[cbHXBY1D]

Almost everyone on HN recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to (most) life on earth. There is less agreement on how to mitigate it's effects.

One solution which I favor is nationalization of US oil companies. While hardly discussed in the US, it's a solution that is currently being discussed in the UK and has been done by many different countries, though usually because of the legacy of imperialism and colonialism. Overtime I have come to the realization free market solutions and incentives are incapable of spurring the changes needed to transition to a cleaner form of energy, especially with the short time scale we have before results are disastrous.

[AnthonyMouse]

> One solution which I favor is nationalization of US oil companies.

Can you explain your reasoning behind this? It makes no sense to me.

This is fundamentally an economic issue. People will stop burning carbon when it's less expensive to do something else. If you nationalize the industry only to shut it down, that causes the cost of burning oil to increase (the intended effect), but then the higher prices spur foreign suppliers to increase production which blunts the effect. Meanwhile you suffer a massive domestic loss as you not only have to pay higher oil prices, you have to pay them to foreign suppliers like Russia and Saudi Arabia rather than domestic companies.

By contrast, a carbon tax reduces demand and makes production less profitable world-wide, so everyone reduces production (not just domestic producers), and the money from the higher prices goes to your own government which can either use it to subsidize alternatives or return it to citizens to mitigate the impact of the higher costs.

[amanaplanacanal]

Would that require a carbon tax to be applied world wide, or would you suggest that a country could apply the tax at the border for imported goods?

[radford-neal]

"Almost everyone on HN recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to (most) life on earth."

No. There are no even remotely plausible scenarios in which most life (say, all mammals, to pick something specific) go extinct due to climate change caused by human CO2 emissions. If you think that, you have been lied to - and have not been smart enough to recognize the lies.

[cbHXBY1D]

Did you read the recent IPBES Global Assessment? An article on it from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-exti...

"Unless nations step up their efforts to protect what natural habitats are left, they could witness the disappearance of 40 percent of amphibian species, one-third of marine mammals and one-third of reef-forming corals. More than 500,000 land species, the report said, do not have enough natural habitat left to ensure their long-term survival."

A summary can be found here: https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_uned...

[radford-neal]

Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. Except, that is, that if you're concerned about protecting habitats, you should be concerned about some of the boondoggles destroying them that are justified by "global warming" alarmism - such as replacing natural forests with monocultures of trees that are converted to pellets and shipped long distances to be burned in place of coal. See https://www.draxbiomass.com

Also, "one-third" is not "most".

[cbHXBY1D]

These percentages represent the percent of species currently threatened with extinction. The report makes it clear that the conditions which created our current ecological collapse are accelerating:

"Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. An average of around 25 per cent of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened(figure SPM.3), suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss. Without such action there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years."

The report doesn't factor in insect decline and how that will effect the rest of the foodchain (they are the words biggest pollinators). It does bring up the staggering loss of insect biomass:

"Population declines often give warning that a species’ risk of extinction is increasing. The Living Planet Index, which synthesises trends in vertebrate populations, has declined rapidly since 1970, falling by 40% for terrestrial species, 84% for freshwater species and 35% for marine species (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. Local declines of insect populations such as wild bees and butterflies have often been reported, and insect abundance has declined very rapidly in some places even without large-scale land-use change, but the global extent of such declines is not known (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. On land, wild species that are endemic (narrowly distributed) have typically seen larger-than-average changes to their habitats and shown faster-than-average declines (established but incomplete)."

Edit: also, in the future, let's refrain from the "not smart enough to understand" style arguments on HN.

[mirimir]

> Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions.

They're connected. I mean, everything is.

Even if we didn't emit so much CO2, we destroy habitat for other species through agriculture and forest harvesting. And if we hadn't destroyed so much habitat, there'd be lots more slack for CO2 emissions.

And as you say, destroying habitat through biomass energy production -- whether it's fast-growing trees for pellets, or palm oil for biodiesel -- just makes it worse.

[mirimir]

Very belated edit:

I was in a hurry, and didn't say how habitat loss increases extinction rates from global warming. The issue is habitat fragmentation. We degrade/destroy habitat for other species through agriculture, forest modification and harvesting, urbanization, road building, etc. But that not only decreases the amount of high-quality habitats. It also fragments habitats.

Without global warming, habitat fragmentation hurts other species in various ways. At some point, fragments become too small to support viable populations for many species. Especially larger animals, for example. But overall, it's not a huge issue, relative to the amount of habitat loss itself.

However, with global warming, habitat fragmentation becomes a huge issue. As the planet warms, species tend to shift toward the poles, more or less, to stay in habitats that they're adapted to. But when habitats are fragmented, that can't happen. And so you end up with isolated populations on mountains, for example. Given that "up" ~ "away from the equator". And with further warming, there's no more up, so they die off. One mitigation is creating habitat corridors. Through cities and farmland. Across roads, using bridges or tunnels. You can see habitat bridges in I-78 in eastern New Jersey.

Another factor is the speed of anthropogenic global climate change. It's too fast now for evolutionary adaptation.

[arcticbull]

Cutting off your thumb and half your forefinger is one-third of your hand, and I'm ok calling that 'most of' in context, especially if I hope to ever grasp things again :P

[madaxe_again]

Almost every one of your posts here is to refute climate change.

Someone could be forgiven for thinking you have an interest in fossil fuels.

Edit: I see from your CV that you have a history of working with the fossil fuel industry - specifically, Exxon in Calgary in the early 80’s. I think it’s safe to disregard anything you have to say on the topic.

[sctb]

> Please don't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the data.

Besides this, it's rude to address other community members this way. Just email us at [e-mail] if you have such concerns, we take them seriously and we have better options for addressing them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[radford-neal]

You appear to be unable to count. I've posted occasionally on climate change, but these are nowhere close to "almost every one" of my posts.

I have never worked for Exxon. I've no idea how you came up with that idea. I once worked briefly, 39 years ago, for a company that did production accounting for oil wells. I once worked, 30 years ago, for a SCADA company that may have had oil industry customers, though my recollection is that they had more to do with municipal water systems. The tendency of global warming alarmists to claim, on no evidence whatsoever, that any critic is funded by the fossil fuel industry is one of their most despicable characteristics (up their with trying to equate their critics with Holocaust deniers).

[boulos]

Fwiw, I was expecting your quote to include a number >50%. Not that this wouldn’t be catastrophic, but most does mean more than 50% :).

Edit: though now I’m curious by percentage of animals (presumably 40% of species may be, or even is likely, more than 40% of animals, because of power-law-style distributions).

[rexpop]

The initial disappearance of even this minority is significant enough to impact the rest. Ecosystems are fragile, symbiotic systems.

[astazangasta]

Eh? There absolutely are plausible scenarios. For example, the Permian-Triassic extinction event was probably the result of runaway warming, perhaps as a result of the "clathrate gun": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

This event resulted in 96% of marine species dying and 70% of land animals dying. I don't think anyone thinks such an event is certain or likely, but it is surely a "remote possibility".

[lisper]

Can we agree that it's an existential threat to technological civilization? And isn't that enough to conclude that urgent action is needed?

[akvadrako]

Of course we can’t agree it’s an existential threat. If you consider the people who study existential threats in general, climate change doesn’t even make the list.

I think we can agree there is a some risk of higher costs if climate change is ignored.

Most likely it’ll be beneficial though.

[travisoneill1]

The truth is that both sides ignore the science, just in opposite directions.

[mr_toad]

That would only work if climate change deniers weren’t in charge of governments.

If the latest Australian elections are anything to go by, popular (popularist) voter sentiment is swinging towards denial.

[mceoin]

That’s the wrong takeaway from the recent Australian election.

The only reliable takeaway is that jobs are more important than climate to majority of voters in Queensland.

[Consultant32452]

I don't know how much noise it made in the press, but the US just made some significant investments into nuclear.

[mc32]

So Venezuela nationalized their petroleum, I think Mexico did something similar. And Iran. I don’t see where those actions have kerbed the export or internal use of petroleum.

[Spooky23]

Goals there were different.

Nationalizing those industries and using tariffs to stabilize at a higher price would accelerate adoption of better technology. You could implode demand for natural gas and fuel oil by raising prices and capturing profits to capitalize heat pump adoption in the northeast, for example.

[Robotbeat]

...and you'd likely elect a populist in 4 years that would wrench open the spigots. Dramatically. Live. On cable news.

I'm fully in favor of "keep it in the ground." But nationalization isn't necessarily the right way. In fact: if someone sufficiently wealthy were able to buy up certain strategic assets, they'd be able to resist public pressure to reopen them. For instance, if you had bought Arch Coal at its nadir when it went bankrupt for about $1.4 billion, you would've had control over 16% of America's coal supply. From what I can tell, billions of tons of coal. You could shut it down for pennies on the dollar versus any carbon sequestration scheme.

Or buy up and close down export terminals (and revitalize the property around them if in urban areas, making back your money easily while crippling the profitability of coal mining in the US).

If it was nationalized, it could as likely go the way of Venezuela, which has (until recently) actually extremely subsidized petroleum consumption.

IMHO, government power should be used to tax these things what they're polluting (the stick), develop regulations while strongly subsidizing clean alternatives (the carrot). Nationalizing the oil industry and jacking up prices is just going to make people mad at you while enabling a successor to completely undo your work.

[Spooky23]

Agreed. I probably should have qualified that I wasn’t advocating the position.

Our current situation politically certainly encourages caution.