

Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene (2013) - bootload
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/learning-how-to-die-in-the-anthropocene

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seren
I find all the recent discussions about how we are past the tipping point
pretty scary. However, let's hope it will help to raise the awareness globally
and help us take more decisive actions (whatever it can be, including
geoengineering)

~~~
Ygg2
I think our safest bet is pretty much - get fusion ASAP, outsource it, replace
all forms of energy with it.

And start planting trees/plnats wherever you can.

Also it might be better for people to congregate in few large metropolis, to
minimize the impact. Chernobyl is doing great pretty much because no humans
are there to bother the wildlife.

~~~
adwn
> _get fusion ASAP_

If we rely on fusion to save us then we're thoroughly fucked – please excuse
my language, but it's the most accurate portrayal of the situation.

\- The best-known research project, ITER, is incredibly expensive and it will
be 2050 until we can even _start_ building commercial reactors using this
concept (note that this is the current official schedule, so expect to add
several decades to this). It is not even certain whether we can overcome the
immense engineering challenges within the next 100 years.

\- Other approaches only receive a fraction of the funding of ITER. Some of
them might be more promising, but are still far away from breakeven, and it is
still unknown, if and when they reach commercial viability.

We already know how to generate CO2-neutral energy: solar, wind, and fission
nuclear. Let's do those instead, and keep researching fusion energy, but don't
bet the future of our planet on it.

~~~
Ygg2
> If we rely on fusion to save us then we're thoroughly fucked

As far as I understand, it's a problem of funding and bureaucracy problems
rather than technology.

We're thoroughly fucked already, the only thing that changes now, is how
deeply fucked are we, to pardon by French.

People are unjustifiedly afraid of fission, wind and solar are unreliable and
come with a carbon cost. Fusion ticks all the right fields - self-containing,
stable (barring catastrophes), cheap and highly energetic.

Question is - is it easier to sway people on nuclear power or to get fusion
ready?

~~~
adwn
> _As far as I understand, it 's a problem of funding and bureaucracy problems
> rather than technology._

No, it's very much a problem of technology. One of the challenges of most
fusion approaches is that we don't have materials that survive the heavy
neutron bombardment from the fusion process for very long. You don't simply
solve this through more funding (although it helps).

Another problem is that we still haven't managed to build a fusion device that
delivers even close to break-even energy return, not even under laboratory
conditions for very short timespans.

> _cheap_

That is doubtful. Fusion reactors with the ITER concept are extremely large
and complex devices.

Note that I'm not against fusion in general. In fact, I think we should fund
research in alternative fusion technologies a lot more than we do now.

~~~
Ygg2
> No, it's very much a problem of technology.

Well, you can't make technology without funding and time. But given enough of
both, its definitely achievable. There is nothing scientific preventing us
from creating fusion reactor.

Perhaps I misspoke, but the thing is, the main issue is funding, you can't
expect research without funding. If the project was well funded, we'd probably
have it by now.

> cheap

Cheap as in resources required to produce energy. Not cheap to make. By same
measure how much infrastructure you need to mine, transport and make a power
plant.

~~~
arethuza
Fuel costs for fission nuclear plants are only about 28% of operating costs -
so why should fusion plants be hugely cheaper than fission plants? The capital
costs for something based on ITER look they might be comparable to fission
plants - I guess decommissioning and waste handling might be cheaper though.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants#Fuel_costs)

~~~
Ygg2
Well, large parts of operating costs of a fission nuclear power plant is
getting rid of the radioactive waste and shutting it down safely.

With fusion, due to nature of the process, and the fact that the reaction
isn't self sustaining the prices could be lower.

The big reason is that fusion produces less radioactive waste and doesn't
cause a meltdown when a breach happens. Yes, neutron bombardment happens, and
it makes stuff more radioactive but IIRC the half time is lower and the
shielding could be optimized to have low half-life time.

------
arethuza
I wonder if global scale industrialization could be the Great Filter?

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

~~~
x5n1
Too soon. We probably have another 1000 years give or take left. There are 7-8
billion of us on the planet. A few million can easily holdout for a thousand
years if something happens.

When empires or civilizations collapse and you read about them in history you
can see the decline, and you wonder why no one did anything. There is so much
common sense stuff any reasonable person would do. Then you find that the
people playing the games were generally obsessed.

And then you look at our civilization and you realize that's what's going on
here. We're obsessed and at the same time you can totally see this is not
going to end well for us. But we're so focused on our own rhetorical frames of
economic development and progress that we can't do a damn thing to slow any of
this down. And we're basically headed for the cliff.

~~~
happyscrappy
Want to reduce CO2? Stop eating meat. Want to seem edgy and cool without doing
anything requiring effort? Claim we are doomed.

~~~
shoo
I get your point, and think it is valid.

My opinion is consistent with your opinion, at least in terms of what a
reasonable next action might be: stopping eating meat would be a good place to
start.

Here is another perspective:

    
    
      > Have no illusions. To achieve our goal of getting
      > off fossil fuels, these reductions in demand and
      > increases in supply must be big. Don’t be distracted
      > by the myth that “every little helps.” If everyone
      > does a little, we’ll achieve only a little. We must
      > do a lot. What’s required are big changes in demand
      > and in supply.
    
      > “But surely, if 60 million people all do a little,
      > it’ll add up to a lot?” No. This “if-everyone”
      > multiplying machine is just a way of making something
      > small sound big. The “if-everyone” multiplying machine
      > churns out inspirational statements of the form
      > “if everyone did X, then it would provide enough
      > energy/water/gas to do Y,” where Y sounds impressive.
      > Is it surprising that Y sounds big? Of course not. We
      > got Y by multiplying X by the number of people involved
    
      > -- David MacKay [1]
    
    

My opinion: Want to seriously reduce CO2? Stop eating meat _and_ have fewer
children _and_ limit spend on products to $1k / year _and_ limit spend on
services to $2k / year _and_ don't fly on planes _and_ encourage everyone
around you to take similarly progressive measures _and_ apply pressure to your
local political representatives _and_ rejig our ideas regarding how to run
society...

That said, "the best is the enemy of the good". What more can we do than take
progressive steps in the right direction, even if we are unable or unwilling
to personally change far enough? At least we can influence those around us.

I claim no moral high ground: I am still eating meat as it is easy to do so,
and I like doing it, and thinking about the longer term picture causes me
distress, even after reading a dozen books about this stuff this year.

[1]
[http://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml)

~~~
happyscrappy
With regard to McKay, every journey starts with a tiny step forward. I believe
we have for the first time seen economic growth increase faster than emissions
and worst case scenarios have been dialed back, but that won't sell
newspapers.

"rejig our ideas regarding how to run society..." To what exactly? Has it
worked in real life somewhere? How much suffering should the weakest members
of society be subject to in this experiment? If it is likely more than the
suffering they would suffer from climate change is it still justified?

Totally agree on don't fly on planes, especially so if claim you want to stop
climate change.

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anentropic
"The city’s secular middle class was disappearing, squeezed out between
gangsters, profiteers, fundamentalists and soldiers."

...sounds like the USA we hear about on the news :)

~~~
happyscrappy
Yeah most Europeans think if they come to the US they will be carjacked.

~~~
digitalengineer
Or killed / tazered / robbed by the police (the us specific travel agency
warned us about some parts of missisipi specifically). For real: dont screw
around with cops in the us. They're not pussies like our cops (Holland).

~~~
saiya-jin
nah, they are gun wielding nutjobs who feel righteous in any situation... yes,
you don't want to screw with them, but people don't have respect for them,
just fear

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zenpaul
I see the challenge for the 2000's is for the human species is to take on
planetary stewardship in a real way.

Or "Planetary Management" from Wikipedia "The term has been around in science
fiction novels since the 1970s." The future has arrived whether we like it or
not.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_management)

Another less fatalistic way to look at it is to see how far humans will go to
protect/manage/revive nature itself.
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/resurrections/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/resurrections/)

Let's learn how to Live in the Anthropocene...

------
shoo
That was a good read. Some related reading material:

Jared Diamond -- _Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed_ [1]. A
historical analysis and discussion of past and present societies, and the
multiple factors involved in collapse.

Tim Flannery -- _The Weather Makers: The History & Future Impact of Climate
Change_ [2]. Includes a readable overview of the history of the earth's
climate, and evidence of recent climate change (~2005).

Kerryn Higgs -- _Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet_ [3].
Higgs' book focuses on the history of how the philosophy of economic growth
has come to be a dominant ideology in our civilization. This book roughly
addresses the question of "why aren't we doing anything!?".

McKenzie Funk -- _Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming_ [4]. Funk
writes about the many exciting business opportunities created by the changing
climate, including: the melting arctic provides access to new oil and mineral
reserves, new markets for artificial snow makers now some ski fields lack
natural snow, private firefighters employed by insurance companies to defend
certain high-value homes, climate-based speculation of farmland, mosquito
genetic engineering to suppress mosquito-transmitted diseases, ferrying
boatloads of economic/climate migrants from africa to the EU, floating
buildings, how to define a country's borders (and resulting claim to coastal
natural resources) when that country is completely underwater.

Joseph A Tainter -- _The Collapse of Complex Societies_ [5]. I have not read
Tainter's book. I believe it roughly focuses around an argument that more
complex societies require more upkeep to maintain them, and adding incremental
complexity offers diminishing returns.

Graham Turner -- _Is Global Collapse Imminent?_ [6]. A short research paper
comparing the various simulated trajectories of the "Limits to Growth"
modelling from the 1970s against data measured from the last 40 years of
reality.

David JC MacKay -- _Sustainable Energy: Without The Hot Air_ [7]. Almost
entirely ignores economics and climate change to focus on physics-based back-
of-the-envelope estimates to gauge how realistic it is to provide the UK's
energy needs solely using the various forms of renewable energy.

Seneca -- _Dialogues and Letters_

    
    
      6.1.4-7 [the terrors of earthquakes]
      ...
      > There is no disaster without some means of escape. Thunderbolts
      > have never burned up whole peoples. A season of plague has
      > emptied cities, not carried them off. But the disaster of an
      > earthquake stretches far and wide; it is unavoidable, voracious,
      > and deadly to everyone. For it not only devours homes, families
      > and individual cities: it submerges nations and regions. Sometimes
      > it covers them in ruins, sometimes buries them in a deep chasm,
      > not even leaving any evidence that what is no longer there at least
      > once was. Only the ground covers the noblest cities, without any
      > trace of their former appearance.
    

~

[1]
[http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Collapse.html](http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Collapse.html)

[2] [http://www.theweathermakers.org/](http://www.theweathermakers.org/)

[3] [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/collision-
course](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/collision-course)

[4] [http://www.mckenziefunk.com/book](http://www.mckenziefunk.com/book)

[5]
[http://monoskop.org/images/a/ab/Tainter_Joseph_The_Collapse_...](http://monoskop.org/images/a/ab/Tainter_Joseph_The_Collapse_of_Complex_Societies.pdf)

[6]
[http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/M...](http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-
ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf)

[7] [http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)

~~~
andyjohnson0
A good list. I'd add Stewart Brand's book _Whole Earth Discipline_ [1],
although some (not me) take issue with him on his support for nuclear power.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Discipline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Discipline)

