My view is that climate change is a world problem. Governments will not oblige their citizens to make steps on their consumption if it means reducing their comfort and their economic power.
Steps should be taken in advance so that once green deals are put in place, countries can implement those effortlessly.
We often hear that some countries don't make enough efforts, but
1. Other countries import carbon emitting products
2. The developed countries of today have emmited greenhouse gases for decades, which allowed them to become developed countries.
The geopolitics of climate change are extremely difficult. I don't think the UN is up for it.
Although a better scenario would be to enact tight regulations on a country basis, but it's a political minefield. Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.
Here is the catch - efforts to reduce overconsumption mean slowing economy and lower tax base. No goverment can afford that.
> Imagine riots because people want to keep using their cars and trade goods that have become illegal, or vendettas against people who emit co2.
I believe we are on a verge of Millenial movement of some sort that will make a matter of enviroment a quasi religion of sorts. That would change the attitudes.
It's interesting though that they will oblige them to wars.
This is generally not a true statement. Government is not entirely segregated from the citizenry. It is, in some form, representation of society (even in a dictatorship).
Here, I am less convinced.
Globalisation came about in good part to move from the places with tighter regulation - on pollution, on employment, on finance - to those without.
It is the same way that offshore finance came about by trading each regulation against each other. The net result is there are fewer controls everywhere, despite a few headline money laundering regs. The history of this is fascinating.
> My view is that climate change is a world problem
That's undoubtedly true, and the fossil fuel companies clearly acknowledge this - their 30 year anti-science propaganda campaigns have been waged across the world.
The effects climate change has and will have are doing that for them.
This is not really clear. You could argue that using more solar and electric vehicles will increase comfort due to cleaner air.
The UK government is currently delivering on all three, though I suspect not for any ecological reasons.
The Network (1976)
edit - there was a World Bank blog post about this, but it has mysteriously disappeared.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/miga/world-s-top-10...
here's google's cached version -
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Qt-r1E...
There can, and has been, plenty of discussion as to the reasons, but for at least thirty years now the consensus has been that human activity is responsible for the vast majority of the effects we've seen.
And before I'm downvoted, note that you don't know my position on climate change: all I'm against is punishing people for genuine disagreement of thought.
Beyond that, one major issue is that the extreme politicization of this issues makes it difficult for people to speak freely. Anybody who speaks their mind on this topic, when such view doesn't abide the 'proper' view is labeled, attacked, and ostracized when and if possible. So you end up primarily with radicals, fools, and a handful of people with extremely thick skin willing to speak. A similar treatment was given to those who, for instance, suggested that leaded fuel might indeed be harmful - the official government and 'consensus' position for decades was that it was safe or posed negligible risk.
I am not, in this posting, thus taking any side. But I do think if you ever want to achieve progress on any topic, people being able to speak freely is critical to progress. Only weak or poorly supported ideas need fear 'contrarian' views. And even in the rare case where those weak or poorly supported ideas happen to be the truth, they invariably become stronger over time (due to the accumulation of validated falsifiable evidence) while, vice versa, alternative views become weaker.
But perhaps more importantly, I think the desire to squash contrarian views has a paradoxical effect. The idea is of course to try to prevent the spread of these ideas, yet in reality there never works - even less so now that we've entered the era of the internet. See: China + Winnie the Pooh for an amusing example. But far more critically, I think efforts to avoid discussion are often seen as an inability to compellingly respond. Once ideas reach a critical mass, they will spread unless compellingly challenged. Refusing to challenge these ideas in a fair and impartial way only strengthens them.
There is zero support for that position.
If you would like to debate the merits of Lindzen's views, feel free to do so: he thinks there will be less warming than existing models predict. He doesn't deny warming!
Meanwhile he retired in 2013, and as far as I can tell has produced no active research in this field since 2011. And his 2011 paper was widely panned including by reviewers he selected. He had to correct numerous errors in the paper. According to wikipedia, he eventually argued that at least 75% of predicted warming was happening.
So, a 25% margin off a catastrophic level of warming. And that's the very best name you can produce. And this info is all in the link you sent. And that's apart from the question of whether he was right in his argument in 2011, which is a factual answer we can measure with temperature sensors. (IIRC, warming has progressed faster than expected instead)
Contrary to your point, there is tremendous economic incentive to prove that fossil fuels are safe, cause us no trouble, and can continue to be used. Anyone who decisively proved that would be a hero, as fossil fuels are very useful indeed. The absence of such a person suggests that this view is mistaken.
> According to an April 30, 2012 New York Times article,[67] "Dr. Lindzen accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people who dispute that point "nutty." He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate." He also believes that decreasing tropical cirrus clouds in a warmer world will allow more longwave radiation to escape the atmosphere, counteracting the warming.[67] Lindzen first published this "iris" theory in 2001,[9] and offered more support in a 2009 paper.[51]
Hm.. So he has a diverging view on the consequences of warming on the tropical cirrus cloud coverage, and thinks the models are not good enough to reproduce the real climate. That's disagreement about the projections, not the basics, with most of the community, and that's ok, we can research more and figure out the truth. The problem is, we don't have that time (unless he's right).
Only reality will really tell. Let's hope he's right (not that probable), but act as if he wasn't, and see what else we can learn about the system to improve our understanding.
It's 2019 and humanity is barely starting to think about acting. Global CO2 emissions keep growing as if we were in "business as usual". Humanity needs to realize the magnitude of the problem. Climate change is, by far, the biggest threat it has ever encountered and probably will ever encounter.
The solution will require us to make radical changes to our lifestyle and our culture. For example, we can't keep having irrational leaders that ignore basic scientific facts.
Nowadays the predictions are much higher, because scientists started asking “if the oceans get warmer, what changes will that cause, and how will those changes affect the temperature?” In 1970, Exxon wasn’t suppressing research on whether warmer oceans mean more water vapor in the air, more carbon dioxide outgassing from the oceans, etc. They were only asking “should we really make drastic changes to head off a 1°-2°C temperature change that may not happen for a century? Is there a reason to believe that nothing will change in that time to make the prediction irrelevant?”
1965 - 1979 there were a total of 7 scientific papers predicting a cooling climate. Compared to 42 predicting human caused global warming (Peterson 2008).
I wouldn't bet on it. We know we can cut emissions today by investing in nuclear ... and nothing. We could have invested in nuclear power 30 years ago and prevented trillions of tons of CO2 from being emitted.
Instead we decided wind/solar/natural gas (and those are always package deal) is our best bet at fighting climate change.
>For example, we can't keep having irrational leaders that ignore basic scientific facts.
Facts like nuclear power is by far the best and only way to effectively fight climate change?
> I oversaw the U.S. nuclear power industry. Now I think it should be banned.
> By Gregory Jaczko
> Gregory Jaczko served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 2009, and as its chairman from 2009 to 2012.
The author is arguably talking his book, since he invested in a wind power company. But it's still noteworthy that nuclear physicists and former regulators don't necessarily agree with you.
The idea that the humans will somehow adapt to this is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Koch bros are pushing the same idea, on the evolutionary level, that humans will learn to live.
To me humanity is already dead, we are eternally doomed. We just don't know it yet. It's better to realize and accept it[2], as if we're told we have cancer and our days are numbered. This is a very pessimistic approach, but it is an honest one and may help mitigate problems for future generations.
[1] https://thinkprogress.org/exxon-ceo-what-good-is-it-to-save-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doo...
It's worth to remember that adaption doesn't necessarily equate survival in the way we tend to think about it, as dinosaurs adapted too.
Humanity, at least on this planet, is already doomed. The sun will eventually consume us as a natural part of its life cycle. It's a very long time until that happens, but life here will eventually end. So as we're already doomed, should we then do nothing to prevent suffering and pain until then?
It should be a rhetorical question, but apparently it isn't always.
The argument can be made quite simple: As long as we continue to have children, or accept people having children, we have chosen - as a species - to not give up on them, and their descendants.
Preserving a livable environment, and preferably much more than livable, is simply a duty springing from that fact.
There is no need for any deep philosophy, to care for the environment is - essentially - a consequence of choices already made.
If you believe you're probably doomed because of what a large number of your most idiotic compatriots believe, what other people think is of great interest.
It's the other species – the ones that had no hand in this – that I worry and feel regret about.
And sure, "cities will move" - so much political chaos happening on Europe just because of a million refugees - now imagine 50 times more coming to northern europe just from southern europe. Similar things happening all over the world. What fun!
If people think the current refugee crisis is bad, boy are they in for a shocker.
1. Have a single CO2 budget for the whole country, with an aggressive, Hard to change roadmap of yearly reduction of said budget down to zero in the not too long future.
2. Estimate the CO2 footprint of every single product, incl. imports by one or several neutral organizations. This doesn’t have to be perfect as long as it attempts to be fair.
3. Tax every product according to this budget using supply/demand markets (certificates trading).
4. Redistribute the tax, especially to mitigate the hardship on low income households and domestic companies.
In my mind, this would create a gigantic incentive for CO2 reduction for your citizens as well as domestic AND foreign companies. Crucially, it would not require any global agreement and consensus. Apart from perhaps renegotiation or canceling of trade agreements on the side of the country that implements the policy.
Note, that you can replace CO2 by greenhouse gases or environmental impact in general. I just use it as a shorthandle.
Very curious about your opinions.
Here's one that's in Congress now that you can support: the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (http://energyinnovationact.org) . All revenue from a carbon tax goes to citizens as a yearly check. It has some 30+ cosponsors, including a Republican. A tax at point of source is more efficent than a per-item budget. Any rising cost of CO2 will be accounted for in the price of the product. Fossil-fuel-expensive products will cost more.
The group behind this is the Citizens Climate Lobby, which has been advocating a fee and dividend model for over a decade. It was cofounded by James Hansen, the NASA scientist who first testified to Congress about the perils of climate change over 30 years ago.
In addition, if you live in the states of Oregon and New York, both are on the cusp of passing similar legislation. And there are many more out there in various stages of development...
So, I'd suggest the following for any nation or country:
1. Create an independent institution (like the European Central Bank) with the goal to get to carbon neutrality until, say, 2040 or 2045.
2. Give it the right to tax carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. This should include tariffs for imported goods, and reimbursements for exported goods, and other means to make some special industries pay (airplanes and ships, mostly).
3. Give it the right to perform auctions for negative carbon emissions.
If the world wants a chance to fix the problem, it'll need negative emissions, as far as I know. This is missing in your suggestion. It may also be faster to create new industries than change existing ones.
My suggestion would also follow a well-known, although maybe no uncontroversial principle of "polluter pays". In the end, the price is determined by the goal, not by political considerations.
If I'm not mistaken, such a carbon tax would rise until (positive) carbon emissions equal negative carbon emissions. At this point, carbon neutrality should be reached. Whatever else needs to be done is then up to future generations.
If it's an international effort, there's going to be disagreement on how to set a budget. Does a country with an emerging economy get a higher budget because they're behind more advanced economies who benefited from fossil fuels in their past growth? Getting advanced economies to make a disproportionate sacrifice will be a hard sell. And what is the accountability/oversight mechanism at the international level?
If instead the budget was set at the national level, you're going to have a hard time getting countries on-board if they see other countries not doing the same. "Why should we hamper our economy when country X isn't making a sacrifice?"
In principal this already works in many cases, eg California/US subsidies on electric vehicles or Germany’s subsidies for solar. Both are very expensive with little benefit for the countries citizens compared to all other earthlings. To everyone else. They are just not aggressive enough.
Again, we don’t need an international consensus yet. The interesting part is putting financial pressure on foreign companies to reduce their CO2 footprint.
When there were lots of options for dealing with emissions on the table, including more intrusive ones like carbon taxes and outright emissions restrictions, cap and trade was the favored alternative of conservatives because it was "market-based." When President Obama settled on cap and trade in 2009 in order to get conservatives on board with doing something about climate, though, those same conservatives immediately turned on their heel and started denouncing it as an example of Obama's "socialism."
(Yes, they went from praising a policy as market-based to condemning the same policy as socialist. Such is the sorry state of American political discourse.)
So, the political problem is: if the appeal of cap and trade is that it should theoretically get the support of conservatives who would usually oppose action on climate, but those conservatives will stop supporting it the moment all the other options they like less are taken off the table, is there any point in offering them a cap and trade olive branch in the first place? How do you negotiate with a faction whose only goal for the negotiation is that you have to lose?
For one thing, it will be a temporary windfall. Then you've got to find ways to replace the revenue when you succeed.
I'd rather see the revenue from a carbon tax go into research, development, and infrastructure that further accelerates the transition to carbon neutral energy.
Obviously, the tax already gives you an incentive to look for other alternatives, but this helps make those other alternatives more practical, so it kind of pushes and pulls you in the right direction.
If a person can style their life in a such a way as to have CO2 budget left over at the end of the year, then they carry it over to the next year or allow them to sell it. But any system that doesn't involve giving the budget directly to citizens is broken and designed for graft and fuck that.
Unfortunately, there's still too much disagreement on climate change at the population level for that level of shared sacrifice.
Wow. How does this compare to other predictions at the time?
As a quick refresher: the original climate deal, the Kyoto Protocol, was signed in 1992, by then everyone was well on board with the science. In fact, the climate negotiations were spun off from the convention on reducing CFCs (Vienna Convention of 1985), which are important greenhouse gases as well as being damaging to the ozone layer. It was thought (correctly) at the time that because CFCs were produced and used in a limited number of places, it would be much easier to resolve that problem and move the wider greenhouse gas negotiations into a separate treaty, which took another 7 years until 1992.
I also think the same of Carl Sagan. For all his wonderful and critical achievements, I bet if he could see how things turned out, he would have unquestioningly devoted his life to spreading awareness about climate change here on Earth instead of focusing on astronomy and nuclear war.
Hopefully this company one day will be prosecuted.
Dear HN crowd, I bet a fair share of us belongs to the top 10%, please reduce your emissions.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-r...
A large percentage of emissions is transportation, manufacturing, heating and electricity.
While the rich will consume more, the effect on total emissions is much lower.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/20...
the US is still an order of magnitude higher than India in per capita emissions
You can play it online here: https://tinyurl.com/43softrains-v1-1
I have been considering pursuing funding for making similar choice-based games like this one and integrating them with classroom curriculums.
Is the code open source? I would love to have a translated version of this and encourage the younger members of my family to play it.
What languages are you interested in seeing?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=shell+knew+about+global+warming&t=...
The individualization of environmental problems is a serious obstacle. "We need to stop buying and using plastic water bottles" needs to become "Pepsico and Coke need to stop producing trash."
One solution which I favor is nationalization of US oil companies. While hardly discussed in the US, it's a solution that is currently being discussed in the UK and has been done by many different countries, though usually because of the legacy of imperialism and colonialism. Overtime I have come to the realization free market solutions and incentives are incapable of spurring the changes needed to transition to a cleaner form of energy, especially with the short time scale we have before results are disastrous.
Can you explain your reasoning behind this? It makes no sense to me.
This is fundamentally an economic issue. People will stop burning carbon when it's less expensive to do something else. If you nationalize the industry only to shut it down, that causes the cost of burning oil to increase (the intended effect), but then the higher prices spur foreign suppliers to increase production which blunts the effect. Meanwhile you suffer a massive domestic loss as you not only have to pay higher oil prices, you have to pay them to foreign suppliers like Russia and Saudi Arabia rather than domestic companies.
By contrast, a carbon tax reduces demand and makes production less profitable world-wide, so everyone reduces production (not just domestic producers), and the money from the higher prices goes to your own government which can either use it to subsidize alternatives or return it to citizens to mitigate the impact of the higher costs.
No. There are no even remotely plausible scenarios in which most life (say, all mammals, to pick something specific) go extinct due to climate change caused by human CO2 emissions. If you think that, you have been lied to - and have not been smart enough to recognize the lies.
"Unless nations step up their efforts to protect what natural habitats are left, they could witness the disappearance of 40 percent of amphibian species, one-third of marine mammals and one-third of reef-forming corals. More than 500,000 land species, the report said, do not have enough natural habitat left to ensure their long-term survival."
A summary can be found here: https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_uned...
This event resulted in 96% of marine species dying and 70% of land animals dying. I don't think anyone thinks such an event is certain or likely, but it is surely a "remote possibility".
If the latest Australian elections are anything to go by, popular (popularist) voter sentiment is swinging towards denial.
The only reliable takeaway is that jobs are more important than climate to majority of voters in Queensland.
Nationalizing those industries and using tariffs to stabilize at a higher price would accelerate adoption of better technology. You could implode demand for natural gas and fuel oil by raising prices and capturing profits to capitalize heat pump adoption in the northeast, for example.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/05/archives/international-te...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_cont...
Exhaust stank, looked dirty. Doesn't take much to figure it out.
(decentralized innovation as politics is too slow)
Also pretty creepy that people go down post comments history to check who it is and where you 're coming from. Eh.
Every fossil fuel company is going to lie their pants off because that's what you and all other humans would do if they got into the same situation.
Speak for yourself.
1. A good number of people actually have a spine. I'd not say the majority "is good && have a spine" but enough that you are lying.
2. It doesn't help at all to spread the lie that everyone else lying.
Speaking as someone who has been embarassingly honest, and who also admires his friend who came back and admitted he'd been laughing at me behind my back.
What do you think religion is except for one big lie? Muslims and Christian's can't both be right, either one of them is right or neither of them. That puts a major portion of the world population gauraunteed to be delusional. Delusional behavior as a corporation like Exxon follows. This is logic you can't deny it.
You apparently are better than most humans since you brag about your ability to be embarrassingly honest.
You are correct, regulation is the only path forward. The problem is, when you give too much freedom to a capitalistic society, the major capitalists aka corporations seem to take control. The corporations in turn take their power and influence the very regulatory bodies that are suppose to keep them in check.
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/sc...
As usual, total numbers are meaningless without scaling them by population. If China split into 100 independent states tomorrow, they wouldn't be a problem anymore by your metric, even if they produce exactly the same amount of CO2 as they do now.
Fair comparison with roughly equal population: Europe, the US, and Australia combined vs. China. And the former group produces more CO2 than the latter.
Also, if you look at the trendlines, the US's per capita numbers are going down, while the China's and India's are going up with no signs of slowing. So is their population growth. The US is currently "taking care of itself" more or less, but China and India (already # 1 and #3 in total carbon numbers) are getting worse at a frightening pace. If we spend all of our energy focusing on the US, even if we're extraordinarily successful there, we'll look around in 20 years and see we lost progress globally. As though we didn't heed Amdahl's law and spent all of our time optimizing the wrong function. The most important thing we can do is find some way for China and (especially) India to grow their economies and pull their citizens out of poverty in a way that doesn't destroy the planet.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/20...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02...
And as per article, US companies are also involved in the muddy waters of denialism propoganda.
