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Comment by Tadpole9181 | Hacker News Reader

The problem with people constantly pointing to the Ozone layer is that it was only really addressed because it cost virtually nothing to do so. All we had to do was switch from one bad thing to another good thing, which was already becoming cheaper.

Climate change as a whole requires a fundamental shift from the basis of almost all chemical manufacturing and transport logistics. And doing so will cause cataclysmic changes to the socioeconomic standings of entire regions of the world.

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>The problem with people constantly pointing to the Ozone layer is that it was only really addressed because it cost virtually nothing to do so. All we had to do was switch from one bad thing to another good thing, which was already becoming cheaper.

The tin-foil tongue in cheek joke in the refrigeration industry is "how do you know if a refrigerant is bad for the atmosphere?. because DuPont's patent expired".

Which is to say that R12 would've never gone out of fashion if not for big moneyed first world interests who have the ear of politicians whining that the 3rd world was gonna make and sell stuff cheaper and hurt their profits and that protecting the ozone layer only happened because it was good for big business. Subsequent changes in refrigerant are less flagrant but the undertone is still there. C02 never really caught on because you can just buy the stuff at any welding gas supply place for pennies, the entire supply chain stands to lose a source of profit with that as a refrigerant.

> And doing so will cause cataclysmic changes to the socioeconomic standings of entire regions of the world.

We're going to have those anyway. Might as well make them count for something.

Sure but like the guy said we needed to do that 30 years ago. Even now we're basically ignoring the problem. "Look at all these renewables" while we're still building new coal plants. And even still, most people are debating whether it's even a problem, and whether it's anthropogenic.

I'm afraid that is too optimistic a take.

How many humans are worried about getting food on the table today? How many have the mental space to dedicate to climate change in any way? I'd guesstimate more people are worried about short term food security...

Climate change requires building more nuclear power. Which we absolutely can do.

Building enough nuclear to replace fossil electricity generation is both insanely expensive and not enough to fix the problem because plenty of emissions don't come from electricity generation.

Ah yea, let's start that and reap the benefits 2050 when it's already in the shitter.

Nuclear is too slow. Not only are you running fossil plants for decades while you build nuclear reactors, you are also emitting additional CO2 during the construction process!

Renewables reduce CO2 emissions today. Building a solar farm takes months, building a wind farm takes single-digit years. They'll have recouped their construction emissions well before the first nuclear reactor comes online.

It is important to remember that the challenge we are facing is not *how do we build a fully-renewable grid", but "how do we reduce CO2 emissions the fastest". Having a 95% solar-and-wind grid with 5% fossil backup 10 years from now is significantly better than having a 100% nuclear grid 20 years from now!

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