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447 points Brajeshwar | 9 comments | 03 Sep 23 14:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source | bottom
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alexchamberlain ◴[03 Sep 23 17:11 UTC] No.37372056[source]▶
I'm starting to wonder whether the conventional wisdom of reducing carbon emissions in favour of more electricalisation is really solving the actual problem. As is often pointed out on HN, electrical cars are substantially heavier than their fossil fueled alternatives, and generate other pollution along the way. Furthermore, we're digging our lithium brines from the environment, without really understanding what all this lithium will do once it's leached out into the environment or what impact the mines themselves will have.

With the recent advances of turning CO2 into other substances, such as propane, should we be focusing more on closing the carbon cycle and simply be producing fossil fuels from the waste products of yesteryear?

Naively, it feels like we understand C, O and H, better than we understand some of the rare metals we're now introducing in the name of climate change.

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picture ◴[03 Sep 23 17:30 UTC] No.37372234[source]▶
Well the real answer is to reduce consumption. It can and should be done without sacrificing comfort. This is a very uphill battle against systems that are interested in distracting you by turning your attention towards fads (recycling, electrification, carbon capture) when in reality we need degrowth and permaculture. (Please read this thread a bit more, including my replies, before you tell me what I think degrowth means. I'm only using it to mean "less [economic] growth")

In a bit more detail:

How about less cars? More effective public transit is good for people and the climate.

Let's do away with golf lawns and pools for every house... Perhaps architecture can be adapted to suit the specific location instead of stamping the same stock photo "American house with garage that can fit 4 cars." Look at passive cooling and stuff. [Again, I'm talking about redefining comfort. Is a personal pool and large car and trimmed lawn really, honestly, what makes you comfortable? Or is it more a product of culture and advertising? You're absolutely free to believe either way, and I don't want anyone to force you to do anything.]

And honestly, we need to consoom less. Devices should not have a lifecycle of one year. You and I don't really need all these gadgets and trinkets, either. Let's stop buying random things

If you think this is a distraction or that it won't work because we can't get everyone to agree: Degrowth and permaculture requires honestly no critical mass. You can choose to buy things that last longer, and use them a bit more. Learn to fix things, etc. These are all nothing but straight benefits to you (more money in your pocket, skills that can make you more valuable in the current system, more time available now that you aren't swiping short form videos all day).

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logifail ◴[03 Sep 23 18:09 UTC] No.37372687[source]▶
> How about less cars? More effective public transit is good for people and the climate

Well, I'm about to renew the annual rail passes (which cover our entire local region) for two of our children, but this approach only works because we happen to live 5 mins walk from a local station and their school is 10 mins walk from another station, on the same line.

Good luck persuading people who don't have the benefit of such "lucky geography" to do the same :/

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1. picture ◴[03 Sep 23 18:11 UTC] No.37372704[source]▶
I feel like I'm doing a good job of, if not persuading people, at least putting the idea in people's heads by talking about it. Being optimistic is our best bet :)
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2. jgilias ◴[03 Sep 23 18:21 UTC] No.37372827[source]▶
I feel like we have been optimistic for far too long. The Paris target is also based on being optimistic about the situation. It’s only when we’re going to swoosh past that target and become very, very realistic about the situation is when _maybe_ we’re going to actually do something as a civilization that might start making things right.
3. AnthonyMouse ◴[03 Sep 23 18:27 UTC] No.37372891[source]▶
The trouble with "more effective public transit" is that it's really not about having more transit, it's about having higher density housing construction so there are more areas that you can run a subway or a bus and have it full of passengers.

In cities this means you have to fight with property owners who want to keep housing costs high by limiting supply. And even if you win it will be years before the necessary amount of new housing is built to even start talking about new mass transit lines, whereas we need to do something now.

And in rural areas it's just not going to happen at all. The farmer is always going to have a truck. But it could be an electric truck.

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4. logifail ◴[03 Sep 23 19:23 UTC] No.37373467[source]▶
> it's about having higher density housing construction

Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?

FWIW, my wife and I have spoken at length over the last year about what it would take for us to move, leaving our house and garden and safe streets and clean parks, our open countryside being only a short walk in pretty much every direction, and that our 7 year-old is able to walk the half mile to her primary school on her own every morning...

...and as it stands, there is no job offer _at all_ that would persuade us to move to the city.

Especially after what we saw during the pandemic.

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5. AnthonyMouse ◴[03 Sep 23 19:43 UTC] No.37373681{3}[source]▶
> Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?

The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal. Most areas zoned for higher density housing already have it, so to make more it would have to go somewhere currently zoned for lower density, which the existing zoning prohibits.

As for whether people want it, why does the existing higher density housing tend to cost more rather than less per square foot? Because it's nearer to jobs and shops and mass transit, and many people like that.

Nobody is forcing you to live there. In fact, if the place you currently live was one of the ares rezoned, it would net you a tidy sum -- the value of the land goes up because now someone can build a condo tower on it, meanwhile you can go use a fraction of the money to buy another single family home for even less than the one you have now is worth because the new construction reduces housing scarcity.

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6. jandrewrogers ◴[03 Sep 23 20:08 UTC] No.37373968[source]▶
> The farmer is always going to have a truck. But it could be an electric truck.

Farm trucks are a pathological case for electrification. They often have fairly extreme range requirements under adverse weather conditions and heavy loads. They spend much of their time far from the electrical grid, never mind a proper charging station. In some regions they have to account for being too far from a normal gas station, which is one of the reason you can buy barrels of fuel to bring with you or an extended tank.

But it doesn't matter because there aren't that many of them. Certainly not something we need to optimize for.

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7. logifail ◴[03 Sep 23 20:11 UTC] No.37373998{4}[source]▶
> The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal

Just like towers (condos or any other kind) are round here.

Your local politicans are elected? So are ours.

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8. AnthonyMouse ◴[03 Sep 23 21:24 UTC] No.37374760{3}[source]▶
Farm trucks are a perfect case for electrification. You install solar panels at the farmhouse and the thing is sitting there with a full charge every time you go to use it without ever making you drive 100 miles away to buy fuel. Farmers often have a commercial driver's license or drive on private roads where one isn't necessary, so the thing can be big and heavy and have enough capacity to run whatever equipment you may need to run in the middle of a field.

But the point isn't about farmers in particular, it's anyone who lives in a rural or suburban area without enough density for mass transit. Plumbers and real estate agents in those areas are not going to find a bus there to take. And there are a lot of those.

9. AnthonyMouse ◴[03 Sep 23 21:56 UTC] No.37374979{5}[source]▶
Your claim was that nobody wants to live in them. But then why ban them, if no one would build them anyway because no one wants to live in them?

The current problem is that the people who want to live in them are priced out of the areas where they would have to go by the zoning rules they would want to change. Having a 20% lower cost per square foot doesn't make it more affordable to move there when the smallest available unit is required to have three times as many square feet. But since they can't afford to move there they can't vote to change the law there.

It's effectively a local law against poor people living there, which the poor people can't vote against because they don't live there. That seems bad.