The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322%2825%2900391-4

by Archelaos • 5 months ago

345 405 5 months ago

blueflow2• 5 months ago

Its not a "risk".

Water vapor (clouds) is a stonger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We already got measurably higher temperatures, so we also have higher water evaporation, and from the last 5 years it looks like it happens every year.

So the runaway is already happening, until something stops it near hothouse conditions or hopefully earlier than that.

karmakurtisaani• 5 months ago

And that's just one of the many positive feedback loops.

rkrisztian• 5 months ago

Thank you for saying this. If you want to know the answer to what causes climate problems, you need to go back to the era of dinosaurs, where CO2 levels were multiple times higher than today. Trees could thrive because they could breathe in a lot of CO2. Dinosaurs got so big because there were plenty of food. How could dinosaurs happily live with such high CO2 levels? The key is that there were plenty of forests. Peter Wohlleben's book "The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us if We Let Them" explains how forests naturally circulate water.

vaylian3• 5 months ago

The climate system in those prehistoric times was in a different stable state. The world that we live in has different ecosystems that are well-adapted to the current stable state and we will likely face a mass-extinction event once the ecological scales tip over.

The problem is also the speed in which the CO2 levels are rising. Such a massive change in such a short geological time is very unusual.

SoftTalker• 5 months ago

Water vapor (clouds) also reflects sunlight. So it's complicated. We know the planet has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures in the past, and it did not "run away"

viraptor• 5 months ago

It doesn't matter if the top of the curve flattens out, if we can't survive outside of the bottom part that looks exponential.

teamonkey• 5 months ago

It might not run away to infinity, but it may well run away in the sense that the rate of change could continue to increase even if humans stop contributing to it.

panarchy2• 5 months ago

We can't say for sure that the current feedback loops will be identical to those that did or did not exist in the past. Differences in the initial state could result in different outcomes.

For example was there as much methane trapped in the arctics during the last time CO2 was high?

Does the rate of the increase of CO2 and temperature have an effect? Because it's currently getting hotter far faster (absurdly so) than any other period we have records for.

fc417fc80210• 5 months ago

No citations to hand but Antarctica used to be temperate rainforest and many of the conditions of present day tropical rainforests and savanna could be found much farther from the equator.

The paleocene–eocene thermal maximum makes for interesting related reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_therm...

Windchaser2• 5 months ago

Water vapor (clouds) also reflects sunlight. So it's complicated. We know the planet has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures in the past, and it did not "run away"

Yes. But stars like ours burn brighter as they move through their lifetimes, and the Sun is a bit brighter now than it was back when we had higher CO2 levels. That's why a runaway GHG didn't happen back then, but is basically guaranteed to happen within a billion years.

eitau_1• 5 months ago

True runaway (i.e. oceans boiling / Venus) cannot happen on Earth unless you significantly increase incoming radiation stream (or alternatively halve the planet's albedo).

The runaway effect is scary b/c at certain temperature (~400K) atmosphere consisting predominantly of water vapor looses its ability to radiate out more heat up until 1600K.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1892 (see fig. 2b) (edit: the figure: https://imgur.com/a/ytoEXzd)

edit #2: I've measured some pixels and the starting runaway temp is closer to 315K / 42C, damn

mitthrowaway22• 5 months ago

Are you certain we can't become Venus? Venus itself has such a high albedo that it effectively receives less radiation than Earth does.

vaylian3• 5 months ago

This is one of the key sentences:

Policymakers and the public, however, remain largely unaware of the risks posed by such a practically irreversible transition

Most people still underestimate what it means for the earth system to change from the current stable state into another state, which might need many years to become stable again. And that new stable state might be a lot less favourable for us humans.

bayindirh7• 5 months ago

I think most people bet that they'd be dead until that transition happens, so the problem won't be theirs to address.

anon84873628• 5 months ago

It's a classic multi-agent coordination problem. Should I stop taking jet liners and eating meat, when everyone else is anyway?

(Edit: purely illustrative rhetorical question, but I appreciate the responses)

JoshTriplett4• 5 months ago

It's not that policymakers are unaware. It's that some of them are allergic to true things that they find inconvenient, and have made false premises a pillar of their platform. Calling that "unaware" is giving them too much credit and understanding.

eptcyka• 5 months ago

Most policy makers will not live to bear the fruit of their labor.

xgulfie• 5 months ago

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary (power, class) depends upon his not understanding it

fc417fc80210• 5 months ago

I think it's both. That large shifts on a global scale of everyday things that we take for granted as well as historical differences on a geological time scale are genuinely difficult for non-experts to wrap their heads around.

And also as you say that many politicians are disincentivized to try in the first place.

jandrewrogers3• 5 months ago

It's that some of them are allergic to true things that they find inconvenient, and have made false premises a pillar of their platform.

Sure, if by "some" you mean "virtually all".

jacquesm7• 5 months ago

They are most definitely aware. They are willfully ignoring this but they are not ignorant.

crystal_revenge• 5 months ago

might need many years to become stable again

People really fail to grasp the significance of this part.

One of our most common apocalyptic fantasies lays this out quite well: nuclear annihilation. The common narrative is about the post-apocalyptic world and rebuilding. But this presumes a new normal has been established.

With climate change we will continue to experience more extreme changes at a faster rate over time with no chance of a "new normal" in our lives.

It took hundreds of thousands of years for humans to develop agriculture. It's no coincidence that this development happened during one of the most stable periods of climate the planet has ever seen. People love to wax poetic on human adaptability, but we were effectively playing on "easy" mode.

While the other side of climate change might be a more hostile earth, the transition period will be worse because you can't adapt. In our lifetimes we may live to see a period of record heat waves in Europe, followed by a transition of Europe to that is dramatically colder (and who knows, maybe back again).

The other major problem is as stability decreases so does our ability to predict the future. It's hard to even know what we might be facing in the coming years, but high variance is usually not great for complex life.

fc417fc80210• 5 months ago

the transition period will be worse because you can't adapt.

As far as agriculture goes we can adapt but the cost would be exorbitant. Vertical farming is technically doable.

throwaway5752• 5 months ago

"need many years to become stable again"

People are selfish. "Life will be much harder, and the problem will never be fixable within the rest of your life or your childrens' lives"

aperrien• 5 months ago

Are there any attempts to start geo-engineering to fix this? I'm assuming there will be no attempt to stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere, can we at least do something to take it back out? Can we use solar or renewables to possibly do that at scale?

bamboozled3• 5 months ago

Needed to happen 30 years ago.

Now it’s drill baby drill time.

bayindirh7• 5 months ago

There are currently no power efficient and scalable ways to remove carbon dioxide from air or water.

Renewables are considered woke technology which mock old and masculine fossil fuel tech, which feel threatened by all these white spinny things, hence renewable energy projects are being actively discouraged or canceled altogether.

You know, we'd be all woke and weird if our cars don't have 8 cylinders and make wroom sounds. Same for our chimneys and power architecture. Woke electrons should be banned. We need masculine, fossil based electrons, which are more powerful per electron than wind/solar based fluffy/hippie ones.

exitb2• 5 months ago

The rich don’t care which side you’re on, as long as you’re fighting each other.

swiftcoder5• 5 months ago

Renewables are considered woke technology which mock old and masculine fossil fuel tech...

This is mostly a US problem at this point. The rest of the world is adopting renewables considerably faster than anyone expected (and despite the best efforts of the current administration, the adoption curve is accelerating even in the US).

That said, it's still apparent that even optimistic estimates of renewable energy adoption aren't fast enough to fix the climate crisis on their own.

swiftcoder5• 5 months ago

So far all of the carbon capture techniques (apart from growing forests and keeping them protected) have been pretty unsuccessful, and/or don't scale well.

That leaves us in the realm of solutions that may be very likely to disrupt our ecosystem themselves, like genetically-engineering algae/phytoplankton to improve ocean carbon sequestration

SV_BubbleTime4• 5 months ago

apart from growing forests and keeping them protected)

I’m in a loop. I must be.

How are people still basic at this? No. Forests are not “carbon capture” devices.

Plant a big forest and “protect” (which means thinning it, unless you are California) and in 100 years most trees have died, rotted, released their carbon.

There is so much wrong with the alarmism here, so much hand waving away of scale when it is inconvenient… that it’s like people are doing more damage than good when they jump up and down over this stuff.

It’s almost like if the jumping up and down and alarmism has a different purpose, a whole separate game removed from the issues at hand.

grumbelbart2• 5 months ago

Putting sulfur into the right layers of the atmosphere seems to be the currently best viable options. It's not overly expensive, either. It acts fast and is reversible.

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

alcover• 5 months ago

Thank you. This reading lowers my anxiety. I believe we'll rationally - and in a hurry - come down to this kind of solution. It makes solid sense.

triceratops4• 5 months ago

Dumb question: would this also lower solar panel yields?

upboundspiral• 5 months ago

I'm sure that are no adverse effects.

This reads like someone with the means to eat good food eating junk food and then putting themselves on weight loss drugs to counteract the effects. I'm sure temporarily it might work but I don't believe that the shocks that produce meaninful cooling effects are without consequence - in fact, I suspect they double the consequences by adding yet another factor to the destabilization.

I could be wrong, and it could a short term solution to stop the bleeding, but I have a deep suspicion of adding more things to the atmosphere given our history with the CO2 in question, tetrafluoroethane, etc.

Lookin at the wikipedia it does sound a lot like "chemtrails". They describe airplanes as being able to disseminate these aerosols and these days when I look up at the sky there is always a straight line of "cloud" forming behind airplanes.

mapmeld• 5 months ago

I don't think carbon capture / sequestration is going to do enough, but if we continue slipping into this trajectory I think there will be more support for changing reflectivity (spraying sea water, or putting particles in the stratosphere).

peterbecich• 5 months ago

Stratospheric aerosols: the dangers of this seem overblown. It is milder than a volcanic eruption. It seems like a reasonable thing governments should be attempting.

OGEnthusiast• 5 months ago

So maybe the people who aren’t having kids due to climate change were right after all?

axus• 5 months ago

The problem can now only be solved on the supply side. Cut the production of oil and gas below the planet's natural carbon sequestration.

fc417fc80210• 5 months ago

s/production/extraction/

Nothing wrong with synthetic.

grumbelbart2• 5 months ago

The low prices of solar and batteries are a glimmer of hope. For many regions it's now the cheapest source of electricity.

htx80nerd2• 5 months ago

Go ask Google about China and the 3rd world contribution to global pollution. The West is bending over backwards to 'fight climate change' and a huge chunk of the world is just doing whatever they want, completely negating all of the west efforts.

triceratops4• 5 months ago

Go ask Google about China

China's doing better than the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292. Please don't lie.

aleda145• 5 months ago

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right (https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f...)

I don't know what to do.

bamboozled3• 5 months ago

Die a horrible death while watching a group of hateful people scream that it’s all the immigrants fault and that they ate all the cats and dogs, I guess …

shrubby2• 5 months ago

... immigrants, LGBT, women, another religion, the ones with no religion, communist, liberal,...

But never the zillionaires, they've worked haaaard and deserve everything!

xyzal• 5 months ago

You work in software, right? Then you can donate some money to enviro orgs.

cosmic_cheese2• 5 months ago

Not an expert in any of that, but I think overall impact may be greater if people with sufficient means take a more hands-on approach that grants visibility of where money is going. I lean environmentalist be the truth is that there’s a good deal of well-marketed snake oil in the environmental space.

davidw5• 5 months ago

Work on local things to make your own city better. Plenty of stuff that's not too difficult, even if it won't fix everything:

* Multifamily housing is much more energy efficient. Is it legal to build throughout your city, or does zoning prevent it?

* Is there good bicycle infrastructure so people don't have to drive for everything?

* Does your city still have expensive parking mandates that lock in car dependency? Get rid of those. They also get in the way of places becoming more walkable.

* This one hurts, but: eat less beef.

* Advocate for good transit as another way for people to get around without driving a personal vehicle.

* What can be done in your city/region to electrify heating for homes and businesses?

* What can your region do to build more renewable energy capacity?

Those are all things where even a few voices can sometimes make a difference.

ericd• 5 months ago

Great list!

For those in the US, I'd add lobbying your congresspeople to support the revival of the Energy Permitting Reform Act. It's something that didn't make it across the line before the end of the last congress, but basically, making it easier to bring new generation capacity on the electrical grid disproportionately benefits renewables, because they make up the vast majority of wattage waiting in the queue. As we've seen by the explosion of deployment in less regulated grids (Texas, and most of the world), the economics now favor solar+storage and wind, we just have to let people build as much of it as they want to.

hackyhacky6• 5 months ago

Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook.

If you want to see real progress on the climate, a few thousand people changing their daily habits is not enough. Governments need to take action and hold industry to account. That looks to be an increasingly unlikely event, but that doesn't justify taking ineffective action instead as a placebo.

It reminds me of the '90s when we are all told that recycling was necessary for saving the environment. Decades later, we'll still spending time sorting our garbage, despite evidence that no one wants recyclable waste, it still ends up dumped somewhere, and it costs more money to handle. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyMs2xox_hE

kawera• 5 months ago

I would add:

* Plant more trees

rienbdj• 5 months ago

Significant emissions are from ground transportation. Advocate for walkable neighbourhoods, bike infrastructure and public transit.

timmg2• 5 months ago

I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right

Is it the "far right"? Or is it that technology and fertility have actually lowered the risks substantially?

Solar plus batteries, right now, seems to be the cheapest form of new energy. Given that, you would expect most of new energy to be "green". (And if you look at the stats, that seems to be coming true.)

Electrification of transportation is happening quickly. China is cranking out cheap electric cars that are generally better than ICE cars of yesterday. And the world seems to be transitioning.

And fertility rates are dropping everywhere. So the amount of people we will need to support in the future continues to decline.

I've mostly stopped worrying about climate change. Not because I don't think it is real. But because I think we are clearly on the path to mitigating the worse scenarios.

maybelsyrup4• 5 months ago

Is it the "far right"?

Yes, it is. They're committed to "Every molecule of hydrocarbon will come out". [0]. They keep saying this to us, and we don't seem to believe them. I like your optimism, and I'm not denying a lot of what you're saying -- renewables fast becoming the cheapest energy. But that's not deterring people: the far right here in the US are about to dismantle the government's legal rationale for regulating emissions. They're laughing at us right now, doing victory laps. They're telling polluters to take the gloves off.

These people are terrorists, extremists, and they're in charge of the world's single most powerful economy and military. They're obsessed with domination, with doing violence to the weak and the poor and to nature. It's pure Freudian thanatos.

It's just hard to take your position.

[0] https://theecologist.org/2023/dec/05/every-molecule-hydrocar...

clumsysmurf• 5 months ago

Yep, its the far right.

The Heritage Foundation (Project 2025, far-right, anti-climate) is working with the Heartland Institute (spreading climate science denial across UK / EU) / Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC, Jordan Peterson)

They do not like EU rules that hold US firms accountable to climate laws.

https://www.desmog.com/2026/02/10/donald-trump-uk-eu-maga-sl...

hackingonempty• 5 months ago

I think we are clearly on the path to mitigating the worse scenarios.

This evidence based article published in one of the worlds top scientific journals comes to the opposite conclusion.

greekrich92• 5 months ago

This is all rational thinking if you don't know or care to know the actual scale of global warming

Rebelgecko• 5 months ago

The far right leader of my country just created a new policy forcing the military to buy electricity from coal plants, even when it's more expensive

TheOsiris• 5 months ago

the west is regressing on climate because, quite frankly, almost anything we do is pointless. we're not the ones who need to do anything to have an impact on the world. the entities that must do something don't want to

panarchy2• 5 months ago

I think there's someone that wrote about what is to be done, but I can't remember who. /s

netsharc2• 5 months ago

Fear and egoism is probably causing the rise of the far-right, fear of not having enough, and egoism of "Why do I have to share?" (and being dumb enough to believe "make it great again" lies). And then the idiotic "center" who doesn't want to lose voters start moving to the right. With the decaying planet less capable of producing food, there'll be less, and there'll be more of that scarcity mindset (although do we even have scarcity, maybe it's just the uneven distribution, with billionaires eating cows that's been fed grass that's grown with the purest glacier water flown by helicopter from the Swiss alps...).

In one aspect, the autocratic rule of Xi Jinping has a positive: "We're going to cover the whole mountain with solar panels, and force electrification of cars." and there's no busybodies protesting and threatening to vote his party out of office.

akramachamarei4• 5 months ago

Ever admitting the positives of autocrats for their apparent efficiency disqualifies surrounding suppositions. And that's not an ad hominen, that's just Bayesian.

bayarearefugee2• 5 months ago

I don't know what to do.

As a 52 year old who never believed we would take climate change seriously (and who is more convinced than ever I was correct as society actually regresses on this issue) I did what I had to do -- I purposefully didn't have children.

Good luck to those of you who did.

This ain't my problem. I'll be dead (or close enough) when the shit fully hits the fan and won't have doomed any offspring to the upcoming migration/resources wars

foolfoolz• 5 months ago

this is like a tiktok rage bait way of thinking. western nations have largely peaked on carbon emissions. china is slowing down and will peak soon. there are a lot of countries that still are growing in emissions, sure, but you are not looking at this scientifically.

goatlover3• 5 months ago

Scientifically according to the article, the world is on an emissions path to 2.8°C warming, not accounting for the extra rate of warming we've seen in recent years. And this puts us at greater risk of hitting tipping points into an even warmer planet. So the status quo isn't cutting it.

IAmGraydon• 5 months ago

China is nowhere near peaking, nor is the world.

https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/china https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissi... https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

It's true that the West did peak in 2007 (as did South America, India, and Africa), but Asia's emissions are so massive that they more than make up for all of the reductions of the rest of the world. That last link I posted makes clear how big the problem with China is.

yongjik• 5 months ago

If you are a US citizen, voting Trump out might be unironically the most significant decision your country could make for the next 100 years of mankind.

Not because the alternative is so great, but because Trump is so horrible that it's not even a question. We really don't need someone who doesn't even acknowledge climate change in charge of the world's biggest economy.

jihadjihad• 5 months ago

Trump is ineligible to run for a third term. The time to vote him out was 15 months ago.

MetaWhirledPeas• 5 months ago

There are actions you can cheer on, like China's quick adoption of renewable energy. You can't make it happen yourself but you can bring peoples' attention to good things, encourage those within your circle of influence, and vote for representation that shares your views.

As for what "we" collectively can do... let's assume you are speaking of areas of research. We may need to focus on researching adaptation techniques for the areas that are going to be the hardest hit, or that have the fewest resources to cope. It's a sad topic but it may be needed. Assume the worst, hope for the best, and plan for what you can.

13415• 5 months ago

The answer to that question is always the same. Join a party and become politically active. Or, if you really can't find any party that represents your views, join an NGO and become active in it. If you're too lazy for that, consider paying an NGO that does spectacular actions that have a public impact. And never vote for any parties that don't do anything for better climate control, of course.

danny_codes2• 5 months ago

Seems China is cooking atm. If solar power and battery tech continues at this speed and their nuclear ambitions pan out, fossil fuels will be economically non-competitive (if they aren’t already). China EV momentum is incredible.

So still some hope I think! And it’s possible the populist “dumb dumb bricks” crew will decline in popularity when the inevitable lack of tangible improvements continues. Though since we are dealing with dumb dumb it may take a while

schiffern3• 5 months ago

What's most alarming IMO is that we're probably (still) systematically underestimating the effects of climate change.[0]

The idea that this current apocalyptic prediction is expected to be better than reality is... not comforting.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980353

smartmic2• 5 months ago

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions. It is a problem that requires solutions, but implementing these solutions involves so much inertia that it can sometimes be painful.

And let's contrast that with the AI hype. It's more the opposite, a kind of solution to problems we didn't really have, but are now being persuaded we do. It would be sensible to invest an equal share of the resources currently being pumped into AI with uncertain outcomes into the complex issue of climate change. And, no, AI won't solve it; unfortunately, it only makes it worse.

Carrok2• 5 months ago

I've started composting. I'm sure that'll outweigh the average Vegas visitor's emissions. /s

I'm being a bit facetious obviously, but it does feel a bit like tilting against windmills. We need policy and systemic changes, if we're relying on individuals to all collectively start doing the "right thing", we're sunk.

smartmic2• 5 months ago

I agree. But at least in a democratic system, the "each and everyone of us" are politicians that each and everyone elects. So it starts from the basis, IMHO.

adolph2• 5 months ago

Sorry to be a debbie-downer but

the composting process is also a source of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9933540/

reactordev2• 5 months ago

You laugh but if everyone changed just some of their behavior, we would be in a much better place.

We used to reuse glass jars, now it’s plastic. We used to can goods, now it’s plastic. We used to use refillable bottles, now it’s plastic. We used to have car doors that went “thunk” when you slammed them shut, now it’s plastic.

If we each are mindful of the amount of trash/litter/waste we produce and take an active step towards minimizing it, we would all be in a better place.

tastyfreeze2• 5 months ago

I make lots of compost for my own use. Composting is at best delaying carbon release. As soon as you stop recycling materials the carbon will be released to the atmosphere. In permaculture circles the goal is to close open loops of waste/resources. If you want to permanently lock carbon in your soil, and improve fertility, make biochar. Throwing charcoal in your compost is the easiest way to make it into biochar. It really works and is a permanent amendment.

If you wanted you could even weigh the raw charcoal to quantify the carbon you have sequestered.

candiddevmike• 5 months ago

If you're looking to experience a "climate change" simulator, kind of, the game Oxygen Not Included is an interesting chemistry sandbox where you need to balance things like O2, heat, food, etc in a "terrarium" of sorts. The parallels to climate change are similar to real life--most of the game ending problems you encounter are from short sighted thinking earlier on/kicking the can down the road.

estimator7292• 5 months ago

Gotta love the cycle 200 heat death

kelseyfrog• 5 months ago

I found Half-Earth Socialism: The Game[1] to be fun for quite a few playthroughs.

1. https://play.half.earth/

filoeleven5• 5 months ago

If you're near Lake Powell, you could also visit it right now and compare it to what you remember. Not a simulator, just a pretty scary real thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCEJDU9_p4Q

yoyohello132• 5 months ago

Unfortunately, more people seems to care about getting AI to play SimCity than the environment.

Renewable energy technology is ready, right now today, to replace fossil fuels. All we have to do is start doing it, but the Oil lobby is just too strong apparently. There is no political will. I wish I was wrong, but I just don't see humanity pulling together to solve this one.

mym19903• 5 months ago

We are a planet of 8 billion people, interest will vary widely. Expecting everyone to swarm on the same issue at the same time is simply not how humanity has worked in the past. Innovation often happens because many people go different directions, testing what works and what doesn't. Getting AI to play SimCity may be a stepping stone to real life urban planning, or it may be nothing, who knows?

SJC_Hacker2• 5 months ago

Renewable energy technology is ready, right now today, to replace fossil fuels. All we have to do is start doing it, but the Oil lobby is just too strong apparently. There is no political will. I wish I was wrong, but I just don't see humanity pulling together to solve this one.

Sorry, but its really not. Perhaps in some sectors such as ground transportation, but definitely not in air and sea transport and fertilizer production, and many industrial processes. At least not at scale, where would have to make massive lifestyle sacrifices which are not politically acceptable outside of extreme authoritarian states who have no reason to do this anyway.

beanshadow• 5 months ago

And, no, AI won't solve it; unfortunately, it only makes it worse.

A conclusive argument for this still seems out of reach. AI does solve some problems, and it's not exactly clear which problems AI "only makes worse". It's not clear how much energy all of our AI systems will use, and while it's tempting to outright believe they'll simply use more and more, even that's not yet clear based on arguments presented.

pyrale2• 5 months ago

It's not clear how much energy all of our AI systems will use

Is it superior to zero?

Does AI replace existing, more costly energy use patterns to the extent that its own energy use is offset?

thinkingtoilet• 5 months ago

Perhaps someday. For now, it amount of energy used to produce and run these models is astronomical. It may be the case AI is a net positive for the environment at some point, but as it stands that is nothing but speculation. The reality is it is making the situation worse.

bcrosby95• 5 months ago

Outside AI independently uncovering some energy breakthrough there is nothing it can do to help, only hurt. We already have a source of clean, cheap, unlimited energy, we aren't rolling it out the way we could and should because some rich people would rather have us on a subscription plan where we literally light our source of energy on fire so we have to keep coming back for more.

bayindirh7• 5 months ago

It's not clear how much energy all of our AI systems will use, and while it's tempting to outright believe they'll simply use more and more, even that's not yet clear based on arguments presented.

For the last 20 years, power consumption of HPC is increased per cubic inch as systems are miniaturized and density increased. The computing capacity increased more than the power use, but this doesn't mean we didn't invent more inefficient ways to undo significant part of that improvement.

It's same for AI. Cards like Groq and inference oriented hardware doesn't consume as power as training oriented cards, but this doesn't mean total power use will reduce. On the contrary. It'll increase exponentially. Considering AI companies doesn't care about efficiency yet means we're wasting tons of energy, too.

I'll not enter into the water consumption debacle, because open-loop systems waste enormous amounts of water.

All in all, we're wasting a lot of water and energy which would sustain large cities and large number of people.

with regards from your friendly HPC admin.

mym19903• 5 months ago

I think if the hope is that the whole world comes together to reduce emissions to a meaningful level, there is little to no chance of that. Even in the face of clear evidence, many leaders either do not believe it or do not think it will affect them in their lifetime. Capitalism and globalization march to a different drum.

The hope becomes that we can innovate our way out of the problem with technology, that is the race to the finish. AI will likely help us get there faster, but 2nd place will not be an option.

You could say industrialization was a solution to a problem we didn't have...but efficiency and profit is always the pursuit of business, and unfortunately that is a lot of the world we live in.

And I say this as someone who loves the idea of energy that doesn't come from burning things.

mullingitover2• 5 months ago

each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.

I have to disagree here.

This idea of a consumer-level personal responsibility for the fossil energy industry's externalized costs is a lot like the plastic producers shifting blame for waste by saying that it's the consumers' fault for not recycling. It's transparent blame-shifting.

The fossil energy industry pulls the carbon out of the ground and distributes it globally. Then it buys and sells politicians and, through mass media, votes, to ensure they maintain the industry's hegemony.

You only have to look at the full-blown slide of the US into a despotic petrostate to understand the causes of the climate crisis.

SJC_Hacker2• 5 months ago

Its a case of prisoner's dilemma. Individuals making the proposed lifestyle changes in order to make a genuine dent in AGW amount to jumping on the tracks in order to stop a freight train.

This is the one issue where I feel some sympathy with the right. I hate "Virtue signaling" about as much as they do. I'm sorry, but if you are going to snap at people over eating beef, while you fly/drive all over the country/world unnecessarily, you are absolute full of shyte.

Gud• 5 months ago

There is nothing g to “disagree” about. Of course systemic changes are required. But if the individual improve their actions it will have a meaningful impact too

rapnie• 5 months ago

It is still everyone's responsibility, just not to equal extent. That petrolstate also rose to power through democratic elections.

Synaesthesia• 5 months ago

Americans use a lot of power. Buying big houses means they have higher heating and cooling costs. All this makes a big difference.

WhompingWindows• 5 months ago

If everyone chose to eat veggie burgers and seitan steaks instead of using beef, the climate's trajectory would immediately improve. For all the responsibility of industry, many individual world citizens could, and many have, changed their lifestyle due to the moral issue of climate-changing emissions.

rtpg2• 5 months ago

While arguments can be made at the futility of individual action against a system action, it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash. There are consumers of what is being produced!

Society’s choices and lifestyles are the cause of fossil fuel consumption, at a very high level. The plastic bag exists because it has users.

There are quantitative arguments against many silly consumer-focused initiatives. In aggregate tho companies aren’t burning fossil fuels for fun. Burning fossil fuels costs money, and a lot of people would rather not spend that money!!

Mordisquitos3• 5 months ago

I agree with you that consumer-level personal responsibility is absolutely not the way to go. To a certain extent I try to non-dogmatically "do the right thing", but I know it's simply a cute hobby.

The only solution is systemic. The incentives need to be in order for businesses and consumers to do the right thing not because it is the right thing, but because it's cheaper or more convenient. That can only be implemented via legislation and investment of public resources, hence from the political level.

And what determines whether the politicians in charge are ones who will implement the changes needed to mitigate the problem, rather than ones who will keep alive the system which is intensifying it? Well, we're back to square one: each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.

femto• 5 months ago

Andrew Forrest, a well connected billionaire, puts the blame on a group of 1000 "captains of industry".

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/inside-and...

quantified2• 5 months ago

If you drive a fossil fuel vehicle, you have chosen to buy into this. If you drive it 3 blocks when you could walk, you've chosen to go the way the fuel company wants you to. That's you.

Plastic is a bit different, you didn't choose the packaging. And you probably don't have the option to recycle anyway. Putting in a special bin doesn't change the fact that it's probably going to a landfill anyway.

Some of it's consumer level. Do what you can. Don't whatabout it.

j2kun• 5 months ago

consumer-level personal responsibility

Indeed, the biggest personal responsibility is to make this a top political priority when deciding who to elect. Nothing will change until we consistenly fire leaders who refuse to act decisively on this.

DonnyV• 5 months ago

The 2 biggest contributors to climate change are ...

- US Military

- Cargo Ships

You fix those 2 things and like 60% of pollution goes away.

vaylian3• 5 months ago

Hank Green did a good short video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAznN_MPWQ

TL;DW: It is important that individuals show that there is a real problem and that they perform actions that address the problem. This demonstrative behaviour leads to social dynamics where more people feel encouraged to perform actions and to drive larger change.

You need to start somewhere.

throw3108229• 5 months ago

I never understood this. The companies sold you fossil fuel, you burnt it and got benefits out of it: transportation, energy, heating, constructions, fertilizers and food, etc. You want them to pay for the negative consequences of your fossil fuel consumption while you keep all the generated benefits?

EGreg2• 5 months ago

It’s actually a lot more systematic than you think: https://magarshak.com/blog/government-and-industry-distract-...

marginalia_nu• 5 months ago

Problem is that we if we all stand in a circle and point fingers at the next guy who is to blame, that doesn't really move us toward any sort of solutions.

In fact the reason it's so easy to find others to blame is that the responsibility is a shared one. Holding consumers responsible doesn't absolve producers, or governments for their participation. All have to be held responsible for their actions. That's the only way forward.

beloch• 5 months ago

Corporations do whatever is in their financial interest, provided it is legal. They're neither good or evil. (If they were DnD characters their alignment would be "lawful greedy".) What is legal is determined by governments, who are elected by individuals like you.

This is why people need to be reminded of the impact and causes of climate change. You can't just say, "Oil corporations are evil" and absolve yourself of responsibility. That's how nothing gets done. Corporations are not going to stop being "evil" of their own accord. They're going to obey the laws and regulations set forth by the governments they operate under.

Americans elected a president who openly campaigned on bringing back coal and said, "Drill baby drill!". Oil executives made campaign donations but, ultimately, this is the fault of Americans. They're not educated enough and they tolerate too much money in their politics. Scapegoating oil companies does nothing to solve these problems.

tech_ken• 5 months ago

I hear what you're saying but also have lately felt a lot of frustration with this framing. I definitely agree that large corporations share an outsized portion of the blame; they have misled and misdirected us past the brink of crisis in pursuit of profit. And as you point out, one of the special cruelties of their system is that it prearranges individual consumer options so that we have the illusion of choice, but ultimately wind up complicit no matter what we choose. Thus its incumbent on us (collectively) to make a decision that's not on the menu we've been handed. But (critically) its still going to be individuals making that choice. It's not enough to merely topple Big Oil at a social scale, we will also have to give up our F-450s and sprawling SFH tracts with four car garages. It's not necessarily fair, and it's not necessarily our fault, but it's still our responsibility (because it's ultimately our future that's at risk).

xnx2• 5 months ago

I have to disagree here.

Companies would stop doing anything in the face of a unified boycott.

We love to blame companies, private equity, capitalism, government, anyone really. It's us. They lie to us because we want to be lied to.

leptons• 5 months ago

I gave up driving in the 1990s because I knew back then the situation was untenable for the climate. I chose to try to live a life that contributes less to the destruction of life as we know it. Life without a car has brought sacrifice, but I'm glad I did it. No, my single sacrifice won't save the planet, because far too many people are addicted to cheap energy, and free movement. Blaming the oil industry is like blaming the cows because you ate too much cheese. Now there are electric cars, but unless you are charging it up every day from solar/battery (along with your house), then you're still only helping a little.

Suppose the fossil fuel lobby disappeared tomorrow, along with government subsidies and any hegemony you think exists - people are still going to be addicted to cheap energy. Only when the forms of energy they currently rely on really starts costing what it would cost to save the planet from climate change will you and others realize that every decision has a consequence. You want to drive 2+ hours in traffic every day? That has a real cost for the environment to do it with fossil fuel.

Maybe try changing your life so that you don't spend 2+ hours every day driving around in traffic. That's what I did, I got a job locally, got rid of my car, and started riding my bike everywhere. If it was far, I planned ahead take the bus/train. I do this in Los Angeles, since the 1990s - not exactly a bike-centric place to live, but it is entirely possible to do. Of course it's more difficult to do this in rural areas, but maybe that should be the exception.

cassepipe5• 5 months ago

Most people would agree that drug dealers hold more moral responsibility for delivering a product that they know is highly addictive but on the other hand no one would absolve an addict of any responsibility. Even you think addiction is a illness, we still expect people to help themselves by deciding to get help/seek treatment to fight the addiction.

conductr2• 5 months ago

It’s government’s fault for not regulating it properly. You can’t give individuals choice and then blame them. Just like you can’t give industry the ability to mass produce these things that are so inherently bad for current but especially future humans. Only governments are responsible for playing that kind of long game.

mmooss5• 5 months ago

It's another claim of powerlessness, which is exactly what the 'fossil energy industry' wants people to say - it's demoralizing, paralyzing, and like any disinformation it's a distraction from actually doing something; now we're debating this stuff instead of doing something. So is the victim debate - who is at fault, assessing blame, etc.

Nobody, as a single human being, can accomplish much in any field. Every significant thing humanity does happens in large groups. The good news is, we are hardwired to work in groups - you see it all over, all the time. People naturally organize and work together; think of FOSS projects, for example. And that is what democracy is, and democracy is the most dynamic, effective, changeable method of government in human history.

Let's stop wasting time debating it and get to work. A simple thing to do is to reduce personal climate output. Again, you can't have much effect alone, but humans act together, and we all can do our part. That's why there isn't trash covering the streets - one person can't prevent that, but everyone is putting their garbage in the bin.

I am responsible for the consequences of my actions and words, and for my community - we all are, of course. The victim / blame perspective is the opposite of that - victimhood is a justification / rationalization for a lack of responsibility, for inaction. As anyone with experience of decent management knows, that is the last thing you do. The problem needs to be solved.

myrmidon5• 5 months ago

Every industry ever is going to externalize all the costs you allow it to externalize.

The individual responsibility is to vote for representatives that prevent such externalization through regulation, and to stand behind such regulation even if it is slightly inconvenient (plastic drinking straws) or somewhat costly (gas, flights).

The biggest problem is that a significant part of the global population is not willing to make even the smallest sacrifice in lifestyle towards such a goal (=> this is often difficult to see if you are in a more left/green bubble, but i absolutely true of the average citizen).

We, as voters, have expressed so little care for climate and environment sustainability that politicians don't even bother catering towards that niche any more.

In the US there was an super obvious choice 25 years ago in the US between genuine, ambitious sustainability and some generic politician not even half as competent as his father, and we all saw the outcome; politicians since barely even bother pretending to be concerned about climate sustainability because voters just don't care.

ctoth2• 5 months ago

The concern about climate is well placed. Ripple et al. lay out a serious case that we may be closer to tipping cascades than models predict, with the Greenland Ice Sheet potentially vulnerable to tipping below 2°C warming, well before 2050.

But "invest an equal share of the resources currently being pumped into AI into climate" misidentifies the bottleneck. Marine cloud brightening could produce meaningful planetary cooling for roughly $5 billion per year at scale (NAS estimate). That's like what? 1% of what was spent on AI infrastructure last year?

The money exists. What doesn't exist is the political coordination to spend it.

The goddamn Alameda city council shut down a University of Washington MCB field test in 2024 because nobody told them it was happening on their property. Go look it up.

This's the actual bottleneck: governance, coordination, and political will, not capital.

When someone says "we should invest resources in X instead of Y," it's worth asking who "we" is and what mechanism they're proposing. AI investment is private capital chasing returns. You can't redirect it to climate by wishing. The implicit model, that Society has a budget and we're choosing wrong, assumes a resource allocation authority that doesn't exist. If you want to argue for creating one, that's a real position, but it should be stated openly rather than hidden inside "it would be sensible."

Also ... "AI won't solve it; it only makes it worse" is doing a ton of work! The energy consumption concern has real merit. But materials science, grid optimization, and climate modeling are direct climate contributions happening now. Google has saved energy in its datacenters ... using AI!

Blanket dismissal of an entire domain of capability isn't seriousness, it's pattern matching. (Ironically, there's a phrase for systems that produce plausible-sounding output by matching patterns without engaging with underlying structure. We're told to be worried about them.)

MSFT_Edging• 5 months ago

not capital

Capital, and by relation the system that centers the idea of Capital as a method for moving around resources is at the very center of this.

Since Capital follows near-term incentive, if the "pollute the world" path has a greater near-term incentive, that's where the market will follow. If a single member of the system goes for long-term incentive(not cooking the earth), other near-term incentive chasers will eat their lunch and remove a player.

The system itself is a tight feedback loop searching for local maxima, and the local max is often the most destructive. With chasing the local maxima, also comes profit and capital that influence the political system.

pendenthistory• 5 months ago

Cooling the planet is neither a technical nor financial problem. The problem is that environmentalists want this to be a moral issue. They already decided on the solution. If the solution is not environmental communism with them in power, they will not have it.

AnthonyMouse4• 5 months ago

Marine cloud brightening could produce meaningful planetary cooling for roughly $5 billion per year at scale (NAS estimate).

Eh. Cloud brightening is a temporary hack, stops working as soon as you stop actively doing it, and isn't an alternative to switching away from fossil fuels. It's probably worth doing to push back the "ice melts and releases more carbon" thing but let's not confuse it with the extent of what needs to be done. You can't actually solve the problem for $5B/year.

AI investment is private capital chasing returns.

Getting private capital to work for you is a good way to solve the problem. The real problem is politics.

The EV tax credits and the subsidies oil companies get were costing about the same amount of money, but we only got rid of one of them. Nuclear should cost less than fossil fuels, but we're told that fission is scary and Deepwater Horizon is nothing but spilled milk so the one with the much better environmental record has to be asymmetrically regulated into uncompetitiveness.

If we actually wanted to solve it we'd do the "carbon tax but 100% of the money gets sent back to the people as checks" thing, since then you're not screwing everyone because on average the check and the tax cancel out and corporations pay the tax too but only people get the check. Then everyone, but especially the heaviest users, would have the incentive to switch to alternative energy and more efficient vehicles etc., because everybody gets the same check but the people putting thousands of miles on non-hybrid panzers pay more in tax.

The "problem" is that it would actually work, which is highly objectionable to the oil industry and countries like Russia since it would cause their income to go away, hence politics.

sho_hn• 5 months ago

Maybe we could ask AI!

https://chatgpt.com/share/698ce97b-4d54-8000-aecb-542ceecb00...

Lerc3• 5 months ago

But https://chatgpt.com/share/698cee2c-b8c4-800f-b3cb-fa8869f874...

razster2• 5 months ago

As a human living on this planet, with roughly another 50 years left, I say we allow our actions to continue. We are unable to stop those in power and with high influence from doing anything; we deserve what is coming. Earth will be fine without us. Good luck everyone!

pjmlp• 5 months ago

Unfortunately it won't happen, as humanity rather nuke ourselves generating memes, while driving beverage from paper straws.

nostrademons• 5 months ago

The difference is emblematic of the difficulty in getting attention for climate mitigation. AI succeeds because you can sell a service to an individual human which will give them advantages over other humans. Climate change mitigation fails because you are trying to sell a service to humanity which will result in a better end state over some other hypothetical imagined future. Humans make decisions, not humanity, and many of them are pretty bad with both hypotheticals and imagination. It's no wonder that a product designed to make them do better at what they do, right now is more successful than one designed to make everybody do better than what would otherwise have resulted, 50-100 years in the future when they'll likely be dead.

Any kind of workable solution to large, societal-level problems needs to deal with the principal agent issue. Society doesn't actually exist; humanity doesn't actually exist. These are abstractions we use to label the behavior of individual people. You need to operate on the level of individual people to get any sort of outcome.

(FWIW, this is a major reason why concepts like markets, capitalism, democracy, rule of law, and federalism have been successful. They work by aligning incentives so that when one person takes an action that is good for themselves, they more-or-less end up benefitting the people around them too.)

cons0le• 5 months ago

Imagine if we had laws that required all LLM compute to come from solar, or other sustainable power sources. We could have used the market's thirst for AI as a backchannel way to force creation of new sustainable energy.

In contrast to Elon/XAI's illegal methane fuled datacenter in memphis

2III73• 5 months ago

Imagine if we had people that actually listened to scientists, reduced their carbon footprint and changed their habits.

Lerc3• 5 months ago

I agree to an extent that each of us contributes in a manner, but the manner that we contribute is not certain. A person who puts more effort into reducing their own personal climate impact could be doing worse than using the same effort to enact systemic change. It could be bailing water on a sinking ship instead of fixing the leak. The problem is you might not appear to be doing anything in isolation. Just spending that extra effort at work and sending the money earned to the ship patching people so they can get what they need would fix the problem better. If you choose bailing are you not just choosing something visible but ineffective over achieving the desired outcome but just being a boring taxpayer.

As for AI, to characterise it as a "solution to problems we didn't really have" is placing your opinion over others. They may be right or wrong about it but many AI proponents firmly believe that AI can provide solutions to real world problems that we definitely have. You may disagree about their potential effectiveness, and that's ok, but at least tolerate that people might have different ideas about how to make the world better.

frogperson• 5 months ago

There simply is no solution to this problem. We would all need to stop driving, flying, and eating meat. Most families (in the US, anyway) would suffer unemployment and starvation if they couldnt drive to work.

Humans will continue to do whatever is needed to survive,, and that currently involves driving, flying, and eating meat. They will only stop when those behaviours are either not possible, or hinder survival.

htx80nerd2• 5 months ago

every year (month?) that passes people are saying the end of the world is right around the corner due to climate change. then 10 yrs passes, nothing happens, and they keep saying the same stuff.

the system warning you the world is in big trouble dont remind you 'their side' has been saying the sky is falling for ~40+ yrs.

selfmodruntime• 5 months ago

that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions

I‘ve travelled quite a bit and I find it hard to convince myself that I as a city dweller contribute any meaningful amount to pollution or waste. I‘ve seen rivers of trash flow directly into the ocean. The rich and wealthy pollute disproportionally in such a way that I don‘t think offloading the responsibility to the general public is fair.

jacquesm7• 5 months ago

The simple counterargument is that there many more of us than there are of them, so even if on an individual level we have less effect collectively we have much more.

matthewdgreen4• 5 months ago

We contribute to it 1% by the actions we take as individuals, and 99% by the leaders we select.

onlyrealcuzzo• 5 months ago

It's important to remember that in REALISTIC worse case emissions projections, by 2050 - we will have CO2 higher than levels seen in the last 10 million years - but there was a 500 million year period where CO2 levels were an order of magnitude higher than that - and there's NO WAY we're getting there without destroying civilization first, so there's no chance on current trajectories that we turn the planet into Venus.

The super danger zone is ~1000 PPM CO2 - where ocean chemistry changes. In worst case scenarios in 50-60 years, we could get there - but there's a lot of reason to believe we won't, and we DEFINITELY aren't getting there by 2050.

The graph the main source shows is cherry-picked. Look at this: https://co2coalition.org/facts/for-most-of-earths-history-it...

Saying we're on a "hothouse" trajectory plays into the Apocalypse / Earth Becomes Venus trope, which is so ridiculous for our lifetime even under the absolute worst case realistic scenarios.

getnormality• 5 months ago

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that climate change is a real problem for humanity and that each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.

Which decisions though? The decisions to hold back nuclear, NIMBY solar, or keep cheap Chinese EVs out of the hands of consumers have a much bigger impact than whether you leave the lights on. Freezing in place with our existing fossil fuel system and fearfully minimizing our consumption will at best only slightly slow our decline.

IMHO, we must rise above fearful, superstitious individual moralism and boldly apply ambitious zero carbon energy science, engineering and policy, including fission (to keep things going in dark winters) and possibly even geoengineering (pending extensive research and small-scale pilots).

We cannot afford continued reflexive, neurotic rejection of any deviation from the status quo as we approach these tipping points. Continuing exactly as we are is not safe, nor can we return to preindustrial society. We need to build zero carbon supply for the needs of civilization. Including the stuff that people are uncomfortable with out of ignorance.

We need a plan. Neurotic criticism of every realistic plan is not a plan.

We cannot afford a continued overhang of 1970s Boomer environmentalist sentimentalism. Scientific engineering of the future is needed, not ideological nostalgia for an idyllic past we can no longer return to.

AI may not do much good directly, but it has the salutary effect of making rich tech companies care about electrical supply and distribution, accelerating the learning curve towards cheap supply.

M95D2• 5 months ago

[...] every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.

I would like to note that the decisions we make at our jobs have the most impact.

tasuki• 5 months ago

each and every one of us contributes to its intensification or mitigation through our decisions.

How on earth would anyone contribute to its mitigation? Of course everyone, everyone, contributes to its intensification, no matter how "green" they are. Yes of course, people contribute to the intensification in wildly different degrees.

Voultapher• 5 months ago

Framing man made climate change - aka the 6th mass extinction event - as a problem in search of a solution is by itself the very reason we won't "solve" it.

Trying to solve climate change in anything but a very narrow sense is like trying to perform humane torturing. One can either treat others humanely _or_ torture them. The two at the same time is impossible. The majority of conversations around climate change focus on doing the same things - modernity - but without the negative effects. Chasing a way to humanely torture children will not in fact stop the torturing of children. The goal is wrong! No amount of "solutions" will help you if they all aim to achieve the goal that itself is the root cause of the issues.

belorn• 5 months ago

The major road blocks for solutions has been unchanged for the last decades. The same strategy talked about at the beginning of the 21st century still has the same problems, and while more people are aware of climate change, we are only further away from creating and implementing solutions.

Taking Europe as an example, the main strategy is still to use the combination of natural gas, biofuels created from farming corn, and renewables to enable electrification. This strategy lacks both scientific and political consensus among the people who believe in climate change. The result is that as strong one side of the same movement are pushing for it, the other side is also pushing against it. We see the exact same thing with the other major strategies involving tree planting and changes to the culture (diet).

Mentlo• 5 months ago

Until the problem is politically recognised by the masses with adequate concern there will be no change. Climate collapse is not a problem for the capital and the elites it’s only a problem for the masses, but getting the masses to understand that requires higher levels of complex system understanding and third and fourth order effects - something which is not a majority trait.

I fear the only solution to this is that a climate correcting perverse incentive materialises, such as fusion at scale being more profitable than fossil fuels, but without mass-panic induced traits such that fission has.

shrubby2• 5 months ago

Ehm, we're royally fuxed.

Unless the fake reality starts to crack with the Epstein and other current events and humanity's coming of age will happen. Even if a hundred years later than Bonhoeffer though it would.

1970-01-01• 5 months ago

Vote Giant Meteor 2028. Thick Dust or Bust.

baq5• 5 months ago

Nothing new under the sun.

We can't cut emissions fast enough politically, but we can race towards economically viable fusion power which would solve the problem from the supply side and would make industrial scale carbon sequestration not insane, for a century or so, until waste heat itself can't be radiated fast enough even in 250 ppm CO2 atmosphere - but that's a problem for the XXII century.

FarmerPotato2• 5 months ago

How about economically viable fission power, right now.

baq5• 5 months ago

That's the thing, can't be done

logicprog2• 5 months ago

Economically viable fusion power uses the fusion reactor in the sky beaming energy to us for free that we can collect with relatively cheap, simple, decentralized, solid state, and extremely long lasting (decades) power transmission recievers.

baq5• 5 months ago

No disagreement, but nights and clouds are inconvenient and remedies are also expensive-ish. We need both.

red75prime• 5 months ago

Why solar aficionados consistently forget about the night and intermittency in general? It's not like diurnal and seasonal storage will pop up for free and the energy grid will reorganize itself.

jeffybefffy519• 5 months ago

I really think the key to addressing climate change should have started 20 years ago in a lot of primary schools, whereby the curriculum includes subjects that are more tailored to solving problems with capturing or converting C02 (eg sciences) so that these students are thinking about these problems when graduating and starting businesses to solve the challenges (hopefully with gov incentives at same time).

PaulKeeble• 5 months ago

We have had the technology to decarbonise the grid since the 1950s and we have known about the problem since the 1970s. Politics however has driven the use of CO2 instead of nuclear energy and required the drastic development of high end wind and solar. Even that wasn't enough, it also had to get considerably cheaper than CO2 producing energy sources and the entire time the entire worlds population has been subjected to massive amounts of propaganda to keep burning oil, gas and coal. This transition was possible 55 years ago when the problem was first surfaced, the political will just wasn't there so it didn't happen.

Its not an education issue, it has always been governments getting in the way and refusing to change the power source. its why I think Solar will win out, it can be deployed on an individual house level unlike everything else and that changes things enormously.

Moldoteck2• 5 months ago

eh... imagine a planet scale messmer plan... too bad petro-dollar is a thing

kccqzy• 5 months ago

20 years ago was when Al Gore’s influential documentary An Inconvenient Truth first appeared. Almost everyone I knew discussed it, including primary school pupils. Guess what, we do have better tools today than 20 years ago to fight climate change, such as practical and useful electric vehicles to replace CO2-emitting conventional vehicles.

chasil2• 5 months ago

What is generally not understood is that our current icehouse phase is rare.

'A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet... Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history.

'Earth is now in an icehouse state, and ice sheets are present in both poles simultaneously... Earth's current icehouse state is known as the Quaternary Ice Age and began approximately 2.58 million years ago.'

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

bhickey• 5 months ago

The _state_ isn't alarming, it's the rate of change. The transition is happening on a scale of human lifetimes instead of geological time.

jacquesm7• 5 months ago

Precisely. Humans can adapt to almost anything but we can not do it fast enough with 8 billion+ people.

filoeleven5• 5 months ago

Yeah. The XKCD "Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature" is, I'm pretty certain, the most frightening chart I have ever seen.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

andyjohnson0• 5 months ago

Earth has been in a greenhouse state for about 85% of its history.

And during those periods there were no human beings. And no agriculture, or unstable globalised economiies, or dense urban societies vulnerable to disruption.

It is, of course, interesting that our planet has this long, varied existence that pre-dates us. But it is of little use in understanding how to get us out of the hole we're in. And it is arguably dangerous, because it misleads people into thinking that we have the capacity to adapt to such conditions, when we manifestly don't.

chasil2• 5 months ago

To put a different shade on the meaning, this climate period is rare, easily disturbed, and difficult to restore even with vastly more powerful technology.

The more common greenhouse state is unlikely to lead to a Venus runaway, but it will be hostile to us.

We might very well require the rare climate, and perish in the common.

vdupras2• 5 months ago

And yet, the only reasonable action to take is to flag this topic and move along with the "humanity has always found a way out, technology will save us. Remember, we were supposed to drown in horse manure!"

Why? Because candidly looking at those risks as a society means deep collective existential dread, which automatically means an immediate civilizational collapse.

So I'm guessing some of our elite is actually ignorant and the other part is willfully shutting the hell up on this subject to let our civilization run on fumes a few more years.

It's unfortunate because a rapid civilizational collapse could give humanity as a species a better chance of survival.

maybelsyrup4• 5 months ago

It's unfortunate because a rapid civilizational collapse could give humanity as a species a better chance of survival.

How's that?

vdupras2• 5 months ago

An effective way to cut carbon emissions before feedback loops are triggered

Aeveus• 5 months ago

Miss the days where YC put emphasis on climate tech too:

- https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/rfs-climatetech

- http://carbon.ycombinator.com/

jacobsenscott• 5 months ago

YC has always been about cashing in on the latest grift, and nothing more.

ahnick2• 5 months ago

Yet here you are.

mrguyorama• 5 months ago

I miss the days when the Republican party openly asserted that Climate Change was a serious problem that we needed to do something about.

It was a short, short moment of time, but it existed.

j0ba• 5 months ago

If only there was a clean, nearly limitless source of energy, where the waste for hundreds of years of energy could be stored in less than a square kilometer.

If such a thing existed, we could be sure that environmentalists and leftists would have openly embraced it, rather than nip it at the bud 50 years ago. Because they are Good People™. And we should definitely listen to them now because they Follow The Science™.

wiz21c• 5 months ago

CO2 seems very threatening but loss of biodiversity is also a problem, and it has nothing to do with energy...

We're in deep s*t

pyrale2• 5 months ago

If such a thing existed, we could be sure that environmentalists and leftists would have openly embraced it, rather than nip it at the bud 50 years ago. Because they are Good People™. And we should definitely listen to them now because they Follow The Science™.

The issue with current politics wrt environment is environmentalists and leftists? This feels like a smoker blaming their smoking habit on anti-drug associations not being good enough rather than big tobacco.

irishloop• 5 months ago

Surely nothing has ever done wrong with this limitless source of clean energy to give people pause? There's no uninhabitable areas of the Earth due to this?

Moldoteck2• 5 months ago

i'm not sure there are, from a science point of view... From political point of view there are probably only 2 locations in one country... vs a gigantic energy output on planetary scale...

logicprog2• 5 months ago

But that source of power is a high-modernist invention that is unnatural and especially dangerous because of a few high-profile accidents. We have to shut it all down!

akramachamarei4• 5 months ago

People may be downvoting you because they think you're not speaking in good faith. But I think this touches on an important issue which is the credibility of politicians when it comes to bringing the science hammer down (in the form of policy). Stuff like the junk science behind those old CA plastic straw policies, the seesawing on Covid prevention and lab-leak denialism, the energy efficient dryers that don't work (this last one is more hearsay to me, and issue of CBA rather than scientific fact perhaps.) I think if politicians can get their shit straight on communicating mature science thoroughly and accurately it could go a long way to getting people to work together.

Teever• 5 months ago

What's fascinating and dismaying to me is that it's obvious that there exists sufficient capital and capability in the west to fix this.

I always wondered if we just lacked the ability to mobilize to solve big problems anymore but now I look at this 7% US GDP being allocated to AI datacentres and I realize that it isn't a lack of ability, it's a lack of desire.

Imagine if we had ram shortages because all the silicon was being diverted towards making solar panels. Imagine if we had copper shortages because it was going to the windings on wind mills. Imagine if all these economic disruptions were just temporary and for a better cause or eliminating carbon emissions and eventually moving to sequestration of carbon.

Instead we get chatbots. And funny picture makers.

FarmerPotato2• 5 months ago

Not the same silicon. Wafer fabs make pure crystals. Photovoltaics use polysilicon.

Obviously you mean purified silicon, but, remember silicon is what the Earth has in abundance (yeah I know it’s energy intensive, and there exist such profession as sand prospector.)

trilogic• 5 months ago

No worries ladies and gentleman, AI will solve it, insert coin, or better throw another trillion at it and all will be solved.

AGI is here

AndrewKemendo• 5 months ago

Meanwhile all these other AI threads everybody’s worried about losing their jobs

Not realizing we’re gonna go extinct here in the next thousand years unless something solves it

Since humans are incapable of doing this there’s only one possible option: To create something smarter than us and give it the power to solve it because we cannot

blibble• 5 months ago

Meanwhile all these other AI threads everybody’s worried about losing their jobs

don't worry

AI will cause both losing your job AND climate change

schiffern3• 5 months ago

  >Despite decades of research and sophisticated computational climate modeling, the magnitude and pace of these events have surprised scientists, raising questions about how well current climate projections capture risk.

"Yet again, worse than we predicted."

When this always-revise-in-one-direction phenomenon happened with the electron charge, it was considered a priori "proof" that scientists were fudging their data to match expectations. The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment is still studied in fundamentals of science class.[0]

If climate scientists are constantly revising their predictions upward, then this is equally "proof" that climate scientists are under pressure to revise their estimates downward. Far from being "alarmist," such terms are actually cudgels used to discourage climate scientists from making their data look too bad.

The result is the predictable fudging of climate data to look better than it really is.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan's...

SV_BubbleTime4• 5 months ago

What about the possibility that the models so far have always been wrong and if they wrong in the wrong direction you would never hear about them?

schiffern3• 5 months ago

Precisely, it's just a selection effect. There's always uncertainty, and scientists are heavily incentivized to "prune" models that show large effect sizes. The result is the observed systematic underestimations, punctuated by (suspiciously monotonic) upward revisions any time the new data comes out.

lifis• 5 months ago

At least considering only temperature, it seems changes are never going to be irreversible since both stratospheric aerosol injection and intentional nuclear winter should always be able to cool down global temperatures

1attice• 5 months ago

We can stop saying "risk" at this point. Just "the hothouse Earth's trajectory" is fine

kunley• 5 months ago

One of the solutions is to stop the ai hype, as the excessive electrical needs it creates are obviously not helping with the climate.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 5 months ago

Carbon tax. Stop subsidizing fossil fuels.

daverol• 5 months ago

When I want to motivate myself I look at this https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/the-scariest-climate-plot-...

profsummergig• 5 months ago

During the mid-to-late Pleistocene (∼1.2 million to 11,700 years before present) ... with temperatures ranging roughly between −6°C and +2°C relative to the pre-industrial mean of ∼14°C

Does this mean during mid-to-late Pleistocene it used to be -6C to +2C, or does it mean it used to be 8C to 16C?

(If the former, then how did early humanoids, and many other animals, survive such cold?)

Ensorceled• 5 months ago

The later, "−6°C and +2°C relative to" is relative to the mean of 14.

david-gpu• 5 months ago

The latter. I suggest reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#Reconstructin...

jdmoreira• 5 months ago

Just price in the externalities and it probably solves itself

betaby• 5 months ago

Let's compare two countries at the same level of development.

Canada has 14 tonnes carbon footprint per person. Canada is a cold country.

France has 8 tonnes carbon footprint per person. Climate is way warmer.

We can't continue adding population and the wondering what is going on.

kieranmaine• 5 months ago

The bull case is solar and batteries are only going to get cheaper so the speed of the transition will increase.

* Australia's renewables generation increased from 13.7% in 2015 to 42.9% in 2025 [1]

* EIA: 99%+ of new US capacity in 2026 will be solar, wind + storage [2]

* Wind and solar overtake fossil power in the EU for the first time in 2025 [3]

1. https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/nem/?range=all...

2. https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/eia-99-of-new-us-capacity-in-...

3. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit...

Animats2• 5 months ago

The CO2 graph over decades is painfully clear.[1] From 321ppm in 1970 to 428ppm in mid-2005, measured in Hawaii atop Mauna Loa, far from any major CO2 sources. Everything else is noisy and statistical, but the CO2 measurement increases very steadily.

[1] https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

krashidov2• 5 months ago

Yes, and the scary thing is that soon the atmospheric carbon PPM will be high enough to start affecting how we think, act, and feel on a day to day basis.

Animats2• 5 months ago

Surprisingly, no. Humans adapt to higher CO2 concentrations over a period of days to weeks. Submarines run as high as 5000ppm, which is way above normal atmospheric concentration.[1] Many indoor environments are above 1000ppm.

This seems to be like high altitude adaptation. It's going back and forth between concentrations that causes problems at moderate concentrations. The adaptation doesn't happen.

[1] https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/11170/chapter/5#51

_kulang• 5 months ago

I think the answer to this is ultimately economic, and that people will only change their habits when it comes down to what costs them money. Naturally this is because culturally, we have defined our life in this way, and those who value money benefit from the existing culture.

People who treat money as the only resource they need to navigate life stand to lose when things get expensive, but stand to lose even more when other forms of resource (energy, family connections, community) are needed.

As an extension of this I think extreme wealth inequality won’t ever be solved by a more equal distribution of money, and only can be solved by a devaluing of money as compared to other resources and thus a reduction in the power that money has. It’s not surprising then that billionaires end up spending their money on what gives them more control rather than what is a sensible monetary decision, like Musk purchasing Twitter.

josefritzishere• 5 months ago

Maybe putting sociopaths in charge of the government and the world economy was a bad idea.

tim333• 5 months ago

Playing devil's advocate, if you look at the temperature graphs up to now, ignoring the future projections, the temperature has regularly fluctuated to hotter than we have it now (~2C more) and then fallen back (6 less). There must be some stabilizing factors that cause it to do that. Maybe that'll kick in again?

mitthrowaway22• 5 months ago

Sometimes this process involves killing off a good portion of the multicellular life on Earth, but sure, maybe that'll kick in again.

acuozzo• 5 months ago

At -4C Boston was under literally 1 mile high of ice compared to the current skyline.

GMoromisato12• 5 months ago

This is 100% uninformed opinion (sorry, HN) but allowing climate action to become a political issue (and a losing political issue at that) was the core mistake the environmental movement made in the 90s and beyond.

If we had created a broad-based constituency for climate action, say, working with industry to build nuclear power or supporting natural gas to displace coal or even funding more conservative think tanks, then we'd be in better shape.

A microcosm of this was local and federal politicians driving Elon Musk to the Republicans. Labor issues and regulatory roadblocks took precedence over supporting Tesla, forcing Musk to seek Trump as an ally. This immediately poisoned Tesla's reputation with liberals and probably set back adoption of EVs in the West.

If climate change is really an existential issue, then we should be willing to compromise on non-existential issues to build a broader coalition. But no one is in the mood for that.

scoofy5• 5 months ago

but allowing climate action to become a political issue

What the hell are you talking about? What?!? This entire issue was a solved problem with a simple carbon tax (which is a conservative leaning policy) and then one party decided their strategy was going to be deny, then delay, then pose it as a fait accompli.

I was pretty damn conservative on a lot of issues when I started college... as it became more and more clear to me -- from taking earth science classes -- that climate change was very obviously happening and that we've known about it since the 1960s and that no serious person trying to suggest that it's not being made worse by human activity, that's when I started to thing that the Republicans were not going to take this issue seriously, ever.

Any centrist or conservative person who takes the issues seriously has no idea what to do because on party just decided to just say "lol, who cares." How in the hell is that environmental movement's fault!?! You look at the UK and environmentalism is not a partisan issue. Here, we have idiots holding snowballs in congress trying to score cheap political points.

GMoromisato12• 5 months ago

I think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax).

Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservatives.

cassepipe5• 5 months ago

No what's crazy is that something as apolitical as "many scientists specialized in climate have come to the conclusion" was successfully turned into something political thanks to a now well proven denialist playbook. We really need to stop both-siding that kind of thing. One side just said "We should do something about it to save us all" and the other side tried to come up with anything that could make them look evil but in the end what worked was bypassing reason entirely with this new thing called identity politics.

Elon Musk is a half-closeted white supremacist, he was always going to side with Trump. I don't mean that as an insult, this is just what I could gather from his tweets, preoccupations and "roman" salutes.

If we had created a broad-based constituency for climate action, say, working with industry to build nuclear power or supporting natural gas to displace coal or even funding more conservative think tanks, then we'd be in better shape.

Or those conservatives could have come up with their own version of tackling the issue: nuclear and gas displacing coal. Some of them did I believe, it's just not the version who won in the end. It seems strange to blame the other side for their own "aesthetic" preferences (i.e renewables)

I really don't mean to start a flamewar but your comment gives me the vibe of "I became a nazi because my daughter wanted me to sort my trash" meme or something of the genre where there is no accountability and you are always just reacting to the wrongs of the other side.

GMoromisato12• 5 months ago

I think people who care about climate change should stop doing things that don't work (or even make the problem worse). Demonizing Elon, demonizing nuclear power, demonizing natural gas, forcing people to cut back, supporting de-growth: none of these things have worked to stop climate change. Maybe we should try something different.

Unless, of course, the goal isn't to solve climate change but to demonize Elon. In that case, well done!

ikrenji3• 5 months ago

what labor issues and regulatory roadblocks? the man is halfway to becoming a trillionaire. if anything there wasn't enough labor legislation and more regulation to spread the wealth a bit

GMoromisato12• 5 months ago

If you care more about preventing Elon from getting richer than getting more EV adoption, then that's exactly what I'm talking about.

If climate change is a major problem, then we should fight it, even if it means Elon gets richer. If you don't think it's a major problem, then mission accomplished.

phkahler• 5 months ago

I dont understand this line of reasoning at all. The holocene looks like the most recent in a cycle of short warming periods that has been going on for over 1M years. There is little reason to think its stable. One could argue that we should push warming to prevent the coming glaciation. I rather suspect that would hasten it instead, but the runaway hot house thing is not supported by the historic record. Perhaps the collapse of the AMOC is what tips it. Either way, saying its the most whatever in 125K years is irrelevant since we should be aiming for conditions from before the ice age. If you frame it in the longer history briefly mentioned in the article it looks quite different.

TrackerFF• 5 months ago

One massive mistake scientists made, was to market it as "global warming". Every climate-denier I've ever met, has pulled out the "If the earth is getting warmer, why are our winters still so cold? Check mate" card.

I live in a colder climate area, and every. single. time. we get some cold weather, these people will come crawling out of the woodwork to point out that "global warming is hoax!"

And, unfortunately, due to the extreme rise of populism the past 10 years, the "climate change is a hoax" mentality has been allowed to prosper.

padjo• 5 months ago

Yes scientists made a mistake by calling something what it us. Definitely not the morons who don't understand the difference between weather and climate.

prohobo• 5 months ago

In this thread people talking about a civilization-scale collective action problem that we've never come close to solving, and telling us to use paper straws or regulate the oil industry.

The only even theoretical solutions are:

- A magically effective totalitarian state that watches everyone inside a panopticon.

- Magically undo the damage with a technological breakthrough.

- Immediately leave Earth.

The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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