
I've stopped flying to conferences for climate change reasons - zoobab
https://twitter.com/monadic/status/1133678258338373632
======
habosa
I work in a role (Developer Relations) that involves a lot of conferences.
Business travel, especially to conferences, has to be one of the biggest
wastes of money and resources in corporate America today.

People spend thousands to go to a conference and the stated benefit is to hear
a few talks that are definitely recorded and to have a handful of useful
conversations.

Let's be honest: many people at conferences just see them as a way to have the
company pay for you to get out of the office and go on a semi-vacation. I know
I've gone to things with that mindset before.

Don't get me wrong it's not the events that are the issue, it's how far we
travel to them. I'm sure 90% of the benefit could be had by going to local
meetups and watching the big conferences online.

~~~
bduerst
Conferences don't exist for the majority of the people who attend them.
They're a sales tool for converting B2B decision makers, usually C- or VP-
level, for which the acquisition cost helps justify the conference
expenditures. This is from all sides, whether hosting or sponsoring the
conference.

Developers and 'practitioners' are typically background noise to the main
purpose, unless of course they have influence on the decision makers.

~~~
ido
That’s the real answer. Even as a mere self employed consultant I’ve been to
conferences where I’ve gotten deals worth many time the cost of attending
(e.g. spend $2k to land a $120k contract).

This is even truer in the scale of the really big players closing deals in the
millions+.

~~~
pas
Could you elaborate on this a bit please? How, when, which sector, is this
specific to that sector/field of IT, how hard it is, who are the usual
suspects, what's the success rate, do you have to pre-arrange meetings, book a
room where you showcase your whatever...?

~~~
ido
Why? The only way to replicate it is basically "do good work and network". I'm
not going to be able to give you any secret sauce (because there is none, not
because I don't want to).

~~~
pas
No, no, I'm not interested in the secret sauce, just ... I find it hard to
think it through in my mind how deals are made at conferences.

~~~
ido
Quite often it's not the deals that are made in conferences but the
relationships (the "network" part). You hang out with a lot of people in the
same industry as you, you get to know & be known by them.

And invariably when you know dozens/hundreds of people in the same field
somebody usually needs some work done & is more likely to give that work to
somebody they met in person vs someone anonymous off of the internet.

The "do good work" part is where you turn this into a snowball & get
recommended around.

------
edent
Next week I'm taking a 5 hour train journey rather than flying. When I figure
in the time to get to the airport, the waiting in the lounge, baggage
retrieval, etc. then flying doesn't save much time.

On the train I can work all the way, stretch my legs when I want, use WiFi /
4G, and bring as many liquids as I like. The environmental benefits are a
bonus on top.

I wish more of Europe was accessible directly via Eurostar from London, but
I'm quite happy with Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam for now.

(I'll be attending
[https://opensourceawards.org/](https://opensourceawards.org/) \- come say
hi!)

~~~
oytis
Don't know about UK, but in Germany trains are obscenely expensive, especially
when you compare them to low-cost airlines. There is nothing like "low-cost
railway" so far, and I doubt there ever will be.

~~~
magduf
In Bavaria, they're dirt cheap, at least for the regional trains. For 25 Euros
cash, you can go anywhere in Bavaria all you want, for 24 hours, in as many
trips as you want. Of course, this doesn't really compete with airlines, as
this is for inter-city trips within the state, and no two cities in Bavaria
are _that_ far apart.

But to say there's no "low-cost railway" is plainly false. Bavaria has
probably one of the best train systems in the entire world, and it's not
expensive by any means.

~~~
oytis
Yes, sorry, I had something like "getting from Berlin to Brussels at low cost"
in mind. There is no way to do it with railway, only with a plane.

If I just want to travel in the same Bundesland where I am, there are plenty
of cheap options, that's true.

~~~
pm215
How low cost do you want low cost to be, and how annoying are you prepared for
it to be? I just picked (fairly arbitrarily) Monday 19th August, and although
Expedia does offer a GBP18 Ryanair flight SXF - BRU you have to accept an 0620
departure time to get that, and of course no checked baggage and you need to
include costs of getting to/from the airport. Given the need to arrive at
least 1h before departure I would personally not even consider 0620 dep, and
all the other flights Expedia suggests cost 90 quid or more. For the train
loco2.com has one-way tickets Berlin Hbf -> Bruxelles-Midi from GBP63.50 at
reasonable times.

~~~
magduf
As an American, I can only dream of having convenient train fares of about
USD$80 to go between somewhat-distant cities. Berlin to Brussels for GPB63.50
(about $80 right now) sounds downright cheap to me.

------
sharpneli
By looking at the EU CO2 spot prices we can get a quick glimpse on how much
does the plane ticket matter compared to things like using Coal as power.

A plane ticket from Finland to Japan would go from ~1000€ into 1020€ if it
would pay the same CO2 emission prices as coal power pays. So basically
nothing.

We should focus on reducing the big CO2 emission sources instead of these. But
it is understandable why people do things like this. They are really easy way
to signal one cares about the environment, even though they are basically
meaningless as the same person enjoys bit lower electricity prices due to
cheap coal that pumps way more CO2 than the flights ever would.

~~~
perfunctory
> We should focus on reducing the big CO2 emission sources instead of these.

To be honest I don't know how I personally can focus on big CO2 sources. But I
know how to stop flying.

~~~
sharpneli
You could reduce your electricity use. Just drop consumption by 10% and you
already more than offset any flying you do. Or try to get solars and enjoy.

~~~
jdietrich
I think you've got your numbers badly wrong.

Here in the UK, the average household used 4,648kWh of electricity in 2010.
The industry average in 2008 was 527g CO2e/kWh, giving average emissions from
electricity use of 2449kg per household. The above figures are falling rapidly
due to efficiency and decarbonisation.

A round-trip from LHR to JFK produces about 1800kg CO2e.

Reducing my electricity consumption by 10% would just barely offset the carbon
emissions of a short haul trip within Europe. A frequent air traveller could
easily produce an extra 10 tonnes a year without really noticing.

~~~
sharpneli
That is correct. I derped and looked at total electricity consumption instead
of household one.

------
hycaria
Why this title ?

Also, low number of respondents and considering the survey went through his
own twitter with a Climate Code idea, probably very biaised sample.

However, I'd totally favour a company with a flight offsetting policy. Can
anyone point me some?

Though I agree face to face is definitely a different experience. My point is
maybe crossing oceans is not mandatory to learn from one another. A while ago
people didn't had the choice, yet they were able to do much in all science.

~~~
n-exploit
Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but there are some resources here.

[https://chooose.today/](https://chooose.today/)

~~~
hycaria
That looks and reads bad. I don't even get the point of the initiative :( Not
what I'm looking for at all it seems. I just want company names that actively
discourage/limit flying their employees.

------
rjmunro
I'm not convinced by offsetting. It's better to not cause the emissions in the
first place, rather than pay someone else to reduce their emissions in
exchange later. You can't know that they won't have reduced their emissions
anyway.

Certainly taking the train to a conference is better than flying, if that's
the choice you have. Concentrating on conferences local to you is a good idea.
Attending remotely sort of works, but it's really not the same as being there.
It's better if you are with other people at your end, watching together.

~~~
acdha
Offsetting is good because it starts the process of getting people to think of
it as a cost until we get a true carbon tax. You don't need to ban plans, just
getting people to save money by taking the train is a net win over what we've
been doing for decades.

------
idlewords
We're at the point where the only way to have a real impact on warming is
large, global changes in the industrial economy. To pretend that anyone's
individual behavior matters only obscures this already difficult-to-discuss
issue even further. Aviation is not a significant contributor to global
warming (at most 4.9% of the impact according to the ICCC), and if everyone
stopped traveling to conferences tomorrow, I suspect it would have a minimal
impact on airline schedules.

I get that people want to have a sense of agency, but framing the problem as a
question of individual choice is counterproductive.

~~~
perfunctory
It's obvious that we need large radical changes in the industrial economy.
However, individual behaviour is not inconsequential. It's an important
factor, if not a prerequisite, in economy transition. We live in a democracy
after all. We need to show our leaders that we care.

> Aviation is not a significant contributor to global warming

Nothing is. There is no low hanging fruit here. Any given industry has at most
X% of impact. We need lots and lots of adjustments across the board. Including
in aviation.

> but framing the problem as a question of individual choice is
> counterproductive.

It's not either/or. We need both. We need every help we can get.

~~~
TearsInTheRain
It would be helpful if we could frame this debate using numbers. What percent
of the average american's carbon footprint is variable vs fixed?

------
therealmarv
Trying to "Youtube" rewatch talks for most of them. I think conferences can be
very unproductive and sometimes are more like a "fun" event than a necessity.

~~~
dagw
You make it sound like fun is a bad thing

~~~
tobltobs
If your "fun" requires you to produce tons of CO2 then maybe yes it is.

------
badatshipping
Am I alone in fundamentally not believing in the power of individual action
when it comes to stuff like climate change, recycling, voting? People always
say that if everyone thought that way then nothing would get done, but that
doesn’t change the fact that my individual contribution is worthless.

I think the way to get society-wide change is for the government to either
mandate or incentivize it at a systemic level. This “what can I do as an
individual to make change” stuff seems like either virtue signalling or
irrationally directed anxiety.

~~~
tzs
> I think the way to get society-wide change is for the government to either
> mandate or incentivize it at a systemic level.

The only way that will happen is if people like you vote in a government that
will do that.

Not voting because your vote by itself has an infinitesimal effect on the
outcome is like a smoker who ignores the health risks and keeps chain smoking
because each individual cigarette only has a negligible chance of causing lung
cancer, and thus concludes that smoking is not actually dangerous.

~~~
badatshipping
You are right that large-scale things happen as the cumulative effect of many
small things, but the difference is that in your example the smoker is
responsible for all of those cigarettes, whereas I only get one single vote.

Incidentally, I do vote; I just don't do so thinking my individual vote
matters. It matters that lots of people all vote, but this reinforces my
original point that some kind of structural incentive or policy is needed to
get lots of people to all do something.

------
elektor
A laudable decision and one that I think needs to be encouraged on a
university level.

However, I’ve found that human face-to-face interaction is more productive vs
email/Skype and wonder if there’s potential missed opportunities if we were to
completely forego in-person conferences.

~~~
chapium
This is why I imagined 3d telepresence taking off. People like to explore the
space around them, even if its just an illusion.

------
chrisan
Besides meeting new people/networking, what does one get from attending a
conference physically that cannot be obtained remotely?

~~~
DangerousPie
There is still a big difference between attending a talk in person and
watching it on screen. From AV issues (can you see their laser pointer) to the
option of easily asking a question afterwards. Plus, many scientific
conferences have poster sessions which are rarely accessible remotely.

And don't underestimate how important meeting new people and networking is! I
would say that's probably my biggest motivation for going to conferences these
days.

~~~
xfitm3
Huge difference. Attending talks in person is akin to reading paperback, while
watching a video is akin to a Kindle. It can be difficult to block out time on
your computer and give undivided attention to a video.

~~~
jdietrich
_> Huge difference. Attending talks in person is akin to reading paperback,
while watching a video is akin to a Kindle. It can be difficult to block out
time on your computer and give undivided attention to a video._

Given that I actively prefer reading on a screen, I'm genuinely not sure if
this is an apt comparison. My e-books have infinitely large margins for
annotation, instant excerpting and customisable formatting. YouTube videos can
be paused while I Google something, rewound if I've missed something and
played on fast-forward if the speaker is needlessly slow.

------
mrweasel
>I may be wrong about this (please correct) but I think over 10% of the
world's carbon budget is spent on running computers. It's everyone's fault and
we all need to fix this. Don't just blame bitcoin miners.

This part seem much more important, compared to trying to offset plane travel
by buying carbon credits.

~~~
shubhamjain
Computers can be run by cleaner sources of energy, not planes (at least not
with what current technology permits; batteries don't have enough energy
density). I prefer plane travel myself, but let's be honest, emissions-wise
planes are a horrible way to travel [1].

[1]:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/shubhamjainco/status/110244951253...](https://mobile.twitter.com/shubhamjainco/status/1102449512537251845)

~~~
mrpopo
> A plane despite transporting hundreds of passengers is less efficient than a
> fully occupied car.

And according to these numbers, a plane is more efficient than a car with 2
occupants. Average vehicle occupancy varies around 1.5 people.

It doesn't make the plane a better way to travel, of course. It just shows
that individual cars need to be proscribed just as much as airplanes.

~~~
dan-robertson
Comparing planes to cars is slightly silly. One cannot drive across the
Atlantic and it’s quite possible to fly much farther in a year than drive.

Flying e.g. 6k miles is reasonably easy to do in a year. I think it is easy to
not think about the impact as it all happens in a few gos.

Driving 6k miles takes a long time and would be felt more acutely. It is
easier to switch to cleaner forms of energy for this travel and one may be
more inclined to reduce this energy usage as it is also a huge time sink.

~~~
michaelt
A round trip from New York to Paris is ~7300 miles.

A commute of 40 miles per day is ~9600 miles per year.

I'd wager there are more people who commute 30 minutes each way by car than
there are who go on an annual holiday to Europe :)

Of course, reducing either would be a good thing.

~~~
magduf
>A commute of 40 miles per day is ~9600 miles per year.

That's a somewhat short commute by modern American standards too.

Honestly, we'd all be better off if we stopped driving to work and made our
cities denser and used trains to get around, had more/better train service
between nearby cities, and then took annual holidays in Europe on Airbus A380
aircraft that were configured with only economy seating (700+ passengers per
plane).

~~~
pessimizer
The difference in difficulty of redesigning all cities, remaking public
transportation, and locating all workers near their workplaces or figuring out
a way they can telecommute, as opposed to skipping the annual holiday to
Europe, is vast.

~~~
magduf
Well it's never going to happen if you just throw up your hands and say "it's
impossible". How about starting right now, by raising gas taxes and changing
zoning regulations and encouraging denser development?

------
cagenut
I've been thinking about putting together something like a "global warming for
devops" or a "climate capacity planning" talk for velocity where the final
slide is: cancel velocity.

That is, of course, over-simplifying, but O'reilly's conferences line of
business is an interesting example of a non-energy company who's business
model is existentially threatened by a meaningful response to climate change.

Internet debate artists will endlessly get caught up in the false-binary of
banning international flights or not, but functionally, from O'reilly's
perspective, there's no meaningful difference between an outright ban and an
order-of-magnitude price increase. Either way the conference business craters.

Can they "pivot to video"?

Do they feel ethically obligated to try?

~~~
jsty
Considering half the reason for those conferences is networking, perhaps a
'regional' / distributed conference model would work - you could still choose
to attend an in-place event for all the networking benefits (albeit with a
smaller group of people), but have all the talks live-streamed to theatres in
each location (and online for those who don't care about the networking).

------
sequoia
> Second, I want us all to make a Climate Code of Conduct.

Some thoughts:

1\. Climate Code would be a second code for most conferences. Would it be the
last, or should we anticipate conferences in 2022 needing 4 or 5 or 6 codes
addressing various issues?

2\. Will attendees be required to affirm & agree with the climate code (as
they’re asked to follow the typical CoC)? If so, what do you do with people
who disagree that conferences tracking their “food-miles” is of critical
importance to averting climate catastrophe?

3\. These codes of conduct will presumably dictate where resources and effort
should be allocated to combat climate change. These resources are _limited_ ,
meaning if you put resources towards tracking food-miles, you’re not putting
them towards something else. Who will decide how to allocate these limited
resources to achieve maximal ROI in terms of combatting climate change? Will
it be a global team of PhD climate and political scientists, or a bunch of
unqualified randos on a google doc? If the latter, how can anyone reasonably
expect such a group to come up with a sensible plan? Assuming imminent climate
catastrophe, it would seem the consequences of misallocation of resources
would be dire.

I understand that people feel very passionately about this subject and see
this as an end-of-the-world, holy crusade sort of subject. However, treating
things as holy crusades will typically lead to bad results, such as virtue
signalling taking the place of meaningful work & alienating people who don’t
hold the same opinion. Let’s think carefully before we add another layer of
moral bureaucracy to our professional community.

------
avocado111
Offsetting flights does not work. Of course, it is nice to protect woodland
and jungles. But you just can't plant so many trees that it could replace a
single, hour-long flight.

When a tree grows, it extracts some CO2 from the atmoaphere and stores it in
its biomass. When it dies, this CO2 goes back into the atmosphere. When we use
fuel for flying, we release hundreds of kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere
(for a short flight of a single person!), which have been stored over the
course of hundreds of millions of years. A tiny bit of a tree that you plant
today might become fossilized, but even if that happens it will only store an
incredibly small amount of the carbon that is consumed. It is quantitatively
completely impossible to undo that by planting trees.

The only solution is, if at all possible, to stop flying, and use other means
of transport, like electrical trains and buses. We can't have both mass air
transportation and an alive planet.

~~~
Jommi
Can you explain more about this? Any sources?

------
js8
A little OT but the connection will be apparent at the end.

I had this interesting idea of "economic entropy". In analogy with statistical
physics, a macrostate is what and how much is produced by the economy
(consumable commodities), and a microstate is how it is produced (all the
intermediate supply chains). So to one macrostate can correspond a large
number of microstates, logarithm of number of which is the entropy of the
macrostate.

Now assume we have two completely independent (not involved in trade)
economies, and each of these is in some macrostate and with the corresponding
entropy. And we enable the trade. Then over time, we might end up in the same
macrostate (they together still produce exactly the same amount of goods), but
now the entropy of the entire system is much higher, because there is much
more possibilities of how the supply chain works (they are not confined into
one of the two previous economies).

Now imagine that for some reason, cost of travel and transportation is really
economically negligible. Then microstates with long path of transport for
products correspond to same macrostates as those with short path of transport
for products. Even more, they will be statistically favored, since global
economy has high entropy.

In practice, the high entropy state looks like: You have several multinational
companies with sites in the same city, and their executives fly around the
world to convince other executives of multinationals to buy their products (be
part of their supply chain). The corresponding low entropy state would be that
each city has its own set of companies, which all together form a single
supply chain.

The point is, historically, we came from low entropy state into a high entropy
state, and we are now screwed. We know the low entropy state would be more
efficient, but we have no idea how to get there. But getting there would
greatly reduce transportation, which is one of the biggest contributors to CO2
emissions.

------
pjkundert
If your collaboration with your technical peers produces so little incremental
value that you don't foresee your lifetime output displacing other
products/services of lower value and/or greater environmental cost -- then
don't travel.

Otherwise, travel as much as you can, while it increases your output.

------
forgotmypw
It would be nice to see conferences adopt some kind of "bring your own bowl,
spoon, and/or cup policy, so that each day does not result in a couple of
plastic plates and cups being manufactured, used once, and trashed.

------
tombert
This is probably an unpopular opinion amongst liberals like myself, but I
personally think the idea that the "average joe" is going to be able to change
their lifestyle and solve climate-change to be somewhat of a pipe-dream. If
you want to live in an ecologically more-sustainable way (using renewable
energy, becoming a vegetarian, avoiding disposables, etc), that's great! I
honestly encourage that, and it's probably a good thing, I won't try and stop
you.

However, I think it's unreasonable to expect everyone to do that on their own.
For every person doing an ecologically responsible thing (taking trains
instead of planes, taking public transit instead of driving, etc), there is
just such a huge magnitude of people doing the "wrong" thing to cancel it out,
largely because that (from a short-term-pragmatic-standpoint, the "wrong"
thing is _better_ ) or at least cheaper. If you value your time at all, flying
across the country is cheaper, meat is readibly available and inexpensive (and
typically taste good), and driving to work is substantially easier than
biking.

I don't know anything about ecology so I'll admit that I might regret writing
this entire comment in a year, but it seems to me that the only way we're
going to make a dent in climate change is to a) create technology that
provides an experience that is competitive with the dirty version of something
(electric cars could be a good example), or b) to start artificially taxing
things that are really hurting the environment. If we started charging an
extra dollar-per-gallon tax on gasoline, it would probably discourage people
from driving as much, _and_ put more economic incentive on point a).

I can commend someone not flying to conferences anymore, but I am afraid to
say that I dont have the same self-discipline.

~~~
frankbreetz
>For every person doing an ecologically responsible thing (taking trains
instead of planes, taking public transit instead of driving, etc), there is
just such a huge magnitude of people doing the "wrong" thing to cancel it out,
largely because that (from a short-term-pragmatic-standpoint, the "wrong"
thing is better) or at least cheaper. If you value your time at all, flying
across the country is cheaper, meat is readily available and inexpensive (and
typically taste good), and driving to work is substantially easier than
biking.

It only takes a small percentage of the population to make a systematic
change[0], I hope for humanity we are reaching a tipping point on this. People
living their life in the correct way is spreading awareness and they are
putting their money where their mouth is. These people and the youth climate
strike may be our last chance. Also, the environment is the number one issue
for the democratic party in the 2020 election. But, I do agree eventually
these people making these changes will have to drive government agendas and
the real mass changes will have to happen that way.

[0][http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-
takes-35-of...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-
people-to-change-the-world)

~~~
tombert
I should backpedal a bit and reemphasize; please do not _stop_ doing good
things for the environment by any means. The more sustainably you can live
your life, especially if you can demonstrate a way to do it fairly easily, the
more of a proof-of-concept you become, which can help put pressures on
governments.

I mean, I don't own a car, am mostly vegetarian (I eat fish occasionally), and
take public transit nearly everywhere, so it's not like I don't try and do my
part (though I do fly a lot, so that probably cancels out all my savings).

Part of the problem with writing comments like this is that I _do_ think some
of the the issues causing climate-change to become a problem are due to a
specific political party, and HN typically gets a bit flag-heavy whenever you
start getting into overt politics.

------
janpot
I love how conferences and tech communities these days emphasise the
importance of inclusion of every individual. I wish they would put as much
effort in creating eco-friendly environments. I attended a conference two
weeks ago, and the amount of plastic I had to go through in order to just have
lunch was embarrassing.

------
alex_duf
>I may be wrong about this (please correct) but I think over 10% of the
world's carbon budget is spent on running computers. It's everyone's fault and
we all need to fix this. Don't just blame bitcoin miners.

On that topic AWS really need to beef up its game!

~~~
schwank
AWS is already powered over 50% by renewable energy.

~~~
hokkos
Who cares ? I just want 100% low CO2 energy. If they just buy the same
quantity of renewable energy credit that they used, it is misleading because
it does not cover their usage around the clock.

“Just purchasing more solar energy in a grid that already has lots of solar
generation will not result in zero emissions,”

“To guarantee 100 percent emissions reductions from renewable energy, power
consumption needs to be matched with renewable generation on an hourly basis,”

[https://energy.stanford.edu/news/100-renewables-doesn-t-
equa...](https://energy.stanford.edu/news/100-renewables-doesn-t-equal-zero-
carbon-energy-and-difference-growing)

At one point they will have to stop with "renewable" and accept nuclear and
the low carbon label (on an hourly or minute basis).

------
eruci
The number of people traveling to conferences is tiny compared to the number
of people who travel for lesser reasons, like vacations or soccer matches.

Hence, it makes no difference. I love going to conferences and don't feel
guilty about anything.

------
robomartin
And yet reality is that if we completely eliminated the ENTIRE transportation
industry world wide —land, sea and air, effectively destroying civilization as
we know it—- a reduction of atmospheric CO2 concentration of 100 ppm will
require somewhere in the order of 50,000 to 100,000 years.

Talking about non-solutions might feel emotionally satisfying, yet it does
nothing at all to really address the problem. Worse yet, it pulls the
conversation away from real solutions.

~~~
robomartin
I continue to see that this issue is dominated by ideology and brainwashing.

I have an open question that nobody has answered yet:

If all of humanity evaporated from this planet tomorrow, it would take 50,000
to 75,000 years for atmospheric CO2 to drop by 100ppm.

We know this to a high degree of certainty because of ice core atmospheric
data going back 800,000 years. In other words, way before any of our
technology even existed.

So, the natural “no humans anywhere” rate of change is in the order of 100ppm
per 50,000 years.

Now the question:

How does your <insert any idea you care to test here> msnage to improve on
this rate of change a thousand-fold when it is but a rounding error when
compared to the planet without humanity at all?

Simple example: Convert the entire world to the most optimal forms of
renewable energy!

OK, if all of humanity LEFT THE PLANET and we took ALL OF OUR TECHNOLOGY WITH
US, it would take 50,000 to 75,000 years for a useful change in atmospheric
CO2.

This renewable energy shift is an insignificant change when compared to a
planet empty of us and our crap. Which means that, if there’s a reduction of
atmospheric CO2 at all it can’t possibly happen any faster than 100ppm per
~50,000 years.

Anyone claiming otherwise needs to explain the magical methods they will use
to violate the laws of physics as we know them.

BTW, to whoever made the comment: I don’t have to know the solution to a
problem in order to recognize the problem as well as to identify non-
solutions. I don’t know how to make humans breathe under water, but I can tell
that eating more fish is not a solution.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Without questioning any of your assumptions.

You see impact of up to 75k years from your and my emissions. Essentially any
pollution you and I cause can be considered permanent from a human time
perspective. If we were to stop emitting today, it's not certain where
equilibrium would settle, nor what tipping points will pass as temperatures
increase.

You conclude there's no point bothering and to keep doing near permanent
damage? Just keep on shitting in the pool until it's unusable? This is
concluding there's no point investing in a pension.

Personally, I conclude we need to reach carbon neutral as soon as possible -
_to stop making the problem worse._ Very simply put 100ppm is going to be
better for humanity and other species than 150ppm or 200ppm etc, so stop as
soon as possible. To not pass the irreparable tipping points, to stop adding
fuel to the fire.

 _Not_ as soon as convenient, or as soon as affordable, but as possible.
Mobilise countries as though on a war footing: rationing - of flying, of
petrol, of food, of consumer goods and clothing, quotas, enforcement, require
industries to stop producing some thing and produce something else instead.
_ALL_ of these were done in WW2, and no laws of physics were broken. Now
consider human population growth, so probably add child rationing too.

Personally I don't see that mobilisation happening soon. Based upon the
pathetic progress over the last 30 or 40 years I think it almost inevitable -
the market can't solve it. Very probably not in my lifetime, as humanity will
probably need to be much closer to a clear abyss of impending disaster. I do
think it the inheritance my children can very likely look forward to, and a
society that's much less free and may have far less opportunity. Because their
parent's and grandparent's generations couldn't be arsed.

Nevertheless two easy first steps toward _stop making the problem worse_ are
carbon neutral electricity generation, and reducing flying. No magic or
disingenuous claims.

~~~
robomartin
You misunderstood. I am not at all against humanity becoming far better about
not destroying the environment. Not at all. What rattles me are the fantastic
assertions being made in the name of "saving the planet". The entire thing has
become a religion (both deniers and zealots). And EVERYONE is making money off
this thing.

I want us to have a look at the real science behind this problem and have an
honest discussion about how to deal with it.

For example, there is no way to dispute that a planet earth without humanity
has a natural atmospheric CO2 reduction rate of about 100ppm per 50,000 years
(the range goes as far as 100/75,000).

This is, to repeat myself, indisputable. In order to challenge this assertion
someone would have to prove that the 800,000 years of atmospheric composition
data is flawed in some way. And they would have to prove how ice core
atmospheric composition testing is flawed.

When I started to read on this subject I found this data. As an engineer, my
first inclination was to seek information on both the accuracy and percentage
error in these tests. I read papers and articles on the subject of atmospheric
composition testing using ice core sample. I went at it skeptical as can be,
convinced the errors had to be huge. Well, I ended-up discovering I was wrong.
The techniques, methodology and data are extremely accurate and reliable.

Which means the conversation HAS to start there:

100 ppm/50,000 years, or 0.002 ppm/year, or 2 ppm/thousand years

These are scary numbers because of what they mean: If we are going to claim to
be able to do better than 2 ppm in a THOUSAND years we have a HUGE burden of
proof to pass. We have to explain how it is that we are going to affect
planetary scale changes at a rate massively quicker than the planet has
historically managed on its own. And that, I am afraid, might very well be in
the realm of magic, not science.

This is why we already know that supplanting all power generation across the
entire planet with the most optimal forms of renewable energy generation (in
other words, imagine the most fantastically good forms of renewables and
that's what we install) we won't fix the problem. Not only will atmospheric
CO2 concentration not come down, it would continue to increase forever.

In other words: Anything we do that is less than all of humanity evaporating
from this planet is but a rounding error in this problem. Even if humanity
evaporates, that means we go back to a decrease of 2 ppm/1,000 years --AT
BEST.

I am not trying to be negative. I am trying to be a realist about this.
Destroying entire economies for sake of what has become religious belief is
wrong and pointless.

Take this 2050 goal some are talking about. OK. Perfect. We know that
atmospheric CO2 accumulation has been happening at about 2 ppm per year. Yeah,
that's on us. Maybe not all of it, after all, this was happening before
humanity existed on this planet. Let's just say we are in for 50% of that, or
1 ppm per year.

OK, then. We want to flatten the curve by 2050. What does that mean exactly?
Do we want to negate our contribution only or do we want to negate our
contribution as well as the natural rate?

In the first case we are talking about: 1 ppm/yr * 31 years = 31 ppm In the
second instance the number is doubled: 2 ppm/yr * 31 years = 61 ppm

Let's take the lower number: We want to "take back" 31 ppm in, well, 31 years

What's the annual rate of change? 1 ppm per year

OK, let's get rid of all of humanity and everything we ever built on this
planet. An alien species helps us by teleporting everything into space by next
Monday. Gone.

What's the natural rate of CO2 reduction then? 0.002 ppm per year

Oops.

We need to chip away at a minimum of 31 ppm during the next 31 years and even
if humanity evaporates from this planet all we can get out of the deal is
0.062 ppm? That is the MAXIMUM we'll get without an single human on this
planet and none of our technology, buildings, power plants, ships, cars,
trains, etc.?

Yup. I have yet to find a way to refute this conclusion.

In order to explain how we are going to achieve this goal by 2050 we have to
explain how it is that we are going to do FIVE HUNDRED times better than the
planet could if we do not exist. That's where, I think, all of these proposals
out there are nonsense. Not taking a flight "to save the planet" is nonsense.
Buying an electric car "to save the planet" is nonsense. Installing solar
panels "to save the planet" is nonsense. There are other reasons to do these
things, but let's stop lying about what they might be.

I could go deeper into this topic. I've done a lot of research in trying to
get to the bottom of it. One of the issues we have is that it is political and
career suicide for researchers to go against the religion this thing has
become. If someone said what I am saying here they can kiss their research
grants, university or lab job and career goodbye. The money and forces at play
are corrupting real science.

My conclusion today is that the solution must be found in three areas:

\- Massive reforestation. We need to restore our forests and plant trees
everywhere possible. In a city like Los Angeles (and other cities) we need to
make grass lawns illegal and require the planting of trees. Trees are a simple
technology that convert CO2 into, well, a tree

\- With extreme caution (because the unintended consequences can be
catastrophic to humanity) we need to look into chemical means of CO2
sequestration. This is not simple. It might even be impossible due to the
planetary scale (conservation of energy, etc.)

Anyhow. I am all for humanity becoming much greener and cleaner. For the right
reasons. We have to do it. And we also need to be honest about the global
warming problem and talk about real solutions not ways to make money and fix
nothing.

Side thought: It is likely far easier to launch a global movement to plant
trees like our lives depend on it (which might be true) than to get people
behind not flying and massive infrastructure projects that would cripple some
economies, not to mention the unintended consequences of such actions (how
much MORE CO2 would we generate if nobody flew?)

~~~
robomartin
BTW, I should add that we also have a reliable number for the "no humans on
earth" atmospheric CO2 rate of accumulation: It's about 100 ppm in about
10,000 years. In other words, on average, natural atmospheric CO2
concentration has risen at a rate five times faster than the natural "no
humans" CO2 decrease rate of change.

That means 0.01 ppm per year (10 ppm per thousand years). This also frames the
conversation with regards to what our contribution might actually be.

The challenge, of course, is that we are not going to erase humanity from the
planet. Which means there will be some base number for the additional
contribution to atmospheric CO2 accumulation no matter what we do.

In other words, it's 0.01 ppm/yr ONLY if we evaporate from the planet. With us
on this blue marble the "new normal" is far higher than that, and unlikely to
ever approach the "no humans on earth" rate.

This issue can be reasoned down to a few fundamental conclusions without
engaging in anything more than simple analysis of the scale and timelines of
the effects we are concerned with.

------
perfunctory
Do you fly to conferences annually? How many?

one conference per year - 23.9%

two to four conferences per year - 47.8%

Five plus conferences per year - 16.4%

------
Proven
Climatists still fly to climate change conferences. Some in private airplanes.
See, it's not that bad!

------
perfunctory
I didn't participate in the survey but I've stopped flying to conferences for
climate change reasons as well.

------
fourier_mode
Finally I see some discussion which I always kept thinking about. My political
preference is leftward, but the point which the right wing believers raise
about the left-leaning leaders speaking about climate change is not completely
invalid, as personally they do not lead a minimalistic lifestyle.

And this begs the question about their sincerity about what they are proposing
about climate change, do they actually mean it or do they just want to appease
their political base.

~~~
Retra
You can advocate for a policy without adopting it in your personal life.
Especially if changing your personal life would have insignificant impact when
compared to a policy.

People can do whatever they like on their own. We elect politicians to
establish our public policy, not their personal policy.

~~~
fourier_mode
Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

