Can you imagine an extant tech that can come close to doing that at the required scale? I can’t.
A realistic aircraft capable of those payloads will burn avgas, no solar craft comes close to the capability. The side effects such as a significant increase in acid rain, are not trivial either.
These are fantasies of people who cannot accept the reality of what we’re facing.
More realistically, there’s vested interests in existing ships and shipyards not being made obsolete so any minute effect is overhyped as “this is how we solve global warming”.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with an acquaintance - he was convinced that anthropogenic global warming was impossible because a volcanic eruption emits so much CO2 and was completely unwilling to consider evidence that perhaps humans emitting annually 200x more than all volcanoes combined might have an effect.
You want to unthinkingly reject a proposal that makes things better because you can't understand the third order effects and refuse to accept any evidence.
We almost certainly will end up doing this, negatives be damned. Even worse it's just a bandaid not a fix.
Our ecological goals are to make biosphere damage scarce, but our economic practices aim to make scarce things plentiful. We need something to balance out the effects of scarcity-based economics.
In a similar way I think what works is to push back against growth only and growth at all costs approaches and back practises and models and communities that are working in other ways.
The kind of community action you're describing happens, but we need to find ways to help it scale.
Stress increases conflict risk. Fights for essential resources (land, water, food, shelter) will break out long before those essential resources are completely gone.
If we skip past the immense suffering and death part, we will probably end up on a planet where national borders have been redrawn by war and desperation, and a smaller population that lives in more northerly climes.
I'm sad all ocean megafauna are going to be extinct.
If nothing changes large parts of India will become completely uninhabitable due to wet-bulb temperatures being lethal without artificial cooling.
Those people will start moving and it won't be a 1000 or 100k people, it'll be millions looking for a place they can live in without, you know, dying.
Politically practical? Not a chance. It was already a major struggle a decade ago when the political climate was much more favorable to addressing the problem. Now, even the countries that want to do something about it are going to be more concerned about more immediate threats like being invaded.
Our best hope is that green technology quickly gets to the point where it so heavily outcompetes CO2-emitting technology that the latter disappears on its own. But this will take longer than it should.
I think from the standpoint of predicting what will happen, my best guess is that people will use fossil fuels until it is economically not viable to do so. If you want hasten it at an individual level, buy solar panels and have your house disconnected from the grid until fees you pay no longer subsidize fossil fuels. Frown at people and refuse to give them positive social cues when they buy a car that isn't electric. Instead of "oh nice car" just say "it would be so cool if they had a plugin version!". Support electrification of things like heat and water heating so long as it can be powered by non-fossil sources.
In the long run I think solar power, effective battery technology, and the peaking of the global population combine to cause fossil fuel usage to reduce over the next 100 years or so until CO2 levels stabilize. Lots of large CO2 emitters are already leveling off - the output is too high to sustain but at least it's no longer increasing year over year - such as from cement production.
Honestly it's not much but that's what you can do, larger social movements and political action do not work when someone's decision is whether to spend $800 a month or $100 a month to heat their house. Anyone who says it does should buy a thermometer, but instead they will get a plane ticket to the next big city to run around in the street yelling at police (literally the only people paid to not care about your slogans) while nobody really notices.
You should check with Ford on that. 19B write off this year
Also temperatures in a parked car routinely go over 70C (160F) throughout the entire car.
Plenty of solutions, but politicians will never make it happen.
We calculated that capping personal emissions (mostly doable via peer pressure should we get this moving as normal people) to some top 1 percent 25 metric carbon ton and going plant based would get us net-zero while additionally getting rid of the zillionaire problem and adding extra 50-100 gigaton rewilding effect to the table.
With no bigger than marginal effect on anyone's QOL.
But we're SOL as the propaganda machines of the zillionaires keep dividing normal people to fake dichotomies.
Taking children to pedo islands.
Once we'll wake up to the fact that almost every human becomes corrupt when treated with enough power we'll grok this.
And provide mental health services to the zillionaires and also they'll be happier.
Nobody wants the future we're getting.
The USofA in particular
* has been the largest cummulative emmitter of CO2,
* has "outsourced" much of the emissions due to its current consumption levels to offshore manufacturers such as China,
* was an early recognizer of the serious implications of CO2 emmissions causing AGW, going back to the 1970s,
* was and still is home to some of the largest fossil fuel companies that have been activly gaslighting the world about the realities of AGW since the 1970,
* is, or at least was, a global leader that was admired with an aspiration lifestyle that has set the tone for lifestyle globally - a lifestyle with consumption and emission attributes that have disasterous side effects if attained globally.
There are some 190+ countries about the globe, it's very much the case that not all countries are equal actors in this issue.
Climate change mitigation is a collective action problem in the form of a prisoner's dilemma or a tragedy of the commons. If every agent (i.e. country) refuses to cooperate, every agent will suffer major damage from environmental disasters. If all agents cooperate, they only suffer minor damage from economic policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
At first sight, this doesn't seem like much of a problem. The solution seems self-evident, before one considers countries adopting different strategies:
If one country defects, they benefit massively from hosting the world's carbon intensive processes, yet all countries will equally share in environmental catastrophe. Thus, the optimal strategy for any single self-interested agent is always to defect, no matter what the others do. Paradoxically, the optimal strategy for each agent in isolation leads to a catastrophically bad outcome for all agents if they all choose that strategy. Everyone wants to be the parasite, but if no one is the host, we all die.
It wouldn't matter if the US were a tiny island nation, but the US has the largest carbon footprint, the largest economy, and the most capable military. The US led the democratic world. They could have solved the prisoner's dilemma by enforcing global cooperation. If the US and its allies would threaten to sanction those countries who don't cooperate, the payout matrix would shift towards cooperation being a stable Nash-equilibrium. It would no longer be in a country's interest to screw everyone else over, so they'd stop. The US and the entire world would be better off.
However we can slow down the effects and try to stop the effects. So it's "only" 1.5° or whatever, not 3°, 5° or 10°. And if we raise average by 10° at least not by the years 2100, but 2200 to give time to adapt.
"Adapting" means resettling people, restructuring agriculture and food production, etc.
(All numbers are quite arbitrary picks, just as any goal one tried to set before)
In that case... what will be a foregone conclusion once we have a centralized digital currency?
It's unlikely that something like carbon capture will ever significantly reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere. It's just too energy intensive.
But there are a lot of practical solutions to significantly curb emissions that mostly just require regulations and taxes.
Things like building out rail transport. Heavily taxing air travel. Taxing all forms of carbon emission (fuel taxes would be pretty effective). Subsidizing non-co2 emissions, pushing for electrification when possible and power generation which uses non-CO2 emission. Stop wasteful pipedreams like "clean coal". Force data centers to be better citizens. For example, make them buy the battery/solar systems to offset their consumption. Make them participate in district heating schemes.
There's also some hope that even without intervention some of this will happen somewhat naturally. Solar and battery is already very cheap. Both are causing changes in the shipping and transit equations.
The nice thing about it is that it doesn't require global cooperation.
[1]https://www.onepercentbrighter.com/p/the-no-bullshit-way-to-...
Edit: I should probably link where I heard about it to give credit to someone who deserves it
https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/p/the-climat...
He was saying that this is usually kicked off by whale poop I think but because of the low numbers of whales, it happens way less now.
Which was, stop using CFCs, and stop venting them into the atmosphere to "dispose" of them. We also stopped lighting rivers on fire for mostly the same reasons, stop dumping industrial waste in them.
> I guess we should just accept it and adapt?
Ocean shipping produces more pollution than most countries. There are only like 5 countries that produce more carbon than the worldwide shipping fleet. If they cared then "cheap crap from China" wouldn't exist.
It's a scam. They want to monopolize the economy and they're using your environmental consciousness as the wedge to push you against your own best interests.
CO2 output per person in the US (all sources including industry, etc): ~13-14,000kg
Average distance driven per year per capita in the US: ~20,000km
Average CO2 output of current private vehicle fleet: ~250g/km
Therefore, over one third of total CO2 output per person is personal vehicle use. Considering only CO2 output due to personal choices driving has to be well over half.
Most people don't - or refuse - to consider the obvious choice to take personal responsibility. Drive less.
But beyond driving less, surely eating further down the foodchain helps as well. Plants and shellfish are efficient. Cows are not. Eat fewer burgers and a few more lentils and mussels. Unless you are RFK Jr then of course please eat lots and lots of fatty cow, tallow, butter. Go full on Atkins please and follow right behind him.
Also - does that per capita figure include cargo? If so, how much? Does it matter if random individual takes personal Responsibility and stops driving when all those long haul trucks will still be on the road?
Please catch up. Why we’re having a conversation from the year 2000 now is beyond me.
I also suggest reviewing the “nuclear isn’t part of the solution. Besides it takes a decade” discussion.
I would say it's often because people see individual examples in action. Some people follow those examples. Then more do. You are more influential than you think.
I've never seen that argued persuasively. All the arguments I've seen are the usual hopelessness for democracy, lack of agency, and victimhood.
Lots of people acting in the same way is the foundation of democracy.
and this is why we'll never solve the problem
Riding a bike or taking the bus is objectively the worse option for most people. That's not personal choice, that's policy.
Reversing course for a car-culture country like the US would take 50+ years. If it's even possible, which I personally don't think it is — the US is too far gone.
However, these things can and do change (introduction of public transport and saner planning allowing local shops and the possibility for children get to and from school autonomously for example).
One problem as I see it is that many people that don't have a viable choice other than driving everywhere are politically opposed to structural change. Adopting this political point of view is also a personal choice.
Everything which isn't sustainable must he taxed to the degree to offset the damage. We know well that economic incentives work best and that markets are efficient to achieve optimal solutions.
The core issue is just game theory to coordinate globally all players to prevent free riding.
There is developing real practical solutions, and then there there is the willingness of governments, big corporations, and the general population, to implement real practical solutions. The latter is much much harder than the former.
What exact raw data would you want? I am sure ChatGPT can throw together some python that will download the relevant data.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/graph_data/Global_...
It was recently done so the full results aren't out, but one aspect they noted was that the traditionally-created hemp rope stretched about 10% so temperatures were taken at slightly deeper depths than expected. This can be used to calibrate the data from HMS Challenger.
[1]: https://www.oneoceanexpedition.com/article/checked-150-year-...
I did a quick review, and appreciated the article because they were clear about how their methods different from the recordings. For one using different pressure sensors, and they mentioned the depth differential they measured would lead to variability in the ocean temp readings.
> we have to make things more expensive, raise taxes, and restrict freedoms to fix it
Aha, right on cue the mask slips off. Desperately trying to justify your own selfishness in the name of "freedom".
MMTS locations are so close to heat sources and heat sinks, at least in the US, that any sort of debiasing appears to be a "guess."
statistically. 96% of them. thankfully NWS/NOAA/NASA/etc have started deploying wireless sensors, but unless they admonish the volunteers for placing their (NWS/NOAA/etc) dumb MMTS designs so close to heat sinks and sources, as if it was their fault, demanding that volunteers move the sensors to a location 20 meters from said sinks and sources...
you're just gunna have and continue to have decades of literally unusable data. But hey, hottest year on record!
I am not mad at volunteers. it isn't their fault the MMTS devices only came with 10 meters or whatever of cabling for the indoor-outdoor data. I would, however, like to see the rationale and meeting notes and design documents (and the reasoning and arguments thereof) for the MMTS; explicitly for use tracking climate trends.
anecdote: i have multi channel humidity and temp sensors that log to SD card. they have been logging for a long time. My outdoor sensors, as well as our cars, etc, show that our location is always 7F cooler than the nearby metro (20 miles) during the warm months. If we used my temperature data, i'd believe the trends. if we use the temperature data from the sensors they use at the airport, it's going to show warming - and i submit you can't de-bias that using the methods used for the IPCC and other reports. and when i say 7F cooler here than there, i mean on the thermometers on our cars (and multimeters, or even a liquid-in-glass carried around!). I also mean my location is consistently cooler than the forecast temperatures for the city.
i understand weather is not climate.
Then nothing.
My guess is we passed the tipping point. It's inevitable by now.
February 29, 2024 - 2023 was the warmest year on Earth since direct observations began, and the first year to exceed 1.5 °C above our 1850-1900 average. ...
It's a ways outside of town
But the distance has its uses
Close enough to make the effort
Far enough to make excuses.
If we miss the 1.5 target then the next target is 1.51. And so on.
To not even attempt to head for the lifeboats is suicide.
You're the one calling me a "doomer"?
Plants growing slightly faster does not mitigate the many consequences of increased CO2.
Then I'd be far more worried about nuclear war than minor temperature excursions. Aside from that "non recoverable" damage happens every day. What do you think mining is?
> Actual global average temperatures is what should be measured.
On average it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler last year than it was the previous where I live in northern CA.
You cannot coerce someone to ignore their local weather and sabotage access to affordable energy because of some global average. It’s a losing battle that’s fundamentally misled.
If we all individually spend more money to accommodate the effects of climate change than their causes, then we are wasting enormous economic resources.
https://www.pm.gov.au/media/setting-australias-2035-climate-...
Here's the NZ PM last month:
https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/rural-news/rural-general-ne...
I would imagine it's a relevant political football in most first world countries. I avoid American news, but the bits I see make me think it's probably still focused on culture war garbage.
Do you have an example where you personally interrupted a politician effectively?
:)
Trying to tell poor nations to remain poor -- or telling rich nations to consume less -- is a losing game. There's evidence that as societies get richer, their populations demand cleaner air, water, etc. And, as another commenter mentioned, a realistic hope is that the whole green-tech stack matures to the point where it can compete on price.
We'll either make lower-carbon/lower-warming solutions work at near-market rates, in a way that allows personal and national economies to grow, or it'll just be talk for the next 50 years as well.
30 years later it looks like he was right.
Edit: the IPCC was founded in 1988 thus people started in the 70ies to understand that there will be a problem but there was a very long period of inactivity. Personally I am quite optimistic that fusion will become commercially available before 2040.
And dear downvoters, dont shoot the messenger.
Meanwhile - even if you do not care about climate - there is so much money to make with renewables (production, storage, mobility, etc). China and much of the rest of the world are charging ahead, while the US wants to be a petrol state.
It's more that such titles attract the denialists and edgelords like bees to sucrose.
Lack of significant action is more a majority position, and that's unsuprising given many people struggle with how to make meaningful change as individuals or accept greater risk and reduced returns as C-suits of corporations.
magneticnorth•2w ago