There's a lot of nonsense in these comments that doesn't hold up to the most basic scrutiny.
>Humanity is going to go extinct
There's no evidence for that. A temperature rise of 2 degrees celsius is by no means a threat to the human race. It is a problem, but not an extinction event.
>We should invest in nuclear
Nuclear is extremely expensive and prone to going wrong. It's not a valid argument to state that "nuclear has improved and now it's safe" because nothing is 100% safe and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster is a perfect demonstration of how even recent iterations of the technology with multiple redundancies can go wrong.
>Wind/solar doesn't work because it's intermittent
There's no reason we can't have a distributed network of wind and solar farms around the world that can fulfill demand at all times.
>We should tax carbon
Taxing carbon could reduce output, sure, but the fact is that humanity is dependent on fossil fuels right now. How can you possibly suggest we start punishing consumers for their carbon footprint when there is no viable alternative? Besides, reducing output at this scale won't have any impact now, it's too late for that. We need to be reversing output.
>We need to stop eating meat on Mondays
Sorry but these schemes have no purpose other than to make one feel good about themselves. Most people are not interested in giving up meat at all, let alone for one day a week, so the demand for meat isn't budging. Meat alternatives are promising but won't take hold unless the consumer has an incentive to switch.
>We need to capture carbon from the atmosphere
This kind of technology has been debunked by Thunderf00t and many others. To grab that carbon you need to spend at least as much energy as you got from the combustion. So, effectively we need AT LEAST as much energy as we have used since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Trees are good at gathering carbon but they're not good as a long-term carbon sink.
>We need to use electric cars
...this solves nothing. The energy still needs to come from somewhere, the carbon is still in the atmosphere, and moreover we need to build everybody a new car which is a carbon-heavy and environmentally unfriendly process in itself.
Yeah, this is about as fact-based as "there is no global warming"
> ...this solves nothing. The energy still needs to come from somewhere
It can come from renewables, unlike with combustion engine
> There's no reason we can't have a distributed network of wind and solar farms around the world that can fulfill demand at all times.
cost, energy losses, political issues (nothing making it impossible but I would not describe it as "no reason")
And power loses from Africa to say Poland would be quite unfun.
> because nothing is 100% safe
Duh.
> Nuclear is extremely expensive
Waive nearly all regulation and it would be cheaper.
(yes, we would get some meltdowns - but if people actually believed "extinction threat to humanity", "red alert" etc then it would be preferable. And likely still less radioactive than carbon power.)
People aren't worried about the climate or the environment changing enough to directly cause humans to go extinct. More like climate change (plus our huge population) leading to increased resource contention, leading to increased conflict, leading to a superweapons conflict, ergo it's an existential threat.
> Nuclear is extremely expensive and prone to going wrong.
This has been debunked in this thread and countless others. It's a solvable problem, but we in the US lack the will.
> To grab that carbon you need to spend at least as much energy as you got from the combustion.
Eh. See solutions involving olivine. It's best to not release it in the first place. Which is why...
>>We need to use electric cars
>...this solves nothing.
... is bupkis. The fewer ICEs releasing carbon, the better. EVs can be powered by renewables. ICEs cannot (economically) be powered by renewables. EtOH is trash, biobutanol and Fischer-Tropsch gasoline are too expensive and likely will stay so.
Addendum on nuclear since it keeps coming up. Five tips from HN's favorite lightning rod mogul would dramatically improve the nuclear industry:
1. Make your requirements less dumb. How much design and regulatory cruft and holdover do we have from the beginning of the atomic age? Not suggesting "move fast and break things" but I am suggesting iterate at the small scale and never stop trying to improve safety, cost, and speed, in that order.
2. Try to delete processes and steps. Smaller, more modular reactors. Use fewer parts, and more off the shelf for what you need.
3. Simplify.
4. Accelerate cycle time. This goes hand-in-hand with Simplify.
5. Try to automate it. This is least essential, and doesn't mean just robots, but more jigwork and assembly line, vs nonrecurring engineering, the better.
>Humanity is going to go extinct
There's no evidence for that. A temperature rise of 2 degrees celsius is by no means a threat to the human race. It is a problem, but not an extinction event.
>We should invest in nuclear
Nuclear is extremely expensive and prone to going wrong. It's not a valid argument to state that "nuclear has improved and now it's safe" because nothing is 100% safe and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster is a perfect demonstration of how even recent iterations of the technology with multiple redundancies can go wrong.
>Wind/solar doesn't work because it's intermittent
There's no reason we can't have a distributed network of wind and solar farms around the world that can fulfill demand at all times.
>We should tax carbon
Taxing carbon could reduce output, sure, but the fact is that humanity is dependent on fossil fuels right now. How can you possibly suggest we start punishing consumers for their carbon footprint when there is no viable alternative? Besides, reducing output at this scale won't have any impact now, it's too late for that. We need to be reversing output.
>We need to stop eating meat on Mondays
Sorry but these schemes have no purpose other than to make one feel good about themselves. Most people are not interested in giving up meat at all, let alone for one day a week, so the demand for meat isn't budging. Meat alternatives are promising but won't take hold unless the consumer has an incentive to switch.
>We need to capture carbon from the atmosphere
This kind of technology has been debunked by Thunderf00t and many others. To grab that carbon you need to spend at least as much energy as you got from the combustion. So, effectively we need AT LEAST as much energy as we have used since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Trees are good at gathering carbon but they're not good as a long-term carbon sink.
>We need to use electric cars
...this solves nothing. The energy still needs to come from somewhere, the carbon is still in the atmosphere, and moreover we need to build everybody a new car which is a carbon-heavy and environmentally unfriendly process in itself.