Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Sharpandpointies]

So, the latest IPCC report is out. As with every year, it's basically saying 'It's worse than we thought, we need to change now to even have a chance at MITIGATING Climate Change.'

And still, people aren't really doing anything. Governments aren't really doing anything. Industries aren't really doing anything.

Exceptions, of course, but the few exceptions won't do the trick.

Sorry, younger people. Really, I am. We're handing off a terrible, terrible world to you, while sitting back and doing nothing to fix it.

[Sharkerbob]

So, the latest IPCC report is out. As with every year, it's basically saying 'It's worse than we thought, we need to change now to even have a chance at MITIGATING Climate Change.'

And still, people aren't really doing anything. Governments aren't really doing anything. Industries aren't really doing anything.

Exceptions, of course, but the few exceptions won't do the trick.

Sorry, younger people. Really, I am. We're handing off a terrible, terrible world to you, while sitting back and doing nothing to fix it.

Actually doing things on the scale at which it would actually make a tangible difference would cost much more money, shake up the global economy too much, and cause international contentions from differing industrial priorities of different nations.

Much more profitable to just keep whining about it and devote the fundraising/grants towards smaller scale pet projects and political campaigning.

If/until we make some radical advances in technology that can be quickly implemented on the global scale without disrupting things, that can bypass all the bureaucratic bullshit and political agendas, this is a problem no one is going to be able to fix. Even if everyone agreed to overhaul civilization to slow down the damage, all we can really hope is that nature would correct itself over time. We don't have the technology to actually reverse the damage ourselves. There's just too many factors at play.

Not to be a doomer, but it's all very disconcerting.

[Sharpandpointies]

Actually doing things on the scale at which it would actually make a tangible difference would cost much more money, shake up the global economy too much, and cause international contentions from differing industrial priorities of different nations.

Yes.

Which is why governments don't, and businesses don't. Short-term gains over long-term solutions, lack of will to change things.

Individuals, much the same.

At this point, it's everyone's responsibility - governments, corporations, and yeah, individuals.

But nothing is getting done, and I'm afraid that's pretty much going to be the gold standard until things start to collapse. At which point it'll be beyond 'too late', because it will have been 'too late' years before.

And yes, Canada is absolutely one of the worst offenders, per capita.

[Postmania]

Unfortunately the cost to implement the changes later on will be much greater than implementing them now. So actually doing them is actually saving money (tens of billions of dollars) in the term of years/decades.

However, we never had governments/businesses capable of thinking beyond the length of a financial quarter so.

[Nik Hasta]

Capitalism is a system that needs to be incentivised to work toward keeping the planet habitable.

Currently, it is not being suitably incentivised.

[Sharkerbob]

Yeah. It's a very, "Well, I got mine, the next person can worry about it" mentality. This is going to require generational steps to fix, and we just haven't really set up our societies to think on those scales.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Well, at least the MIT study from 1972 that calculated a societal collapse will happen, either as a result of the "Business as Usual" model, or the "Comprehensive Technology" model (the two most probably as of the 2020 study, though twelve total were proposed), in the 2040s is still holding unamusingly close.

On the plus side, the CT scenario is only the collapse of industrial society, as the means to manage climate change and provide sustainable food will be possible even as non-renewable resources run out. But, yanno, the BAU model is more likely at this point.

Gotta love it.

[Sharpandpointies]

Unfortunately the cost to implement the changes later on will be much greater than implementing them now. So actually doing them is actually saving money (tens of billions of dollars) in the term of years/decades.

However, we never had governments/businesses capable of thinking beyond the length of a financial quarter so.

Capitalism is a system that needs to be incentivised to work toward keeping the planet habitable.

Currently, it is not being suitably incentivised.

Quoted both for truth.

Yeah. It's a very, "Well, I got mine, the next person can worry about it" mentality. This is going to require generational steps to fix, and we just haven't really set up our societies to think on those scales.

I get you.

The issue is that the effects of NOW are what create the effects of the future, due to how CO2 lasts in the atmosphere. If we had wanted to solve NOW, we should have been on it 30 years ago. We can try to change things NOW, but as noted in (every) IPCC report, that will only mitigate how bad it's going to get.

We can do everything possible right now to fix things, but the temperature is still going to rise to +1.5C regardless.

If we take a slower, measured approach, it'll be worse, and this is what the IPCC is advocating trying to stop now (because we're stuck with 1.5...more like 1.6, as it turns out, by current modelling).

Except when it comes to methane. Methane makes up a chunk of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere - a big one (not just by percent, but because methane is actually much 'better' at trapping heat than CO2. BUT methane doesn't behave the way CO2 does - it breaks down, and quickly. If we managed to bring the amount of methane we (as humans) are releasing (not the natural stuff) into the atmosphere by our practices, it would take much less time before the positive impact of that reduction is felt. It wouldn't fix the problem at all, but it would be a very rapid mitigation of future issues (and, I assume, we would still be trying to reduce our CO2, etc).

Problem is, one of the biggest producers - man-made producers, anyway - of methane right now (and for years)? Animal agriculture. Also of other greenhouse gasses.

- Accounts for five percent of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions;
- Represents 44 percent of anthropogenic methane emissions, the primary driver of climate change related to livestock, as methane is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100 years;
- Comprises 44 percent of all anthropogenic nitrous oxide emissions, the most potent GHG; and
- Makes up 75-80 percent of total agricultural emissions.

- source: Climate Nexus.

Which is why the IPCC points out that the biggest thing any individual can do that will actually make an impact is to...*dramatic pause*...reduce or eliminate meat and animal products in their diet. If everyone - by that, I mean a large percentage of the population, see below - did this, we'd see a change in our methane output (dramatically)...and also wouldn't need to cut down forests for more grazing area, or for more animal feed production area. We could, in fact, reclaim some of those areas for natural growth as carbon sinks.

Yeah, I went there. Given this is an IPCC recommendation, I feel pretty supported in it. ^_^

The IPCC understands it's currently not possible to altogether eliminate meat from the human diet, as there are a small percentage of people who have actual health issues with this (VERY small) and a small percentage of people living in places where this would be difficult. But by and large...those things are not good excuses for the vast majority of the population of the planet to either dramatically reduce or eliminate animal products from their diet. And certainly not for the rich countries that consume vastly greater amounts of animal products than the poor ones.

And yet.

[Sharpandpointies]

Well, at least the MIT study from 1972 that calculated a societal collapse will happen, either as a result of the "Business as Usual" model, or the "Comprehensive Technology" model (the two most probably as of the 2020 study, though twelve total were proposed), in the 2040s is still holding unamusingly close.

On the plus side, the CT scenario is only the collapse of industrial society, as the means to manage climate change and provide sustainable food will be possible even as non-renewable resources run out. But, yanno, the BAU model is more likely at this point.

Gotta love it.

Nice to know how predictable we are. Edit: you know what, unhappy face. :(

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Nice to know how predictable we are. Edit: you know what, unhappy face.

I think what's worse is, they saw this coming fifty years ago and nobody cared enough to stop it.

[Sharkerbob]

I think what's worse is, they saw this coming fifty years ago and nobody cared enough to stop it.

I'm sure a good chunk of them aren't even around anymore, so in the end, it wasn't their problem.

[Sharkerbob]

Here we fucking go lads, my favourite Part of the whole franchise!

Is the series pretty faithful to the manga? I keep meaning to get back to reading it, but maybe catching up with the show would be better at this point.

[Sharpandpointies]

I think what's worse is, they saw this coming fifty years ago and nobody cared enough to stop it.

Yeah. That's just it. Exxon - and other companies - knew all about it at the LATEST in 1977. Proof - solid, 100% proof - of that has turned up. But people were talking about it before '77. CO2 monitoring - explicitly to try to find a link between CO2 levels and the recorded rise in temperatures - began in 1958. Papers on it were released in the 60's.

We've known about Global Warming/Climate Change for a looooong time, but thanks to a massive disinformation campaign by industry and, yes, governments, nothing has been done.

Imagine if governments had seriously moved on this back in the 60's. Imagine if industries had said 'Clearly oil is not sustainable, we need to put our efforts into researching better ways.'

We wouldn't be here.

Most likely there would be other problems, because utopias don't just happen, but we wouldn't be looking down the barrel of what we have now.

[Sharkerbob]

Yeah. That's just it. Exxon - and other companies - knew all about it at the LATEST in 1977. Proof - solid, 100% proof - of that has turned up. But people were talking about it before '77. CO2 monitoring - explicitly to try to find a link between CO2 levels and the recorded rise in temperatures - began in 1958. Papers on it were released in the 60's.

We've known about Global Warming/Climate Change for a looooong time, but thanks to a massive disinformation campaign by industry and, yes, governments, nothing has been done.

Imagine if governments had seriously moved on this back in the 60's. Imagine if industries had said 'Clearly oil is not sustainable, we need to put our efforts into researching better ways.'

We wouldn't be here.

Most likely there would be other problems, because utopias don't just happen, but we wouldn't be looking down the barrel of what we have now.

People more read on the subject than I have pointed out that energy companies have been doing the most research on alternative fuel sources, but it seems there's just a hard limit on efficiency. Supposedly, there just isn't anything more efficient and cheaper than oil.

How genuinely true that is is hard to say, but I know things like solar and wind power tech as it stands just cannot compete. So, easier to still just support fossil fuels over overhauling the energy systems and telling people in first world countries they might have to just learn to live with regular brown outs and rolling blackouts for a while.

[Postmania]

What we need is to be honest and treat the oil/gas industry as an organization that we need to cut from our national portfolios, one way or another I think. Obviously they would look out for their interests, so we should have been finding out ways to weed them out of our economy for a while now.

We've shifted away from other businesses before, we can do it now.