Early Retirement Extreme Forums

This is better than nothing, this was my line of thinking for a while.

Since economics principles were added to the discussion in regards to risk management, the what, when, where, who, and how have to be answered. The following link is an emission pie chart by the EPA: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/source ... -emissions. How much would each section of the pie chart need to be reduced to satisfy those who want to avoid global warming? How would we convince the people being impacted by the drastic reduction to support those initiatives? What alternative power source would be acceptable that in and of itself doesn't have a carbon footprint in production, transportation, and installation? How would we convince the politicians to support these carbon cutting programs as their vocal constituents start voting their economic interests? And how would we prevent a national green energy program from becoming a boondoggle as everyone rushes to be first? Even smart people can have bad ideas and/or suck at implementation.

Meanwhile, business as usual becomes even worse: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/p ... ience.html

@Campitor - Emissions really need to come all the way down to 0.00, so the ultimate/eventual answer is the entire pie, unfortunately. The IPCC plan(*) ("2018 Doom report") would have them reduced to 45% of 2010 levels by 2030 (11 years from now) and reaching net 0.00 by 2050 (31 years from now) requiring inventing and concluding a massive installation of [likely bio-energy] carbon capture and storage technology by then. This would keep the long term global surface heating under +2C (after briefly going over for a few decades late this century). There's at least a 66% chance that doing so would avoid hitting one of the positive feedback tipping cycles that would send everything out of control (at which point we can no nothing but try to survive and try not to make the problem worse).

(*) It would really surprise me insofar the scientists proposing it actually thought it would have a snowball's chance in hell of passing anywhere.

Aside from the yet-to-be-invented BECSS, doing this is technically possible (meaning the technology already exists), but I can not for the life of me imagine how the human species would collectively demonstrate that level of foresight/concern for the future if it means paying for it upfront. Most likely, this will be a game of playing catch-up, always doing too little too late. The EU elections held this weekend showed some capacity for rejecting both the narrow-minded nationalist parties and the short-sighted traditional parties in favor of looking somewhat wider/father than---how to put it---the national interests of the current generations in power. Apparently, the past few years have been a bit of a wake-up call to younger generations that voting matters (voter participation was historically high)---there really might be something the The Fourth Turning. Unfortunately, people woke up about 40 years too late, that is, to say that the measure people have agreed to put in place now (insofar the politicians can figure out how to implement them) are adequate insofar they would have happened 40 years ago. What we should be doing now is what I guess people will eventually come around to attempt doing in 2060 ...

So what do I buy, Monsanto, Nestle, Gazprom and Norilskii Nikel?

Well, the majority of those Americans who do not believe that climate change is a problem are expected to die by 2035, so I think we may see some political changes around then.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:32 am

Well, the majority of those Americans who do not believe that climate change is a problem are expected to die by 2035,...

This could be read two ways

I did not mean to be quite that grim. Just that my experience with teaching Zoomers and dating Boomers confirms surveys which indicate that by the time the Zoomers are hitting 30 and approximately half the Boomers are dead (according to actuarial charts), the overwhelming belief structure will be different. Of course, believing that a problem exists and doing anything about it are still two different matters.

I think the best solution is to get a Canadian or New Zealand passport. Or Scandinavian or Russian. Or failing that Chilean or Argentinan.

And plant lots and lots of trees to atone for the harm we have done.

chenda wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 16, 2019 3:56 pm

You’re assuming the lines on the map remain as they are.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion ... -1.5382547

Mister Imperceptible wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 16, 2019 6:50 pm

Shameful but yes, long term the borders may change. It's a interesting coincidence that the worlds 3 biggest economies are situated just south of lots of sparsely populated land which is going to be highly coveted as things heat up. Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia.

My thinking though (combining temperature, politics and demographics) is that New Zealand and Canada are still in the top tier of best places to be, Scandinavia/Baltic/Russia second tier and British Isles/ deep south of South America third tier. Everywhere else is basically fucked to varying degrees. India especially.

I limite my préparation to maintaining enough body fat to fuel me to the lofotens.

I believe in climate change but not in an expert's ability to pinpoint what a fraction of a degree rise in temperature will have on what square km on an exact date from now.

chenda wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:06 pm

some animals were evil, like snakes and scorpions, and

It bites because it is in the amoral nature of the animal.
If it doesn't it's likely sick. One cannot expect it to not strike by being kind to it or attempt to stamp the nature out of the animal.

daylen wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 28, 2019 10:56 am

Is nonlinear dynamics a religion?

Little by little and then all of a sudden.

fiby41 wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 21, 2019 11:43 am

I believe in climate change but not in an expert's ability to pinpoint what a fraction of a degree rise in temperature will have on what square km on an exact date from now.

I don't think any climate experts are claiming to know that or anything like it. You seem to have invented a straw man for some reason.

As often, the scientiste working on something are much more carefull than thé journalists reporting about it.