Will it be too late to save everyone on Earth from climate change?

[Leo Gura]

The problem is not that people deny climate change, the problem is that people are too poor/greedy to want to pay the cost for green energy. It all boils down to cost. If you want green energy it will cost twice as much per kilowatt. The rich can pay that but the poor cannot. So as energy cost goes up it ends up hurting poor people more than climate change.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Cireeric]

On 19.8.2023 at 0:40 AM, Hardkill said:

Could you please refer me to a source for me to a source that would help me understand why green energy is still not economical yet?

 

Watch this for a very detailed summary of the Global Energy Situation and why renewables arent adequate for running our global  economy yet: 

 

[Scholar]

59 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

So as energy cost goes up it ends up hurting poor people more than climate change.

To only focus on CO2 emissions in terms of environmental distruction misses the bigger picture. One of the big issues is that we are degrading ecosystems which capture CO2 by using the land in the most inefficient way possible, generating calories and protein by means of animal agriculture rather than directly consuming plants. If we were to use land efficiently, we could reforest large parts of the planet and therefore capture more of the CO2 that we are emitting.

And this seems to actually be something that we will need to do anyways, because it will not be sufficient to simply reduce our emissions at this point. We cannot continue to use land in the most irrational way possible because people want to eat bacon instead of lentils. China is currently adopting a more western diet, and the consequences are felt globally as massive portions of tropical ecosystems are destroyed to be replaced with monocrop fields for animal feed.

 

As the trends are going at the moment, we will lose all major land-based ecosystems on the planet in a matter of decades, simply because people adopt western dietary habits. We will soon require multiple earths to be able to sustain the agricultural needs for the world, simply because we enjoy certain animal products, not at all because it is necessary for survival or economically more efficient.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Scholar

[Bobby_2021]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

The problem is not that people deny climate change, the problem is that people are too poor/greedy to want to pay the cost for green energy. It all boils down to cost. If you want green energy it will cost twice as much per kilowatt. The rich can pay that but the poor cannot. So as energy cost goes up it ends up hurting poor people more than climate change.

Go Nuclear. ?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Go Nuclear. ?

Nuclear is expensive and takes decades to build. But it's part of the solution. There is no one magic bullet. It's gonna require a hodgepodge of new tech over the next 50 years.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Jodistrict]

Because of the nature of the problem, it makes it extremely difficult to find a solution.  The biggest barrier is the political structure.   In order to solve global warming, it requires cooperation of every country on the planet.   For example, if a developed country cuts carbon emissions, that can be negated by Brazil cutting down the rain forests.  But world cooperation is getting even more difficult.  The neocons is the US promoting what is going to be a decades long war in Ukraine and making Russia and China enemies doesn’t help.   Then there is the fact that once things get too serious to ignore, it is already too late to do anything about it.  Then there is the unknown but real chance of a positive feedback loop changing the earth’s climate to that of Venus.

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

The biggest barrier is the political structure.  

In this case I think the biggest barrier is technological, not political. The politics of it cannot work if the technology is not advanced enough. And advanced enough means affordable, reliable, and scalable enough. We just don't have that yet. But in 50 years we will. At which point the politics will be on board. The political roadblock is really an economic one, which boils down to tech.

For example, in 50 years all the cars produced will be electric and we will have enough mined materials for all those batteries. But we can't have that today.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

In this case I think the biggest barrier is technological, not political. The politics of it cannot work if the technology is not advanced enough. And advanced enough means affordable, reliable, and scalable enough. We just don't have that yet. But in 50 years we will.

What if policies such as the Green New Deal got passed into law?

Edited August 21, 2023 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

What if the Green New Deal got passed into law?

I'm not even sure what's in that deal at this point. It would help but this is a global problem so it would still be a minor acheivement.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I'm not even sure what's in that deal at this point. It would help but this is a global problem so it would still be a minor acheivement.

Ah, I see.

It's true that America can't solve this alone.

[Hardkill]

Btw, how about the fact that the human population of the entire planet keeps growing fast? Hasn't that made climate change significantly worse?

[Phil King]

9 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

how about the fact that the human population of the entire planet keeps growing fast?

This is slowing down signifigantly. The earth will likely hit 10-12 billion people and then stagnate and shrink. Really the only countries growing right now are ones in Africa and southeast asia

[Tudo]

3 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

  For example, if a developed country cuts carbon emissions, that can be negated by Brazil cutting down the rain forests.

 Brazil has one of the highest renewable energy rates in the world and one of  lowest CO2 emissions per capita, you Americans and  Europeans  keep fucking the planet and then play the good guys. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Tudo

[Bobby_2021]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Nuclear is expensive and takes decades to build. But it's part of the solution. There is no one magic bullet. It's gonna require a hodgepodge of new tech over the next 50 years.

What's the alternative. Renewable energy could not scale to provide energy to all people, even if they had the money and resources to opt for it. 

Not to mention all the implications of waste that is generated by the renewable energy infrastructure and the cost of maintenance. It's a dead end. 

Doubling down on nuclear energy is the only thing that has the remote possibility of saving us.  It makes sense to invest in places where you get huge returns as opposed to minimal returns. Simple.

Solving energy crisis within decades, say 2050, is a pretty good goal to set, even if it is bloody expensive. It's their problem that they didn't invest in it early and fear mongered against it.  Acknowledge the mistake and rectify it as soon as possible.

With renewables what you get after decades is a shit ton of junk waste to manage while giving no significant return on investment either. It's a dead end if you are serious. 

[Bobby_2021]

20 minutes ago, Tudo said:

 Brazil has one of the highest renewable energy rates in the world and one of  lowest CO2 emissions per capita, you Americans and  Europeans  keep fucking the planet and then play the good guys. 

Typical SD green kind of move. Get rich by oppression. Blame others for getting rich by oppression.

[Tanz]

The cleanest energy is nuclear but pose great risk.  If they can pull off hydrogen then that will be the best but industry is suppressing it because they want to make EVs over hydrogen-powered cars.  

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, Bobby_2021 said:

What's the alternative. Renewable energy could not scale to provide energy to all people, even if they had the money and resources to opt for it. 

Not to mention all the implications of waste that is generated by the renewable energy infrastructure and the cost of maintenance. It's a dead end. 

Doubling down on nuclear energy is the only thing that has the remote possibility of saving us.  It makes sense to invest in places where you get huge returns as opposed to minimal returns. Simple.

Solving energy crisis within decades, say 2050, is a pretty good goal to set, even if it is bloody expensive. It's their problem that they didn't invest in it early and fear mongered against it.  Acknowledge the mistake and rectify it as soon as possible.

With renewables what you get after decades is a shit ton of junk waste to manage while giving no significant return on investment either. It's a dead end if you are serious. 

How do you know that renewable energy will cause so much waste and become too costly?

[Yimpa]

It’s like trying to get rid of SMS text messaging and email. There’s a lot to hate about both of them, but they ain’t going away anytime soon.

[ZenAlex]

On 18/08/2023 at 3:08 PM, How to be wise said:

@Majed Animals are there so we can eat them.

0 IQ take.

[Bobby_2021]

3 hours ago, Tanz said:

The cleanest energy is nuclear but pose great risk.  If they can pull off hydrogen then that will be the best but industry is suppressing it because they want to make EVs over hydrogen-powered cars.  

There is no risk or hazards if you are referring to explosions.

Only a few explosions happened throughout history only due to severe lapse of judgement or/and extreme circumstances. 

We have solved all these problems and technology has advanced enough to deem these risks as trivial.

We need to talk in terms of what works and stop running on patterns. 

What's the status of hydrogen powered cars? I thought it was impossible.