[brutusborn]

Bad analogy. If your house is on fire, there is no opportunity cost to putting it out and there is no uncertainty. You have nothing to lose. If an asteroid was headed for earth you would be on the money, but climate change isn’t like that.

It is a relatively gradual change with a lot of uncertainty about the final magnitudes of warming and the actual risk involved. Bad policy to reduce emissions have opportunity costs. E.g. biofuels policy exacerbating starvation in the 3rd world. Read Bjorn Lomborg, he suggests the best policies as well as other problems we should prioritise above climate change. Then read Judith Curry to better understand the risks involved.

It’s not black and white and choosing solutions is hard but random countries turning off their fossil fuels is not an effective policy.

[yongjik]

The way I understand it, the "uncertainty" about global warming as of 2024 is the same kind of uncertainty as whether an alcoholic with liver cancer can live three or six more months if he continues ignoring his doctor's advice.

I'm open to discussions about different approaches and their relative merits, but we're beyond the point where "we don't know how bad it will get" is a valid argument for anything.

[brutusborn]

If you don’t know how bad it will get, how can you balance the negatives of remediation?

For example, if the world was ending next year it might make sense to turn off all fossil fuels and eradicate most of the human population. But if it is only a few degrees per century we can consider… better options.

[yongjik]

Holy strawman, who said anything about eradicating most of humans?

Let me rephrase: realistically speaking, the things humanity will manage to do in the next 10 years will be such a lukewarm attempt that the chance we will "accidentally" overshoot and create more misery is close to zero.

[brutusborn]

Again, If you don’t know how bad it will get, how can you balance the negatives of remediation?

We already created misery via starvation due to biomass subsidies, what makes you think our future policies will be harmless?

Of course my example was absurd, but it illustrates the trade offs involved.

[toomuchtodo]

Fossil fuels will need to be left in the ground [1] [2], it's as simple as that. The value of those reserves and assets on books, if not naturally declining to zero, must be forced to zero. If nations or corporations act self interested and don't leave them in the ground [3], what do you expect to be done as the world burns? Nothing? That's not an option.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/climate-majority-of-fossil-f... ("The vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have even a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.")

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8 ("Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial times1. However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5 °C (refs. 2,3,4,5,6,7). Here we use a global energy systems model8 to assess the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be left in the ground, regionally and globally, to allow for a 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. By 2050, we find that nearly 60 per cent of oil and fossil methane gas, and 90 per cent of coal must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5 °C carbon budget. This is a large increase in the unextractable estimates for a 2 °C carbon budget9, particularly for oil, for which an additional 25 per cent of reserves must remain unextracted. Furthermore, we estimate that oil and gas production must decline globally by 3 per cent each year until 2050. This implies that most regions must reach peak production now or during the next decade, rendering many operational and planned fossil fuel projects unviable. We probably present an underestimate of the production changes required, because a greater than 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C requires more carbon to stay in the ground and because of uncertainties around the timely deployment of negative emission technologies at scale.")

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38506585 ("HN: Cop28 president says 'no science' behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels")

[brutusborn]

It’s definitely not that simple. Ask yourself: why did the international committee use 2C as a limit? Why not 3C or 4C?

I suspect is is because it is based on politics and not science but I’m open to being corrected.

Also ask yourself: if fossil fuels are used to produce medicine and fertiliser with zero emissions, why would we want to stop producing them?

[toomuchtodo]

I don't mean to be rude, in the slightest, but your suspicions are based on nothing but your own opinion (unless you're a climate scientist) and I'm going to defer to subject matter experts. I'm not a scientist, but I listen to them [1] [2] [3]. Your submission history indicates a hint of climate denier [4] and your comment here [5] about carbon capture being in use at scale and successful is an outright falsehood (direct air capture is very expensive and in its infancy, and the cost of sequestering is not included in the cost of fuel consumed), so here we are. I am doing my best to argue in good faith.

> Also ask yourself: if fossil fuels are used to produce medicine and fertiliser with zero emissions, why would we want to stop producing them?

When you can prove this can be done, certainly, I'll agree with you. But there must be evidence, and it must be provided. Hope and misdirection is not a strategy.

[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-clima... ("Do scientists agree on climate change? Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world. A list of these organizations is provided here [next citation].")

[2] https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

[3] http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations... ("The following page lists the nearly 200 worldwide scientific organizations that hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action.")

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36307850

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39047555

[brutusborn]

I work with a few climate scientists so my opinions aren’t my own. I referenced 2 researchers above, what is wrong with their opinions?

[4] isn’t climate denial, it was an attempt to get some criticism of an interesting heterodox theory, and I found it! [5] CCS is being used at large scale on many projects. Maybe we have different definitions of “at scale” and “successful”

I don’t need to prove it can be done: we already produce these with emissions and we already have CCS to avoid these emissions, there is nothing technological stopping this except economics.

The consensus is that climate change is real and I agree wholeheartedly. What I disagree with is exaggerations of the negative outcomes and rejections of technological solutions based on politics rather than science. In this aspect you will find many conflicting opinions.

Also please answer my question about 2C. Asking this is what led me to realising how much of climate policy is based on convenient politics and not science.

[toomuchtodo]

> Also please answer my question about 2C. Asking this is what led me to realising how much of climate policy is based on convenient politics and not science.

https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/whats-difference-betwee... ("Explainer: What's the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming?")

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2865/a-degree-of-concern-why-g... ("A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter")

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/08/1-5-or-2-degrees-... ("1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius of additional global warming: Does it make a difference?")

You keep saying climate policy is based on politics, but you are not providing any evidence of that. Please provide evidence of your assertion this is political. You argue that "there is nothing technological stopping this except economics"; that means it isn't feasible unless proven the economics will improve. A proof of concept does not guarantee scale.

[brutusborn]

My evidence is the lack of a basis for 2C and lack of a cogent plan to limit warming to 2C. I tried to find the basis and instead just found lots of IPCC discussions with no scientific basis.

That’s why I asked: you can find articles saying that a degree of difference is very important, but not the basis for why 2C is used.

If you are arguing that fossil fuels must be shut down immediately, you must have an understanding of why 2C is used, and the difference in harm between 2C and whatever we end up with if we keep emitting. If you are not aware of this science in these cases then you are basing your beliefs on politics.