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Comment by jamesaguilar | Hacker News Reader

That's a little more than the UN medium estimate of world population, but the absolute number of people doesn't seem like a huge problem. That's only 30% more than today. We have plenty of coal to get at least the electricity, and although oil might be a problem, I imagine that we can substantially reduce our consumption of that if governments get serious about pricing in externalities.

The global warming aspect is very concerning though.

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Water is a huge problem. Even in the U.S. the southwest is already fighting over diminishing supplies of water, and global warming is only going to make that problem worse.

The irony of the situation is that states like Arizona and Texas, who stand to lose the most from climate change and environmental damage, are politically the most intransigent about taking the measures to avoid it. When water supplies start drying up, people in those states are going to feel the pain far sooner than the dirty hippies in Washington and Massachusetts (though total pandemonium in the southwest isn't going to be good for anybody).

Interesting, we were going down a similar path in Victoria, Australia with falling water supplies. They build a very expensive desalination plant. Now it has turned around with 3 or 4 wet years so we are about to have this plant come online and not needed in the foreseeable future.

Google Arizona v. California. It's the reason states like Arizona oppose 'environmental' legislation. Because it always seems like what's good for the 'environment' is whatever allows CA to steal more water for itself.

I agree about the global warming. My worry is that continued political pandering and posturing (at least in the US) will result in an effective "stalemate" that prevents anything from being done about it until it becomes undeniable to those who refuse to believe it is happening. As a father of 3 I really want to believe that their future is brighter than ever, but in my gut I worry that we're racing towards a cliff with no brakes...

Obama hasn't mentioned global warming since his 2008 campaign.

I don't know if this is true, but his administration is certainly working on the issue [1].

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/opinion/new-rules-for-new-...

Um. I don't mean to be nit-picky, but that proposal isn't going to do anything. Let me explain.

The proposal is to prevent new power plants from producing more than 1,000 pounds of CO2e per MW of power produced. Coal is around 1,600 pounds/MW, natural gas is around 800 pounds/MW. So what happens?

1) We build new natural gas plants, and burn all available natural gas at ~800 pounds/MW. Given newly discovered shale gas reserves, this is going to be a fuckton of gas, and hence, CO2e. (Note: This would have happened without the new regulation.)

2) We keep all the old ones around, and burn all available coal at 1,600 pounds/MW. Given known US coal reserves, this is going to be a fuckton of coal, and hence, CO2e. (Note: This would have happened without the new regulation.)

All the new regulation does is ensure that all available coal is burned in old plants, instead of being burned in a mix of new and old plants. Since coal produces the same 1,600 pounds/MW either way, this is completely pointless. At best we're delaying the rate that we burn coal (with fewer coal plants, it'll take longer to chew through the coal), but the climate, sorry, couldn't care less about that. Either that carbon is in the ground or in the air, and if it's in the air, it's causing damage.

If you want to have some impact on the climate, you need to figure out a path that leaves fossil fuels in the ground unburned. Tinkering with the rules about new power plants doesn't even help.

I'm not informed enough to say whether this will do anything. I only used it to illustrate that the administration is putting effort into the problem.

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