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Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming according to new estimates

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399 points gmays | 7 comments | 17 Nov 24 18:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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oezi ◴[17 Nov 24 19:06 UTC] No.42166179[source]▶
Looking into the numbers a couple if months ago I was surprised how little it costs to stop climate change.

On the order of 100-200 trillion USD. Which is roughly 100-200% of global yearly GDP. Or 2-5% of yearly GDP until 2050. This could well be provided by printing money at all the federal reserve banks.

This investment will likely bring in a positive return on investment because it reduces the negative climate impacts.

Without such investments the downstream costs in climate change adaptation will be very expensive

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epolanski ◴[17 Nov 24 19:17 UTC] No.42166295[source]▶
If you're referring to he economist one, I've read it too, and I think it would be much cheaper.

But anyway, I don't believe half the numbers out there.

To cut emissions, we need to kill materialism, consumption economy and most importantly tell people that they should choose between what's good for them (eating a burger to make them happy) or the planet (not bringing the equivalent pollution of driving an SUV 50 miles+ by eating something much less polluting than beef).

Governments will keep chasing the kind of changes that can only make more money, not less.

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1. RandomThoughts3 ◴[17 Nov 24 19:23 UTC] No.42166344[source]▶
> To cut emissions, we need to kill materialism, consumption economy

That’s a moral statement not a factual one. To cut emissions, we need to do exactly that. Pricing in externalities (yes it means less beef but that’s not the same thing as an end to the world as we know it) and investing in cleaner means of production is enough. Most of the people pushing for large societal changes are doing it because it was their goal from the start and they are using climate change as a mean to an end.

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2. spencerchubb ◴[17 Nov 24 19:43 UTC] No.42166506[source]▶
Pricing in externalities is probably the only way we can solve carbon emissions, and would still be very difficult. We would need global participation, otherwise carbon emissions can just be outsourced to other countries. Also, we need to decide the price of emitting carbon. Perhaps survey economists from every country and aggregate the answers somehow.
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3. pbhjpbhj ◴[17 Nov 24 19:43 UTC] No.42166514[source]▶
Lucky the Earth is infinite and so perpetual growth will work. /s
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4. RandomThoughts3 ◴[17 Nov 24 19:56 UTC] No.42166627[source]▶
Growth doesn’t have to depend on finite resources. Growth is simply more value being exchanged. You can have sustainable growth.

Plus the human population will soon be drastically contracting anyway.

Abandoning the only system since the birth of humanity to bring prosperity to billions in favour of one which has repeatedly be an utter failure, systematically lead to totalitarianism and is responsible for millions of death might not be the wisest choice especially when it’s pushed by people who think they should be amongst the rulers due to their moral superiority.

5. eecc ◴[17 Nov 24 23:11 UTC] No.42168183[source]▶
We can grow indefinitely if we entertain ourselves with more advanced and efficient technologies.

I run my apartment on LEDs I haven’t changed in 4 years and I max out at 100W. When I was a child, that was the power of one fairly bright living room reading light

6. RandomThoughts3 ◴[17 Nov 24 23:41 UTC] No.42168359[source]▶
> We would need global participation, otherwise carbon emissions can just be outsourced to other countries

You can simply add a tax at entry to match your own carbon tax until evening rules are added into trade deals. The fact that such a tax is not in place in neither the USA nor the EU is proof enough to me that neither is serious about stopping global warming.

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7. spencerchubb ◴[18 Nov 24 00:12 UTC] No.42168527{3}[source]▶
How would you determine how much carbon was used throughout the entire supply chain of an imported product? If the product is produced domestically, the government can enforce every business to measure its carbon emissions, but cannot do the same for imported products