
Climate change – Energy abundance as a solution - biggyjump
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/after-climate-despair
======
eesmith
> Obviously, meeting the energy demand of a high-growth world would require
> new sources of carbon-free power in amounts beyond the IPCC’s most
> optimistic scenarios. But we are already stuck hoping for a global political
> breakthrough. Technological breakthroughs are less far-fetched a solution.
> And a mass embrace of abundant energy is more realistic than sudden globally
> coordinated altruistic self-abnegation. ...

> Rather, shifting our mindset from austerity to abundance will open up the
> political space necessary for imagining these answers and pursuing them

So, Law of Attraction from New Thought philosophy meets techno-optimism?

I mean, it isn't like people aren't already trying to figure out new sources
of carbon-free power, because abundance _makes profit_.

Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" gives several examples of successful
'altruistic self-abnegation'.

The CFC ban was globally coordinated. So were the limits on the use of
Antarctica.

~~~
alecmg
Abundance, same as overproduction, causes prices to fall and profit to shrink.

If energy is scarce, prices stay high. If energy is abundant, they invent
cryptocurrency mining and carbon capture to keep demand high.

Curious that you brought up CFC ban. I believe it has since been shown that
CFC production and then ban had no effect on ozone hole dynamics.

~~~
eesmith
Overproduction is when production exceeds demand. Abundance doesn't have to
exceed demand, so I don't understand your comment. Furthermore, it doesn't
matter if prices stay high or not. You want profits, not simply high prices.

There's also induced demand - the more something is available, the more it is
used.

But that's beside the point. There is a high demand, _right now_ , for new
sources of carbon-free power, and plenty of profit for a viable, eg, Mr.
Fusion.

The only sources I can find for your CFC comment are from right-wing radicals
who are philosophically opposed to government restrictions.

A recent scientific report is at
[https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2018/](https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2018/)
, "Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018".

> Actions taken under the Montreal Protocol have led to decreases in the
> atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) and
> the start of the recovery of stratospheric ozone. The atmospheric abundances
> of both total tropospheric chlorine and total tropospheric bromine from
> long-lived ODSs controlled under the Montreal Protocol have continued to
> decline since the 2014 Assessment. The weight of evidence suggests that the
> decline in ODSs made a substantial contribution to the following observed
> ozone trends:

