
Browser-based climate change simulation - hendler
https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6
======
staltz
Interesting tool. It basically says you can:

\- Tax coal, oil, natural gas, bioenergy

\- Subsidize renewables, nuclear, new technology

\- Increase efficiency and electrification of transports, buildings, and
industry

\- Reduce population growth

\- Reduce economic growth

\- Reduce deforestation

\- Increase afforestation

For an effect that puts us at +2.1C by 2100 [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120...](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120&p7=100&p10=6&p16=-0.07&p23=30&p30=-0.07&p35=2&p47=5&p50=5&p53=5&p55=5&p57=-10&p63=1.3&p64=1.7&p65=100&g0=1&g1=86&v=2.7.6)

OR you can do these three things:

\- Set a high price on carbon

\- Reduce emissions of methane and other gases

\- Increase usage carbon removal technologies

for a similar effect of +2.1C by 2100 [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p39=25...](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p39=250&p59=-100&p67=100&g0=1&g1=86&v=2.7.6)

All optimistic actions combined puts us at +1.0C by 2100 [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120...](https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120&p7=100&p10=6&p16=-0.07&p23=30&p30=-0.07&p35=2&p39=250&p47=5&p50=5&p53=5&p55=5&p57=-10&p59=-100&p63=1.3&p64=1.7&p65=100&p67=100&g0=1&g1=86&v=2.7.6)

~~~
rwc
There comes a point where the model no longer accepts any progress beyond a
+1.0C increase. No matter how many additional actions taken, the floor is
+1.0C. It seems the immediate extinction of the human race would still result
in an increase in temperature. Is there research that backs this up?

~~~
zamadatix
Remember this is relative to temperature at the start of the graph (2000) not
2020.

But yes, there is a delay between "stop producing emissions" and "temperature
starts going down". CO2 is already high, simply stopping additional output
doesn't make the current amount go away overnight and there is still plenty of
ice to melt over the seasons in the meantime.

~~~
DennisP
Specifically there's a delay of 10 to 30 years between releasing CO2 and
getting the full temperature increase from it, just like there's a delay
between turning on a stove burner and boiling water in a pot.

On top of that simple heating time, there are feedback effects like melting
permafrost releasing additional greenhouse gases, and (as you mentioned)
melting ice reducing the planetary albedo.

------
hanniabu
This is great and all, but what can we do about the people that don't believe
this data? That's where the real issue is.

I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data and
skewing results because their jobs depend on it and they want to continue to
get funding. "Follow the money" is a common thing they say in regards to this,
but also conveniently disregarded and deny that big oil/coal have more to
lose.

It's very difficult to fight ignorance, especially when they don't believe
facts. This is the main issue with climate change deniers, not the inability
to visualize the data.

~~~
bogwog
I'm inclined to believe this data because I trust MIT and believe that climate
change is a very serious problem.

But this app alone doesn't do a good job of convincing anyone of anything. For
starters, it's just a bunch of graphs. I doubt most people who deny climate
change are going to understand what they're looking at.

But most importantly, there's no straightforward way for anyone to verify this
data on their own, and it seems like this app is kind of bullshitting the
numbers. For example, how could they possibly know that "highly subsidized"
bioenergy will result in exactly 0.1F increase in global temperatures 80 years
from now?

> I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data
> and skewing results

Can't you see their reasoning after using this app?

I'm not saying this app is useless or full of lies. Not at all. But I think it
can only really work as part of an education session or presentation, where
someone can actually explain the reasoning behind that graph, where the data
comes from, how they arrived at the conclusions, etc, instead of just throwing
it on the internet and hoping it reaches republican farmers on Facebook.

~~~
Retric
It’s interesting how you described that as exactly 0.1F.

I have a very different way of looking at data. When I see a single
significant digit I assume minimal precision. So, 0.1 is something like 95%
chance of 0.1 +\\- 0.05 would be optimistic, and 0.01 to 1 is pessimistic.

I suspect this is a common issue with both scientific and technological
reporting for a general audience.

~~~
bogwog
_Increasing_ precision here doesn't increase confidence in these estimates.

The phrase "highly subsidized" says basically nothing, yet it's enough to
estimate global temperatures 80 years from now with a margin of error of 0.05?

~~~
zamfi
Click the three vertical dots to see what "highly subsidized" means -- it's a
specific level of subsidy, which you can actually modify in greater detail in
the "detail" view.

I absolutely agree that this thing needs a margin of error on the visual
output!

------
arctangos
The authors don't include some extremely nasty feedback loops the appear to
currently be happening. For example, methane release from permafrost melt.

As a result, the simulation appears to be misleadingly optimistic.

\- This tool is based on climate interactive's previous one, C-Road.

\- in the C-Road simulation when you click on parameters -> assumptions to add
parameters about methane release through permafrost melting and human
activities. By default, it's set to zero, but even their maximum values don't
seem as impactful as I would expect.

\- in EN-Road simulation (this one) the methane release parameters are
removed! So, no possibility to add any positive feedback loops. It feels like
the relation between CO2 and temperature is a simple linear equation, or close
to it.

~~~
koheripbal
While negative feedback loops are big in the media, they are not well
understood and difficult to model.

Also, other feedback mechanisms seem to get little attention. Are we only
looking to model the feedback mechanisms that reinforce a narrative of
cataclysm?

Don't other feedback mechanisms exist that lessen CO2 concentrations, or
temperature dissipation?

~~~
breakyerself
No. They aren't "only looking at feedback mechanisms that reinforce
cataclysm." Modelers include every feedback that they can quantify well enough
to include and the ones they don't understand well enough are studied
carefully to be able to work out what the uncertainties are.

Scientists 50 years ago predicted that we would be at around 1C (1.8F) of
warming by 2020 with a 40% over preindustrial co2 level. That's exactly what
we have now. They predicted almost perfectly today's climate decades before it
came to pass. That may not seem like a big deal until you understand that
global temperatures haven't been this high in 130,000 years.

It isn't being recognized properly yet in the media, but the stunning accuracy
of predictions by climate modelers is one of the greatest achievements in the
history Earth sciences.

~~~
mistermann
This sounds like you're saying that 50 years ago there was a single climate
model, upon which significant consensus among scientists had been reached,
that predicted a 1C temperature rise. I've read quite a few articles and
discussions on this topic but have never heard this before.

Am I misunderstanding you? If not, do you have a link that discusses this?

~~~
atotic
"Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections"

[https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019...](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL085378)

"We found that climate models – even those published back in the 1970s – did
remarkably well, with 14 out of the 17 projections statistically
indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

~~~
mistermann
Yes, I read that report and participated in the subsequent discussion [0]
where I raised a number of concerns with the study, but wasn't able to find
anyone who would seriously and objectively address them.

Frustrated by the unwillingness of anyone to engage in rigorous discussion in
that thread, I also contacted the authors to see if they were willing to
address some of the concerns. Unfortunately, I did not hear back.

I must confess, this strange combination of group declaration that "the
science is in", combined with complete refusal to discuss "the science",
leaves me feeling a bit suspicious about the degree to which anyone has
actually read the science, or is thinking critically on this matter.

If you could address some of the concerns I raised in [0], I would be
delighted.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936)

~~~
mturmon
> I raised a number of concerns with the study, but wasn't able to find anyone
> who would seriously and objectively address them.

This is an inaccurate summary of that thread, in which you raised a simple
accusation that the article cherry-picked the models, were swatted down with a
citation from the article referenced in the OP, and then retreated into a maze
of long, twisty replies that failed to raise any other specific points.

Your comments in this thread have had the same flavor. Consider brevity and
specificity.

~~~
mistermann
> This is an inaccurate summary of that thread, in which you raised a simple
> accusation that the article cherry-picked the models

Ironically, or not, your summary of my summary of that thread is inaccurate.

> "you raised a simple accusation that the article cherry-picked the models"
> is not what I did. What I did do is ask for an explanation of _how we know_
> no cherry picking occurred. Their methodology for article selection was not
> published, so therefore it cannot be reproduced. I emailed the authors
> asking for clarification, and they did not reply.

> were swatted down with a citation from the article referenced in the OP

"swatted down", but didn't address my actual question, rather re-reffering to
the original ambiguous wording that I was complaining about.

A reproducible methodology could clear up the uncertainty (and please note, my
claim is that there is _uncertainty_ not that there _is_ wrongdoing), yet no
methodology was offered in the original paper, and the authors did not reply
to the request.

In such situations, I adopt a position of "Unknown - more information is
required", but obviously others have a much more flexible approach to what
they're willing to believe. Although, I wonder if this approach varies
depending on the subject - would be interesting to read up on.

> and then retreated into a maze of long, twisty replies that failed to raise
> any other specific points

"Mazes of long, twisty replies", and failures to "raise any other specific
points" are a common consequences when one party in a discussion is unwilling
to directly address questions as asked, and the other party's response to that
is re-asking the same question.

> Your comments in this thread have had the same flavor.

Indeed they do, as do the replies: unwillingness to directly address questions
as asked.

> Consider brevity and specificity.

I will do so.

In return, please consider honesty, epistemic humility, your willingness to
acknowledge that ambiguity often exists in written language, and whether a
lack of 100% agreement should be interpreted as opposition, as opposed to
curiosity and strictness. Sometimes those who appear to be your enemy may
actually be some of your best friends.

EDIT: Here's another way to look at it (a better description of my main
intent): "conspiracy theorists" and "deniers" are a problem, to some degree,
in broad acceptance of climate change messaging, agreed? Might it be a good
idea to consider whether there are some flaws in the messaging that could be
improved, that would result in reducing the material they have to work with in
any influence campaigns?

~~~
mturmon
Your question was answered in the comment underneath it -- the answer is taken
from the article in the discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446)

Basically: selection criterion was, any published model that had the inputs
("forcings") and outputs (temperature) needed.

Then, incredibly, the _paper author_ chimed in with this offer:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010)

And you couldn't respond constructively. If he didn't include a model, point
it out.

Instead, you've come to another thread complaining that you had concerns and
"wasn't able to find anyone who would seriously and objectively address them".

~~~
mistermann
Pardon the delay in replying, I didn't see this until now.

> Your question was answered in the comment underneath it -- the answer is
> taken from the article in the discussion:

>
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446)

Well, shit. This is kind one of those timing error, at the time I wrote that
the thread was quite young, so I presumed my more substantive complaint (which
is immediately under my comment) would have been seen. That'll teach me for
being trite, hopefully.

Anyways, here is that comment (and I imagine you won't like my pedantry, but I
did note it as such, and I'm not forcing anyone to answer - if they'd like to
allow ambiguity/uncertainty to remain, be my guest):

\---------------

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936)

> As noted in TFA, they looked at 17 forecasts from 14 models

Pardon a little pedantry:

>> The researchers compared annual average surface temperatures across the
globe to the surface temperatures predicted in 17 forecasts. Those predictions
were drawn from 14 separate computer models released between 1970 and 2001. In
some cases, the studies and their computer codes were so old that the team had
to extract data published in papers, using special software to gauge the exact
numbers represented by points on a printed graph.

They compared annual average surface temperatures across the globe to 17
forecasts, from 14 separate models.

But....how many models did they _look at_ , before _choosing_ those particular
14 models?

TFA doesn't say.

Articles written in this style provide rich fodder for conspiracy theorists,
particularly because there is no shortage of examples in the past where
authoritative, trustworthy organizations have gotten caught in lies. Rare is
the climate change article I've read that can't easily have similar holes
poked in it.

What's the real truth here? Based on the literal content of this article, no
one knows. It is speculation vs speculation.

\---------------

> Then, incredibly, the paper author chimed in with this offer:

>
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010)

> And you couldn't respond constructively. If he didn't include a model, point
> it out.

An obvious lack of thoroughness and reasonableness on my part - it would have
been wiser to restate my above question in it's entirety rather than expecting
him ti find it. So I'll take the reputation hit on that one.

But then on the other hand, I did email one of the authors directly (after
looking through the github repo to see if my questions were answered there),
with a much more detailed question, in polite terms, and with mention of the
possibility that this sort of ambiguity is open to exploitation by
propagandists, but didn't hear back, so far anyways.

UPDATE:

To the author's credit, they did address a question posed to them here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709249)

Also, his reply to another comment is _suggestive_ that _all_ available models
(that fit his criteria) were in fact used:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708782)

I get a fairly trustworthy feel from him after reading those, although I still
prefer that these things were written using more defensive wording.

------
musha68k
High taxation of fossil energy together with rolling-out of new energy/carbon-
removal technology seem to be a real way out of this catastrophe.

Does anyone have a list of startups and established companies actively working
on any of those crucial solutions?

Only found this through a quick Github search:

[https://github.com/flamato/awesome-climate-change-
ressources...](https://github.com/flamato/awesome-climate-change-
ressources/blob/master/README.md)

~~~
jokoon
Don't solutions already exist?

There is a lot to do with engine size and vehicle size and weight, especially
in the US.

Nuclear energy and trains are possible, even if they require electrifying the
railroads.

Drastically reduce beef consumption is also a thing to do.

Not sure about those "carbon removal" techs. A lot of the CO2 tends to go in
the atmosphere.

The biggest problem is a political one: You can't fight unemployment and
inequality and try to reduce emissions. I can see ideology being a big problem
when dealing with climate change. Although fighting climate change can also be
an opportunity to steer away from an ideology of competition and go back to
cooperation, because politically it WILL BE a nightmare. Things can also
derail into complete anarchy where it becomes everyone for himself, where poor
people will have to bear high temperatures.

~~~
hwillis
> Nuclear energy and trains are possible, even if they require electrifying
> the railroads.

Note: this is not a great idea; trains release less than a third as much co2
as a truck and electrifying cross country rail would be _very_ expensive. You
need extremely high voltage for long distance transmission, which is
incompatible with pantographs (the metal things that power trains/buses from
overhead).

You'd essentially need to build dedicated HVDC lines alongside all trunk
routes, with regular substations (which are immensely expensive for HVDC) to
inject power into the lines. Cross country HVDC would be really great for the
grid, but it would be better to build a dedicated solution and forget about
the trains. For context, the transmission losses for electricity cause ~2x
more CO2 than all trains.

There are just better things to spend money on. Even if we put cold war levels
on investment into reducing CO2 theres still better things to do, like dealing
with landfill emissions, land use, rehabilitating environments etc.

> Not sure about those "carbon removal" techs. A lot of the CO2 tends to go in
> the atmosphere.

One way of looking at it: exhaust gases are 29% CO2 (from oxygen being burnt).
Air is .4% CO2. Removing CO2 from air is, bare minimum, 75x more complex than
preventing it.

> You can't fight unemployment and inequality and try to reduce emissions. I
> can see ideology being a big problem when dealing with climate change.

IMO that is a profoundly unhelpful way of looking at it. The money spent on
the Iraq war would be enough to buy enough batteries to store ALL US
ELECTRICITY for full two days. People didn't think twice about sprinting into
war. Renewable energy is a largely trivial cost. People need to be convinced
to throw _scraps_ at it before we scare them with real changes.

~~~
zamfi
> IMO that is a profoundly unhelpful way of looking at it.

Agreed.

> The money spent on the Iraq war [& Afghanistan, etc.] would be enough to buy
> enough batteries to store ALL US ELECTRICITY for full two days.

Or, a base-version Tesla Model 3 for every driving-age resident of the US.
Given that they're manufactured in the US, you'd be reducing emissions and
hiring however many tens? (hundreds?) of thousands of people in the
manufacturing sector.

We don't even need to be that creative to feed two birds with one scone.

~~~
rafa1981
Fighting environmentalv issues with extra consumption may not be a good idea.
Manufacturing a vehicle pollutes a lot. Up to 50% of the enviromental costs of
a vehicle seem to happen at manufacturing time.

[https://archive.attn.com/stories/13637/hidden-
environmental-...](https://archive.attn.com/stories/13637/hidden-
environmental-cost-manufacturing-vehicles)

~~~
zamfi
> Fighting environmental issues

I’m not talking about fighting “environmental issues” — I’m explicitly talking
about a) global climate change, which has little to do with ~75% of the
environmental impacts of an electric vehicle, and b) not spending $trillions
fighting wars due to Western society’s unslakable thirst for oil. [1]

Let’s not goalpost this — mining & refining metals (etc.) is dirty business,
and we should clean it up, but to be clear: it has a very limited impact on
climate change.

> extra consumption

Extra consumption? I proposed taking the trillions of dollars spent on
military equipment, plus fuel for planes, aircraft carriers, and other ships,
tanks, etc., not to mention the deaths of thousands of people — war is
“consumption” to an absurd degree — and replacing all that with domestic EVs.

Don’t tell me that’s “extra consumption”. If anything it’s a dramatic
_reduction_ in consumption.

[1] Whether you believe the war in Iraq was fought for oil or not, oil is a
causative factor: without the presence of oil in the Middle East, and the
riches its trade brings to the states in the area, it’s unlikely we’d be
fighting there.

------
onion2k
If you drag all of the bars to their ideal position (lowest on the bad things,
highest on the good things) the temperature still goes up by more than a
degree.

~~~
lopis
It helps to show that we're screwed. But the degree to how screwed we are can
vary a bit.

~~~
goatlover
We're not screwed if it's limited to just a degree. Things start getting dicy
at 2 degrees, more severe at 3, and so on. To what extent society can adapt
and mitigate is a guess. The climate modes are about the climate, not how
human civilization handles it.

~~~
xbmcuser
We are are already screwed at the current temperature the 2 degrees is just
the point that the politicians thought they could sell to each other.

------
dluan
This is a fantastic use of science communication using design principles -
particularly when you use the minigraphs and you can see the small multiples
the impact and outcomes.

I've always felt like more stuff like this would help bring home the
imperceptible nuances of this complex web. It'd be cool to see some of this
stuff for personal daily things. Just now I figured out that each time I
charge my macbook pro, it's about equivalent to burning a quarter of a
charcoal briquette in raw energy. It would be cool to see something like this
for things like riding the bus, buying a new car, flying, eating meat, etc.

~~~
mattrp
It would be nice to see the economic cost of each of the options as well.

------
pmontra
The single most effective parameter in this simulation is Carbon price.
Sliding it all the way to the right lowers the temperature increase from 4.1
to 3.0. Most of the other parameters do little or nothing.

Of course setting a high price for carbon is different from actually making
people/companies pay for it.

------
kgabis
It's surprising how rarely intentional geoengineering (because we're doing it
anyway, just unintentionally) is mentioned when discussing climate change.
Stratospheric aerosol injection seems like a plausible way of slowing down the
warming of earth yet it's too taboo to be even discussed as a viable option.

------
programminggeek
This model is sort of absurd. It doesn't take into account the most important
factor... people.

If you made a model of the world today back in 1920, it would be comical.

Imagine you went back to say 1920 and told people that in 2020 they would be
surrounded by talking televisions, phones, that we'd be sending people and
ships to the moon, mars, etc. and that they could instantly talk to any person
on the planet (including loved ones on the other side of the world), they
would not believe you.

In the last 100 years (heck even the last 20-30) we've invented a staggering
amount of new and interesting things.

In the last 100 years people created interstate highway systems, nuclear
power, the internet, radio data networks, self guided weapons, self guided
vehicles, robots, rudimentary AI, etc...

What if in 100 years we make fusion work (probably for space travel/war?) and
then we replace the existing infrastructure with that. And what if we can do
enough carbon removal or storage to solve this?

Any model that doesn't model the history altering inventiveness of humans is
not an accurate model at all. It's just really fancy navel gazing.

~~~
EthanHeilman
You can't model things like innovation on a hundred year time scale. The
reason the predictions from the 1920s "would be comical" is not because people
in the 1920s where all fools but because modeling future innovation over a 100
year time scale is extremely challenging. Even if you could include innovation
it would reduce the benefit of such a model. Imagine you have a model that has
access to a global temperature oracle and it says: "global temperature
decreased 0.1 C in 2120 because of innovation". You don't know why that
happened and so such a model would be mostly useless to achieving any result.

What you are proposing is like a software performance analytics tool that
already includes the fact that you will improve the software performance in
the current metrics. However the purpose of such a tool is to figure out where
the performance problems are so that you can fix them. Adding such a feature
makes the tool useless. What you want to see the baseline and then you want to
model the impact of solutions after you discover them.

>What if in 100 years we make fusion work (probably for space travel/war?) and
then we replace the existing infrastructure with that.

I think fusion will happen faster than that. However the model we are
discussing only goes out 81 years so it doesn't cover the impact of events 100
years hence.

------
LoSboccacc
even at the lowest setting the world gdp still shows an exponential growth.
doesn't seem sustainable to me, at some point efficiency in industrialized
country has to flatten out, even if just because there are so many customers
to sell products to so there's an equilibrium somewhere to be reached,
especially since increase efficiency suppresses wages reducing demand.

------
wiz21c
it'd be nice to have a body count somewhere...

~~~
jokoon
Well a good start would be to try to predict agriculture outputs with those
temperature. Honestly I tried asking this question but got no answer.

Cereals might be just fine, and growing food in places where it's not possible
to grow food is also a solution. But I'm terribly curious about the impact on
food.

Heatwaves will probably cause a lot of deaths at first, but once it happens,
there are easy things cities can do to mitigate them.

~~~
marcosdumay
> Cereals might be just fine, and growing food in places where it's not
> possible to grow food is also a solution.

The further away from the tropics you go, the less productive is agriculture.

------
mar77i
No sane setting gets us down to 2°C. I don't feel taken seriously. Can I get a
slider for the frequency of volcanic eruptions?

On a slightly more serious note, can we tame volcanoes by somehow - ideally -
producing energy and ... prevent eruptions, somewhat comparable to the way
earth wires actively do so with lightning strikes?

~~~
papreclip
I want a slider that lets you shrink the population (not just "low growth").
Climate change is just one of many ways that overpopulation is negatively
impacting all life on earth.

~~~
pharke
What would be the units? Number of gas chambers?

~~~
papreclip
I was thinking more along the lines of IUDs

------
plytheman
About 5 or 6 years ago towards the end of my undergrad my professor picked up
on this and we held some mock UN Climate assemblies using this tool.[1] The
class divided up into first world, developing, and poorer nations and each had
to bring their needs to the table while trying to compromise. I got to
actually lead a session at MIT for some incoming freshman which was fun.

The dashboard is super handy to drive home the numbers on our energy
production/use and its effect on the climate but the workshop really drives
home the political implications and how hard it will be to actually implement
these changes.

[1] [https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-
simu...](https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-simulation/)

~~~
mistermann
> The class divided up into first world, developing, and poorer nations and
> each had to bring their needs to the table while trying to compromise.

Modeling the debate on the dimension of national wealth seems like a good
idea. I'm curious, was there any discussion about potential value in modeling
on other dimensions, such as political affiliation?

~~~
plytheman
Not that I know of. We were just running off the materials En-Roads provided.
From what I remember, though, each bloc is given cues as to what industries
and population they represent which then plays into their arguments. So it
isn't outright said that someone should argue a conservative or liberal angle,
but knowing you need to defend your nation's industrial production or
vulnerable communities lends itself towards some political talking points on
one side or the other.

------
Waterluvian
These are too abstract for most humans. Someone needs to do a layer on top of
this that instead has options like:

\- fake meat becomes widely adopted and we stop farming cattle

\- electric cars see 50% market share adoption

Tangible things anyone can wrap their head around.

~~~
rimliu
Also having very little effect.

------
sampo
What value of Climate Sensitivity is assumed in the model?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity)

Edit: Found it in sec. 9.2 in the manual. It's 3.

[https://www.climateinteractive.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/1...](https://www.climateinteractive.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/12/En-ROADS_Reference_Guide_v92.docx)

~~~
nabla9
You can change the sensitivity.

First from top menu simulation -> assumptions. Then from below > "Climate
system sensitivities" you can alter Climate sensitivity, Ocean mixing index,
CO2 fertilization index, Sea level rise from ice sheet melting and Carbon
cycle land and ocean uptake

------
wiz21c
Reducing all energy sources to the mminium doesn't change much... That's
sounds strange because if we reduce energy, then, well, we emit less CO2. Am I
missing something ?

~~~
IanCal
That doesn't have it reduce the energy, it's just shifting between them I
think. So total energy use seems to remain the same, you're just changing
where people get it.

~~~
lopmotr
Yes. An interesting effect of this is that subsidizing bio fuels makes climate
change worse because it takes away from other renewables.

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hmd_imputer
So, in the best-case scenario, there will be a mere 1.0degree Celcius increase
and in the worst-case scenario, the average increase will be 6.5degree
Celcius. I don't know how it is possible to model technological breakthroughs.
I mean if we have a working Nuclear Fusion technology by 2100, that could
drastically change everything - (almost) free energy = unlimited desalinated
water = full aforestation, even in the desert areas.

~~~
pharke
The knock on effects from unlimited energy go a lot further.

We could use technology we have today for CO2 capture since it is heavily
energy dependent and simply scale it massively. The bulk of industry processes
that currently require coal, oil, or gas to provide cheap heat could be fully
electrified. Prices of a lot of commodities would drop dramatically. Indoor
farming would be a cinch. People and governments would abandon internal
combustion for the cheaper alternative.

We could do absurd things that no one would even consider today like greening
deserts as you mentioned or settling the arctic. You might be able to replace
concrete with basalt if you could cleverly design a system for melting stone
and casting the resulting lava in a form. Hell, you could banish winter by
putting radiant heat in everything, walls, sidewalks, streets, and adding
supplemental lighting like Moonlight Towers[0] except I suppose they would be
Sunlight Towers in this case. The list goes on.

The world would change so much it would be like living through the first half
of the 20th century again. From horses, coal, and brick buildings to jet
aircraft, nuclear power, and glass skyscrapers.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower)

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EA
What happens if we run the simulation backwards through time?

~~~
EdSharkey
<glitch>

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track_star
Everyone get your thinking hats on. Based on this model, increasing building
efficiency is the #1 way that we as entrepreneurs can have an impact.
Passivhaus anyone?

~~~
IanCal
Buildings _and Industry_ is the heading, which covers a lot more than just
housing.

~~~
track_star
Correct but there is nothing preventing the use of Passivhaus technology in
commercial buildings.

~~~
willyt
Includes heavy industry presumably? e.g. no such thing as passivhaus blast
furnance or a passivhaus lime kiln.

~~~
ben_w
That makes me wonder, could the waste heat from those be used for residential
district hearing? Or desalination? Not just technically, but usefully.

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DennisP
A simpler version of this was used for a while as part of MIT's ClimateColab,
which attempted to crowdsource creative solutions to climate change.

[https://www.climatecolab.org/](https://www.climatecolab.org/)

(They're still running contests, but they've scaled down a lot.)

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yrro
Refuses to run for me. with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:71.0)
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/71.0

"Detected Characteristics - Mobile browser"

Don't tell me the web developers now assume that Linux == Android...

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jokoon
I'm curious what those carbon removal techs are exactly.

Because a lot of the CO2 tends to stay in the atmosphere.

~~~
Ohn0
Trees

~~~
jokoon
trees are not really a good way to capture carbon

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Yajirobe
what does 'new technology' even mean and how does it enter the calculations?

~~~
zamadatix
From the app: "Discover a brand-new cheap source of electricity that does not
emit greenhouse gases. Some speculate that such a breakthrough could be
nuclear fusion or thorium-based nuclear fission, however, there are unknown
risks associated with any new energy supply. Decide when the breakthrough
occurs, its initial cost relative to coal, and how long the delays in
commercialization and scale up would be."

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lazyjones
0,5 degrees difference only for a population change of 5 billion people? Not
very plausible (low vs. high growth).

These simplistic models are counter-productive IMHO.

~~~
nabla9
It's very plausible after you realize how much warming comes from processes
that are already in effect and that the change in population is gradual.

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Thermolabile
We observe the power of a carbon tax

~~~
lucb1e
I'm also surprised how much of a difference nuclear can make.

I mean, I know that nuclear is great as a stopgap until we build solar panels
that we can actually recycle and install all the wind farms, etc. But the
trouble is that a nuclear plant takes 30 years to build and for the public's
opinion we might as well be proposing to move their backyards to a high
tsunami risk zone or repeating all the actions that led up to the Chernobyl
disaster. I've given up on this happening.

Can it still make such a big difference, even if we only start building today?
It makes me wonder if I shouldn't be giving up on the option of nuclear.

~~~
DennisP
> a nuclear plant takes 30 years to build

Only if your country isn't serious about it. South Korea builds modern nuclear
plants in about five years:
[https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-
korea-s...](https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-korea-second-
fastest-nuclear-plant-building-country)

~~~
lucb1e
Oh, wow, okay. That changes the perspective quite a bit. Thanks!

~~~
mlyle
There's a lot of issues with depending upon solely nuclear to solve these
problems, but I'd like to see nuclear in the mix.

Unlike the MIT model, components of electric generation are not simple linear
systems that exhibit the superposition principle. Renewables need a whole lot
of moderate-term storage and over-provisioning to get to where we want to be,
and nuclear could help ease that by providing a source of dependable base
load.

If we're transitioning to electric cars and homes away from gas heat, we need
a whole lot of power in the middle of the night-- where photovoltaic doesn't
help and wind can be iffy for days at a time.

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ohgreatwtf
The single biggest line item in this program is agricultural methane
emissions. The second single item is drastic reduction of energy usage in
industrial applications. Even now the farmers in the hague are protesting the
former. The latter is simply impossible.

This programme for climate control is an unrealistic plan thought up by a
bunch of nerds. You should all elect me dictator for life and do what I, the
cyber-fuhrer, command you.

Step one: we must recognize this is OUR planet and OUR environment, so we can
do whatever the hell we want with it.

Step two: Reshape carbon level perspectives. carbon levels above 500 PPM are
unhealthy and we are on track to reach that in a few years. Canned air is a
thing now. We must curb our carbon emissions and reduce carbon levels in order
to be more healthy, not control global warming. Everyone, even the critics,
recognize Co2 above 1000 is bad for your health and everyone has experienced
high CO/CO2 levels.

Step three: The climate can go fuck itself. We'll glass over a portion of arid
desert or mountain land the size of texas, divided into plots of land 100
square miles each in remote areas around the globe, and cover them in mylar
reflective sheeting. The increased albedo will more than counteract the
temperature trends estimated from greenhouse gas based warming. I have done
the math.

Step four: We must observe that it is not merely renewable energy but
renewable infrastructure that must exist to fix this problem. Batteries and
solar panels and devices that wear out too quickly exhaust our resources, and
infrastructure costs make up a large portion of the factors limiting adoption.
A Renewable Society becomes our focus as a total propaganda and government
mandate worldwide.

Step five: we create a global research funding scheme and open patent pool
that internationally maximizes research effort into renewable infrastructure.
We establish trade agreements that create international laws which incentivize
renewable energy adoption through guaranteeing adoption payoff by establishing
long-lived warranties and government subsidized repair and renewal programs,
ensuring that your investment into the future is a safe bet.

Step six: we hang anyone who disagreed with this post.

