentially having some negative impacts, but I can't imagine those...
Thank you for taking the time to reply, that was incredibly informative. I still have some concerns like phytoplankton blooms potentially having some negative impacts, but I can't imagine those impacts would be as bad as the impacts of constructing thousands of new factories. It certainly warrants further study.
The light searching I've done shows the conversation around it is heated and mixed. I'm in no way versed enough to contribute or hold any further opinion on the matter, though. But it is certainly interesting, and I hope it can be used eventually to help mitigate climate change.
People are studying it as a climate mitigation tool to add to the toolbox. Putting money towards this research and its applications seems more promising and practical than DAC, IMO....
People are studying it as a climate mitigation tool to add to the toolbox. Putting money towards this research and its applications seems more promising and practical than DAC, IMO.
I think realism often means zooming in. For example, what can you do personally to prepare for climate change, assuming you can't change what the rest of the world does? What do you need to do?...
I think realism often means zooming in. For example, what can you do personally to prepare for climate change, assuming you can't change what the rest of the world does? What do you need to do? How important is it compared with whatever else is going on in your life?
There are other zoom levels of course. A mayor can think about how their city will need to adapt. At work, you might think about whatever your company does and how it will change. The appropriate zoom level depends on context.
When we are reading the news, we're often thinking about other people's problems, which is often a distraction. (I say that as someone who is perpetually distracted.)
This argument is so tired. Can we just be realists about climate change?
Hoping politicians all around the world suddenly stop acting out of self interest is counterproductive, as is expecting corporations to put anything else over profit.
We need to begin preparing for the most likely scenario, which is 2+ degree warming, though not at the expense of continuing to fund research into direct air captured and other technologies.
Realistically, hope is usually more persuasive than despair.
And yet optimism is not often realistic.
Honestly, I think the emotions we need to appeal to is fear and rage.
On a recent episode of the Factually podcast, Adam Conover interviewed a person who described herself as an "apocolyptic optimist". Her reasoning is that both dispair and hopefulness lead to inaction, and the thing that actually gets people to move is when catastrophe happens. If you've ever been involved with getting a government to implement safety measures, you would know that most of them are paid with the blood of innocent people before the cash budget gets approved to implement those changes. The environment is no different.
I do agree with her in a lot of her opinions on this (especially how I think it's foolish to put faith in technology that functionally doesn't exist to stop climate change), but I think that we shouldn't have to wait for the next big climate catastrophe to happen to push for stronger legislation. We are lobsters in a pot of water; our world is boiling but somehow many of us are complicit and unwilling to see what's happening. We know that the hurricanes and wildfires are directly linked to climate change but we're not storming the capital to force them to make real changes. But that's kind of what we should be doing. There should be mass demonstrations. We should block the roads and occupy the places our legislature is written. We should all be extremely angry because our world is literally dying.
I wouldn't argue on what emotions are logically or psychologically justified. I just don't think fear and rage are very productive from a practical standpoint. Especially for constructive long term goals which require continuous effort and investment.
Fear is paralyzing. Rage is destructive, and should be employed for negative goals. Against something obvious and specific. Not for something that is broad and complex.
Here's a narrative we could start pushing that would put the fear of God in them.
We need to legally define "ecocide" as a crime against humanity right up there with genocide. Sure, it would be difficult to actually determine who is culpable enough to be guilty of such a heinous crime, but the same applies to crimes like genocide. How involved does an individual need to be before they can be charged with genocide or ethnic cleansing? It's not like we haven't written laws for hard-to-define concepts before.
The people who have fought tooth and nail to keep fossil fuels going, the people who funded disinformation campaigns, all knowing full well what that would lead to? These people deserve the Nuremberg treatment. They have committed crimes against humanity. And they should be dealt with as such.
This is the kind of rage we should be feeling. We should be telling ourselves, "someone needs to hang for this." Because that is the magnitude of the crime we are dealing with.
We need to add ecocide to the list of crimes against humanity.
But the world isn't dying! The fauna of the world is dying. And humankind will wither. We're currently growing faster than we're dying but that is unlikely to be sustainable unless:
(1) is low probability. Governments are largely captured by capital. Capital only cares about creating more capital. The welfare of the planet is only of interest insofar as it generates more capital. By this reasoning, (1) only occurs if it somehow becomes profitable to stop deterraforming Earth.
(2) is of questionable probability. We are slowly cultivating the means to leave the planet and set up small outposts off-Earth. However, we still lack proof that we are capable of long term thriving beyond Earth. Until and without that, this is also likely low probability.
Radical solutions seem necessary. But without unity, there can only be unilateral or ineffective impact. Unilateral impacts invite war. Ineffective impact speaks for itself.
Big think here folks. Need more of this. Sincerely!
🙏
Agreed that the optimism is absurd.
But preparing? The impact of these changes are going to be catastrophic.
How do we prepare? Relocating whole countries of people to somewhat safer places? If it's every country for itself, as it has been, we're going to see more war, more pollution, more disease, more famine.
Realistically, I don't see technology saving us unless it's profitable.
I've quoted this before but “We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective.” – Kurt Vonnegut
How doesn't this become a slow apocalypse? That seems realistic.
Seems as though we should be preparing for another Dark Age to occur within the next 100-200 years. Except we won't because it's not cost effective and won't seem necessary until imminent.
There are inroads being made into direct air capture (DAC). Now I'm not a climate scientist, so these numbers may be a bit off:
Doing something is better than maintaining the status quo. What effect would spending $1 billion have on spurring the growth of phytoplankton, whales, and trees — to say nothing of $2.7 trillion?
From NOAA: "The researchers found that organic carbon production captures roughly 3 billion tons of carbon per year, which is equivalent to about one quarter of total human emissions, while particulate inorganic carbon production diminishes CO2 uptake by about 270 million tons per year."
From NOAA: "This process allows whales to store more carbon in their bodies than trees. One whale can capture an average of 33 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifespan. A live oak tree, one of the most efficient carbon-capturing tree species, captures roughly 12 tons of carbon dioxide over a maximum 500-year lifespan."
Phytoplankton, whales, and trees sequester carbon naturally, without hardly any effort on our part.
By my back of the napkin math, wouldn't we need over 8 million whales to equal the same carbon capture as the 2,700 plants? The whale population is something like 15,000. I fully support increasing whale populations as much as possible, but it's got nothing to do with the solution to climate change.
We can absolutely build 2,700 factories. We can absolutely afford to spend $2.7 trillion on this. The global cost of climate change damage is estimated to be between $1.7 trillion and $3.1 trillion per year by 2050. Frankly it is going to cost of wildly more money to not solve the problems we are facing.
Did mentioning whales bury the lede? Phytoplankton sequesters 3 billion GtC annually.
CO2 DAC requires long-term maintenance, will take decades to build to scale, requires power, emits CO2 during construction, and my math of 2,700 was based on average annual emissions since 1850, which doesn't reflect today's emissions. In 2022, we emitted 36.8 GtC, which is an order of magnitude higher than my paltry 2.7 GtC annual average. DAC alone to reach net zero would be $36.8 trillion (or 36,800 plants). The global GDP was $101.3 trillion in 2022, for comparison.
Making massive phytoplankton blooms doesn't require long-term maintenance, needs no power (hello sunshine), would emit comparatively little CO2, and maybe could be accomplished in under a decade? I can't imagine sprinkling a mother lode of rust to seed the blooms would cost anywhere near $3 trillion.
Most assuredly! Preaching to the choir.
Thank you for taking the time to reply, that was incredibly informative. I still have some concerns like phytoplankton blooms potentially having some negative impacts, but I can't imagine those impacts would be as bad as the impacts of constructing thousands of new factories. It certainly warrants further study.
The light searching I've done shows the conversation around it is heated and mixed. I'm in no way versed enough to contribute or hold any further opinion on the matter, though. But it is certainly interesting, and I hope it can be used eventually to help mitigate climate change.
People are studying it as a climate mitigation tool to add to the toolbox. Putting money towards this research and its applications seems more promising and practical than DAC, IMO.
I think realism often means zooming in. For example, what can you do personally to prepare for climate change, assuming you can't change what the rest of the world does? What do you need to do? How important is it compared with whatever else is going on in your life?
There are other zoom levels of course. A mayor can think about how their city will need to adapt. At work, you might think about whatever your company does and how it will change. The appropriate zoom level depends on context.
When we are reading the news, we're often thinking about other people's problems, which is often a distraction. (I say that as someone who is perpetually distracted.)