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Comment by no1youknowz | Hacker News Reader

So I have a really serious question. I'm not a denier/skeptic. I just like to look at things logically and pose questions.

Over the next 50 years these 3 things will occur:

1) Only electric vehicles on the ground, air and water

2) All meat for consumption grown in the lab, no farm animals raised

3) No coal plants

Won't this eliminate all major types of pollution?

If at this point, the planet still keeps warming? What are "they" going to blame it on then?

It's quite easy to see this is where technology is going. But yet I never hear anything about it. Just we have 10/12 years until we all die.

Also please don't just down vote me. I'm interested in knowing if there are cycles in warming due to the earth or the sun. I have come across youtube videos and articles that we are in-line for another ice age. I just wonder, if we'll ever get to a peak warm, will it reverse and we'll start cooling rapidly?

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You think the planet reaches equilibrium a day after we stop emitting? There's quite a bit of heat capacity at planetary scale.

Current anthropogenic emissions may be causing melting of glaciers and warming for decades or hundreds of years to come. Chances are "they" will continue to accurately blame the 20th and 21st century emissions into the 22nd and 23rd.

Actually no, that would be folly. But I do expect at some point the planet will self correct.

I think that because I remember the scare of the ozone layer back in the 80s, early 90s.

Now according this article [0], in 2060 it will be completely healed.

Why can't it be said for climate change? I personally don't understand any negative connotations. I can only think it will be a positive outcome.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/05/ozone-la...

The reason the ozone layer is healing is because "the scare" led to enactment of laws prohibiting the widespread usage of the chemicals that were destroying it. This is like saying Y2K was nothing but fear mongering.

Reading the latest ozone assessment report [0] I was reminded again how impressive that reaction really was. Between deciding this really is a problem in 1985 (Vienna Convention) and banning the problematic substances (Montreal Protocol) in 1987 there are two (2!!!) years.

And if you look at the plots eg on page ES.23 you can see the expected effects of the Kigali amendment of 2016, where the replacement gases used instead of the previously stopped ones with large climate effects were also banned.

This is the only actually positive thing I've ever seen in the context of climate change. There are at least 0.3°C saved temperature increase until 2100 due to this change.

Of course the source of that problem was simpler and easier to fix, but still, this makes me a little happier. How can we repeat this success?

[0] https://ozone.unep.org/sites/default/files/Assessment_Panel/...

First, there's about a 30-year lag between emissions and their full heating effect, much like it takes time for water to boil after you turn on the stove.

More importantly, if we go beyond about +2 degrees C, it's likely that positive feedbacks will take over and add several more degrees, with no more help from us. Feedbacks include ice cap melt (so less sunlight is reflected away), CO2 and methane emissions from melting permafrost, and forest fires brought on by drought.

We know this is likely, because you're right about those cycles. In geological history, there have been times when orbital variations caused a small initial heating, and shortly after we see a big rise in greenhouse gases and temperature.

That's why we're worried about fixing things really soon, before that kicks in.

(We are not currently in one of those natural warming cycles, btw.)

This book, a mix of research and speculation (chapter by chapter) was helpful to me in making the abstract threat of climate change real:

https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Wars-Fight-Survival-Overheats...

It will definitely change geopolitics for the foreseeable future.

> If at this point, the planet still keeps warming? What are "they" going to blame it on then?

On living beings, most of them exhale CO2. Those who are already yelling to have fewer children (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...) will go one step further.

At least I still blame living (human) beings for the warming.

All the CO2 they exhale got the carbon from plants, which recently pulled it from the air. Humans are carbon neutral.

> All the CO2 they exhale got the carbon from plants, which recently pulled it from the air. Humans are carbon neutral.

This would be true AFAICT if we somehow managed to eat without any CO2 emissions. But agriculture is a huge driver of CO2 emissions and so are logistics, electricity for cooking etc.. So while the CO2 we exhale comes from the atmosphere through plants, animals and so on, we inevitably cause a lot of CO2 emissions as a side-effect in the process.

These statistics are always completely flawed. They attribute all the CO2 produced by children (and their children, ad infinitum) to their parents. If the replacement rate matches exactly the fertility rate then I will produce an infinite amount of CO2 by having two children assuming they don't die before they have two children too. Currently the fertility rate is below the death rate so in the statistics the number ends up being finite and therefore looks "reasonable". Except the per capita co2 footprint in the UK is around 10 tons per citizen per year. It is impossible to save 60 tons per year.

Even if we accept this as a "reasonable" assumption there is another huge flaw with this statistic. The assumption is that your children will be average polluters. So no matter how much you reduce your own CO2 footprint your children will always produce more CO2 than you. Except if you teach your children to reduce their CO2 footprint by not driving a car you reduce your CO2 footprint by 25% and the CO2 footprint of your children too. Your footprint including descendants goes down from 70 tons to 52.5. A 17.5 ton decrease!

If you do everything in this chart except not having children (assuming an electric car) your CO2 footprint goes down by 38% down from 70 tons to 44 tons. Notably this requires almost no changes in lifestyle. Just switching to renewables is enough.

This chart is harmful, it only serves to make people feel helpless and not take action against climate change.

Please read the latest IPCC report it's all in there.

> I'm not a denier/skeptic.

> If at this point, the planet still keeps warming? What are "they" going to blame it on then?

Who is "they"? I think you are a troll.

> If at this point, the planet still keeps warming? What are "they" going to blame it on then?

Gas heating ? Methane unleashed ? Ice-free arctic ? ...

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