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Comment by mikro2nd | Hacker News Reader

The premise of this article is quite flawed. We don't need to spend the money "researching threats such as climate change", we need to get off our collective duff and actually do something to stop dumping Carbon into the air-ocean and to start removing some of that which we've already put there.

Whether we build another giant particle accelerator or two (reminder: Not only CERN is interested, but China is already well down that path) is almost irrelevant if we don't fix our pollution and destruction of the ecosystems that allow Homo sap. to live comfortably (or, possibly, at all).

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> We don't need to spend the money "researching threats such as climate change", we need to get off our collective duff and actually do something to stop dumping Carbon into the air-ocean and to start removing some of that which we've already put there.

Figuring out how to do that economically and at scale includes a number of research problems. How do we generate power, produce concrete, do metallurgy, transport goods, fly airplanes, etc. without greenhouse gas emissions? How do we capture and sequester greenhouse gas emissions? How do we develop closed-loop sources for chemical fuels? How do we store energy in the power grid?

We have the technology to get at least to 80% carbon neutrality and we're on a very tight time schedule. Asking for "more research" before investing massively into the things we already know how to do is stupid. Improving the economics must come after we delayed the existential threat.

We had the technology to get to 80% carbon neutrality for centuries. Preindustrial society was 80% of the way to carbon neutrality compared to today. The only problem is that people aren't willing to accept a preindustrial standard of living. In other words, they are unwilling to live materially poorer lives than they do today. So from that perspective, it's purely a question of "improving the economics".

Perhaps what you meant was that we have the technology to do it without completely abandoning industrial civilization--though maybe people will have to sacrifice some things, like eating meat, driving private cars, or living in climate-controlled private spaces. And maybe that's an easier sell. But it's also a false dichotomy. Developing the technology to reach higher levels of carbon neutrality more quickly and more economically can and must happen at the same time that we do what we can today. Building more renewable power generation can happen at the very same time that we prototype carbon capture systems for natural gas power plants, battery-electric vehicles, or Sabatier-process closed-loop carbon-neutral natural gas production (which, incidentally, is also something we'll need on Mars). We can build Generation III nuclear plants now while researching Generation IV nuclear plants to build later. We can work now on making all of our technology more energy-efficient while developing fusion power to deliver unlimited, carbon-neutral energy for generations to come.

It isn't either-or though. Yes, we should do whatever we can do right now, but we should also be looking for ways we can do better in 50 years time.

The answer is pretty simple. The damage caused by externalities is not born by the producer so there is no incentive to stop causing damage. Once you create the incentive everything will work itself out without government intervention. That's the beauty of the free market.

However, the reality is that people like the current situation and prefer government intervention in favor of carbon emitters. This unfortunately leads to situations where subsidies to e.g. coal based electricity generation have to be matched by subsidies to zero carbon electricity generation just to have any impact at all.

Alternative technologies already exist but there is no reason to use them because conventional technologies are blessed by the government. Of course you can forcibly pump money into them and eventually get the result you desire but only at a higher cost.

In Germany people absolutely disliked the idea of a revenue neutral carbon tax where every tax payer would receive a share of the collected tax back at the end of the year. Instead the government introduced a minimum price on CO2 certificates which is basically the same thing except it is not revenue neutral but hey at least it's not a "tax" so the uneducated mob won't come after you. People think they understand taxes but when you show them something "complicated" like a cap and trade system they suddenly don't understand a single thing.

While I agree, I'm not sure the funding for many of these problems should come from the budget of fundamental physics.

Where does the budget for fundamental physics come from, then?

No? The premise of the article isn't about any of its specific proposals, I think the author would probably be quite annoyed to see people picking on the randomly tossed suggestions for alternative ways to spend this research money.

It's specifically about 'don't spend more money on X' (X being larger particle colliders) than about the specific examples A, B, C, of alternatives it mentions (climate research center, epidemic studies).

It's easier to say "Don't do that" than to say exactly what ought to be done.

I don't think there is a shortage of scientists with ideas about how money could be spent. The article suggests figuring out how to make particle accelerators more efficient, and also global warming and virus research.

I think you'd still want the research center to help you respond to changing conditions, to highlight changes that are caused by warming, and to predict which dominoes are about to fall.

But yea, if we do our jobs, its work will be less significant. Let's try to make that happen.

We need to research practical ways of solving it.

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