- Mannimarco@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish12 hours
And as soon as the fires are gone they’ll take it off the agenda again
- 1 day
Pfff, people in the states and around the world have been screaming about climate change for decades but now that the fucking world is burning ‘net zero’ is back on the menu?
Human shortsightedness is the greatest sin of all.
- 1 day
It feels like there is a false dichotomy here between reducing carbon emissions and adapting to climate change. We can do both. There is even a lot of overlap between the two goals
- GMac@feddit.orgEnglish24 hours
Problem is that it seems like every time i hear ‘adapt to climate change’ it is almost immediately followed by a reduction in effort to achieve net zero.
Adapting shouldnt be part of the conversation because it is not an option at this point. - Its a simple inevitability because so much damage has been done.
Net zero sooner vs later simply changes how many people over how much of the planet actually survive through adaptation.
- 23 hours
Problem is that it seems like every time i hear ‘adapt to climate change’ it is almost immediately followed by a reduction in effort to achieve net zero.
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization around most of these discussions.
For indoor “climate” control, switching to more efficient heat pumps that can be reversible air conditioning, or improving insulation, or architecture/design that allows for better passive cooling or airflow, often has the dual effect of making the building more comfortable and reducing the energy requirements of keeping the building comfortable.
For adapting to water use and changes in precipitation patterns, the “adapt to climate change” positions are about using less water (and less energy), and wasting fewer resources in general.
Even the debates around moving people or industries or agriculture tend to center around adapting to resource scarcity, and tend to describe methods for reducing resource use at the places where they are scarce: ecological conservation at places where it floods, reducing human presence where natural disasters are more likely to occur, etc.
- GMac@feddit.orgEnglish13 hours
It’s fine to have a different opinion but you havent actually contradicted anything. You just listed adaptations without any actual steps to reduce carbon emissions in power generation.
Efficiency may help with other resources but for power generation, efficiency alone is just a strategy to lose the planet more slowly, and given the increasing speed of change in recent years i’m not even sure it can achieve that to a meaningful extent. Hell, look at coca cola: they could, all alone, reduce plastic pollution massively overnight by removing 500ml bottles and selling only alu cans. They have the production facilities already but they dont do it.
Being more efficient about resources used is all well and good, but we still NEED to get carbon neutral on energy production. And that is something that requires political will; and politicians will not touch net zero (or upset rich lobbies) if they think the electorate will settle for an efficiency drive.
Already the nuance in this thread far exceeds anything the political class will engage on. Just in a few comments we have introduced separating power generation from use of other natural resources like water, and factoring human mobility, architecture, materials technologies, national housing stocks, and more.
There are just too many places for the energy companies and polluters to dissemble and hide. Net Zero is a simple, single target that can be measured and people can be held accountable.
- 9 hours
You just listed adaptations without any actual steps to reduce carbon emissions in power generation.
Then you’re not paying attention. If energy production contributes to carbon emissions (and it does), then reduction in energy consumption reduces carbon emissions. Moreover, reducing energy consumption allows the largest polluting sources to be phased out first, as there’s no longer as much of a need for those sources. Look at the daily power production by source in specific grids at different times of year. Plenty of US grids (and I’m sure other grids elsewhere) run fossil plants only at night during parts of the year where solar+wind+battery+nuclear+hydro are enough during the day. And those who work in green energy are doing everything they can to actually outcompete fossil sources on price and capacity. There’s not a government order to turn off the gas plants on sunny days, because it’s just economics that make fossil sources uncompetitive on price during those days.
The “net” in “net zero” means subtracting emissions from sequestration/capture/fixation (including large numbers for natural processes, like biological growth or rock weathering). If you reduce emissions, then that’s moving towards net zero. Maybe even overshooting to reverse some of past emissions.
And these are real efforts being made! Better passive cooling, greater deployment of heat pumps, better insulation, etc., are making new buildings much more energy efficient than old buildings, and adapting them to a reality of higher temperatures moving forward. Conserving and restoring coastal ecosystems is making coastal communities from the hazards of storms and flooding (made worse by climate change) while maintaining carbon sinks. All the examples I gave in my previous comment are actually being implemented in places, and should be expanded even more.
These are the conversations that are happening around adapting to climate change: mitigation of the effects in ways that also reduce carbon emissions.
- GMac@feddit.orgEnglish3 hours
First: rude. I am paying attention. You on the other hand, made that accusation then quoted text you clearly didnt read.
“…without any actual steps to reduce carbon emissions in power generation”
Now disregarding your wall of patronisation, my statement was accurate : you did not, until said wall, make any comment on reducing the carbon emissions in power generation.
Your references to the economics of power generation supply and price may be accurate in the us but not in all countries. In the uk for example it would need political change to alter the way in which electricity is priced (everything is pegged to the price of gas supply) so renewables at the network level dont get to outcompete on price as you suggest.
To try and avoid the argument you seem to want I’ll close with this:
Being more efficient in our use of natural reaources and energy is inherently beneficial and therefore good. But if it enables powers and politics to take efficiency as licence to continue supporting the fossil fuel industry, then it will come at the cost of global commitments to achieving net zero in energy production.
Zero emission production is worth more than efficiency of use. Especially while the us tech hegemony seem intent on destroying the global economy to build out ai services.
