How would you propose we actually combat climate change?
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solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life
This is not possible. Barring some miracle technologies being developed, we would have to radically change our standards of living and give up our modern convenient lives to make meaningful changes.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Renewable electricity seems like it gets us most of the way there.
The remaining problems I can think of are concrete and fuel for air travel. We could probably go without concrete, although it would suck, and otherwise we just have to recapture the CO2 from the atmosphere. Direct capture and storage has proven trucky because the kilns are large, hot, and rotating, making them difficult to seal E-fuel or biofuel would have to be the solution for air travel. Maybe airships are close enough to qualify as non-disruptive, I guess.
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How we gonna melt steel, copper, titanium, tungsten, etc?
Sadly, fossil fuels aren't going away anytime soon.
️wrote last edited by [email protected]Arc furnaces are standard already.
The thing you really need a reducing agent for is smelting, and for that hydrogen is already used at smaller scales.
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But it's time to disrupt 99% of life.
Survey humanity, produce an agreed on level of technology and lifestyle.
We probably need to limit ourselves to housing, food, internet, and safety/defense for everyone and not much else - then slow all industries based on HOW people want to live.
So getting rid of things like, plastic toys, gizmos, extravagances. Phones wouldn't be updated as often. People would only be able to update their tech if they could meaningfully show it was necessary.
Lots of technology companies would be folded. Lots of industries would be nationalised and folded. International tourism would be greatly restricted. All the stuff we don't need basically.
People would be mostly employed in the basics: Housing, food, internet. Too far beyond that and you'd have to rely on local people/groups/makers/repair companies.
So massive degrowth, nationalization, and restrictions/regulations to the market.
Most of all, corporations would no longer count as people. In fact society should have to rely on person to person contracting. I don't really think corporations should exist becuase they become Zombies/Golems that do a lot of destructive things.
Basically degrowth, and restructuring society around degrowth.
Yeah, but that's a fantasy, people will not do that. OP is specifically asking for something more realistic.
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dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
This is ridiculous, because the problem inherently requires cooperative change, and as we've seen people will throw shitfits over things as small as plastic straws.
A big thing would be to start switching from ever expanding auto infrastructure to public transit systems where possible.
- Fewer vehicles that transport more people
- Can use the space that is currently occupied for parking cars better
Another big thing requires changing our diets. Some types of food are more resource intensive than others, but also we ship food all over the planet and the resources for transport also contributes. Eating food that is in season on your continent would make a big difference.
The last thing is maybe the least obvious to regular people, but maybe we don't need to build that data center yet if we can't power it without fossil fuel. We need to entirely stop expanding energy usage until we've switched over entirely to sustainables.
In summary, basically everything that needs to happen is going to affect regular people, and they're going to have to get over it, or we're going to make the planet completely unlivable.
and as we’ve seen people will throw shitfits over things as small as plastic straws.
That's still depressing as hell, on both sides. One because they're freaking out over slightly different straws, the other because it's such a token gesture to plastics pollution that solves nothing.
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and as we’ve seen people will throw shitfits over things as small as plastic straws.
That's still depressing as hell, on both sides. One because they're freaking out over slightly different straws, the other because it's such a token gesture to plastics pollution that solves nothing.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yup. ALL single use plastics except maybe for medical need to go. I take my own containers to restaurants for leftovers and people act like I have 2 heads
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I'm not a doomer, in large part because I think that economic forces will reduce greenhouse emissions significantly on their own, and despite hitting recent setbacks in policymaking that would push those reductions to happen more more quickly or with deeper cuts, that decarbonization back down to 1990 levels is still going to happen in our lifetimes.
Here's how I think we'll get there:
- Phasing out fossil fuel electricity generation. Solar power is just ridiculously cheap compared to any other method of generation. As we deploy grid scale storage, demand-shifting technology and pricing structures, develop redundancy with wind and advanced geothermal (and possibly fusion in the coming decades), we're going to make fossil fuel electricity generation uncompetitive on price. Maybe ratepayers and governments don't want to subsidize carbon-free energy, but why would they want to subsidize carbon emitting energy when those are no longer competitive?
- Electrification of transportation (electric vehicles, including big stuff like trains and buses and small stuff like bikes and scooters).
- Electrification of heat, both for indoor climate control and furnaces/boilers for water and industrial applications. Heat pumps are already cost effective for new construction in most climates, and even retrofits are approaching cost competitiveness with fossil fuel powered heaters.
- Carbon capture as a feedstock into chemical production, including alternative fuels like sustainable aviation fuel. Once electricity is cheap enough, even only at certain times of day, energy-intensive chemical production can hit flexible output targets to absorb surplus energy supply from overproduction of solar, to store that energy for later or otherwise remove carbon from the atmosphere.
To borrow from a Taoist concept, we shouldn't expend effort fighting the current of a river when the current itself can be utilized to accomplish our goals. In this case, the capitalist incentive structure of wanting to do stuff that makes money is now being turned towards decarbonization for cost savings or outright profit.
Yes. OP can't solve it. Lemmy can't solve it. But even not solving it will be okay unless you're a coral reef, because we got lucky and technology is bailing out our asses. The few token political initiatives will help a bit.
If we end ourselves it will be in a different way.
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Yes. OP can't solve it. Lemmy can't solve it. But even not solving it will be okay unless you're a coral reef, because we got lucky and technology is bailing out our asses. The few token political initiatives will help a bit.
If we end ourselves it will be in a different way.
Oh no, we will die because of ecological collapse caused by climate change. So it just depends on how many steps you count as being involved, but we will die, ultimately because of anthropogenic climate change.
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Oh no, we will die because of ecological collapse caused by climate change. So it just depends on how many steps you count as being involved, but we will die, ultimately because of anthropogenic climate change.
wrote last edited by [email protected]We grow ~all our own food, and pollinate with our own bees and artificial methods. Somewhere will stay suitable for that even if we're going all the way back to the dinosaur times hothouse Earth. That right there is enough for mere survival and basic industry.
Maybe it could feed into the reasons for a nuclear war, or something, ooor maybe it's bound to happen without. Or maybe humanity will go on indefinitely.
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Yup. ALL single use plastics except maybe for medical need to go. I take my own containers to restaurants for leftovers and people act like I have 2 heads
My jurisdiction has EPR now. I'm pretty curious to see how that goes.
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Oh hell no. Lets not fuck with nature even more. We must not play god! Geoengineering might cause more problems than its use!
It's the only viable option given how much we've fucked the planet up.
Stopping (not reducing) emissions won't stop already ongoing feedback loops, it'll just prevent going full Venus.
If human civilization simply ceased to exist it'd still take millions of years for temperatures to go back to pre-human levels.
Sequestering enough carbon or increasing albedo don't seem like feasible options.
We need to put a shade between Earth and the Sun, it's the only option that seems possible before we collapse, and it would achieve immediate results (of course it'd also give companies an excuse to keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, since the problem would be “solved”, so we'd be back on track for Venus style runaway greenhouse effect in one or two decades).
We're 100% fucked.
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Eco-facists fuck off
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Ummm, ok. And how's that been working, so far?
Before trump? Pretty well, EVs became much more common because of grants and funds. Wind and solar is cheaper now than nat. Gas and coal because of funding that pushed the tech further. We just need more funding put towards it. Good luck banning oil.
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poore-nemecek 2018 misuses their source data.
Care to share examples of such misuse or alternative research?
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I am not a climate scientist and have not been to conferences but im a reasonably intelligent human who has five decades of experience on this planet and I can see we are already fucked in that things have changed in how the planet works. I see the storms (not just the news making ones but how unoften light rain has become around me and how often general storms have become), I see the flooding, I see the change in the seasons, etc. To me its now when are we fucked because again we already see that we are. To me its how roughly we want the fucking to be ultimately and can we bring it back down to a more tender and loving level.
To me its how roughly we want the fucking to be ultimately and can we bring it back down to a more tender and loving level.
More or less, yeah
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Care to share examples of such misuse or alternative research?
wrote last edited by [email protected]the standard for LCA data precludes combining LCA studies because they use disparate methodologies. to establish this, all you need to do is read the LCA references poore-nemecek cites.
I haven't found alternative research. if you have, please let me know.
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You missed a step: "Force States to invest in public transportation."
In America, There are so many states that have absolutely unbearable public transportation because they are significantly underfunded
I consider public transportation part of infrastructure
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
I think it's too late. But theoretically speaking, it would require totalitarian measures because people will not willingly choose degrowth and a significant decrease to their standard of living. People will not choose "less."
You would also have to get all nations across the globe to magically work together. The reason is that those who limit themselves based on sustainability will be outcompeted by those who don't impose such limitations. To use an example that is relevant to the present: as much hand-wringing as there is about AI and its various hazards (environmental and otherwise), simply "not doing" AI isn't really an option so long as other parts of the world are going for it. Opting out of an arms race can put you at a severe disadvantage.
Human nature is really working against us.
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Before trump? Pretty well, EVs became much more common because of grants and funds. Wind and solar is cheaper now than nat. Gas and coal because of funding that pushed the tech further. We just need more funding put towards it. Good luck banning oil.
And none of that slowed down oil and gas production, at all. Did it? Why would it? The oil and gas industry makes billions in profit, every year...largely due to the subsidies and grants provided by the government. They are funding the problem, along with the solutions.
So, of course, they are never going away. Climate change is only going to continue to get worse, because no one is willing to do what's actually necessary in order to change anything.
It doesn't matter how many alternatives there are available. They aren't going to stop producing it, unless they are forced to.
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Id like lemmings take on how they would actually reduce emissions on a level that actually makes a difference (assuming we can still stop it, which is likely false by now, but let's ignore that)
I dont think its as simple as "tax billionaires out of existence and ban jets, airplanes, and cars" because thats not realistic.
Bonus points if you can think of any solutions that dont disrupt the 99%'s way of life.
I know yall will have fun with this!
You are asking two how to questions "combat climate change" and "reduce emissions"
To realistically combat climate change:
- Admit that we need to try geoengineering (we are already doing this with all the CO~2~ and CH~4~ going into the atmosphere)
- Weather it is SO~2~ injection or cloud seeding to artificially increase the albido; we need to reduce incident solar radiation to give us a few more decades to actually reduce emissions
To reduce emissions:
- Tackle the biggest emissions first.
- Electrification of the passenger fleet; that means batteries. Keep fuel cells for heavy transport (maybe)
- Encourage electric biking. And other micro-mobility. Along with better public transport.
- Normalise a historical style diet, meat is a treat only once or twice a week.
- Reduce concrete construction; keep it for the important things like the foundations.
- Reduce the practice of packaging everything in plastic; again keep it for the important things only like electrical insulation.
- Massive ramp up of solar and wind around the world.
- Where we use fossil fuels, ask is this important enough to use FF here?
Carbon taxes:
- Tax CO~2~e (carbon dioxide equivalent) at a reasonable rate to encourage all of the reduction measures.
- At less than $65NZD/T the cost is too low to encourage significant movement on the issues.
- Have a ratcheting scheme in the CO~2~ market, i.e. add $5-8/yr/T for CO~2~e; in 10 years the price will be between $110-140/T. At the 10yr mark, make the ratchet $10-15/yr/T.
- Add a carbon tariff; basically make it more expensive to buy from countries that are not pulling their weight.
- Be careful not to double tax, this is important for buy in from the public. i.e. the carbon tax on fuel should be exempt from sales tax, taxing a tax is a great way to alienate people.
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And none of that slowed down oil and gas production, at all. Did it? Why would it? The oil and gas industry makes billions in profit, every year...largely due to the subsidies and grants provided by the government. They are funding the problem, along with the solutions.
So, of course, they are never going away. Climate change is only going to continue to get worse, because no one is willing to do what's actually necessary in order to change anything.
It doesn't matter how many alternatives there are available. They aren't going to stop producing it, unless they are forced to.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-renewable-energy-by-country-in-2022/
The fuck are you talking about?
It absolutely has. At this point you're not even arguing in good faith, your just spouting silliness.
