Or just limit military spending and invest the money into renewable energy sources and storage.
Although I have to agree that meat overconsumption has a huge environmental impact and making things that are engineered to last a long time instead of cheaply made stuff would definitely help.
Such miraculous scientific breakthroughs happen every year, the only problem is that there’s not enough funding and political will to implement them in a large scale. Things like efficient atmospheric carbon capture, rechargeable lithium ion cells that last nearly forever (with glass electrolyte if I remember well), synthesis of clean jet fuel using solar energy are already available and introducing them in large scale would create amazing amount of new jobs. The only thing that prevents it is lack of will of world elites. Crap like Spanish solar tax happens instead. Or like Australia not utilizing available solar resources. In my opinion concept that some kind of self-flagellation is required is harmful to the possibility of any meaningful changes happening.
I recommend this site for reading about scientific breakthroughs in renewable energy and storage: https://spectrum.ieee.org/
I hope you’re right. But I severely doubt it. The sort of energy consumption we’re seeing now is hard to generate in a renewable way. Batteries are not magic and the electricity still has to be made somewhere. Also the resources to make all cars in the world electric just plainly aren’t available. Not as in ’ it’s too expensive’, but as in ‘some minerals don’t exist in that kind of quantities in the earth’s crust’. And that’s just one example.
Of course (much) more funding for research is a good thing (a necessity, even), but to prevent climate catastrophe we have to act now, with the current level of techniques available and in practical use. I just don’t really see it happening.
Perhaps, but Thunberg is banging on the door of the wheelhouse, with a lot of young passengers behind her. They’re no longer letting the captain and line owner claim that it’s not their fault (or that there’s no problem at all) and that it’s all on the steerage passengers to fix things.
Don’t you know that the lot of them is collaborating on a sinister conspiracy to bring about the reign of the devil? As I understand this will be achieved through socialism, which was invented for that very purpose by the arch-satanist Karl Marx.
This explains also also why the temperature is rising: the gates of hell have started opening.
This is article from 2016, right now efficiency of solar cells is even better and unit cost lower. For some climates unsubsidized cost of solar energy is lower than cost of fossil fuel energy already.
Storage is more of a problem, but not insurmountable. Electric cars could also be a part of energy storage grid, especially if they use newer, long life cell designs.
If you use rare earth magnet motors, then it is true, but it doesn’t have to be that way. High RPM variable reluctance or asynchronous motors need mostly just iron and copper or aluminum and their performance isn’t all that bad. Even lithium in batteries can be replaced with sodium, which is available in nearly infinite amounts. There are already working prototypes of such batteries.
Everything needed is already available, excluding political will.
I agree completely, but not for technology related reasons. Immense amounts of resources are spent on feeding military-industrial complex, and maintaining huge prison system (look at the incarceration rates in US). Such expenses are typically not criticized by politicians for obvious reasons. When it comes to renewable energy, the answer is typically “we can’t afford that” (which is a lie), or “jobs in energy sector will be lost” (which is also a complete lie, it would create way more jobs).
The need for extreme restriction on lifestyle is also part of the propaganda, designed to make necessary reforms impossible.
Greta is a child. OK, cool. She’s got a right to speak. If you truly believe in her cause, then you got to walk/bike/scooter/drive/fly the talk. Do what’s she’s asking you to do.
But some of us have. I’ve never driven a car, haven’t eaten meat in forty years, made one round trip on an airplane, back in 1986, and tried to get a bike path in 1970. I’ve also recycled for forty years, and most of the stuff I have was bought used, including all those books. I’ve never bought much new, mostly clothes but I don’t buy much clothes and don’t follow fashion.
There’s always more that we can do, but for some of us it’s harder since we’ve already made change.
AFAIK lithium based batteries are still the most efficient density-wise. And even lithium batteries are too heavy/large for cars to completely replace combustion engines. Maybe something hydrogen-based can work as a storage medium, though hydrogen is notoriously hard to store without leaking away.
Again, I hope you’re right, but I’m more pessimistic about the possibilities of technical solutions (and about peoples willingness to execute behavioral solutions).
If technical solutions were possible now without people having to surrender parts of their creature-comforts (i.e. for a comparable price) the political will would be there, at least over here in europe.
Again, I hope you’re right on the technical front. We’ve seen a few successes before though nothing on the scale that’s needed now.
Individual choices on climate-related consumption matter, but it would be a tremendous mistake to frame the climate crisis (or solutions to said crisis) in terms of individual choices.
Take the ozone hole as an example. Starting in the 1970s we learned that human activity was steadily depleting the earth’s ozone layer, leading to increased levels of ultraviolet radiation that had grave implications for life around the planet. Within a few years of studying the issue it was discovered that the primary cause of the problem was a collection of manufactured chemicals including specific kinds of refrigerants, propellants and solvents.
Now society could have tried to address the problem by encouraging individual consumers to educate themselves about the chemicals used in the products they were buying and the environmental damage caused by those products, then sat back and hoped that the better angels of our nature would eventually lead us to make better choices.
Instead, the governments of the world took decisive, coordinated action to get those chemicals out of the products available to consumers and in doing so largely solved that particular environmental crisis. (The ozone hole today is smaller than at any point since it was first detected). That’s the kind of action that the climate demands of us today: big-ass policy changes enacted on a global scale.
Large part of presentation concerns commercial fleet, regulation of which doesn’t directly affect lifestyle of individual people. Much of the cargo could probably be moved by rail, with much higher efficiency and without the need for costly batteries.
The speculations are also based on premise that only currently available technology will be used. Progress in battery technology in incredibly fast, and with such high demand would get only faster. For example new lithium battery with glass electrolyte will probably be mass-manufactured around 2022:
You don’t have to completely replace internal combustion engines. For most use cases of privately owned cars current range offered by lithium ion batteries is fine (and even that is going to increase soon), and when it is not enough an internal combustion range extender can be used (for example a smaller version of microturbine generators made by https://www.capstoneturbine.com/), preferably with renewable fuel.
Hydrogen is indeed problematic, but clean fuel can be synthesized from atmospheric CO2. Recent developments have significantly lowered cost of CO2 capture: Making Fuels with Carbon Dioxide Pulled From Air Could be Affordable - IEEE Spectrum
If there was demand for it, price could probably be lowered even more when new technology is developed.
Or introduce legislation to make clean energy unprofitable again:
The “solar tax” and other punitive measures have been removed last year, but it shows how hostile some European governments can be to the idea of clean, renewable energy:
For near-instant breakthroughs much more funding would be needed, but it seems that for some countries (like US) it’s better to waste resources on endless wars and military equipment.
Edit: An example of what can be achieved with proper funding is development of rocket technology from WWII onwards.
I find it weird that on BB, a site where we often use hyperbole for humor, this kind of rhethoric is used. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it can come off kind of like when a topic about domestic abuse comes up and someone strolls in to remind us that “not all men” abuse.
Also this seems like a weird thing to criticize. I don’t have Greta’s birthday memorized, and frankly I find folks who do a bit… odd.
I hope very much she doesn’t inspire like those two, since they were both murdered.
IMHO this would have been a great time to remind folks that “American” is not a synonym for “citizen of the United States of America”.
Canadians, Mexicans, Columbians, Argentinians - everyone on this continent is “American”
Then… why ask her to post more? Asking someone to post something you think violates the site guidelines seems weird to me.
Depends on the demographics of the person receiving the disagreement
(Sorry for the daily mail link, I saw the same study described in a better source but couldn’t find it)
Okay, you’ve got a great little discussion about potential personal insults going on, my friend. In the meantime, to borrow a phrase, the planet is on fucking fire. Neither your nor my nor any individual human being’s ego is more important than that fact. Please, let’s stay on point.
