Let's talk about climate!
TurquoiseTastic
Kerygmania Host
in Purgatory
Ok with COP27 going on let's try a climate thread!
AFAICS there are three main options we have as a planet
1) Massively reduce our energy use
2) Massively increase the amount of energy we get from non-CO2-producing sources
3) Accept that the climate is going to change quite a lot quite rapidly.
or some combination of 1,2 and 3.
How much of each should/could we do?
And what should we accept in pursuit of each option?
For example, you could argue that the current hike in energy prices is quite a good thing in terms of option 1 since it will to some extent reduce energy use. Does 1) imply that energy prices should in general be a lot higher than they are now?
Would it be a good or acceptable idea to pursue 2) via a massive rapid nuclear-building programme?
We are going to get quite a lot of 3) anyway - how much can we prevent?
And what about option 4) geoengineering?
AFAICS there are three main options we have as a planet
1) Massively reduce our energy use
2) Massively increase the amount of energy we get from non-CO2-producing sources
3) Accept that the climate is going to change quite a lot quite rapidly.
or some combination of 1,2 and 3.
How much of each should/could we do?
And what should we accept in pursuit of each option?
For example, you could argue that the current hike in energy prices is quite a good thing in terms of option 1 since it will to some extent reduce energy use. Does 1) imply that energy prices should in general be a lot higher than they are now?
Would it be a good or acceptable idea to pursue 2) via a massive rapid nuclear-building programme?
We are going to get quite a lot of 3) anyway - how much can we prevent?
And what about option 4) geoengineering?
Comments
1 is a challenge, because people will just not accept reducing their standard of living. Swapping out incandescent bulbs for LEDs was a win for domestic energy, because it's a fairly easy change, and people still have light.
Telling people to give up their car in exchange for the promise of a bus is a rather different prospect.
We have the technology for very low carbon electricity generation - wind, solar and hydro are proven and cheaper than any other way to generate electricity, and tidal and wave power are moving from demonstration of large scale roll out. We have had time to already be generating all our electricity from these technologies, Scotland is probably one of a very few nations which generates all it's electricity requirement from renewables.
We have the means to build houses and other buildings which require no (or very little) extra electricity to heat or cool, at only a few % more than current building standards, but the legislation to increase building standards to that was scrapped in the UK (and, enforcement of even the current standards is abysmal, so many homes built in the last decade in the UK not only could have cost virtually nothing to keep warm but most aren't even built to the lower standards that they should have been). How much closer to cutting energy use to the levels needed would we be if all homes in the last 5-10 years had been to the higher standards? It wouldn't have even cost anything to have done that.
Transport is more tricky. Trains, buses and cars can all be electrified without any great technical difficulty (there's a cost to the new infrastructure, but the technology exists and is proven). Longer distance transport of goods and people by sea could be significantly cleaner - but at present those options tend to be a lot slower though it possibly one of the few applications for green hydrogen. Air transport is pretty much stuck in the fossil fuel age, short hop services (eg: to islands) may be electrified but anything longer than a few 10s of km is going to require batteries that are too heavy to be practical. We might need to reinvent airships.
Your options 1 and 2 are entirely achievable with political will, it's the lack of political will that's the problem. Option 3 is already needed, because of that 50y of inaction. That means massive increases in overseas aid from the rich nations who have caused the problems, a mere 0.7% of GDP isn't enough. That needs political will as well.
Option 4 - well some geoengineering is a no brainer: protect and restore peatlands, forests and sea grass etc. And, some more sustainable farming practices that don't exhaust the soils. Good for drawing down carbon into soils and oceans, and protecting habitats and biodiversity, and plenty of other benefits. Most technological fixes are barely more than concepts at the moment. These approaches will probably help, but we need to cut our energy use and replace what we can't cut with zero carbon options, we can't carry on in the hope of a technological magic bullet - whether that's geoengineering or new forms of electricity generation.
I think there is a strong case for supplementary sail power for cargo shipping.
Much long-distance air travel is over land, for which ground effect vehicles present a significant challenge. For travel over the ocean, ground effect would be possible, but disfavored because of the slow speeds achievable - practical ground effect craft are comparable to a turboprop aircraft in speed, rather than a jet.
Unless it's for food transportation, there is far too much travel.
Faster than airships, though.
So why is there no political will? And I mean on a global level, not just in the UK.
Because it's spending a whole bunch of money now, in order to avoid a bad outcome in several tens of years. That's not a timescale that meshes well with the electoral cycle.
1 & 2) Nice if they happen, but they're not here yet.
3) Offsets are a crock, we need to plant trees to deal with what is already in the atmosphere, not us it to justify more emissions.
4) Unproven and still highly speculative, not to mention energy intensive. All current proposals involve capture at point of emission (where concentrations are higher) rather than pulling from ambient air.
Partly because of the right wing (let the markets sort it idea) and the right wing media using the tobacco playbook to spout lies to delay action.
Are there examples of societies and governments (of whatever political stripe) where there does seem to be more will to action? Can we learn from these?
For some of these countries, notably those comprising mainly low-lying coral atolls, climate change and the associated sea level rise is an existential issue.
This. And as long as turkeys can vote for Christmas it doesn't matter how and when we vote. It is biologically impossible to achieve climate as a subset of social justice. Fascists-R-Us.
So you are saying "just option 3 and a lot of it"?
Absolutely. Alan is 1000% right as usual and even though it actually makes economic sense in all terms, as in when is the right time to plant a tree, it cannot and will not be done in any significant capitalist democracy, the worst offenders, until there is a sustained national emergency beyond electoral cycles. Therefore not for decades. Like six. Sea level rise, drought, flood and storm damage has to overwhelm our infrastructure significantly, kill thousands. And even then, properly kill them, not like in Fukushima.
Because for the developed world it would completely fuck the standard of living, and in the developing world it would completely fuck any chance of ever achieving a better standard of living.
I mean, do you think the current European economic crisis, caused by the loss through Russian sanctions of about 10% of its oil supply and 40% of its gas supply is bad? Well now picture the impact of losing 100% of those supplies. Renewables are never going to make up the difference, and even if they could then converting every single coal-, oil- or gas-powered car, van, train, bus, ship, forge, oven, grill, hob and boiler to electricity would cost so much that it would completely tank the economy anyway.
The often-downplayed assumption of climate change activism is that we are simply going to have to use a lot less energy in the future. Which means doing less, buying less, travelling less, eating less, heating less and just generally having less than we have now. The only options that don't mean all of that rely on unproven or theoretical future technologies, and if we're going to stake our future on those then why not stake it on the ones that promise to make burning coal, oil and gas carbon neutral (or even negative)?
For most democratic societies that would be enough to remove the political will in and of itself. But there are also geopolitical considerations in play. Unless the entire world swears off oil and gas at the same time those countries that delay doing so (or simply refuse) will gain a significant economic (and probably also military) benefit. The entire anglophone world could shift to renewables tomorrow and all that would happen is Russia, China, India, etc would become the dominant world powers. Which is, of course, why Russia, China, India, etc won't do it.
And that last sentence points to another reason why the Western world is far from motivated to take serious action on climate change - the perception (or reality, as many would have it) that even if we do everything the climate change activists tell us to do, the world will still be fucked because Russia, China, India, etc are going to keep chucking carbon into the atmosphere at ever-increasing rates. As is any other developing country that wants to keep developing. It's likely that even if we make every sacrifice possible - even if we revert our entire economy and society to a pre-Industrial Revolution state - then the climate catastrophe will still happen, and the only difference will be that we will be in that much worse a position to deal with its consequences.
Finally, there's also the point, already mentioned upthread, that serious action on climate change requires serious sacrifices right now in order to maybe avoid the worst consequences in fifty or a hundred years' time. And for many of the people in the developed world those consequences aren't even ones that will directly affect them (or their children/grandchildren) - Tuvalu, Vanuatu or most of Bangladesh may disappear beneath the waves but other than having to find a new source of cheap t-shirts few Westerners would really care. Oh, they'll think it's all very sad - such a pity, those poor people - but not sad enough that they'd make sweeping reductions in their quality of life to avoid it. And if any of our lands look like disappearing beneath the waves it's far easier, quicker and cheaper to build some nice big Netherlands-style dykes to keep the seas at bay.
So there you go. That's my view of why there's no political will to deal with the climate crisis.
So, the fact that it costs fractionally more to build a house that doesn't need heating during a winter in northern Scandinavia or air-con in a summer in Arizona gets swept under the carpet with a lie that it'll cost too much? And, people seem to accept that building things properly is "green crap" despite the verifiable evidence that it's good for just about everybody (exceptions being those who produce the gas used to heat buildings, or generate the electricity for air-con). Why is that? Why is it that politicians and much of the media buy into the propaganda of those individuals who are getting rich from the world's addiction to fossil fuels?
1) Technologies that are already improving airline fuel consumption. https://www.prescouter.com/2018/01/technologies-improving-aircraft-fuel-efficiency/
2) Sustainable Aviation Fuel is already here. It is a matter of scaling up. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/saf-jet-fuel-green/index.html
3) How effective are Carbon Offsets? https://impactful.ninja/how-effective-is-carbon-offsetting/
4) Carbon Scrubbing is still new, but technologies are being developed. One such technology: https://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-engineers-develop-new-way-remove-carbon-dioxide-air-1025
Short-termism?
Most buyers of houses are buying the maximum amount of house that their mortgage lender will let them buy. If building to a low-energy standard costs 10% more, they won't be allowed to buy as much house.
Of course, with a rational calculation of expected costs, these buyers should be able to take credit for the fact that they won't need to pay large energy bills in the future, and so can afford a larger mortgage bill. But if mortgage providers allow or encourage people to take credit for this kind of thing, then they're probably saving up for the next miss-selling claims.
Alan. All things are true. It's And not Or. It's not their, your, our fault. Being brilliant and right is a doubly helpless privilege. You can't even save a soon independent Scotland from its ruling class. It's what evolution hath wrought. You know you've convinced me.
But. Until we address social injustice, we can't address climate injustice. Which is why @Marvin the Martian is right. And wrong.
I'm thinking justice and injustice from a global perspective may be the key.
Why shouldn't someone be able to travel over the whole planet without breaking any laws?
Because those whose crops dry up or flood will want to come to where their chances are better.
In their millions.....
Is that they case? For example, the per capita energy use of the United States is 77,574 kWh/year. The per capita energy use of Germany is 41,854 kWh/year. Does this mean that the German standard of living is only about half the American standard of living? For that matter the per capita energy use by the U.S. in 1965 was 72,295 kWh/year. Does this mean that the American standard of living has only improved by about 7% over the last 56 years? That's the real scandal right there, if you really want to make that point.
The often-overplayed assumption of climate change defeatism is that energy use linearly scales to standard of living, rather than a closer examination of what energy is used for, and how efficiently it is used. People don't want barrels of petroleum of piles of coal for their own sake, they want their cars to go and their homes to be heated and cooled. Using more energy to accomplish those tasks does not really improve anyone's "standard of living" in any meaningful sense of the term.
No, it means that Iceland is a cold place with geothermal energy.
Well, sure. The vacuum cleaner companies had been busy pushing the "more power = better" line, and "more power = better" on the surface makes conceptual sense to people: if you suck harder, surely you must suck more dirt up?
And the world is full of "equivalent" examples that are objectively worse, so it's easy to mistrust the assertion of some EU bureaucrat that you don't need any more power than that.
And 0.1% of America's population. Leicester.
Comparisons between nations and regions with massively different population density, climate etc are fraught with difficulties. On the other hand, a comparison between similar regions (eg: western Europe with east coast US) should be more appropriate.
Seattle and Portland are a reasonable match for Europe in terms of both weather and population density. (And like the UK, it's common for homes in Seattle to not have air conditioning. Nobody wants to live in Chicago without air conditioning if they have a choice.)
It doesn't make sense to compare regional transport, but for urban transport, commuting, urban & suburban living and so on, you can make reasonable comparisons.
Climactic or climatic? Anxious minds would like to know.
The latter, which I realised too long after the edit window closed. As for the former: spoilers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63677466
What I find slightly depressing is that I hear friends and family talking about managing with less energy use -because of the cost not (as we should have been doing for years) for the sake of the planet.
The big win is agreement to set up a fund for "loss and damage", meaning taking actions to live with the consequences of climate change that go beyond adaptation (i.e. actions that help people to continue to live more or less where they are now, such as stronger housing, crops that tolerate the changed conditions better than those now grown, etc) . In effect it is compensation from rich countries for damage they have caused to poor countries, although rich countries strongly resist any language that suggest this. The win is only partial, because it will be effective only if richer countries actually contribute real money to the fund they they have agreed to set up.
This difficulty is highlighted by the fact that promises made in Glasgow last year of increased contributions to the Adaptation Fund have not yet occurred. That is one example of "stalled progress". Another is the lack of response by most countries to another agreement made at Glasgow, namely to ratchet up their national measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to phase down their use of fossil fuels.
For a summary of outcomes by [UK] reporters on the spot, which makes many of thepoints above, see:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/20/cop27-climate-summit-egypt-key-outcomes .
Why would we? It's all about cost. It just depends on the boundary of the concept. My choosing to have colder rooms, encumber myself with more clothes indoors, in a house that would need an eighty thousand pound and the rest Passivhaus makeover cannot influence global warming one therm.