My personal views on climate change are extremely heterodox among the rationalist community*, but not uncommon among intellectuals of other stripes:
Climate change is real, and is exceeding what were previously considered worst case scenarios.
It was kicked off by fossil fuels, but at this point methane clathrates may be a bigger contributor.
It is having substantial effects on wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts. It will likely start having substantial impacts on commercial agriculture soon. That will probably eventually kill a lot of people. Like, more than half.
When the ecological situation deteriorates that badly, peace is implausible.
There’s not much we can do about it. Renewable energy doesn’t have the necessary EROEI** to sustain society. Nuclear has more potential, but the political problems are showstoppers and rare earths are, well, rare. About 3⁄4 of our energy comes from fossil fuels and there’s little hope of that changing soon.
Since this thread is a poll, it should go without saying that reasonable people disagree. But I said it anyway.
*The “rationalist community” is centered around Silly Con Valley and tends to be credulous about the potential of technology.
**Energy return on energy invested. A recent solar plant in Spain managed an EROEI of roughly 3. An EROEI of 12 is thought to be sufficient to support a stripped-down, efficiency-oriented, zero-growth version of civilization as we know it. In the 1960s, oil wells with EROEIs of thousands were available; they’re all but gone now.
Well, I share the majority of your points. I think that in 30 years millions of people will try to relocate in more fertile areas. And I think that not even the firing of the clathrate gun will force humans to coordinate globally. Although I am a bit more optimist about technology, the actual status quo is broken beyond repair
Part of it is that high-performance solar cells require single-crystal silicon or gallium arsenide. The purification process for semiconductors is extremely energy intensive. The device fabrication processes are resource and energy intensive as well. But yes, storage is also a huge problem (especially for winter heating, etc.)
My personal views on climate change are extremely heterodox among the rationalist community*, but not uncommon among intellectuals of other stripes:
Climate change is real, and is exceeding what were previously considered worst case scenarios.
It was kicked off by fossil fuels, but at this point methane clathrates may be a bigger contributor.
It is having substantial effects on wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts. It will likely start having substantial impacts on commercial agriculture soon. That will probably eventually kill a lot of people. Like, more than half.
When the ecological situation deteriorates that badly, peace is implausible.
There’s not much we can do about it. Renewable energy doesn’t have the necessary EROEI** to sustain society. Nuclear has more potential, but the political problems are showstoppers and rare earths are, well, rare. About 3⁄4 of our energy comes from fossil fuels and there’s little hope of that changing soon.
Since this thread is a poll, it should go without saying that reasonable people disagree. But I said it anyway.
*The “rationalist community” is centered around Silly Con Valley and tends to be credulous about the potential of technology.
**Energy return on energy invested. A recent solar plant in Spain managed an EROEI of roughly 3. An EROEI of 12 is thought to be sufficient to support a stripped-down, efficiency-oriented, zero-growth version of civilization as we know it. In the 1960s, oil wells with EROEIs of thousands were available; they’re all but gone now.
Well, I share the majority of your points. I think that in 30 years millions of people will try to relocate in more fertile areas. And I think that not even the firing of the clathrate gun will force humans to coordinate globally. Although I am a bit more optimist about technology, the actual status quo is broken beyond repair
I’m surprised at these EROI figures: that solar PV is producing energy at very low levalised cost but utterly pathetic EROEI fails the sniff test. A quick scoot through Wikipedia finds a methodological argument (comments on https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213000492?via%3Dihub).
Part of it is that high-performance solar cells require single-crystal silicon or gallium arsenide. The purification process for semiconductors is extremely energy intensive. The device fabrication processes are resource and energy intensive as well. But yes, storage is also a huge problem (especially for winter heating, etc.)