Climate change – Energy abundance as a solution | Hacker News Reader

Climate change – Energy abundance as a solution

thenewatlantis.com

1 pointbiggyjump3 comments

> Obviously, meeting the energy demand of a high-growth world would require new sources of carbon-free power in amounts beyond the IPCC’s most optimistic scenarios. But we are already stuck hoping for a global political breakthrough. Technological breakthroughs are less far-fetched a solution. And a mass embrace of abundant energy is more realistic than sudden globally coordinated altruistic self-abnegation. ...

> Rather, shifting our mindset from austerity to abundance will open up the political space necessary for imagining these answers and pursuing them

So, Law of Attraction from New Thought philosophy meets techno-optimism?

I mean, it isn't like people aren't already trying to figure out new sources of carbon-free power, because abundance makes profit.

Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" gives several examples of successful 'altruistic self-abnegation'.

The CFC ban was globally coordinated. So were the limits on the use of Antarctica.

Abundance, same as overproduction, causes prices to fall and profit to shrink.

If energy is scarce, prices stay high. If energy is abundant, they invent cryptocurrency mining and carbon capture to keep demand high.

Curious that you brought up CFC ban. I believe it has since been shown that CFC production and then ban had no effect on ozone hole dynamics.

Overproduction is when production exceeds demand. Abundance doesn't have to exceed demand, so I don't understand your comment. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if prices stay high or not. You want profits, not simply high prices.

There's also induced demand - the more something is available, the more it is used.

But that's beside the point. There is a high demand, right now, for new sources of carbon-free power, and plenty of profit for a viable, eg, Mr. Fusion.

The only sources I can find for your CFC comment are from right-wing radicals who are philosophically opposed to government restrictions.

A recent scientific report is at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2018/ , "Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018".

> Actions taken under the Montreal Protocol have led to decreases in the atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) and the start of the recovery of stratospheric ozone. The atmospheric abundances of both total tropospheric chlorine and total tropospheric bromine from long-lived ODSs controlled under the Montreal Protocol have continued to decline since the 2014 Assessment. The weight of evidence suggests that the decline in ODSs made a substantial contribution to the following observed ozone trends:

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