Summer is coming
October 8, 2016 3:08 PM Subscribe
No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously. "The actions necessary to hold to 2 degrees, much less 1.5 degrees, are simply outside the bounds of conventional politics in most countries. Anyone who proposed them would sound crazy, like they were proposing, I don’t know, a war or something. So we say 2 degrees is unacceptable. But we don’t act like it is."
*sob*
*sob*
Oh my no, it's much easier to propose a war than action against climate change.
*sigh*
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:42 PM on October 8, 2016 [10 favorites]
*sigh*
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:42 PM on October 8, 2016 [10 favorites]
Pretty much anything we need to do to prevent progressive systemic collapse is well outside the bounds of what is possible via conventional politics - I think it's safe to say that the only question now is how that will take, and how to rank the threats we'll have to cope with along the way. Outside of hedging my bets through some retirement investing, I'm pretty much premising my planning for the future on the cascading failure of the entire civilization I grew up with.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:47 PM on October 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 3:47 PM on October 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
I've become much more pessimistic in the last 1-2 years. It's still quite possible to imagine meeting our energy needs with essentially zero emissions, but it's nearly impossible to imagine getting there. Photovoltaics are more than an order of magnitude better in the last years, but the days when you could do an aggressive carbon tax and imagine corporations shifting to competitive eco friendly technologies in time are long gone. The existing power productions have lifespans of decades.
I dropped my opposition to nuclear power a long time ago (though it's not best option in many cases.) I'm almost completely persuaded by science writer Oliver Morton when he argues in favor of serious evaluation of geoengineering. I am persuaded by his argument that if one side has been in denial about the science of climate change, many on the other side (including me) have spent a long time in denial about how hard it would be to reform such a huge, important chunk of the economy.
posted by mark k at 4:17 PM on October 8, 2016 [11 favorites]
I dropped my opposition to nuclear power a long time ago (though it's not best option in many cases.) I'm almost completely persuaded by science writer Oliver Morton when he argues in favor of serious evaluation of geoengineering. I am persuaded by his argument that if one side has been in denial about the science of climate change, many on the other side (including me) have spent a long time in denial about how hard it would be to reform such a huge, important chunk of the economy.
posted by mark k at 4:17 PM on October 8, 2016 [11 favorites]
I'm really curious about what's expected to happen in the next 50 years, since from what I've read we're screwed either way. Any changes we make will only start taking effect in the next hundred years, too late for this generation. I mean, life is probably going to suck but how much? Is Mad Max going be reclassified as an eerily prescient period drama? Do survivalists have it right?
posted by Memo at 4:58 PM on October 8, 2016
posted by Memo at 4:58 PM on October 8, 2016
if climate change had a sex scandal we'd take it seriously
posted by any major dude at 7:43 PM on October 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by any major dude at 7:43 PM on October 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
We're going to have a lot more hurricanes
posted by LogicalDash at 7:47 PM on October 8, 2016
posted by LogicalDash at 7:47 PM on October 8, 2016
Recalculating the Climate Math - "The numbers on global warming are even scarier than we thought."
Paul Krugman: What About the Planet? - "There is, quite simply, no other issue this important, and letting it slide would be almost criminally irresponsible."
Barack Obama: The way ahead - "Finally, sustainable economic growth requires addressing climate change."
We have money to fight climate change. It's just that we're spending it on defense - "Stopping one fighter plane program would save enough to build wind farms to power 320,000 homes. We need to drastically reassess our priorities"
The Cost of Solar Power Has Fallen 25% in Only 5 Months - "The cost of building solar plants has declined by 25 percent in just five months, according to two recent bids in China and Dubai. The reduction in price follows a broader trend of solar affordability brought on by cheaper solar panels."
Renewable energy past the tipping point? - "Have we reached the tipping point (i.e., ~$.05 per kilowatt hour) with renewables? The documentary claims that large investments by China and Germany have brought this to fruition, with a million people now employed in the Chinese solar industry."
posted by kliuless at 11:42 PM on October 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
Paul Krugman: What About the Planet? - "There is, quite simply, no other issue this important, and letting it slide would be almost criminally irresponsible."
Barack Obama: The way ahead - "Finally, sustainable economic growth requires addressing climate change."
We have money to fight climate change. It's just that we're spending it on defense - "Stopping one fighter plane program would save enough to build wind farms to power 320,000 homes. We need to drastically reassess our priorities"
The Cost of Solar Power Has Fallen 25% in Only 5 Months - "The cost of building solar plants has declined by 25 percent in just five months, according to two recent bids in China and Dubai. The reduction in price follows a broader trend of solar affordability brought on by cheaper solar panels."
Renewable energy past the tipping point? - "Have we reached the tipping point (i.e., ~$.05 per kilowatt hour) with renewables? The documentary claims that large investments by China and Germany have brought this to fruition, with a million people now employed in the Chinese solar industry."
posted by kliuless at 11:42 PM on October 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
"Conventional politics" seems like a nice euphemism for democracy.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 3:28 AM on October 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 3:28 AM on October 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
"Conventional politics" seems like a nice euphemism for democracy.
Democracies have, on occasion, been known to do the wrong thing.
posted by regularfry at 8:01 AM on October 9, 2016
Democracies have, on occasion, been known to do the wrong thing.
posted by regularfry at 8:01 AM on October 9, 2016
It's too late for those suggestions. "A person has already been born who will die due to catastrophic failure of the planet." The "funny" bit about this clip is that it was from when the maximum first topped 400ppm. Now the minimum won't see 400ppm again in our lifetimes.
>I'm pretty much premising my planning for the future on the cascading failure of the entire civilization I grew up with.
I think the US will be OK for the lifetime of anyone reading this, where 'OK' is increasing fascism, and small-to-medium-scale resource wars with lots of dead, mostly 'elsewhere', to support the lifestyles of the upper class.
posted by anti social order at 8:08 AM on October 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
>I'm pretty much premising my planning for the future on the cascading failure of the entire civilization I grew up with.
I think the US will be OK for the lifetime of anyone reading this, where 'OK' is increasing fascism, and small-to-medium-scale resource wars with lots of dead, mostly 'elsewhere', to support the lifestyles of the upper class.
posted by anti social order at 8:08 AM on October 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
Invest in industrial-scale carbon sequestration technology, if you have the means.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:22 AM on October 9, 2016
posted by a lungful of dragon at 9:22 AM on October 9, 2016
Tax fossil fuel (as the biggest CO2 source) and return the money per capita to citizens. Get the engineers' incentives lined up with the long term, and with short term populism. Like so.
It would be most fair if literally global, and we will possibly hit a political roadblock if we discover that a voting majority is more subsidized by CO2 emissions than they are willing to give up -- a version of the elephant graph -- but if it's technically possible, it's a route to Fully Automated Luxury Capitalism. (More likely, Lentil-Supported Universal Ragpicking, but that might keep the libraries from burning.)
posted by clew at 1:07 PM on October 9, 2016
It would be most fair if literally global, and we will possibly hit a political roadblock if we discover that a voting majority is more subsidized by CO2 emissions than they are willing to give up -- a version of the elephant graph -- but if it's technically possible, it's a route to Fully Automated Luxury Capitalism. (More likely, Lentil-Supported Universal Ragpicking, but that might keep the libraries from burning.)
posted by clew at 1:07 PM on October 9, 2016
It is really unlikely Krypton will explode. Stop sending your sons into space. It's panicking the cape and boots markets, without which we have no jobs -- and we need those for working at.
Stupid feckless hippies and their dadburned highly coordinated secretly funded global conspiracy to pervert science for political ends. Feh!
posted by Construction Concern at 5:21 PM on October 9, 2016
Stupid feckless hippies and their dadburned highly coordinated secretly funded global conspiracy to pervert science for political ends. Feh!
posted by Construction Concern at 5:21 PM on October 9, 2016
Tax fossil fuel (as the biggest CO2 source) and return the money per capita to citizens. Get the engineers' incentives lined up with the long term, and with short term populism. Like so.
It is way too late for this. That it almost certainly could have worked 20 years ago is a great lost opportunity.
It takes 10 to 30 years to cycle through the life of power plants. So they are inherently slow to react to market pressures. And any operating plant is going to keep going under normal situations since the capital costs have already been laid out--even if you bankrupt a plant that just means the original investors eat the loss and someone else operates it. Unless taxes make operating costs unprofitable, and we are producing less power than before . . . and in this world giving people cash is not a populist thing, it's an accounting fiction.
Someone did an estimate for California that I may try to look up. It was a legitimate attempt to outline ambitious mitigation, not FUD as far as I know. It boiled down to something like 60% reduction in 30 years was possible with sufficient effort. In liberal, fuel efficient, environmentally friendly California. This might be on the order of what we need but you've got to do it everywhere, including the developing world. I'm quite pro-market for a guy of lefty instincts but you're going to need massive government planning here, to make it happen and make people think they have a say in how needs get prioritized.
And we aren't even talking about it this election cycle. Nothing this ambitious. Not Bernie, Obama, or Hillary.
posted by mark k at 5:49 PM on October 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
It is way too late for this. [...] It takes 10 to 30 years to cycle through the life of power plants.
Still not too late, because it is *not too late to de-incentivize fossil fuel use*. We tax fuel at the pit or well head, and if the built fossil-fuel-using plant is the most profitable way to satisfy the demand for what power gets us -- then fine, sell and use fossil fuels, that's probably telling us something important about embodied energy. But it's insane to say we shouldn't tax coal because we've built coal-fired plants. That's how we got here.
posted by clew at 6:53 PM on October 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Still not too late, because it is *not too late to de-incentivize fossil fuel use*. We tax fuel at the pit or well head, and if the built fossil-fuel-using plant is the most profitable way to satisfy the demand for what power gets us -- then fine, sell and use fossil fuels, that's probably telling us something important about embodied energy. But it's insane to say we shouldn't tax coal because we've built coal-fired plants. That's how we got here.
posted by clew at 6:53 PM on October 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
But it's insane to say we shouldn't tax coal because we've built coal-fired plants. That's how we got here.
Good thing I'm not saying we shouldn't tax it, then. I am saying it won't help meet the Paris goals. That's the point of the OP article--it's too late in the game.
Carbon taxes are like a brake. Unfortunately we've been tailgating and fiddling with the radio and now we're about to hit the semi. So while we could have had plenty of warning and tapped the brake, now it won't matter if we clamp down all the way or not. Sure not using it is "how we got here" but it doesn't matter. We need to swerve wildly into a different lane and hope there's not another car there.
Incentives in the private market works at the speed at which the private market makes investment decision. The tax plan is fine only if it comes with a time machine. Now we need hard caps and government programs (massive new renewable & storage construction, and possibly sequestration and other mitigation).
posted by mark k at 10:30 PM on October 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Good thing I'm not saying we shouldn't tax it, then. I am saying it won't help meet the Paris goals. That's the point of the OP article--it's too late in the game.
Carbon taxes are like a brake. Unfortunately we've been tailgating and fiddling with the radio and now we're about to hit the semi. So while we could have had plenty of warning and tapped the brake, now it won't matter if we clamp down all the way or not. Sure not using it is "how we got here" but it doesn't matter. We need to swerve wildly into a different lane and hope there's not another car there.
Incentives in the private market works at the speed at which the private market makes investment decision. The tax plan is fine only if it comes with a time machine. Now we need hard caps and government programs (massive new renewable & storage construction, and possibly sequestration and other mitigation).
posted by mark k at 10:30 PM on October 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
a million people now employed in the Chinese solar industry
Remember, kids: As Uncle Fossil says, we can't afford to go off coal and oil because that will cost us all our jerbs.
posted by flabdablet at 1:17 AM on October 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Remember, kids: As Uncle Fossil says, we can't afford to go off coal and oil because that will cost us all our jerbs.
posted by flabdablet at 1:17 AM on October 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
God fucking damn it. This is terrifying. And NO ONE is bothering to talk about it, especially on social media. Everything on all my feeds is about the election, or cats falling off things, or exploding phones, but I posted about this article and I don't think anyone read it. We're doomed and we might very well deserve to be.
posted by numaner at 8:48 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by numaner at 8:48 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
NO ONE is bothering to talk about it
Au contraire.
posted by flabdablet at 10:50 AM on October 11, 2016
Au contraire.
posted by flabdablet at 10:50 AM on October 11, 2016
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posted by mumimor at 3:14 PM on October 8, 2016 [4 favorites]