Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

"Even if we were, net zero by 2070 (the optimistic outcome here!?) would be pointless, civilisation would be over long before then anyway."

Why?

Even with every worst case szenario of continous droughts and floods and loss of some islands and coastal land etc.

We could grow everything we need in (automated) greenhouses.

Only if the transistion chaos leads to all out nuclear war, but that is not really a fixed thing.



Civlisation will survive, in one shape or the other, but some countries could be totally screwed, others badly damaged. Its possible to imagine that political system crumbles, liberal democracy is gone, and the label is somewhat justified.

We are talking about most of bangladesh underwater and about 1 billion refugees globally in a poor scenario. Todays migration problems will pale in comparison. Many if them will die violently.

Nothing we've done so far indicates to me that we can quickly organise global rollout of hundred million automated greenhouses to people that cannot posssibly pay for them. Or to build largest damns in human history.

Even when we can afford to pay for infrastructure, in UK its taking us 40 years to build 1 line of rail, connecting two biggest cities, and its going to cost roughly as mich as the moon programm did.


"Civlisation will survive, in one shape or the other"

Yes, that was my point.

That the current path is not shiny, I very much agree. But I just disagree to the "we are all doomed" mindset. That just reinforces the dark szenario.

We are not doomed, but yes, we have to start today acting in a serious way. And this is not really happening.


The same UK had its CO2 emissions per capita peak in 1973 and lowered that number by over 45% since then.

Sure, some of that happened through offshoring, but still - it's nothing to sneer at.


What you are referring to is production-based CO2 accounting, whereas we really should be taking consumption-based CO2 metric.

No doubt progress has been made, but it's a fraction of what it should be. Uk had a chance to invest in nuclear power and didn't, has poor quality housing / insulation resulting in a lot of unnecessary CO2 emissions and money wasted on heating, and has a stupid law that banned large (read: economical) wind turbines!


What about Hinkley Point C? Sure, financially the results so far are terrible, but so are other such projects in Europe.


It's good in the environmental seance, but what I meant was:

in the 80's Uk had a chance to invest in nuclear to become like France, almost entirely nuclear-powered. Instead the skills needed to build nuclear power-plants have been lost, and now even replacing existing few reactors is a great challenge.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: