Comment by formvoltron | Hacker News Reader

Comment by formvoltron | Hacker News Reader

How do we get Earth back to something resembling the steady state we know can work long term?

1. Electrify almost everything that can reasonably be electrified.

Move quickly to EVs, and replace anything that can practically become electric with an electric version. Self driving & fleet utilization will push transportation cost per mile lower than ever before.

For the power grid, data centers, and other large 24/7 consumers: solar + wind + battery storage. Deep geothermal also looks interesting.

Build lots of desalination capacity.

Maybe even planes can eventually be electrified. Imagine shorter hops with battery swaps at sea (aircraft carrier sorts of things). Too crazy?

2. Deal with the things that are much harder to electrify.

Cargo ships.

Long haul aviation, if the electric plane idea really is impractical.

For those, we can turn energy + CO2 into liquid fuels, creating something closer to a closed carbon cycle.

3. Remove excess CO2.

CO2 persists in the climate system for 200+ years, so getting emissions to zero does not necessarily return atmospheric CO2 to previous levels.

We will need to remove enough to be net negative & over time bring it back down to the CO2 levels we know worked long term.

That takes energy. Fortunately, solar + wind + storage are cheap enough now & getting cheaper.

4. Find places for all that solar.

Deserts are obvious.

Floating solar could potentially contribute.

Agricultural land is interesting too. Agrivoltaics can sometimes provide useful shading while still allowing crops to grow.

5. Deal with the transition period.

Once we are making a serious transition toward decarbonization and carbon removal, it may make sense to investigate temporary solar geoengineering, such as injecting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, to partially counteract warming while atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are being brought down.

The purpose would be to stop the feedback loops such as more forest fires, thawing permafrost, and loss of ice and other reflective surfaces.

Obviously geoengineering has major risks and should not substitute for reducing emissions. But as a temporary bridge, it seems like something that deserves serious research.

We can do all this.

None of it requires magic. We already have, or can plausibly engineer, most of the pieces.

This all sounds good, but the Government of one of the world's primary super powers (The United States) is currently unwilling to participate in fighting climate change, so any plan seems DOA without a major policy change on that front.

Agreed, and also Moscow sees this as a huge positive change. More ice-free ports, more arable land, plus avoiding action means they get to keep selling their major export.

Europe is now really stuck between two huge enemies, regarding climate. We can do a lot to prepare, we just need to wake tf up.

Our Union gives us many advantages. We just need to use it before our enemies destroy it.

I don’t entirely blame the government. They are only doing what they were elected to do.

Yep, unfortunately the only fix would be a world government. But that will never happen. So everyone's going to reach for a bigger slice of pie at any expense no matter what happens, no matter how clear the evidence is. (I'm not necessarily saying a world government is a good idea, but it's the only way to solve climate change that I can see)

If we move to an electric future then the number of cargo ships should decrease

Something like 40% of all shipping is moving hydrocarbons around the globe

We've known what to do for a couple of decades now. But when the world's largest economy is run by a madman who just cares about lining his and his buddies pockets instead of the future of humanity, it's hard to make progress.

0. stop eating meat?

Agreed that would help, but even if everyone were to eat, say, half the amount of meat they would normally eat that would be huge.

Non-issue

No....because it would make no difference.

https://youtu.be/sGG-A80Tl5g?si=dAqbVb9JV_uzLRl1

That video is quite biased. Just tell your clanker to critique it. It will point out that those numbers are quite cherry picked, and leaving out important details. E.g. the „GHG would reduce by only 2.6%“ study assumes that all crop production stays the same, which doesn’t make any sense.

I don't think it's biased. I think it makes all the sense in the world.

They have exactly one guy as the expert in this video and he contributes all the facts. That’s bias.

So someone presenting the facts can be biased. Prove his facts are wrong and then I can agree.

> 2. Deal with the things that are much harder to electrify.

What about wars? Unlikely anyone would completely electrify their armies anytime soon, and that blocks even starting the transition in the rest of economy. Some drones are electric, but you still need to move heavy stuff and many people in denied environments, and stationary electric grids are still more vulnerable than liquid fuels.

Aren't there way more factors than just energy, industry and transportation?

Agriculture is a huge pollutant, so we should take steps towards alternatives that don't require large scale animal farming.

Fashion is another gigantic pollutant, where fast fashion generates and discards more clothes than it is feasible to wear.

etc.

Why no mention of increasing biomass of earth? It’s the living systems that buffer the chemical and energetic changes of the climate, and whether or not we can take back the carbon we’ve aerosolized, we can repair ecosystems and slow down changes in weather.

Silly puny human. It's too late. The planet will grow back and flourish when you are all dead and gone.

6. Jail arsonists and harden the laws to protect natural resources from greed and sabotage.

this tech bro utopia ALWAYS ignores relatively basic solutions. A great example is reliable, regular, and efficient public transit. We don't need self driving cars and all that mumbo jumbo. A bloody train, tram or a bus would solve most of these problems.

This! I live in Western Europe and have never owned a car. I mostly travel by public transport or bike. I rent a car about once a year, but could do without that as well. Before people tell me that I am an exception: I know other people like me in various other places in Europe! It is possible and actually good for your body to have to move, at least to the train station, carrying groceries etc.

>This! I live in Western Europe and have never owned a car.

I'm also in Western Europe and almost always needed a car for my commutes to work, unless I was willing to accept a 1-2+ h public transport commute each way, because tech employers where I live love locating their offices in the sticks where land is cheap because they're broke and cheap, and the city hasn't significantly updated public transport infrastructure in ~30 years, but the population and size of the metro area grew by like 3x.

>Before people tell me that I am an exception: I know other people like me in various other places in Europe!

The thing is, Western Europe is not a country, but a collection of various countries with various economies, cities, and infrastructure, and various people with various housing and career locations, some close and well connected to public transport, some not at all, and from my circle of acquaintances, yes, you are the exception, as most people I know get to work by car.

So, you can't possibly throw such blanket statement over everyone in Western Europe, unless you're massively obtuse or living in a bubble without realizing it.

Like, I'm sure most people in Munich, Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna, etc can easily get to work on the excellent public transport they have, but I don't live there and don't have such amazing public transport, so then car it is for us.

>It is possible and actually good for your body to have to move, at least to the train station, carrying groceries etc.

Bruh, I only need a car just to get to work in reasonable time, not to move or carry groceries.

I get my groceries from the supermarkets 5-10 minute walking distance to my place, but I don't have the luxury of employment jobs within the same distance, so car it is, unless I want to be wasting my life switching connections between slow and infrequent trams, busses and trains which often suffer delays.

And regarding the "body movement" as a pro for public transport, I'd rather have more free time to move in gym and to the workouts my body condition needs, rather than waste my time walking and sitting/standing on public transport, as that's not an actual workout but a waste of time, as all you can do is browse HN on the phone with the hand that's not grabbing the bar. Driving is also a waste of time, but at least it saves me almost 1 hour each way which is massive time save that I can use how I like.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com