[vegetablepotpie]

We’re going to lose economic growth because of climate change, “Staying under the 2C threshold could limit average regional income loss to 20 percent compared to 60 percent" [1]. Whether it will be significant amount, or a devastating amount is still to be determined. US GDP is $20T, and the difference between low warming and high warming is 40% loss! This means we could spend up to $8T a year to address climate change and it would still make economic sense.

The Inflation Reduction Act authorized $370B of spending over 10 years on climate and energy [2]. This is about 0.1% of annual GDP and about 0.4% of what we could be investing to address this. If we spent even a fraction more, we could rapidly convert housing and transportation to electric, make electrical grids renewable, and decarbonization manufacturing, we have the technology to do this. We can do this, the most important thing is to tell others we can, and particularly people with power and influence.

[1] https://phys.org/news/2024-04-climate-impacts-global-gdp.htm...

[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/27/manchin-schumer-sen...

[Voultapher]

As much as I'm in favor of moving towards renewables, we are still destroying our biosphere, and the resources needed for renewables are not renewable ...

> Energy transition aspirations are similar. The goal is powering modernity, not addressing the sixth mass extinction. Sure, it could mitigate the CO2 threat (to modernity), but why does the fox care when its decline ultimately traces primarily to things like deforestation, habitat fragmentation, agricultural runoff, pollution, pesticides, mining, manufacturing, or in short: modernity. Pursuit of a giant energy infrastructure replacement requires tremendous material extraction—directly driving many of these ills—only to then provide the energetic means to keep doing all these same things that abundant evidence warns is a prescription for termination of the community of life.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/

Humanity needs to let go of the fantasy of endless growth, which permeates through our cultures, economies and politics. Life on this earth is a co-op, you can't win by being the last species alive, or at least your wining will look very sad and be short lived. If you think endless growth is a viable strategy, go and ask your neighborhood slime mold in a petri dish what it thinks.

[nazgul17]

Before growth became a thing, it was a zero sum game. Nasty setup for harmonious living.

[gsf_emergency_2]

Yes! Nonrenewables+greenhouse gases. Are a zero-sum game with Earth.

Problem is, locally, a zero-sum game can look quite non-zero-sum (as opposed to globally). And perhaps vice versa too (in time scales, eg universally)

I'm all in on renewables+albedo driven globally pos-sum games :)

(Until heat death of solar system)

[bwestergard]

Do you mean that "Before [economic] growth became a thing, [life] was a zero sum game?". I'm genuinely unsure what you mean by that. By any measure, the history of life on earth has seen many ups and downs in biodiversity. So the flourishing of one species often coincided with the flourishing of many other related species. A well-known example would be various pollinating insects and birds and the flowers they pollinated in the early cretaceous.

[fch42]

If you mean "eat or get eaten", then there's a few early red flags that the pursuit of growth and decarbonisation concurrently may well lead us back to that idea. There's a strong correlation in politics worldwide of extreme xenophobia with climate change denial, and growth-focus with "others pollute more than us".

If you think "carbon budget" then it's compelling to grow yours at the expense of others.

[ETH_start]

We are not confined to Earth. Currently something like 99.9999999% of the energy radiated by the sun is emitted into empty space, where it is completely wasted. That can all be harvested.

To put that into perspective, our civilization could use 20 trillion times more energy than it does now if it harvested the sun's entire output.

[lostlogin]

> We are not confined to Earth.

A couple of humans can go to space in that they can go up for short stints. The rest of us are confined to earth for the foreseeable future. Even if we weren’t, I’d like the place kept nice.

[ETH_start]

The energy harvesting infrastructure can extend beyond Earth while we live here.

With advanced launch capabilities we can also build much more livable habitats beyond Earth than the ISS.

And yes, we should keep Earth nice, but we don't need to limit economic development to do that.

[henearkr]

There is a right order in which to do these things:

1) enable space harvesting of energy and minerals,

2) unleash growth.

Doing 2) first as we are is just planetary-scale suicide.

We should even first concentrate on 0) figure out how to preserve the biosphere liveability, and stick to these rules.

[ETH_start]

I respectfully disagree. There are vast opportunities, even on Earth, to expand energy generation without overloading the environment — such as utilizing arid lands for large-scale solar farms and expanding nuclear power, among other solutions.

That said, I believe a robust space economy is imminent, not some distant uncertainty. Starship has already had partially successful test launches, and if it follows the same trajectory as the reusable Falcon 9, we will soon have a fully reusable vehicle capable of delivering 150 tons to low-Earth orbit per launch.

If Musk follows through on his ambition to develop a fleet large enough to transport the materials needed for a self-sustaining Martian civilization, we could see an explosion in lift capacity within the next decade or two, radically transforming the scale of human expansion into space.

[1propionyl]

> livable habitats beyond Earth

Fetuses do not properly develop in the womb outside of Earth gravity.

Sorry. End of the road for that sci-fi pipe dream.

[ETH_start]

Artificial gravity can easily be created through centrifugal force.

[lodovic]

Don't discount the energy and materials required to build that Dyson sphere

[notfed]

> That can all be harvested.

Can it? How?

[aqueueaqueue]

We don't have tech to do that and I cannot see it happening this century

[ETH_start]

Starship will reduce the cost to send a kilogram of mass into orbit by ten to a hundredfold, meaning the cost will come down to something in the order of $100 or even down to $20 per kilogram, from its current cost of $1,500. This is not science fiction, this is totally feasible in the foreseeable future.

[aqueueaqueue]

We don't need to do this. Just put the panels on this planet. And fix the politicians brain worms / fear of other politicians with brain worms.

If we can't get a solar panel on our roofs I can't see the impetus to get them up past the moon.

[gf000]

And then what, you put up a cable to it able to withstand the whole atmosphere? Also, what about space debris hitting it, rotating the panels? Each one will be able to align properly or do they need a way to self-align? Do you think any of that will be able to compete with... A dumb panel here on Earth that itself continues to be cheaper each year, or more efficient production lines requiring less power to begin with?

[ben_w]

I can see it happening, compounding growth has a way of doing that.

But, given how we keep rushing into predictable disasters, I now expect to live to experience personally, first hand, a K2-level Kessler cascade from the inside.

When people figure out the missing parts of VN replicators, that all happens over a handful of decades.

[_bin_]

cool theory. McKinsey estimates a transition like that would cost $275 trillion and take until 2050. that's a lot of money. not only that, we all know the global south will, true to form, come calling with their hands out, demanding that we pay for their stuff too. which would essentially bankrupt America. we're already tens of trillions in the hole; we can't afford it.

just as importantly, since you're making a practical argument for why we should care, your own linked analysis suggests America will experience very little impact from global warming. impact levels run from a bit below +10 to a bit below -30 with zero as no impact; looks like our projected impact is around -10.

if you were assigning America some vaguely proportional cost, we could do so relative to emissions (giving us a $40T bill) or GDP ($72T). both of those numbers are significantly greater than the current national debt. they would bankrupt the nation, cripple the common man with inflation, and screw us out of any shot at reindustrializing.

as usual, unsaid is the massive downgrade in standard of living people expect us to somehow magically accept to build this bridge to nowhere.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-ins...

[ZeroGravitas]

You appear to be aggressively agreeing with the person you replied to with your source.

They said the US could spend 8 Trillion a year and it would still make financial sense.

Your Mackinsey report says the whole world should spend 9.2 Trillion a year to make the transition and that it makes financial sense to do so, both due to avoided costs of climate change and that many of the things needed to transition have a positive return in investmemt anyway.

Your own contribution on top of the report just seems muddled and confused given what you've cited.

Are you saying Mackinsey are wrong and it would be cheaper to do nothing? They're very clear even in the executive summary that is not the case:

> The rewards of the net-zero transition would far exceed the mere avoidance of the substantial, and possibly catastrophic, dislocations that would result from unabated climate change, or the considerable benefits they entail in natural capital conservation. Besides the immediate economic opportunities they create, they open up clear possibilities to solve global challenges in both physical and governance-related terms. These include the potential for a long-term decline in energy costs that would help solve many other resource issues and lead to a palpably more prosperous global economy.

[adamsch]

precisely, fossil fuels are ruining the economy

[User23]

You're only off by an order of magnitude. $370B is around 1.25% of $30T

[User23]

What do you mean "we?" China has not just indicated but incontrovertibly demonstrated that they do not care about carbon dioxide emission targets. They are massively ramping up their oxidative energy production. So as I see it there are two choices.

One: deindustrialize and let China control all industrial production while having massive carbon dioxide emissions or,

Two: reindustrialize and challenge China's industrial production advantage while having massive carbon dioxide emissions.

Low emissions aren't on the table. They're not a possibility. So at this point I'm deeply suspicious of anyone peddling that fantasy. They are, most likely, spreading Chinese misinformation, wittingly or unwittingly.

[ben_w]

China is rapidly ramping up everything, including renewables. Biggest CO2 source in China right now is coal, and PV is much cheaper than coal, so them getting cleaner isn't even a question of them playing nice or thinking long-term, it's fully compatible with their own immediate interests.

[boshomi]

Chinese wind project developers ordered 228.4GW of wind turbines in 2024 (2023 96.3 GW, +137%)

The average price was onshore with tower: 1894 Yuan/kW onshore without tower: 1513 Yuan/kW offshore with tower: 3307 Yuan/kW offshore without tower: 2698 Yuan/kW

source: https://wind.in-en.com/html/wind-2456186.shtml (chinese)

In 2024, 121GW of wind turbines were connected to the grid worldwide, 80GW of which in China, 41GW worldwide outside China. In 2023, China added 77 out of 112GW

[rtsil]

Reindustrialization isn't possible because you cannot reduce your costs to China levels, particularly if you clamp down on immigration as well. The best you can hope for is to diversify the supply by industrializing other, geographically and/or ideologically closer countries that can produce at reduced costs and are also more dependent on your economy or your military might. A suite of vassal countries, if you will.

[vimy]

The humanoid robots will make reindustrialization very cheap.

[ben_w]

Do humanoid robots in America have any economic benefit over the exact same robots in, say, Mexico? Or on a lights-out factory on the ocean floor in international waters? Or on the moon?

Even if they're physically in the US, are these robots driven by AI, or remote control? If the former, does this re-industrialisation create any jobs? If the latter, why hire Americans to control the robots rather than much cheaper Cubans or Vietnamese or Salvadorans?

[danaris]

Are the humanoid robots in the room with us now?

[8note]

on the other hand, the replicators will make both the humanoid robots and reindustrialization irrelevant

[bokoharambe]

Much sillier to think "reindustrialization" is possible. It is a problem of social metabolism, not a policy issue. Industrialization was a particular historical phenomenon that has now fully passed in the West.

China "won" before the game even began for the simple fact of them being a very late developer. Development is not even guaranteed as a consequence of industrialization anymore; see premature deindustrialization. No misinformation needed, just cold hard historical laws.

[ETH_start]

CO2 massively increases farm yields so I find your claims to be tenuous at best:

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_fertilization_effect

[defrost]

  While there is a "CO2 fertilization effect" where rising atmospheric carbon dioxide can initially boost plant growth, scientists are increasingly stating that this effect is reaching its limit, meaning plants can no longer absorb as much CO2 due to factors like nutrient limitations and other environmental constraints, effectively capping the potential for further carbon uptake from the atmosphere. 

It rose in the 30 years prior to your 2016 article, it's peaked and it is unlikely there will be any further benefical effects of "greening" (not the same as "nutritional") vegetation .. and this is outweighed by the downsides of increased insulation in the atmosphere trapping more of the daily solar influx energy at the land, sea, air interface.

[ETH_start]

It would be quite odd if the CO2 fertilization effect has already peaked, given that geological history shows periods with much higher CO2 concentrations, during which plant growth was significantly greater.

In the long run, humans cannot indefinitely alter atmospheric composition without risking conditions that could undermine life’s prosperity. At sufficiently high concentrations, CO2 also impairs human cognition, as our physiology is not adapted to the extreme levels that were once common in Earth’s distant past.

That said, we should remain open to the possibility that CO2 emissions have net positive effects in the short to medium term. If that is the case, CO2 mitigation strategies could be adjusted accordingly—focusing on economically efficient transitions rather than rushing to eliminate CO2 emissions at all costs. This would mean prioritizing the replacement of CO2-emitting energy sources where it is already cost-effective, while investing in R&D to lower transition costs in areas where immediate replacement would be prohibitively expensive.

[cogman10]

> It would be quite odd if the CO2 fertilization effect has already peaked, given that geological history shows periods with much higher CO2 concentrations, during which plant growth was significantly greater.

The species of plants were at a different evolutionary stage. Further, a lot of bio matter wasn't in the form of human consumables. Algae was by and large the main CO2 absorber of prehistoric periods.

It took millions of years of growth for plants to sequester the carbon we are currently emitting. That's millions of years of adaptation to the ever changing atmosphere composition.

[ETH_start]

ChatGPT:

The optimal CO₂ concentration for plant growth in greenhouse farms typically ranges between 800 and 1,200 ppm (parts per million). Some high-intensity commercial greenhouses may use levels up to 1,500 ppm, but beyond that, the benefits diminish, and excessive CO₂ can start to have negative effects.

The current atmospheric CO₂ level is approximately 420–425 ppm as of 2024, which is significantly lower than the optimal greenhouse levels for plant growth but much higher than pre-industrial levels (~280 ppm).

--

Worth noting that at 1,000 ppm, CO2 begins to impair human cognition, and if we really want to be safe, we really shouldn't allow it to even get close to that, e.g. 700 ppm is probably already cutting it too close.

[cogman10]

Here's what a university has to say on the matter [1]

The gist of it, CO2 supplementation can be beneficial to some plants (not all plants) IFF you also tweak all other inputs into growth. Not something that happens outside of a greenhouse.

> Plants may not show a positive response to supplemental CO2 because of other limiting factors such as nutrients, water and light. All factors need to be at optimum levels.

[1] https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/greenhouse-carbon-...

[nopelynopington]

> At sufficiently high concentrations, CO2 also impairs human cognition

Any time I watch the news I feel like this is already happening.

[jandrewrogers]

On the other hand, higher weather variance reduces average yields to an extent that dwarfs any benefit from higher CO2. Increased yield unpredictability is a much bigger problem for the agricultural supply chain because it increases average unit costs.

[ETH_start]

Massively increases vegetation cover while reducing farm yields? I find that highly implausible.

One critical impact of higher CO2 concentrations is that drier climates see more vegetation, so you see a lot of greening in previously arid, barren places. And that also has massively positive implications for farm yields.

[maigret]

LOL have you spoken with farmers lately about their crops? If not I encourage you to ask them about the last 5 - 10 years...

[ch0wn]

No, it is not and the idea that extreme weather would somehow result in more food is laughable on its face. Higher CO2 concentrations also reduce the nutrients in food.

https://skepticalscience.com/fact-brief-plant.html

[ETH_start]

It accelerates plant growth, reducing nutrient concentration per cubic centimeter of food, but increasing the total nutrient yield because the overall boost in biomass outweighs the dilution effect. This is why greenhouse farms pump CO2 into their environments. Your reaction though really demonstrates a close-mindedness about your belief that CO2 is harmful that is anti-science.

[BytesAndGears]

But an individual human eats a fixed amount of food. So that fact seems pointless, since people will get less nutrition overall- unless we should all only eat ultra-processed snacks and reserve fresh food for the wealthy?

[ETH_start]

On what basis do you claim that an individual eats a fixed amount of food?

If you're worried about how artificially elevated CO2 levels affect agricultural products, then you should start taking issue with commercial greenhouses, which regularly pump CO2 in to increase yields. This is a common practice, and only now is it being viewed as something bad or strange because it's not convenient for the climate change narrative that presents industrial emission of CO2 as the apex threat that requires government-enforced collective action to solve.