There is no Plan B for dealing with the climate crisis | Hacker News Reader

There is no Plan B for dealing with the climate crisis

tandfonline.com

31 pointsFej51 comments

Why does this scientific publication read like an op-ed? Absolutist language strikes me as exceptionally unscientific.

"it’s time to panic." "We are in deep trouble." "That’s it. Forever." "Forever. Think of what that word means."

Disregarding that, the paper seems to address the idea that stratospheric albedo modifications cannot counteract atmospheric carbon buildup since they operate on timescales of decades versus millenia. Specifically they state that:

"Deployment of albedo hacking does not in any way “buy time” to get carbon dioxide emissions under control, since once emitted, carbon dioxide cannot to any significant extent be unemitted with known economically feasible technology"

Which seems to rest on the absolutist premise that we will never know an economically feasible way to go negative carbon. Otherwise, buying time should absolutely be a reasonable thing to consider.

The author closes with a sentence along the lines of:

"To decarbonize, however, requires building a political movement that regards the climate crisis as a top priority."

Which strikes me as... not exactly impartial (Why would not an economic reason work? Or a grassroots social reason?). Which is obnoxious when the author makes specific appeals to the authority of their profession which has authority by the very virtue of being impartial:

"As a scientist, I viscerally dislike repeating myself; I like to think that once the truth is out there, it will somehow win out and it is not necessary to belabor the point."

This "article" rubs me wrong.

Well, science has been spelling this out in "scientific" terms for the last few decades. And because science usually tends to prefix its conclusions with heaps of disclaimers and "assumings"s, "if"s and "probably"s nobody has been listening. So there you go, scientists seem to be sick of being ignored...?

> Which seems to rest on the absolutist premise that we will never know an economically feasible way to go negative carbon. Otherwise, buying time should absolutely be a reasonable thing to consider.

Well, that absolutist premise happens to be correct. There's no such thing as negative carbon. The carbon is never destroyed. Plants don't destroy carbon either, they just store it.

What we need is to find a way to be able to store long term X amount of carbon using X-Y carbon's worth of energy output, netting us Y carbon-free energy output to use for productive activities. So far the best/cheapest method here still seems to be planting trees and burying bio-char, almost entirely replicating the process that occurred millions of years ago before bacteria could break down lignin.

Second version would be trying to bacterially attack said trees after burial to speed up the process, making buried bogs.

Trees are slow, maybe there's something a bit more efficient.

In Canada people fight so much over a pipeline, while the neighbors of the north, Russia, are like,, enghhh f* that, investing 180 Billion dollars to dominate oil production there [1]. Like other comments have mentioned here , you can't 'force' other nations to agree to do the same as you. Unfair but you will have to lead the way.

[1]: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/putin-arctic

FWIW if anyone doesn't feel like they already know what "Plan A" is, its fairly well infographic'd in the IPCC's Special Report on 1.5C. Study the charts and graphs here: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/#cid_6333

> “The upshot is that the total cumulative carbon allocation for humanity compatible with a 50–50 chance of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is, in round numbers, a trillion tonnes.

That’s it.

Forever.

And of that trillion tonnes, we have already used up over 630 billion tonnes, leaving just 370 billion tonnes to go.

That might seem like a lot of tonnes, but at current emissions rate, we’d get there in just 37 years, or 2057.”

This makes me sincerely feel that it’s likely not worth it to pursue reducing carbon emissions except where it’s super easy and unobstructed.

Instead, it would be better to create technology and plans for how best to live in a rapidly warming world.

I do not believe we can solve political coordination fast enough so that the long tail of consumer demands, from floss to x-ray machines to smart phones, can be manufactured without accumulating much more carbon emission than this limit.

Meanwhile, suggesting we live without these things, especially when they dramatically improve, even save, lives, is equally unrealistic.

(It reminds me of the David Deutsch anecdote in The Beginning of Infinity where people were criticising color TVs in the 60s, as a ludicrous consumer indulgence, totally ignorant to the possibility that they would be vital for saving lives (surgical imaging, among other uses) decades later.)

Using air conditioning will increase the energy usage per capita which will accelerate climate change. More realistically a lot of people will move away from the equatorial regions to the north or maybe even to Antarctica.

Air conditioning and heating will be needed well into the hot future. It saves lives (especially of the elderly). Trying to “not have air conditioning” is unrealistic, never gonna happen.

So either we devise carbon-neutral air conditioning very suddenly, or else we prepare for hotter planet and geological-scale side effects.

(This just by air conditioning... so then multiply by agriculture, consumer media products, medical products, transportation, etc. etc.).

> Barring technological breakthroughs allowing for the active removal of massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,

Hey, this sounds like a good plan B: https://projectvesta.org

It's not enough. There are not enough olivine rock deposits. It also attacks CO2 only, skipping methane and freon.

Simple back of the envelope math ruins this alleged plan. It can be a part of the big effort, but alone it won't do nearly anywhere enough.

Plus the problem is, the deposits are not in the places that emit GHG. You need to put them where they can be most effective. That's not free.

And then you have to get the world to not pump yet more GHG into atmosphere.

I would like to see your back of the envelope math.

And isn't it okay that this doesn't address methane, etc. as long as it sequesters enough CO2 to offset the radiative forcing from the extra methane?

I was tolerating the bombastic language until Russia started pumping out greenhouse gas just to re-unfreeze their sea ice in the future plan b scenario.

For all, who missed it: the deep adaption paper [1]. there is written, it's not a crisis anymore, it is already a 'tragedy'.

[1]: https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

For a slightly less doom and gloom point of view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSCF6JNW4oE

Sean Carroll with "Ramez Naam on Renewable Energy and an Optimistic Future"

Tony Stark in the first "Avengers" movie had a pretty good plan B: "If we can't protected the Earth, then you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it".

Saying there is no Plan B kind of implies we have a Plan A, which we don't.

Plan A is stop pumping GHG immediately by force (including warfare and economical pressure) or fiat and try to adapt to living on a somewhat hotter Earth.

It's extremely hard to pull off.

So... flagged because... some people don't like it?

Are there any comparable crises in history that mankind eventually wriggled its way out of against scientific consensus? Is history not littered with once-valid and absolutist scientific conclusions that were never borne out?

This is exactly correct. The US only accounts for 12% of the total carbon output into the atmosphere.

Countries like India and China have been polluting the earth for decades and the Paris accords won't solve any of these issues because there is no repercussions.

Why aren't we going after these countries and demanding answers instead of going after the countries, like the US, that are actually doing something about it?

> Why aren't we going after these countries and demanding answers instead of going after the countries, like the US, that are actually doing something about it?

My hunch is most voters, and especially those with more money, are more interested in short-term economic gains than contributing to a problem that won't negatively impact them because they'll already be dead.

Yes, every country must do its part.

No, the US is not "doing something about it" and it is clear from the article:

> For a time, US emissions continued to decline modestly despite the Trump administration’s environmental vandalism; the inexorable forces of the market meant that aging coal-fired power plants continued to be replaced by cheaper, cleaner, newer, and more efficient plants powered by natural gas and renewables. But growing carbon dioxide emissions due to industry and transportation have more than offset this progress, leading to an estimated 3.4 percent growth in US emissions in 2018.

"For a time... continued to decline modestly..."

Compare that with, if I understand correctly, every single country that signed the Paris deal, who did not decline modestly, even for a time. The US might well be considered to be "doing something about it".

EU28 has been declining at a similar rate to the US.

BTW, where you you get this information? Do you even bother checking to see if it's accurate before parroting it? Here's Germany:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

I stand corrected.

Interesting that Germany has been declining since 1980, well before Paris or even Kyoto.

> every single country that signed the Paris deal, who did not decline modestly, even for a time.

Completely false.

For example: the UK has been emitting less and less at least since 1990.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/provisional-uk-gree...

You can stop paying them to emit much of that any time you want, so don’t pretend there is nothing for the USA to do about Chinese emissions.

Exactly. Global banks, if they could all act in unison, (and if fairies flew out my butt), could halt carbon output overnight.

This problem is a problem caused by human behavior.

Which we apparently can't change.

The USA has double the carbon emission of china with only a fourth of the population. So per capita an average US citizen contributes 8 times as much to emission as an average Chinese citizen.

(*Half the carbon emissions of china), but yes, per capita we are much higher. In addition, the amount of emissions in China is at least partly related to the huge amount of manufacturing we import from China.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-worlds-carbon-emiss...

US is #2 in the world, with more than double the emissions of the next country down the list.

Not the fear monger, but if Trump is allowed to finish his plan on maximum deregulation, USA will become #1 by emissions in less than 10 years. This does not frighten me on its own - each new President deregulate more here, while put new regulations there, depending on (frankly) who has access to put money (indirectly) to his pocket; what does concern me is that the voters seems to be fine with that. And why wouldn't they?? With so much automatization on the horizon, its silly to believe average Joe will chose clean air, clean water and healthy food, over a job security. This seems to be a new norm, I am afraid.

Someone made the point that while a future with greatly reduced carbon emissions are a certainty, every single day that's delayed means millions and even billions in additional profits for certain industries. There's enormous financial incentive to delay.

Per capita does not really matter in this particular case; it's an absolute numbers thing. CO2 emissions go into one same atmosphere.

Who's buying the products built in Chinese factories?

The entire world; you do make a good point here. So should we start taxing Chinese products more, like Trump has started doing, and some people in the EU have been suggesting for a long time, then? This would at least be coherent. Yet the group of people warning the most about global warming tend to also be people who are still promoting free trade and globalization (a good example is French President Macron, who seems to holds both beliefs simultaneously).

Yeah, that's exactly what I say we should be doing.

Set the standard, and then ensure other countries honor that standard by penalizing offenders with tariffs.

Edit: Also, Donald Trump is well known as denier of climate change, so it's dishonest to frame his tariffs against China as a positive action for those who want to prevent climate change. China knows Trump doesn't give a shit about pollution, so they will not correct for it, which means the additional taxes have no effect on addressing climate change.

Macron deserves no defense. Please attack his hypocrisy as you please.

Arbitrary lines on the map do not matter as far as the atmosphere is concerned, which is why per capita is the correct measure when accessing whether a country is doing better or worse than other countries on emissions.

This shouldn't matter. What matters is the overall output. Even if the US had 0 output tomorrow, we would still have 80% carbon emissions from the rest of the world (India and China combined make up a big portion).

Everyone wants to solve climate change, but look the other way at the biggest contributors that also pollute the earth with all sorts of other toxic materials.

The sad part is if we did everything the politicians are proposing in the 'green new deal', China and India would use that as an opportunity as a power grab because they aren't adhering to the same rules.

Because 'demanding answers', instead of leading by example or agreement, will only create conflict, and those countries will refuse to lower carbon emissions out of spite/to not appear weak/score points with voters. According to most climate models, that's not something we can afford, regardless of how fair or not it may be.

Yes, let's go after poor people in poor countries and tell them what they are and aren't allowed to do. Even if we did the same things to pull ourselves out of poverty.

Are you recommending we don't work this avenue out of a sense of fairness?

right..so saving the climate in 12 years doesn't matter to you? It only has to do with fairness?

If people were really serious about Climate Change, India and China would be held accountable. The fact that they aren't and have never been really put the whole motivation into question.

Hold them accountable to what? For trying to live their best life?

I said nothing about not saving the climate.

because if you go to china protest against it, you will be thrown in a dark cell, and the key will be thown away.

What do you think India and China are doing which causes all that pollution?

What exactly is the US federal government doing? (I won't deny individual cities and states have announced plans) The current administration and party in the Senate majority denies that the problem even exists and is actively purging various government departments of dissenters. It has pulled our (or is pulling out) of the Paris accords, is actively pushing coal and gas production.

India is going in the opposite direction.

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/pledges-and-t...

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/pledges-and...

The existence of non-complaint countries shouldn't be a reason to give up or stop improving.

We need to accept a reality where some parts of the world will need to be massively carbon negative to compensate for other parts which are carbon positive. We need to be investing in technology, polices and structures which can achieve this.

Once we reach the technology/policy level where a country can choose to be massively carbon negative, we can implement the international policies to create an international carbon trading scheme. The countries that don't want to become carbon neutral can choose to financially compensate the countries who become carbon negative.

And then once we have this international carbon trading scheme, countries that refuse to take part can have penalties equal to their estimated carbon emissions leaved against their imports/exports.

Though this mechanism, the world can become carbon neutral (or perhaps even carbon negative) without every country having to be carbon neutral itself.

If we think it's an existential crisis, there are things that we could that would cost almost nothing:

  * abandon any claim on patents related to nuclear power
  * open source all software related to civilian nuclear power
  * offer to train nuclear engineers and build, on a pure cost basis, nuclear reactors in every stable country that asks

France could do that because its nuclear technology is entirely government-owned or controlled, the President has a lot of discretionary power, and he's been bombastic and defiant about global warming. Just do it. Just transfer all the nuclear technology to countries like India, Brazil, etc. They already have a nuclear industry, but through this technology transfer they'd be able to boost it, and build more efficient and safer reactors.

Yet he's not doing that. And he's probably going to buy a house 50 meters from sea shore once he retires. So pardon me for thinking that this entire thing is just "foutage de gueule".

edit: actually you can generalize my argument for technology transfer to renewable technology too.

> The US only accounts for 12% of the total carbon output into the atmosphere.

Should we take population into account? The US only accounts for ~4% of the world's population. so I wouldn't say "only".

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