Comment by masterj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by masterj | Hacker News Reader

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> Between the technological advances in solar/wind/batter, renewed interest in nuclear, and shrinking CO2 it seems climate change is well on its way to being solved

Do you realize that the most optimistic projections in climate change papers already assume massive improvements in these technologies? They also assume massive carbon extraction technologies working at global scale that don't exist yet. Even these optimistic scenarios have dire consequences, and we're not on track to hitting these at all.

If it were a matter of "small improvements in over time", the tech would be sufficient, but it's more like we need to reduce double digit % of CO2 emissions year over year for the next several decades. https://twitter.com/robbie_andrew/status/1129667484527804418

Some countries do have declining CO2 emissions, but the ones that matter: China, India do not. Unless dramatic action is taken, we're still a long ways away from a global peak in CO2 emissions.

I saw some of the most recent projections for global GDP impacts due to climate change and it was a fraction of US GDP. That's unfortunate, but much better than I thought. We will make it.

US CO2 emissions peaked in around 2007. Per capita CO2 in the US is the lowest it's been in 50 years. We're behind the EU in CO2 reduction, but it is going down.

India and China are worrisome, but China is making solar panels as fast is it possibly can. Political priority of millennials was mentioned in this context too. I haven't seen it, is there wide-spread support among Millennials for the trade war with China or other aggressive measures which will move manufacturing to countries with better CO2 regulations?

> I saw some of the most recent projections for global GDP impacts due to climate change and it was a fraction of US GDP. That's unfortunate, but much better than I thought. We will make it.

Read the assumptions behind those projections and get back to me. They are very, very conservative and should be read as a "best case scenario".

Ex:

- Economic growth is assumed as part of the model

- They look at the marginal economic cost of an additional very hot day today, look at the projected increase, and assume that the impact will scale linearly

Even those numbers are damning, and are put forth to help justify the cost of climate action. Reading them as "well that's not that bad" is just way off the mark.

> US CO2 emissions peaked in around 2007. Per capita CO2 in the US is the lowest it's been in 50 years. We're behind the EU in CO2 reduction, but it is going down.

Not nearly fast enough. Direction is correct, but magnitude is not nearly as big as it needs to be. Assuming that technological progress will make up the difference is magical thinking that the data does not back up.

You're hand-waving away what experts are saying based on a gut feeling of "it's not going to be that bad" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias). I recommend reading some papers, especially the NCA, and really sitting with what they say. https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/

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