Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the past year of climate catastrophes has shown us anything, it’s high time we act.
Yes, the proposed changes might be inconvenient but it’s time we suck it up and do the needful. Small steps are not good enough. We need drastic measures.
I think Covid19 demonstrates how resistant people are to change, and that they are not willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.
Nearly 700,000 Americans have died as a direct result of Covid, can you imagine how many people will have to die before people give up air travel or eating beef.
Covid has made me realize that no solution that asks people to wind back energy use will work, we need to push forward and develop carbon sequestration and other terrafoming technologies.
And here we are, pampered boomers and millenials, in a society so selfish and profit and status oriented that we are not willing to accept the slightest inconveniences, or god forbid tax increase, to tackle one of the biggest challenges we ever faced.
Hopefully, we could have a very big energy crisis. Unlike COVID, energy price rise affects everyone directly, it's not like "I know somebody who..." (unfortunately, the poorer are hit harder). This would affect everyone and would lead to some social unrest. Not that I wish social unrest, but that is a signal that can't be ignored, even though it is a very slippy slope.
Interestingly, the current spike in gas prices down here puts a lot of politicians in panic mode. Gas price, unlike covid, is the result of human negotiator; you can't invoke "bad luck" or "nature's revenge" or whatever....
The US was pushed into the war by Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt was in favor of joining the war effort directly but faced isolationist opposition at home. The best he could do was the lend-lease agreement with the UK, which was a hard bargain in the US’s favor.
After the war was joined it was sustained by a massive domestic propaganda campaign (all those iconic WW2 posters? Propaganda)
WW2 and the cold-war era space program represent the zenith of technocratic government in the west. What we have seen since is in many ways 50+ years of failure: social unrest, Vietnam war, inflation, terrorism, more war, financial crisis, pandemic. The government has seemed to be unprepared for all of those. While it’s not what I believe personally, I can understand if someone thinks that government will fail to meet the complex challenge of climate change.
The legislative branch of the US government is so thoroughly disordered that it can effectively pass one single piece of legislation per year through the budget reconciliation process. We trust this group of people and this process to solve climate change, when it will not even take up the more targeted and effective proposals such as a carbon tax?
Nope. Even if 50% of US taxes are "wasted" on things manigandham doesn't care about, it doesn't follow that increasing taxes would simply all be diverted to things manigandham doesn't care about and thus "wasted".
1. Government spend on stupid shit like welfare and all the stuff in Paul's Festivus report,
2. Government spend inefficiently paying lot of buraucrats between when dollars are taken in and when they leave goernment.
And waste is defined as money spent that doesn't reach any goals, or even make any progress towards them. It's a very common topic on HN about startups spending capital poorly, and likewise profligate spending can be found everywhere in (US) government. $2T in a decades-long war is a recent example, including the hundreds of billions in equipment and resources left behind.
But surely, you knew what I meant. I wonder how much climate change progress could've been made with all that money. Feel free to donate more with your next tax payment if you want.
I'm happy to make sacrifices, but a lot of vocal people are not.
We need to stop talking about "making sacrifices". We need to get people excited about the amazing opportunities all this work provides us.
It's exciting to me that we need to replant our forests. We have new power plants to build. New desalination plants! New farming technologies!
So much work in so many industries, it can be an exciting time of growth if you ask me!
Oh, but 'people' feel its change. You feel it.
But it is all secondary, or even further away. Coffee is more expensive. Gas (CNG) prices is already costing many households more in these summer months. Gasoline prices are at record hights. Water is increasing in price. Electricity prices are at record heights (which, is increasing my IT infrastructure bills). In many regions we cannot get certain potatoes doe to crops failing. And so on.
You see the effects, when you look for em. In your wallet. On your table. In your bottom lines and revenues.
So, aside from the opportunities we may see, there are effects having impact on average peoples live this very moment
I should have suggested that "some" people will not change, and they will be very vocal. Many politicians will want their vote, and its not clear to me who will have the majority in our democracies.
There was huge support for lockdown and restrictions here for a long time, and only just in the last few weeks is compliance becoming an issue in Melbourne (but not so much elsewhere). Turns out a year of social restrictions causes fatigue.
Luckily, a lot of the electrification parts of the climate bill will save Americans (and Australians) money without changing lifestyles — same size homes, cars, etc — just electrified. Electric machinery is just that much more efficient.
Rewiring America and Rewiring Australia have the actual numbers: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/ and https://www.rewiringaustralia.org/
I'm not sure drilling for a heat pump would work in town here, and then the operating cost would still likely be more than gas (heating is at least 75% of my annual consumption).
Figuring out how to eliminate those emissions is important, but it sure as hell isn't going to save me money, especially now and in the short term.
Heat pump water heaters do save about half the cost in electricity over a conventional resistive-only water heater, and are optimal for places with basements, as they also dehumidify; or in warm climates, as they cool the air. So it's also useful for long term perishable storage like a root cellar would be, or in a laundry room. They do cost 3x as much, though.
Residential heat pumps for heating and cooling in the US is relatively new, and I've had nothing but problems with mine - so much so that I just received a full refund on the purchase price of my unit because of manufacturing "defects".
It's unfortunate that the heat pump ecosystem isn't as developed as it should be. Feels kind of like installing Linux vs buying a Mac — not so seamless.
> It's going to be hard to convince folks to replace their gas water heaters with electric heat pump models that cost ~3x more and save little to no cost annually.
Heat pumps are not "3x" as expensive and the price is coming down. Heat pumps are also a lot more efficient than any other heat source! Most households in the US would save ~$500/year on the energy bill if they switched to air-source heat pumps. Source: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructu... This doesn't account for business use.
So it works like solar panels and electric cars — higher up front cost that saves you money over the long term. And if the government gave up-front rebates to make the costs the same or lower than furnaces then it's a no-brainer to use heat pumps.
>I'm not sure drilling for a heat pump would work in town here, and then the operating cost would still likely be more than gas (heating is at least 75% of my annual consumption).
Air source heat pumps are where it's at — waaay easier install than using ground-source or water-source. Air-source heat pumps used to not work in colder climates but now they do and have gotten a lot more efficient. These things are really awesome, a pretty good way to slash emissions while saving money over the long term.
My expectation is that an air source heat pump would not work well here, at considerably higher cost than the gas furnace when installing is included in the comparison. Air source probably not working well is why I talked about drilling (each paragraph is a topic; water heating in the first and home heating in the second...).
I'm at a loss for words here. The most lauded Australian prime minister of the last 30 years is the one that banned firearms, dragged Australia into the Middle East, started offshore detention and introduced a value-added tax on everything from drinks to tampons. People have literally been elected on promises of destroying internet infrastructure.
The problem Australia has is exclusively to do with every single political group (including the Greens) being anti-environmental and peddling conspiracy theories about things like nuclear and hydroelectric. It has nothing to do with what Australians will or won't accept -- Australia has arguably the world's most docile, suggestible population. It has everything to do with political incompetence and an extreme, unhinged focus on being electable.
> I think Covid19 demonstrates how resistant people are to change, and that they are not willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.
Australians have endured some of the longest, strictest lockdowns, and are on track to have one of the world's highest vaccination rates.
I'm really not sure why you seem to be pinning this on the population.
I think both major parties are dragging their feet on climate because any sacrifices they ask people to make will lose them the election. Covid is different because it has not been an election issue.
I'm pinning it on us, because who else is there.
My perspective of democracy was that it was to protect us against both unjust rulers and ineffective rulers. The end result was instead of potential kings/rulers fighting each other directly as they did in ancient times, they fight each other indirectly by trying to get votes. They are not much different then previous era's....
Is it really this hard to get a wise ruler who both cares about the well being of humans and can take the long term view? Someone who can tell fact from fiction.
Most of them "can", but the ones who "will" get weeded out early or are made out to be lepers (Ralph Nader comes to mind).
Really? I think Covid-19 showed just how readily people are willing to subject themselves to humiliation and medical experimentation because of a disease whose headline kill rate is low, and whose practical kill rate is abysmal (ie, for the non-nursing home set). Shrug. When the establishment actually decides on the pastoralization of the Western world, they will get it the next day.
https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...
It's not just to blame the people for not sacrificing when there are - and rightfully so - trust issues. There's simply not enough historical evidence to support trusting Uncle Sam and his ilk. I'm not advocating that, simply showing empathy for those who - again rightfully so - remain suspect of a political and media system that has its best interests in mind first, and WTP a distant second.
Keep shopping.
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - Kennedy
I believe that fighting climate change is a problem of similiar magnitude to going to the moon in 1969, and smaller than winning WWII. We did both of those things, we can do this. But we have to want to.
If we bank on the will of the American people we are surely doomed.
A majority of Americans support action on climate change.
US wished to flex its muscles since it was losing the space race to the Soviet Union. If the pure-Communists can beat you in an advanced tech area, then there is something wrong with pure capitalism.
When the Chinese start leading the pack in green initiatives and propagandising their efforts, the US will hard-press the accelerator.
Competition is the essence and core of the human spirit.
This same rhetoric has been repeated for decades, and has continually received the same, hostile response from the public and politicians.
I'm not arguing that it's wrong or untruthful, but alarmist statements like this are a demonstrably poor tool for rousing the public into action and creating real change.
Why do climate activists continually insist on using persuasive techniques that are proven to not work?
I'd say you're peddling religion. Especially if I don't change, and the doomsday prophecies fail. (Again, and again, and again...)
The activism comes from people who misrepresent the science. The skepticism also comes from people who misrepresent the science. The public debate is almost orthogonal to what the actual science in the IPCC reports says.
To give an example, the IPCC AR5 (2013) report says this:
"More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. Evidence, however, is for a virtually certain increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s in that region."
An activist picks out the second part and ignores the first. A skeptic picks out the first part and ignores the second. They battle it out, each citing "the science", and both are lying by omission. And that's the best case scenario. Often what gets cited isn't even in the IPCC reports, and of a lineage which is more dubious.
Which is why, if you want to have an informed opinion on the climate, you should ignore the media, ignore the talking heads, and read the IPCC reports.
This summer we saw floods kill people in Germany and Belgium while in the Netherlands nobody died because it spent a fuck ton of money on flood defences.
Canadians aren't very different from Americans. It can be done.
Just one example, the Paris Climate Agreement isn't what most believe it is. The targets aren't tight enough, and there's nothing binding. Compliance is voluntary. Yet it has been and continues to be heralded as essential. An essential paper tiger?
Per Naomi Klein
https://www.wnyc.org/story/coveringclimatenow-naomi-klein-gr...
Of course there are other examples.
America was the main holdout, and it wasnt because they thought it wasn't effective enough, quite the opposite. So yes its pretty vital that we do at least that much.
So the talk was "We're so great" the reality is that's BS.
Alarmist statements are not going to do anything to Chinese policy. The only thing that is going to work is having a technically better source of energy to move to.
Carbon tax is yet another one of these examples where the tax payer has been sold on the idea that they have to foot the bill for the big corps selfishness.
Completely absurd that these things are even presented as a solution. As for China being a problem? I think all the people that worked decades to push everything to China with complete disregard for anything share some blame?
And then at the same time the IAEA was actually supposed to be an institution to help the world forward in safe nuclear energy development.
Talking about Chinas carbon footprint, while ignoring why it's the worlds biggest polluter is kinda how we kept saying how horrible their and some other countries in the areas ocean trash pollution is while omitting that we were the ones shipping our trash there.
But yes, this is the past and now it's different, but just erasing history doesn't give a good ground for a constructive discussion.
And re: carbon club and China, Germany will never defy China. It's their biggest importer. In the end it's all rhetoric. They just recently released a statement how they want to discuss the Xinjiang issue on mutual understanding. They spent a decade promising other countries to setup a parallel remittance system, which never materialized. It's all talk and no substance
They won’t thank you until after they see someone being burned.
Right now we have had effects but it’s all akin to feeling heat, or coughing from smoke but not actually being burned. Also the heat and smoke randomly shifts to other people so it isn’t consistently hurting anyone.
What’s worse is that we either all escape the building together or we all die together. No one can just choose to believe the theory of the unseen flame and get out alive on their own.
I honestly don't know what can be done.
OK, I did use the wrong word there (looking it up, "alarmism" carries different connotations to what I thought), but frankly that's beside the point.
If you want to enact real change (getting people out of the building), and yelling at them about how they're going to die for 4 hours straight has been ineffective, perhaps it's time to try a different strategy.
There has to be tons of reasons it’s not working in this case, but I don’t think it’s the alarmist portrayal. I suspect it should be far more alarming.
Care to elaborate? Afaic, global CO2 emissions keep going up year after year.
Politicians my age are slowly seeping into power now. If Climate Change activists want to convince them, constant Dialed-up-to-10 alarmism is just not the way they're going to do it.
Poor countries cannot afford the luxury of caring about the distant future and poverty is worse than most natural disasters. There is too much to be gained by exploiting cheap energy to undercut others on manufacturing cost. The rise of China is illustrative.
Game theoretically this requires an “all cooperate” scenario in a game whose defection payoff increases as more cooperate. Ask yourself the odds of that in today’s world.
The climate solution would be to pour massive amounts of funding and subsidies into every possible candidate for this, and into scaling and cutting the cost of the candidates that we already have.
We have to get some mix of solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, batteries, etc. scaled to the point that it can beat coal and oil on the open global market. It has to be able to win on pure economics.
Reducing the cost of non carbon based energy to below the cost of carbon based energy is the only solution that will “take.”
What if all of the developed nations agreed to impose punitively high tariffs on all imports from developing nations that did this?
The only way it could work is if the USA, China, the EU, Russia, Japan, and all the other major powers and modern economies all formed a tight unified front. I see basically zero chance of that happening.
The US, EU, and their orbit seem like the only ones that care even a little, and they are doing half measures at the very best. China pretends to care and burns more coal. Russia’s entire economy is dependent on fossil fuels, as is much of the Middle East.
Then keep in mind that any measure that squeezes the middle class is going to provoke a huge populist backlash. Do anything that impoverishes working people and climate change denialists will be voted in.
Make low carbon energy cheaper than fossil fuels or prepare for 800+ppm CO2. That’s how I see it.
I’m not saying hurricanes and droughts and floods aren’t bad, nor that they won’t get worse, but if you set the bar for catastrophe at the current level, a lot of people are going to decide they can easily live with that.
The real problem is that politicians are unwilling to act. But there’s no shortage of action we could take.
Also, gas burning PHEVs (Prius) count as EVs which is such a limp handout to legacy auto and does little to push R&D forward.
> This is the first time I have seen the word labor used in the context of US politics.
It's not the autoworker or coalminer's fault and they and their communities should be considered in the solution, not just trampled over, for both political reasons and for basic justice.
I don't want to buy a new electric car. I have a perfectly working petrol car. Why should I subsidize some rich guy's fancy new electric toy?
...also, given that you're calling it a "petrol" car - a Briticism - do you even live in the US? If not, you won't be the one subsidizing it in case this bill comes to pass anyway.
"Petrol" is the more common term. If anything, "gasoline" is an Americanism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Etymology
> In most Commonwealth countries, the product is called "petrol", rather than "gasoline"
> The use of the word gasoline instead of petrol is uncommon outside North America,
I'm not strictly against the subsizidies, but they have sever social justice implications.
But also remember that your lifestyle is being subsidized by oil and gas as well. The food you eat, the bike parts for your bike, the road you ride on, all of that is built using oil. So you’re not absolved of oil sin here.
With that being said, EVs are just a bandaid on what is already the wrong solution. The problem is driving at all, not driving gasoline or electric cars. We should be walking and biking and designing cities and towns around that as the primary mode of transportation, not the car. It’s insane that it is normalized in America that if you want something like a cup of coffee people will drive a 3,000lb vehicle half a mile to go get it. The energy expenditure for that is unbelievable. We live in a golden age of cheap energy.
> it’s time we suck it up
Who are those "we" exactly? And why the other people have to pay for that desperate stuff?
Hint: you could go out and plant a tree instead.
Is there anything more hysterical than an appeal to apocalypse?
Have we seen this pattern before, where fear is used to rationalize expanded governance?
To prevent it affecting poor people disproportionately, give poorer people cash.
There's an opportunity cost here - we need to make "power plant factories" rather than just "power plants". So if we could make green energy factories and nuke plant factories, that would be better than making one off nuke plants that take so long to get approved.
Put another way, they are saying: "there's just enough of a crisis for us to take things from you, but not enough for us to sacrifice anything ourselves."
Also, with investment in nuclear plants, the cost and time to build one will decrease, but someone needs to put up the money to make that happen.
That's okay, who cares if some old hippies don't believe in an obvious scientific fact. We all believe it's true, right? And that's what matters, yes?
Because the people who deny that climate change would be a crisis if we don't stop emitting fossil carbon are absolute idiots, at least we can all agree on that much.
Having said that, I've never seen an actual solid argument that Germany rushed their nuclear phase-out.
It usually ends at "they're phasing out nuclear, they still burn coal, they're idiots" yet if you look at a graph of their carbon intensity, it's going down at roughly the same speed as their neighbours and there's no obvious blip from the nuclear phase out. If anything, the fact that they still have coal means they've got a few easy wins left as they phase those out. (This holds true even when accounting for carbon imports/exports).
But the whole "carbon tax" thing is about lots of small changes adding up to make an effective difference. Germany appears to be achieving this even with apparent oddities like nuclear and coal. Maybe those were the political cost of doing all the rest of the stuff.
This is the battle cry of those who have surrendered to fear and are willing to trade freedom for oppression.
It's the battle cry of those who think that a problem isn't real or will just go away on its own with little harm if we ignore it.
That doesn't work, and the longer the problem is ignored before dealing with it the more disruptive and intrusive the action needed becomes.