
Climate report: Scientists politely urge 'act now, idiots' - rotw
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45775309
======
NeedMoreTea
Britain has just approved restarting fracking. Germany wants to demolish
ancient forest to mine more lignite for power stations. The US wants to save
the coal mining industry. The North West passage is almost ice free in summer.
Australia's coal exports are booming.

IPCC thinks it will need 2.5% of global GDP for 20 years to fix.

Act now? It still doesn't seem like any of the world's electable politicians
even believe the problem yet. Just in greenwash and talking about GDP growth.

The next generation is fucked.

Edit: That's very disappointing to see. Submission goes from top 5 on front
page to nowhere, yet isn't flagged.

~~~
zaarn
>Germany wants to demolish ancient forest to mine more lignite for power
stations.

It isn't Germany, the RWE corporation wants this because in the near future
they will loose the ability to mine coal in that area, so they'll happily pay
off politicians and raze the forest to get at whatever coal is down there
until the time's up.

The easy and most efficient solution to all these problems it to outlaw oil
and coal now. It would cause all kinds of auxiliary damage but it would likely
be cheaper than continuing down the current path.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Good point, though from memory of news reports the energy minister is in
favour. I imagine it's far less popular with the public.

In light of this morning's IPCC report I think you are right with the second
point. An outright ban may soon cause less auxiliary damage than trying to
encourage economies (i.e. ignoring the issue)

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btrettel
I was reading a blog post about problems in academia which said the following
in the first paragraph:

> There’s a narrative I find kind of troubling, but that unfortunately seems
> to be growing more common in science. The core idea is that the mere
> existence of perverse incentives is a valid and sufficient reason to
> knowingly behave in an antisocial way, just as long as one first
> acknowledges the existence of those perverse incentives.

[http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-
inc...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-incentives-
its-you/)

As a cyclist who's slowly switching to a mostly vegetarian diet, partly to
reduce my carbon emissions, I find this quote to apply equally well to people
who believe that climate change is a problem but seem to want to wait for the
government to act before they do much.

Yes, maybe my efforts are "wasted" in some respect, but I don't think I'm
missing much anything valuable anyway by cycling for example, so that
eliminates the downside in my view.

~~~
danieltillett
Does anyone know how much carbon is released to grow the extra food that you
use cycling verses what you would use driving? Food production is very energy
intensive and the human body very inefficient.

You can’t effect the amount of carbon released by adopting a low carbon
lifestyle when the price of fossil fuels is above the cost of production. All
reducing demand at the margin does is lower the marginal price causing an
increase in consumption elsewhere in the economy.

~~~
btrettel
[https://bicycleuniverse.info/bicycling-wastes-
gas/](https://bicycleuniverse.info/bicycling-wastes-gas/)

According to this a "typical" omnivore cyclist produces about 3 times less
carbon than a "typical" driver. Vegan and vegetarian are about 4 times less.
You can play around with the numbers in the calculator. I think this guy's
probably biased towards veganism, but this is what I've seen.

I haven't seen a comparison with motorcycles or electric vehicles, or a
comparison that took into account the embodied energy of the vehicles.

Edit: This calculator also assumes equal trip distances between modes of
transportation, which is not realistic in my experience. Cyclists tend to have
shorter trips. So that's another factor to consider.

> You can’t effect the amount of carbon released by adopting a low carbon
> lifestyle when the price of fossil fuels is above the cost of production.
> All reducing demand at the margin does is lower the marginal price causing
> an increase in consumption elsewhere in the economy.

If that's true, then I guess the goal is to slowly reduce the price. Perhaps
cycling is ineffective in terms of carbon emissions. This is okay for me as I
find either the cost or physical fitness benefits convincing in isolation.

~~~
danieltillett
Thanks - as I suspected it is really complex and very dependent on the
assumptions.

I would love to cycle more, but I fear for my life riding on roads with
traffic. I have seen far too many killed cyclist with my own eyes - in fact
when I think about the only dead people I have seen are cyclists and
motorcyclists.

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jamesgagan
Stop eating animals. Governments are slow to act, but switching to a plant
based diet is something you can do right now.

~~~
camgunz
I admit to being tired of this vague moralizing. We're in this mess because of
corrupt energy industries and fucked up factory farming on a global scale, not
because I like chicken nuggets. There is absolutely zero chance that we avoid
global warming because enough people voluntarily switched to a vegetarian
diet. It's a non-solution, just like everyone biking, turning their a/c to 85
and heaters to 60, etc etc. It will never, ever happen unless government makes
it happen, and I'm sure advocates know it, and I'm therefore forced to
conclude it's just some weird eco-shaming.

~~~
malloryerik
Shrill messages can and do backfire, but I think there might be a point to
add. If we go vegetarian, as an example, we're likely promoting new vegetarian
industries which then can create real alternatives for wider and wider groups
of people. For example if people start a craze for foods made from kelp and it
spreads, then it can become a part of larger government-arranged action.

The same is true for alternative energies.

Meanwhile you'll agree that the consumer is indeed the _most_ important part
of any economic activity, and that they often have the most choice, as most
corporate managers answer to shareholders who in turn answer to short-term
profits.

~~~
camgunz
> Meanwhile you'll agree that the consumer is indeed the most important part
> of any economic activity, and that they often have the most choice

I actually disagree. I think it's difficult to be a healthy vegetarian (let
alone a vegan) if you're in rural or poorer areas, as the majority of the US
and indeed the world are. Most people aren't choosing their diets, they're
eating what they can, or succumbing to billions of dollars of advertising
carefully crafted to hypnotize them into brand loyalty to corporations
dependent on factory farming. It's a fundamental flaw in market-based
thinking: consumers often don't have serious choices or the information or
resources to make good ones.

It's also a convenient escape hatch for irresponsible corporations and corrupt
governments. "Well we agree there's a problem, but we can't fix it without
unethical market regulations".

~~~
dorchadas
My biggest issue with living in the South and (slowly) shifting vegetarian is
restaurants. I want to go out and eat with my friends, but most of them just
don't have good vegetarian options, and it's really annoying. It's part of the
reason why I haven't completely gone vegetarian yet.

~~~
camgunz
I was vegetarian for years and basically lived on fries and bad salads. I feel
your pain haha.

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camgunz
It's past time to recognize that this is happening. We're going to experience
the fallout of a rapidly warming planet. We need everyone to switch from
prevention mode to cure mode. The political will to avoid this just isn't, and
never will be there.

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NegativeLatency
It’s really disappointing that the political systems we have don’t encourage
long term stewardship of our resources.

I don’t see any kind of reform happening in the US until negative consequences
are felt by a significant chunk of the population.

~~~
latch
It's disappointing that such a political system is necessary for individuals
to act responsibly, ethically and morally.

~~~
arthurcolle
Welcome to [REDACTED], land of the free and home to the brave.

~~~
zygotic12
Dang
([https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dang](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dang))
arthurcolle I too have been damned.

------
Lidador
Al Gore said 2015.

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anon7429
Enjoy life while you can, it won't be here for long.

