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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

The way out of climate change will be carbon-capture technology. No developing country is going to stop developing because the west became too decadent. The US isn't going to relinquish their position of power. China and India won't stop. It's simple game theory - no one will risk falling behind by making economic sacrifices.

When we do solve the problem, it'll be through technology, not through asceticism.

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Sounds like wishful thinking to me. In the meantime, we are seeing the climate get worse year after year and we know that this is only the beginning. Moreover, there are non-linear effects at play that we can't even model, all of which will make the situation worse, none of which will make it any better. Doesn't seem very wise to bet human survival on technology that doesn't for the most part yet exist, and parts of which do exist don't work at scale with experts divided on future feasibility.

Political interest groups vociferously opposing allocation of funds commensurate with the scale of the problem probably also isn't helping. Heaven forbid we do anything that might help the oil companies.

The thing is that they have brought this onto us. Beginning with Rockefellers 'gaslighting' up to EXXONs fully understanding in the 1980ies, and doing nothing about it.

Why should one trust such entities? Greenwashing? Astroturfing? For all I care they can wash themselves with their own green vomit, because of all the divestement :-)

F-U-C-K T-H-E-M A-L-L!

It doesn't make sense to risk the lives of billions of people just to try and stick it to the oil companies. The conclusion that is implied by this type of sentiment is, "well if we don't give them a life raft then they will be forced to go out of business." The conclusion that if things get bad enough people will stop acting in self interest and start considering the greater good is questionable. The more realistic reality is imo people are going to continue to burn fossil fuels because it benefits them economically to do so. The situation 10 to 20 years from now is probably going to look more similar to today than not. Some countries make progress, but others increase their emissions.

Internal combustion engines are too well understood and wide spread to conceivably ban. Our planet will boil if we don't develop carbon sequestering capability at scale. It doesn't seem fair to me to risk the lives of all those people that will die from climate related problems just because we don't like the oil companies.

Fair? I don't care. No risk? No fun!

edit: TBH I'm SICK of all this apologizing smooth talking.

Time will tell. Either we solve it through technology, or ecology will dissolve us, asceticism or not.

I have far more faith in humanity's ability to invent things than in our ability to consume less.

Yeah while I fully acknowledge that multiple generations would likely suffer from adverse climate change including mine, I really don’t see it as an existential threat to humanity.

We will find a technological solution for this, the question is when and at what cost.

Civilization collapse and and a new dark age is really not in the cards for humanity our technology has progressed too far, we are about as too big to fail as it can get.

The question is how many of us would get to benefit from the fruits of our labor in the long run.

Just remember non-linear effects can go both ways.

Why not bury waste biomass in abandoned coal mine tunnels? Return the carbon to where it came from in the first place. Instead of composting on the surface (which releases CO2), all that industrial agricultural waste - chaff, sawdust, corn stalks,potato peels, used cooking oil, etc - as well as PLASTICS - could all just be buried in existing tunnels, kilometers under the surface, or pumped down into fracking /oil wells along with or instead of the water. In a few decades (centuries?), the stuff will decompose anaerobically, and we'll have fresh "fossil" fuels to start the cycle over again if we like. In the meantime, we remove billions of tons of carbon from the surface. Anyone see any obvious problems with this approach?

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