It feels very depressing with people ignoring the very real affect of climate change and warming - I want a good, solid winter!!
The woset part is, I can fix this no matter how much money or solar panal I personally throw at the problem. The real visible different I need to add Gigawatts of solar. Which is completely our of any ordinary person't capablity.
Just need to vent.
11 months ago 路 馃憤 arubes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9xCaalQeAbY 路 11 months ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9xCaalQeAbY
@gyaradong any chance you could post a link? 路 11 months ago
the latest Simon Clark video is about an hour long and outlines a possible climate future. Very interesting watch. 路 11 months ago
But 10x current solar capacity is also hard. Especially for urban areas. Housing is way too dense that even at 100% sunshine, there's not enough light to power every home.
I don't see pure renewable energy working without everyone have a 16kWh battery at home. 路 11 months ago
I'm not so optimistic about the generation process. Even if we mature the multi junction perovskite cells. The efficiency at most double current monocrystalline cells. We are still about an order of magnitude apart form replacing fossil fuel. We can't make 50% efficient system another 10x efficient (current is 16~22%).
We need as much nuclear as possible, now. 路 11 months ago
In the US, at least, there may be a pathway to the rapid decarbonization of electric utilities via union action. Particularly since current green energy spending is going into non-union private companies whose growth threatens labor power and also necessitates the expensive and slow reconfiguration of our energy grid.
Likewise, militant labor may be key to decarbonizing other sectors as well. The only time the capital class has acted contrary to profit motive has been when under significant pressure from workers. 路 11 months ago
@haze I'm glad that you are not pessimistic. Extreme pessimism can be dangerous, becuase it can lead to extremism, apathy, fear-mongering, and conspiracy theorizing. None of these are good things.
I firmly believe that there are good people in the world that are trying to fix these environmental problems. I *have* to believe this, otherwise I will be led to a very dark place that I never want to go. 路 11 months ago
@drh3xx Birth control I think doesn't play much of a role at all, only people's desire to want to control birth does. The reduction in infant mortality also plays a role, but also more people just don't want any babies whatsoever in developed countries.
However, there is a different phenomenon - which is that populations don't grow infinitely. They hit a peak and then stop there. This implication that we need to do something about population growth (which could lead to nefarious things like justifying killing people) because population will grow infinitely and crowd people out has been scientifically proven wrong, to my understanding. 路 11 months ago
@haze I'm sorry I think EVs are largely green washing to maintain the illusion that things are pretty much business as usual. You could still go to a show and see a running classic car from not long after the model T's thats thats been lovingly maintained. 20 years from now the current EVs will have been largely scrapped and due to the computerisation (which manufacturers will not maintain for long) those that haven't will not run even if you can replace the batteries. OpenSource efforts are likely to be legislated out of existance due to safety concerns around batteries (which regularly combust anyway) and self-drive which will eventually become the norm. 路 11 months ago
@clseibold are on about the requirement to have fewer children as healthcare reduces infant mortality and access to reliable birth control reduces incidents of pregnancy? My understanding is that any decline in birth rate as a result lags behind as it requires a mental change to accept the new societal norms. The declines in birth rate for developed and rapidly developing nations are largely down to other factors both societal and environmental. 路 11 months ago
@haze @drh3xx The way you get less people is by increasing medication and quality of life. This is a well known phenomenon where population size grows until you hit a peak and then it falls and starts to stabilize.
We are close to having certain scientific advancements within the next decade that will help with energy creation, and so I'm still hopeful. 路 11 months ago
@drh3xx I'm not so pessimistic. At least EV polution is solvible. At lesat it's possible to charge them with solar/wind. Unlike traditional cars where you must use petrol.
But I agree we need less people. And much less consumption. I hate to say this, but I persionally can't consume any less. Frusted that there's nothing I can do. 路 11 months ago
It is pretty shocking how much denial there is despite the evidence right outside peoples own window. Unfortunately I don't think there's much hope for us (or worse, everything else we'll destroy as a result). Electric cars etc are been pushed as a solution but it's BS. EVs are environmentally aweful, dangerous and by design overly computerised. Facts are we need fewer people and drastic changes to social and economic systems. 路 11 months ago