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posted by janrinok on Thursday July 10 2014, @10:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the science-or-science-fiction? dept.

Ars Technica brings us another report on Climate change.

Given what we know about the sensitivity of the climate to added greenhouse gases, it's possible to calculate how much more carbon dioxide we can admit while still having a reasonable chance of staying within the two degree Celsius envelope. What's striking about these calculations is how many large changes we'll have to make in order to get there. According to Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute, the per-capita emissions would have to drop from five tons annually (where they are now) to 1.6 tons by 2050.

To accomplish this, Sachs says that all nations will have to undergo a process he calls "deep decarbonization," which is part of the title of a report he's helped organize and deliver to the UN today. Pathways to Deep Decarbonization, prepared by researchers in 15 different countries, looks into what's needed to achieve sufficient cuts in our carbon emissions. The report finds that current government pledges aren't sufficient, and the technology we need to succeed may exist, but most of it hasn't been proven to scale sufficiently.

Achieving this, the report's authors argue, will have to come with a normal pace of economic growth: "There is no prospect of winning the fight against climate change if countries fail on poverty eradication or if countries do not succeed in raising the living standards of their people." Although this may add to the challenge of lowering carbon emissions, the report concludes that "Robust economic growth and rising prosperity are consistent with the objective of deep decarbonization."

The report identifies what Sachs called "three pillars" of emissions reductions: low-carbon electricity, massive efficiency gains, and a greater electrification of transit and infrastructure. (Sachs also added that land use changes could also have a major impact.)

Ok, folks you can't just put your head in the sand and pass this off as Science fiction. Do you honestly believe that the governments around the world will actually do something about this, or shall we just hope for a nice asteroid so we don't have to deal with long term planning?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday July 11 2014, @01:10AM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Friday July 11 2014, @01:10AM (#67371)

    Ahh but that's change that goes with the flow, enabling basically lazy humans to have even more free time or to do more with the time they have. But change that tries to go in the opposite direction, making things more expensive in terms of time or money, making life in general more complicated, for little immediate gain? Yeah, good luck with that.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 11 2014, @01:20AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 11 2014, @01:20AM (#67374) Journal

    So there needs to either be a technological advance or enforcement. Guess the lack of research will put us on the latter. And of course VIP will get a get-free-card as usual.

    • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday July 11 2014, @01:32AM

      by Dunbal (3515) on Friday July 11 2014, @01:32AM (#67378)

      Oh I'm not worried about this, the world is going to have so many other problems to deal with in 20 years or so when its population doubles AGAIN... this will be lost in the noise.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 11 2014, @02:45AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 11 2014, @02:45AM (#67401) Journal

        It's likely to happen and also a very reckless move by the civilization at large to double its size when resources are scarce as is.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @07:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @07:04AM (#67471)

          The UN disagrees. According to their reports in 2050 there will be around 9 or 10 billion people. Which of course still is way too many.

          However population is kinda a red herring. Sure, people have basic needs to must be fulfilled but those are really minimal. It's our sick western consumer life style that is the actual problem: Everything is disposable and products are not engineered to last but to fail. Food is wasted in massive amounts. And we jet around basically just for fun all the time.

          • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 11 2014, @01:59PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 11 2014, @01:59PM (#67575) Journal

            Sure, people have basic needs to must be fulfilled but those are really minimal. It's our sick western consumer life style that is the actual problem

            Sick compared to what? The rest of the world is in even worse shape. And all that population growth isn't coming from the "sick western consumer life style" whose participants have a rather low fertility rate, often below replacement.

    • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday July 11 2014, @02:11PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 11 2014, @02:11PM (#67584) Journal

      Guess the lack of research will put us on the latter.

      What "lack" of research? We're currently spending billions of dollars in public funding a year to find a slightly more efficient will turbine or photovoltaic coating and an order of magnitude more to subsidize existing renewable energy infrastructure. There seems to be this wholly uncritical view that more scientific spending automatically means more scientific progress.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 11 2014, @08:31PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 11 2014, @08:31PM (#67817) Journal

        There's a lot of research that goes missing because funding is usually limited to established parties. Inventors also tend to have a uphill battle to get any funding. Moonshoot funding is lacking. There's a lot of research done. But even more that is not visable.

        • (Score: 2) by khallow on Saturday July 12 2014, @02:35PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 12 2014, @02:35PM (#68113) Journal

          Moonshoot funding is lacking.

          My view on that is that moonshot funding should stay lacking. Consider the epitome of moonshot programs, the Apollo program. Aside from the lunar science and a bit of land-side infrastructure, no legacy of Apollo survives. That's pretty much what a moonshot is. It's expensive with little, if any, long term benefit to it.

          My view is that current funding of renewable energy research is more than adequate. If it's being spent poorly (as you imply above), then that's a solid indication that more spending would also be spent poorly.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Saturday July 12 2014, @05:04PM

            by kaszz (4211) on Saturday July 12 2014, @05:04PM (#68158) Journal

            The lack of space legacy from the moon landings is because the government decided to shelve the project(s). We should already have presence on Mars and the Moon. Mining to cover raw material supply, solar satellites etc by now if priorities had been different.

            Moonshoot financing is to take on low cost projects and do that many times. It should then pay return on investment. It may also be tried for hugely disruptive technology where the benefit for the whole civilization is just to great to pass by not trying.

            • (Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 13 2014, @02:36AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 13 2014, @02:36AM (#68329) Journal

              Moonshoot financing is to take on low cost projects and do that many times. It should then pay return on investment. It may also be tried for hugely disruptive technology where the benefit for the whole civilization is just to great to pass by not trying.

              Well, I get now your original comment. My view is that in that light there's too much rather than too little research out there. It just happens to be of poor quality.

              When public funds are involved, there is little political incentive to invest in moonshots (or other potentially high value projects). They don't generate enough status for the decision makers unless they turn out really successful (and that may be years after the decision maker leaves office). OTOH, big projects generate status and hype even before they break ground. And in a conflict for resources, particularly manpower, between a big sexy project and small unsexy moonshots, the former will get the best people and best equipment. There's also political incentive to kill off funding for any small projects that threaten a big project. Similarly, incentives in the private world are weakened to invest in moonshots when there is all this competition from big projects.