Hacker News Reader

Comment by hkt | Hacker News Reader

I remain stunned by the lack of action on fossil fuels and lifestyles generally. Even leaving aside the fact we are wrecking the planet, we rely on some deeply unsavoury countries for oil, gas and coal and we could have made a conscious choice to mitigate our dependence on them years ago and simply haven't done it.

What's worse is politicians have no desire to lead, so it is life to people with "alternative" (eg sustainable) lifestyles to retrofit their homes, ride bicycles, and generate less waste. Presumably the fear is that we have invested so deeply in fossil fuels that we can't unwind that rapidly. I'm sure everyone here knows a sunk cost when they see one.

I really do fear for my old age, and my kids lives. We've created too many incentives to wreck the world and people quite reasonably respond to them. Things have to change.

View on HN

"Lack of action" is just plain wrong.

If we would have done nothing, we'd be looking at about 6 degrees C of rise. If we stop at what we've done already, we're aiming for 4 degrees C. If our governments follow through on all our concrete commitments, we'd stop at about 2.5 degrees C. (Concrete commitments are specific, not nebulous like "net 0 by 2050").

2.5 degrees is still too much, but it's not nothing, far from it.

Saying "we've done nothing" is counter-productive IMO, it just encourages defeatism. IMO it's easier to do more when you acknowledge that what we have done has been effective.

But we have done nothing. This is easy to demonstrate.

You're claiming that we've made some progress regarding climate action, and that counterfactually it could have been worse.

There is, essentially, one source of human CO2 emissions: fossil fuels.

If what you claim is true then we should have a set of fossil fuels that we know about, can easily exploit, but refuse to because we won't be using them. This is the only way we can make progress on reducing emissions.

So far the only limiting factor I know of for limiting fossil fuel extraction is the economic difficulty in extraction.

A war is happening right now in order to control more oil and natural gas production, if we already have more oil in gas known about than we need, why are we fighting this war?

The problem I have is that the action is designed to cause no inconvenience whatsoever to anybody. 2.5C is going to cause megadeaths, and we in the west aren't interested in giving up our cars for it, or raising prices in our datacentres, producing less e-waste, and generally consuming less so we end up with less embodied energy in our lives, etc.

I mean, have YOU given up your car, moved entirely to renewables and stopped flying?

This attitude is exactly the problem. You twist it around to pin the blame on green activists somehow not doing enough in their personal lives, and no matter what they do, it's never enough. If he had given up his car, you'd ask when he'll give up meat. If he'd given up meat you'd ask when he'll put solar panels on his house, or whatever other excuse you can come up with to feel superior and justify doing nothing.

These things only work if everyone does them. If we want people to give up their cars we need massive investment in electrified public transit. Without that it is impossible for most people to survive without cars. A few people who have the freedom and the will to suffer under public transit choosing to give up their cars will do nothing to stop climate change.

> These things only work if everyone does them.

> You twist it around to pin the blame on green activists somehow not doing enough in their personal lives

Do we all have to do them.or not? That seems pretty simple. Yes, if you want everyone in the world to give up eg cake, then you need to start first. Otherwise you are virtue signaling - indicating group membership by taking no cost actions like wearing a pin, changing your facebook icon or commenting asserting others are not doing enough.

I too can tell other people to not drive or not eat meat. I don't because I still drive and I still eat meat.

> If we want people to give up their cars we need..

Now you are changing the problem.

I have never had a car. I'm 31 and I don't plan on having one. It is definitely a privilege to have planned my life around transport options that are more environmentally friendly, but I'm actually pretty committed to it.

As for renewables, I've bought shares in green energy in my pension and some in this scheme which allows people to co-own wind turbines:

https://rippleenergy.com/

When I buy my own home, I'll be installing an air source heat pump and solar panels.

As for flying, I've done it a few times but less than half a dozen flights in total in my life. My plan is to interrail one day.

So yes, actually I have more or less done what you suggested. It takes time and commitment, and the centre of my argument is that making the choices I have made should be easier than making the choices that contribute to climate change. Down vote all you like.

Don’t have to look much further than this very website to see examples. Just look at the frothing rage in the comments every time the topic gets to reducing car and natural gas usage.

The formula is very clear. When mankind has access to cheap and affordable energy, they prosper. When they don't, they struggle. And it's not about getting rich. We've already spent trillions on "green energy" and we are no where near getting rid of fossile fuels. It's embedded in everything we do.

There's also a lot of doom on this page thinking the end of the world is nigh. Scientists do not walk in lockstep on this question. There are climatologists who have pulled back on the alarm - like Lomborg and Shellenberger. I'm not saying they are right, just to be wary of anyone telling you they know what's going to happen.

Do you navigate in your car by staring only in the rear-view mirror?

There's parlous little contention that fossil fuels transformed the world for exceptional capabilities and productivity over the past 250 years. That's simply not the argument.

The problem is both what their continued use will do to the overall environment, and what their finite supply means in terms of continued prosperity.

Quite simply, you're ignoring (and repeatedly) the elephant in the room: unintended consequences of the continued use of fossil fuels.

You might care to recognise the beast. It's formidable.

I’ve personally added solar panels, downsized from 2 cars to 1 ev, planted hundreds of trees (reforesting an acre), stopped eating meat, started composting and collecting rainwater… and lie awake every night thinking that it’s all basically undone by some senator with 5 houses…

This is similar to the paradox of voting [1], and it is an important reason why many people don’t do as much, if anything. It depends on the individual’s psychology whether taking such measures are meaningfully beneficial for them personally (as opposed to for society).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting

I guess this might also explain a little of why older people vote in greater numbers? They've seen that their vote has an eventual impact, while young people don't have such perspective?

I believe it’s because older people have experienced how politics impacts their live, and because they follow politics more. However they can’t have seen that their individual vote has had a discernible impact, as that would be counterfactual. Voting because you believe your personal vote will change the course of history is objectively irrational — you’re more likely to win the lottery.

Maybe, but in some countries there is also more of them.

Considering the utter shitshow that is any kind of political system, modern democracies included, I am frankly surprised that we are tackling this at all, even if it 99% appearance and 1% substance.

Anyway politicians to "lead" need a mandate from voters and to lead in a direction good for the climate they need to be able to take the heat for extremely unpopular policies. Unfortunately in the systems where unpopular policies can get through the leaders have the tendency to exploit that for their own gain rather than for sustainability sake.

I believe it won't change until the situation will become so obvious and tangible that something will be done to mitigate it.

Nothing will be done about it until it the highest wealth classes have more to lose by continuing to ignore it than they do to gain.

The problem is that currently, the people in power to change things won’t really be affected by global warming - they have enough money to buy their way out of it.

In a couple generations the problem will be critical enough that buying your way out of it will no longer be possible, and then we’ll see change.

Right, and the mechanism that will bring that about will be enough of the poorer classes being affected that they start to make the status quo less profitable. Inconvenient resource wars, rioting in the streets, maybe even some old fashioned eco terrorism. All of that could be accelerated if people felt strongly enough to demand change sooner and were willing to make sacrifices in order to force the issue, but they generally aren't and those at the top put effort into keeping it that way.

I think that rioting and eco-terrorism can be kept at bay with increased surveillance. My bet is that the protests can be quashed long enough until the situation becomes so bad that actual life-threatening consequences arise even for those in power (extreme food scarcity and the breakdown of every supply chain out there).

People have to live in that environment. They are busy raising children, getting an education, living life. Most people don't live life sacrificing themselves to someone else's cause. Be very careful of falling into someone else's narrative.

“ In a couple generations the problem will be critical enough that buying your way out of it will no longer be possible, and then we’ll see change”

So what is that line? The inability to maintain high quality food production? Modern manufacturing? Mass migration?

> The problem is that currently, the people in power to change things won’t really be affected by global warming - they have enough money to buy their way out of it.

No, this assumes that civilization won't collapse. Their money means nothing if industrial society breaks down due to the catastrophic consequences of climate change. States are what enforce property rights and states fall apart as soon as the food runs out.

I don't believe it'll collapse in these people's lifetimes though. It'll take another couple generations for that to become an existential threat.

Are the Heat Dome, massive floods in Germany and 50C in May in India not enough to make an induction that things have a pretty reasonable chance of getting a lot worse a lot faster than that?

Anybody with a good credit rating can increase their standard of living by buying an EV, putting solar panels on their roof and switching to using a heat pump for heating. All three of these pay off their premium in under a decade in most jurisdictions.

You've already excluded a huge segment of the population with your very first line. Regardless, all that does very little to stop the worst sources of the problem: industry. In fact, this obsession with mainting a lifestyle that only exists because of fossil fuels and environmentally damaging industry is part of the problem in my opinion.

I'm responding to a comment about rich people. Also, anything that reduces TCO benefits poor people more than rich people, so if they don't have the capital for an up-front investment governments should be providing cheap loans or grants.

IMO the obsession with requiring sacrifice is alienating, counter-productive and unnecessary.

Why? Because people don't want to live life as if they were back in the 19th century? You go first.

Yeah, exactly my point. World going to shit around us as a direct consequence of our lifestyles and nobody is going to do anything about it because they feel entitled to said lifestyle. We could do something, we choose not to.

Future generations will revile us, as we deserve that.

"the world going to shit" carries a lot of assumptions. It's not just about amassing money. It's a bout survival for many people. Getting enough food to eat. Up to 100 million people (mostly Africans) could be facing starvation from not being able to import grain from the Ukraine. A crisis which is about the availability of energy. A little humility in realizing we don't know what's going to happen. There are consequences to any choice we make here.

Probably not a great time for most people to take out huge loans ($80-100k?) for nonessential purchases right as we're entering a recession. Also, the things you listed are "green" but they're substitutions and not significantly increasing standard of living above their alternatives. So to the average person this is a big ask.

Of course, any action taken by the government would have much more impact and would be way more effective than individuals trying to tackle this problem.

This is only true in your country. Most people in the world do not have the luxury of affording this, and for many that do it's not worthwhile.

I live in Ontario, Canada. Almost all of my electricity comes from nuclear, hydroelectric and wind. Solar panels are not particularly efficient so far up north and they are covered in snow five months of the year anyway. Solar is mostly a waste of money here. (I still see the occasional house with solar panels but I mostly interpret it as a protest against nuclear power.)

Electric cars also don't fare particularly well in our winters. It's pretty hard to go visit family out of town when your car has half its stated range. I'm of the opinion that pervasive plug-in hybrid vehicles would do far more to reduce our collective carbon emissions and buy us time to get plug-in hybrids with renewable fuel (biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen, etc.)

Heat pumps I agree would help. Unfortunately my country has huge amounts of cheap natural gas. Until carbon taxes start ramping up and heat pumps are subsidized I don't think most people will willingly increase their heating costs.

I live in Ontario. I drive an EV, which works fabulously in the winter. Solar panels are viable, with 10 year payback periods since we still have full net metering.

As individuals we are conscious and capable of conscious action. As groups, less so. As big groups, not at all.

As an individual I want to see companies clean up their act before I have to sacrifice anything.

You can't reason with an unsconscious creature, an animal, or a falling rock.

You realize that "companies clean[ing] up their act" involves sacrifice from you? Fossil fuels are used today because they're cheap. Not using fossil fuels will obviously make things more expensive, which is ultimately borne by the consumer.

It does not necessarily involve sacrifice from me. The company could also settle for a reduced profit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com