JCC People's Climate March

I agree that a) it's complex and b) people aren't necessarily required to understand the whole kit and kaboodle -- but if you're carrying a sign saying "I want the US to stop using all materials that generate 87% of my electricity" and they are not one of those anarchists who want society to end and go back to a non-modern lifestyle, then I'd expect you to have an alternative solution... is that unreasonable?

 

Maybe, but most alternative solutions aren't possible yet. Or at least, they require much more investment.
Sometimes people say something & mean differently though. The anticapitalist marchers are not asking for the West to go Communist or to go & live with no internet or Starbucks (things they themselves use when protesting that allows them to be ridiculed), they are against corporatism & cronyism and business monopolies & income inequality. That is what they want changed, they just aren't all very good at getting it across

 

Maybe governments can't do that much to effectively tackle climate change?

 

mmmmm, see that's where I disagree -- in that there are some clear policy and taxation things that can be tried and legislated for. I'm just not sure how much it would accomplish in a vacuum of individual countries.

 

I'd agree with Ender. Although I'd say "Maybe governments can't do that much to effectively tackle climate change without disproportionately impacting the poor."

At the end of the day, Jabbadabbado is right. Assuming you accept everything about the climate models as fact, then the only practical way to impact climate change is to significantly reduce our overall energy consumption.

Theoretically, we could replace our energy consumption with a carbon-neutral source, but that's not practical from an engineering and economic standpoint. Given that non-nuclear alternative energy sources have a massive gap in energy density to close in order to become economically competitive with fossil fuels, no matter how much we invest in wind and solar (each of which come with their own negative enviornmental impacts), we won't be able to keep up with the energy demand while these sources are developed. Of course, if we could get over our collective fear of nuclear power and made a massive infrastructure investment in replacing most of our grid with nuclear sources, and made all road vehicles electric, we could make a dent in carbon emissions. That won't solve the problem of the international transportation of goods, which relies on ships and planes, but it would make a dent. I can't see us ever being ok with nuclear powered commercial container ships or planes (I certainly wouldn't be). The point is that replacement options will only have an effect on the margins.

So the practical reality is that we need to reduce energy demand.

You can do that through policy options like carbon taxing, which serve to make it a poor economic choice to use fossil fuels. Of course, coming up with a taxing system that wouldn't disproportionately impact the poor is a trick I'd love to see. When 3 billion+ people live on less than $2.50 PPP/day, even a marginal increase in the cost of energy, or reduction in access to energy has a domino effect on their access to food, clothing, shelter, and health care. The upshot of this approach is that eventually, we will likely develop a solution that is economically competitive with fossil fuels, like these alydro electric vehicles. The downside is that we'll have to accept that people will suffer and many will die while we're making that transition and said transition isn't guaranteed.

Alternatively, you can take a much more drastic approach and just wipe out a significant portion of the population to drastically cut energy demand. You can expect that any such approach would definitely target the poor.

So it's either kill a lot of (poor) people slowly or kill a lot of (poor) people quickly. Those seem to be the options to me.

 

Well, you know what they say:

 

dp4m you seem to be under the impression that I don't think some of the protesters are dumb. I stated several times now what my point was: that requiring all protesters to be fully knowledgeable about the solutions to climate change and then laughing at them when they're not is a distraction from the actual meat of the topic. But I guess it's easier for you guys to circlejerk about how enlightened you are by your own intelligence.

 

It's not circlejerking to not want people to not support dangerously unsupported positions against scientific knowledge. As I said, it'd be like an anti-autism rally fully funded by anti-vaxxers.

 

It most certainly is circlejerking when the insistence is upon you lot of euphorics feeling superior to protesters rather than actually dealing with the topic of climate change. I understand why Ender would; after all his entire reason for posting is to try and feel superior to everyone else. I don't get why you're participating in it.

 

I'm just curious -- but what would you view as actually dealing with the topic of climate change on my end?

 

Several things
1) discussing the science behind climate change
2) constructing arguments to counter those of deniers (and we have a bunch of those in the JCC)
3) discussing the politics and economics of solutions
4) discussing the science and engineering of solutions

Things that don't constitute:
1) pictures of trash left behind in protests
2) pictures of the dumbest signs we can find
3) aiding ender in his silly attempts at feeling superior to everyone around him

 

Well, no. The U.S. could halve its energy consumption and still provide a standard of living higher than that of most places in the world. As I wrote earlier, we have actually reduced vehicle miles driven since the Great Recession. And our cars have become slightly more fuel efficient. The net effect of this energy conservation, however, has been to free up global oil export markets so that China can consume more. Their energy growth more than makes up for our energy conservation. Not that we shouldn't pursue more energy conservation. But nothing happens in a vacuum. The U.S. is such a large oil consumer that even small changes in our driving habits (combined with the U.S. boom in tight oil production) tend to tamp down global oil prices somewhat, which nevertheless remain at a sustained high level, because of Asian demand and because global oil production outside the U.S. is stagnating.

Another way to look at it is that the U.S. is slowly being priced out of the market for the world's exported oil as the Chinese economy booms. These are the free market forces that Ender is talking about.

But even in the U.S., we also have to contend with a growing population. We have a net gain (births - deaths + immigration) of one person added to our population every 12 seconds or so. So every 12 seconds, we create a brand new energy consumer with a carbon footprint equivalent to several hundred people living in absolute developing world poverty.

 

Lord Vivec - Ah, okay -- because I've done some reading (granted, some years ago now) on it, keep my house as green as possible, don't own a car, subsidized a former partner in her quest for a Masters in Sustainable Business MBA and have made it known to my bosses that, ultimately, I'd like to work in our Global Sustainability department.

So, in terms of specific things.

1) I don't know enough, but I believe the scientists who do.

2) We have proven this doesn't work, either because of Dunning-Kruger or because of all of the studies about Anti-Vaccers and their beliefs. So, it's somewhat pointless to think about, other than to elect people who do believe in it and get laws passed.

3) So here are some areas we can immediately* progress (besides subsidizing solely non-urban, very lossy technologies such as solar).

• Immediately begin reinvestment in nuclear power; new reactors (especially the French reactors that were new several years ago) are safe. Even if they are not super-close to major urban areas, they should be close enough to replace some of the fossil-fuel burning capacity of those same urban areas.
• Similarly, subsidize and begin investment in other forms of non-fossil energy (wind, solar farms, hydro, etc.) in other areas where this is technically feasible -- for example, wind, solar and hydro suck donkey balls in major urban cities but singular/multiple wind turbines can power, say, a ski resort and solar farms and/or wind can power significant installations in dry / desert areas.
• While on the topic of cities, green roofs and grey-water systems for toilet plumbing would go a long way for water conservation and damage.
• Ease the consumer driving gas subsidy (not eliminate) so gas prices rise some, while also providing a "Gas Tax" (really, probably, more akin to a "Fossil Fuel Tax") on all incomes over $X, with X to be determined later so everyone pays a little more and the top-Y% pays more than the lower- and middle-class incomes.
• Require each Congressional office, Executive office and Legislative office for all Federal and State governments to offset their own carbon emissions, as well as all campaign travel for all candidates (even if this comes from public, matching money).
• Government contracts should not be done on a strict "low bidder: but a "triple-bottom line" basis -- to be fair, not sure how entirely feasible this one is.

I also admit, I'm not a huge details policy wonk - I presume that there are other things that can be thought of that people way smarter than I can come up with.
4) As with all else, I'd personally just want to see more systems like a waste-to-energy system I read about a few years ago (which I honestly can't recall at this point) which was essentially like Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future. The problem with such a system, as you might imagine, is that it was hugely lossy -- think like 30% of the energy it took in fossil fuels to run. Getting something like that up to 100% would be what I'd like; obviously greater than 100% is ideal but probably violates laws of thermodynamics or something and, well..

As for anything else, I'd leave it to the scientists to come up with something. But that's also the thing; that same partner I helped subsidize -- she was hugely pessimistic on the human race's chances because of things like this and I'm one of those people who believe our scientists, as always, are up to the challenge. That, if it gets dire, people will work together to find a common solution rather than subjecting ourselves to coming Resource Wars (though, to be fair, Iceland will be the first to fall and I love going there so we have that, at least...).

EDIT: * = immediately other than current-Republican lawmakers will block it on principle.

EDIT2 -- I forgot; I would also probably support an energy tax in some form on dwellings of a certain size; possibly on an indexed basis (i.e. 1000 square feet is very different in NYC vs. Texas). Whether that gets taxed on ALL dwellings of >X square feet or >Y square feet + >Z energy consumption (aka "The Al Gore Tax") I am willing to be flexible.

 

we definitely need to stop promoting terrible ideas like the electric car. Talk about energy loss. You're wasting energy at every step of the process from converting fossil fuels to electricity to transmitting it through power lines through storing it in a battery. If we could convert our power grid entirely to nuclear and renewable, then maybe we can bring it back, but until then, you're basically driving a coal-powered steam car, but probably less energy efficient than that.

There are other low hanging fruit solutions - like stop building communities on the drive-only suburban model. We need walkable communities that are hooked into public transportation and have an efficient mix of retail and residential and commercial. Require all new housing to have a zero carbon footprint through mandatory adoption of solar panel roof tiles, geothermal heating solutions, solar water heating, etc.

 

While I agree private vehicles are absolutely the wrong approach because of the manufacturing and infrastructure required, electric cars are more efficient than gasoline cars. Even if the electricity is provided entirely by coal the mpg equivalent is something like 35. In many states it's much higher.

 

1 is only useful if you think there's something to discuss. You don't, as evidenced by 2.
2 is stupid because a) you won't convince anyone to change their opinion no matter how expertly you make your argument, b) this is a message board and our opinion on climate change is meaningless.

3 & 4 are precisely what some of us "circlejerk euphorics" were doing before you felt the overwhelming urge to be indignant.

I think you way overestimate how much we could cut (half is ridiculous), but your point certainly stands. That said it's not practical for a whole host of reasons (not the least of which is deciding how to make such cuts in a fair way). In fact, as you go on to point out, even if we did significantly reduce our energy consumption, other economies are will pick up the proverbial slack. So...no net change to carbon emissions. In fact, quite to the opposite. I'm not sure where we disagree.

I wholeheartedly support bullets 1, 2, and 5. A 100% replacement of all fossil fuel plants with nuclear power should be the goal of anyone who really wants to combat climate change. And we should do so with a clear plan for safely storing the nuclear waste (e.g. Yucca mountain). Intelligent approaches to alternative power for urban areas, in particular, make a heap of sense. Personally, I'm still trying to figure out how I can support solar roadways. And I definitely think we waste an unreasonable amoung of resources trying to convince people to give power to a very small number of people to make decisions that benefit an only marginally larger number of people, so I'm all about taxing that.

I also support the 3rd bullet as well, but it doesn't really have much to do with stopping climate change.

I can support bullet 4 reservedly if we can all agree that it will raise the cost of energy, which will have a disproportionately high impact on the global poor, as I mentioned earlier.

As for bullet 5*, I can only say that this is a disastrous idea. The acquisition process is already a convoluted mess with tons of waste that's incredibly difficult to enforce. And this is with easily defined metrics like Key Performance Paramenters (KPPs), Key System Attributes (KSAs), and cost. Adding vague and fuzzy ideas like "social impact" and "environmental impact" will result in thousands of pages of new red tape with very little real benefit.

*Not to derail the thread too much, but we don't have a strict "low bidder" process for awarding government contracts. There are actually a bunch of factors involved and cost is just one of them. We do kind of meet your idea, though, due to an Executive Order that requires that environmental impact be included in the KPPs/KSAs of any major acquisition.

 

I've always been a proponent of nuclear power, which is the current best large scale alternative to 'dirty' sources of energy.

As for the topic of private transportation, I've been in favor of hydrogen fuel cell cars. Yes, I know the infrastructure isn't there right now for mass use, but it is doable.

Souderwan are you kidding? Did you miss the first two pages or the start of this thread where the only discussion was on the protesters? Go back and read. You even 'liked' those very posts you now pretend don't exist. Jesus man.

 

I support nuclear power pretty much by default but the number of plants we would require and the construction time/cost is really daunting. Not to mention we would fill something like Yucca Mountain in short order. Significant reductions in electricity usage must go hand-in-hand with it.

 

I'm not entirely sure there really is such a thing as a climate change denier. I believe that people in many if not most cases are simply adopting climate change denial as a metaphor for the idea that they are unwilling or that they believe we are unable to do anything substantive to mitigate climate change

 

Coal provides much, much more EROIE (expected return on invested energy) than petroleum / oil derivatives do, AFAIK. So, I believe Guy is correct on the math(s) of electric cars.

 

maybe, but I wonder whether studies have adequately taken in to account the energy loss in transferring power to and from battery storage. If 25-30% of power consumed is lost just in the charging process, is the energy return on energy invested still coming out ahead as opposed to something very efficient like many diesel cars?

 

I would actually think, on a pure CO2-emission standpoint, electric cars are worse but on an energy consumption basis it's better but I have absolutely, positively no data to back up that supposition.

 

Either way I agree with Darth Guy - there are a lot of people who own cars who don't really need to own cars or don't need to own as many cars. One of the biggest steps I've personally taken to reduce my family's carbon footprint is to get rid of our second car. As a family of four with only one car in the western suburbs of Chicago, I am an oddity, literally the only family with children I know that only owns one car. I take public transportation 5 days a week and do almost all grocery shopping by foot or bike.

 

You're right about the number of plants that would be required and how prohibitively costly it would be. I disagree about filling Yucca mountain anytime soon. I'd probably say maybe 20 yrs (capacity is about 77,000 tons and we produce about 2,000 tons per year now. So a 100% increase in total nuclear power plants would get fill Yucca mountain in 20 yrs). But your overall point is valid.

You're so focused on the fact that they're criticizing the protesters that you don't bother to pay attention to why they're criticizing them. In the midst of all the criticism was the discussion of the fact that solutions are complicated and the protesters don't even know what they want. And you're plenty smart enough to know that. Don't be obtuse.

Electric vehicles are worse on a CO2 emission basis and an energy consumption basis. Electric vehicles are much less efficient than gasoline at moving the same cargo the same distance. Where electric vehicles ultimately pay dividends is if the source of energy for the vehciles--whatever charges them--is carbon neutral, like nuclear power.

 

Worldwide, climate change mitigation deniers are a bigger problem than climate change deniers.

Climate change mitigation denial is the refusal to accept that real climate change mitigation will require a globally enforceable agreement to lower the economic intensity of all human activity on the planet, coupled with reducing human population growth to zero.

The world has already decided that it will simply try to find a way to adapt to whatever climate change brings.