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Comment by trentnix | Hacker News Reader

“Extreme steps”, whether they admit it or not, is a reduction in the standard of living of many and handicapping the efforts to improve the standard of living for most. That requires the power of the individual to be reduced to empower central authorities who will manage our new rationed, austere society.

That is, certainly, a recipe for catastrophic war.

If climate change is the existential crisis some insist it is, our only solution is technological. But those who wish to use climate change as a Trojan horse to enact their social whims will reject any discussion of the sort. Because solving climate change isn’t their goal, it’s the means to attain their goal.

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> That is, certainly, a recipe for catastrophic war.

Climate change itself is probably a recipe for catastrophic war and the resurgence of fascism. There are estimates as high as 1.2 billion for people that will be displaced by climate change[1]. Even a much smaller number of refugees from the middle east and South America has helped push politics in many western countries towards isolationism and increased xenophobia. What would 1.2 billion refugees do?

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/climate-refugees-the-...

>What would 1.2 billion refugees do? Stay in their countries and improve them just like Westerners do?

The irony! Aren’t the industrial countries the biggest contributors to climate change?

And are also the leading countries promoting cleaner alternatives to all human activites.

What you're missing is that if underdeveloped countries were even capable of reaching the same stage of development we and East Asian countries enjoy, they would contribute as much, and that is actually their goal.

No matter how you try to warp the logic or the reality of the situation and regardless of the country or culture, the responsibility of dealing with the effects of climate change (or anything else) should be proportional to the contribution that each nation makes.

Sure if any country starts to contribute more, they should also take more responsibility.

You cannot for example tax someone on the amount of money that they hypothetically can have or want to have which you even claim they are not even capable of having.

> And are also the leading countries promoting cleaner alternatives to all human activites.

So are they going to give all those away for free to poor countries? And also pay for massive programs to recapture the carbon they've already emitted? And mitigate already-locked-in effects of climate change, such as drought and extreme weather? Those are the only conditions under which your "why don't they improve their own countries" suggestion is fair.

You do realise that it's Westerners causing climate change, not starving villagers in Sub-saharan africa?

Some of the first refugees will be from California. The reservoids that are not at record-low took 20 years to fill, they are never coming back.

California has enough clean energy to desal for human consumption [1] [2]. Ag is another story, but no one needs to flee California due to water needs [3] (human consumption is ~10-20% of total use). Also, the regulation story of water for Ag in California is improving, albeit slowly [4].

[1] https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/US-CAL-CISO?wind=false&s... (Scroll to "Origin of electricity in the last 24 hours" in left nav; during daylight hours, 75%-90% of total generation are low carbon sources; and I expect that to hit 100% in the next 2-3 years based on CAISO's generator interconnect queue)

[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (refer to California solar [yellow] and batteries [gray] coming online this year)

[3] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

[4] https://www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1037369959/new-protections-fo...

But human consumption includes Agriculture, if a country is dependant on the food it grows and there is no water, you will have a famine. If they are just cash crops that you trade for food, you will also have a famine.

All the argicultural land in california is about to become a lot less valuable. It's destruction of wealth and nature on a collosal scale. The idea that allowing climate change to continue is good for buinesss is idiotic, and could result in violence unseen since 1940's

Climate change is not good, but neither is stripping aquifers for cash crop export. California has not managed its Ag wealth very well (water, soil, similar farming inputs); low water use crops that provide high nutritional value are superior to "luxury" water intensive crops exporting California's water to other markets for the benefit of those farmers.

Same way you wouldn't want to support economic policy farming corn in the Arizona desert. Put solar panels there instead (or other crops that are low water intensity). Higher level, there is a lot of inefficiency in US Ag policy causing suboptimal outcomes. Systems get addicted to subsides or resources where costs are not properly allocated.

Human consumption includes some agriculture. You'd be surprised to learn what counts as agriculture for purposes of water in places like California. One example: Golf courses. Others; horse race tracks, horse farms, cemeteries. All kinds of places that produce ZERO crops for human consumption.

80% of California's water goes to agriculture. In a water crisis - which is pretty likely - the first step is to stop growing avocados and almonds. This should free up more than enough water to keep the urban areas going, as long as residents conserve water and don't waste it watering lawns and such.

Water isn't really fungible in that way. You could cut down every orchard in the state and that isn't going to change the water situation of places like Santa Barbara. There really is a huge amount of infrastructure and energy involved in delivering water to cities and most of it is wholly unrelated to ag water systems.

The Delta specifically is largely fungible:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Water_in...

Santa Barbara probably would be fine, along with the Bay Area and some of the LA suburbs. Divert less irrigation water from the Sacramento/San Joaquin system, pump more into the California Aqueduct, central coast has water. Alternatively, pump more into Bethany Reservoir, divert to the South Bay Aqueduct, and Silicon Valley has water.

Santa Barbara also has a desalination plant, for what it’s worth.

Humans are not fish, and cannot remain in place when farmland becomes shallow salt water ocean.

Sea level rises are merely one of the things that can cause mass displacement, no matter how much other people moan about it.

I’m fairly optimistic about the future — I see this warning from the UN and think “this degree of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is achievable in this timeframe” — but even so I’m still expecting New Orleans and a significant depth of the Italian coast from roughly San Marino to Trieste to disappear.

There is no chance 1.2B people will migrate to Europe.

The problem is that, right now, EU countries are forced to accept poor immigrants and integration is not easy.

Integration is not easy for a number of economical reasons and not due to xenophobia. EU economies, especially in the south, are not doing well. There are not a lot of jobs, life got progressively worse in the last 20 years, crisis after crisis. So naturally, migrants will end up working for 2€ per hour picking up tomatoes or selling drugs and stealing bikes.

Eventually, it will become politically unsustainable and local populations will vote to quit the EU and stop the immigrants flow. The nordic countries have a rape problem linked to immigration. My grandma is afraid of walking in her own city. I'd say we're about 50% there.

We already saw it happen in the UK. The only thing keeping the other countries in is that their economy are too weak to survive on their own and they came to rely on the single market.

> There is no chance 1.2B people will migrate to Europe.

That is precisely why it will cause a catastrophic war -> do you expect them all to just lie down and die peacefully?

I'm convinced this is why so many rich folks have been buying land and citizenship in New Zealand. It's one of the nicest countries in the world that's also very hard to get to, without resources. They're preparing for the violence-tinged migration waves, by arranging to have somewhere to hide that's mostly unaffected.

All the while telling us peons how important it is to embrace refugees.

That's how things work in the real world: One uses truths to sell bullshit.

NIMBYs bemoan that local school districts can't accommodate extra kids and that local roads can't support new traffic. Yes, they cite true facts to hide the reality that "they want to see their home prices accelerate".

In this case, the elite (super wealthy and their cronies in politics, think tanks) tell us that embracing refugees help humanity, learning cultures, etc, while they purchase citizenship in, properties to live in, jets to fly to, New Zealand.

These days, everyone uses truths, but see what they are hiding behind their truths!!

> There is no chance 1.2B people will migrate to Europe.

Sure, some of them will flee to Mexico or Cuba (from Central Valley and Florida); some will flee Bangladesh to India; some of the migrants that end up in Europe will be from other bits of Europe.

But I suspect quite a lot of sensible Egyptians will look at the wrong kind of water being in the Nile Delta and reach a perfectly sensible conclusion, go to an agent and ask: "أود شراء تذكرة ذهاب فقط إلى أي مكان ليس تحت الماء حاليًا." only to accidentally find themselves shortly thereafter in Zagreb taking a crash course in Croatian.

"resurgence of fascism???!! [emphasis mine]

WTF? Please explain, esp. why not instead a resurgence of [communism, religion, authoritarianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, wizardism a la Harry Potter, Pokemon-ism, etc, etc.]

When I read a post containing such phrases, I am likely to suffer a severe attack of "give-a-sh*-ism" (as in "I don't give a sh* about this.")

look around you.

American, Canada, Australia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, are a short list of countries who emit a ridiculously disproportionate amount of carbon per capita. [0]

The assumption that reduction of carbon emissions is a reduction of standard of living is flawed. A long list of developed countries have a tiny footprint per capita. Standard of living and living wastefully are not the same thing.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...

Your post was a good, especially as a starting point of a discussion, until you started your last two sentences ('But those ...'). Those sentences are completely counter-productive, universal, generalising accusations towards people who might actually want to discuss seriously about this topic, because they honestly share the same goal of preventing a catastrophy. It is sad that discussions are often made impossible by such unnecesary prejudice about people who you may actually want to discuss with.

If you can’t identify the interlocutors who aren’t sincere, the necessary discussion won’t go anywhere useful. And many of those discussing climate change are absolutely insincere. You see it here in these comments with “it’s the West’s fault” and “capitalism is the problem”.

A: it is an irrefutable fact that climate change is the West's fault, Climate change is caused by CO2, EU + US produced 70% of all CO2

B: Whether the people who blame capitalism are correct is irrelevant, they are sincere is that they have beef with capitalism. Accusing sincere people of insenserity is precisely the kind of thing that makes discussion unproductive

C: There is a wide range of people who insincerely advocate climate inaction, because it furhters their financial interests

It's an impressive rhetorical technique, preemptively dismissing everyone who disagrees with you as "absolutely insincere", but it seems a little obvious, especially elucidating it as clearly as you have here. You don't want to tip your hand too early... That said, it's so stupid it might just work!

>“Extreme steps”, whether they admit it or not, is a reduction in the standard of living of many and handicapping the efforts to improve the standard of living for most. And that requires the power of the individual to be reduced to empower the central authorities who will manage our new rationed, austere society.

Also forcing the industry not to put polutants in the water and air has it's cost, I would like to understand why the future generation needs to pay so our generation can keep spending money on shit like ctypto, apps, luxury.

I am assuming you think that if we just do nothing some billionaire would discover how to reverse this, but any facts to prove that in 50 years this will happen and the solution would be instant and cheap? And before someone would scream "think about the poor" I would say that there are solutions like fixing tax loopholes where bilionairse move to some different country or some giant company uses some shity loophole not to pay the taxes.

"Also forcing the industry not to put polutants in the water and air has it's cost"

it's the reverse -> allowing them to pollute and cause damage has it's cost, if a child with astma dies of air pollution, they aren't paying compensation. When someone got lead poisoning or died of black lung, companies wheren't paying for that either. If that person's family now needs support and welfare, if the pollution needs cleaning up, it's always the taxpayer picking up the tab

Yes, that was my point sorry for my bad sentence. Just wanted to explain this extremist capitalists that we already make products and services more expensive by forcing companies to respect basic human rights so it won't be a completely new thing to consider CO2 as a dangerous substance and demand companies to pay a tax or even forbid shit like bitcoin where from what I read there are better alternatives.

Edit, so from my understanding OP was selfish and thinking at his personal costs and not the costs for current children or future generations.

> is a reduction in the standard of living of many

> requires the power of the individual to be reduced

> empower central authorities

> our new rationed, austere society

> a recipe for catastrophic war

> our only solution is technological

That's, like, six unfounded predictions presented as truth with zero supporting evidence.

> those who wish to use climate change as a Trojan horse to enact their social whims

And, of course, one baseless accusation.

"Reduction in the standard of living" is really oversold by critics.

One of the most obvious impacts of a fight against climate change is that plane travel must get more expensive. Both to reduce demand and to give room for clean alternatives.

So your standard of living is reduced with fewer international vacations. But the alternative isn't "no vacations", it's "more local vacations".

> One of the most obvious impacts of a fight against climate change is that plane travel must get more expensive.

I am a staunch defender of climate action and have made many lifestyle personal decisions on that topic but this whole lifestyle 'consumer effort' message is as flawed as OP's claims. We need to look at the 'bang for buck' data.

Air travel is 1.9% of global emmissions. [0]

As a comparison:

- Energy use in Offices and Shops is 6.6% percent.

- The steel industry emits 7.2% of global emissions.

- Residential energy use is 10.9%.

- Road transport is 16.2% of global emissions.

You see where I am going with this.

Before guilting people into catching a plane for Christmas why not:

- Force steel industry into carbon scrubbing + emission mitigation R&D

- Overcharge large commercial/office areas for lighting/AC energy

- Overcharge large households using energy above a given quota per square foot

- Exponentially progressive tax on personal vehicles above 2000cc.

Notice that all of this is policy driven, not 'consumer effort'.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sect...

That's why I phrased it as "plane travel must get more expensive".

That's policy, not consumer choice.

Fair but air travel is a blip in global emissions despite the disproportonate media coverage.

2% of a massive number is a very big number, way too big to ignore.

Agreed but the same can be said for the steel industry, which has had zero media coverage and alone accounts for 7% of a very big number, or more dramatically 350% of the emissions associated with freight and passenger air transport combined.

My point is that there is a lot of low hanging fruit corporate emitters that should be curbed before targeting consumers.

We're out of time. We need to attack every sector, no exceptions.

Increasing the price of steel will just trickle down to consumers. In the end, they're the ones that pay for everything.

> Air travel is 1.9% of global emmissions.

2% of a lot is still a lot, and keep in mind that these 2% of emissions are being emitted by a very very small group of people (relative to world population)

> Overcharge large households using energy above a given quota per square foot

That's a terrible metric, it just encourages bigger houses. Better just to make energy more expensive, and tax house size (which most countries already do)

> Exponentially progressive tax on personal vehicles above 2000cc.

Quite standard across the globe

Far more people use steel, work in offices or shops, live in a house, or use road transportation than have ever flown on a plane.

This is a frequently-seen argument, and "extreme steps" will definitely require a change in lifestyle for many. It's worth noting though, that many of the countries doing the 'best' against climate change (e.g. the Nordics) also have famously high standards of living.

A -> B, reduction of carbon is reduction in standard of living.

B -> C, reduction in standard of living requires a powerful central authority (rather than our current one being sufficient)

C -> D, a central authority will become hostile to its neighbors.

I'm not sure any of these suppositions are something I agree with. But that last one in particular... That one in particular seems a bit much.

If a neighbor doesn’t get with the program (such as China or Russia, for instance), how would you suggest coercing them to the same end? And a central authority doesn’t have to be hostile to neighbors to provoke war. It may be viewed as hostile by its own subjects.

Afaict, China is very much on the program. The United states OTOH, not so much.

Fine. Let’s assume that’s true. The problem is still the same. How does China coerce the West to get with the program if the West refuses, for whatever reason.

The problem is still the same.

Tariffs, trade embargoes, financial sanctions.

The whole comment is basically 1 step away from: 'any structural change to address climate change is a communist plot!'

Technology alone can not solve it. Our excessive consumption IS the reason we have this existential problem. We would need seven Earths worth of resources if everyone lived like North Americans.

Edit for the downvoters, it is even worse:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/cms/asset/d9fdb266-1231-4...

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2007.216...

> We would need seven Earths worth of resources if everyone lived like North Americans

How so?

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2007.216...

It is actually higher: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/cms/asset/d9fdb266-1231-4...

and then we have climate emissions on top of simple resource depletion. We're screwed if people don't even know these basic facts.

I'm not disputing the claim. I simply didn't know it. Consider me one of today's "lucky 10,000". https://xkcd.com/1053/

It is a shame this information is locked behind a paywall though. Telling people "your ecological footprint is massive" is fine, but better to understand how to reduce said footprint.

I'm guessing this calculation is taking into account production fuel costs, food production, commuting gas, etc. North America, and the US in particular, has enjoyed externalized transaction costs for a long time.

You're right I was being a bit terse as I am constantly bombarded with climate deniers and those actively trying to make things worse in my line of work.

That's based on some pretty flawed assumptions, it mixes cause and effect. We use ~all of our arable land for growing food because that's how much land we have. If we had more land, we'd use it for growing food too, to make our food cheaper. If we had less land, we'd use our land more intensively to grow the same amount of food more expensively.

For example, if we grew all of our food in greenhouses, we'd use about 0.1% of the land but food would be about 10x as expensive.

This is a false choice. Limiting limitless consumption is not automatically reduction in the standard of living for most people.

There is a huge effect when cutting emissions of the top 10%, even a tiny bit. [1] The graph is likely hiding that if the top 10% was segmented more, it would be very hop heavy - even limiting it to the median of the top 10% should do a lot.

The US is also uniquely positioned here to cut their emissions in half and still have more emissions per capacita than Europe[1]. And no, the problem is not that the US is large and cars are required; cars are fine for rural people, but they are not fine for the spawling car-dependent suburban areas US cities keep creating. [2]

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-by-income-region

[2]: (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o&

> That requires the power of the individual to be reduced to empower central authorities

Oh, you think the current order is the result of economic freedom? You don't realise that's it's a result of economic tyranny where polluters and pillagers of national wealth are protected and coddled.

We could employer individuals to claim compensation for 2 million deaths caused by air pollusion globally. We could enable farmer who's lifehood has been destroyed by climate change to claim compensation from Oil companeis and other emitters.

If your plot of land decreased in value because it no longer has access to clean water, if your house has been destroyed by a flood, if you had a heart attack from abnormally hot weather of if you used to be a toure guide to the barrier reef -> join a mile long queue for compensation from Exconn mobil and others. After all, that's the cost of doing business, right?

We could also disempower the central authority from using violence to protect private jets, pipelines, coal mines, and other climate destroying assets, and see how long they last.

> our only solution is technological

I've been hearing this argument and waiting for 30 years. Even better if you sit around waiting around for 'free market' to provide you with a magical solution. Should we wait for another 30 and see where it leads it? I mean it's easier that actually looking at yourself critically, right?

Your comment implies somehow there are governments choosing against technological solutions. There are none. In fact, they are investing billions into climate and energy technology and they have been doing so for decades. The ones that turn their back on nuclear power are most technologically inclined of all, because they are gambling on the hydrogen economy materializing and that requires a lot of new technology. And still it is not enough, and nowhere close to enough.

We are going to have to solve this problem with the technology we have. The clock has run out.

Or. We don’t. And we let those after us live with the consequences. I just worry that everyone who says “ok, let’s live with the consequences” has not chosen to properly inform themselves of what they are.

> our only solution is technological.

Technological progress is just a function of energy in a civilization. I highly recommend Smil's Energy and Civilization to understand this better.

The problem we are facing is directly a consequence of unsustainable energy usage, as such technology cannot be the solution.

Our quality of life will change whether we like it or not. In theory it would be preferable to choose that path. But people's in ability to accept that reality means we are choosing the hardest possible path.

We're already seeing wars over resources this very second. We will see global starvation this year from limited fertilizer production.

It's already happening and even in the comments on HN people aren't willing to entertain the necessary steps to prevent the worse case.

Do you have any proof?

Maybe this?

https://youtu.be/8455KEDitpU

Given that the lower half of incomes (actually of the people behind those income numbers) in the US already have a lifestyle that is in line with the Paris 2 degree goal, we are talking about the question if the rich-ish are willing to go to war for their privilege or if we (I certainly count in the upper half here in Germany while still far from even seeing the top) find ways of maybe reducing our impact.

The biggest lever is governmental regulations. Especially enabling capitalism to make good decisions. If externalities were priced into (for example) air travel, shipping or meat, the market would find ways and massive innovation potential could be leveraged.

As long as we are able to (relatively) cheaply consume while the externalities are payed by us all in the end (or the next generations) there won't be a solution. Neither socially nor technologically. At least imho.

100%.

Well, it is true that there is an agenda, sustainable ecology cannot exist without the end of capitalism. While it is true that in it's current form, even a minimum wage worker in global north country is not sustainable, it is the rich and the super rich that have by a large margin the highest carbon footprint.

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