Take the idea you floated about planting trees and building a lot more stuff from wood. Sounds good.
Have you done the math on what this actually means as a process? What I mean by this are things like:
- How many trees do we need to actually make a difference?
- It is even possible to plant these many trees?
- How much does the forest fire risk increase if we were to plant that many trees?
- What would be the consequences of adding fuel to the existing forest population?
- How much fuel do we need to burn plant trees?
- How much fuel do we need to support and maintain these new forests as they grow?
- How much fuel do we need to burn to make sure the forests don't burn?
- How much carbon do we produce when we harvest?
- How much carbon do we produce when we process the lumber (not a trivial amount, BTW)?
- How much carbon do we produce in all of the ancillary processes (manufacturing nails, brackets, etc.)?
- How much carbon do we produce building stuff from wood?
- What are the ecosystem effects of all of the above, to include other flora and fauna?
- etc?
This is the kind of analysis that is lacking when anyone makes simple statements like "lets plant more trees" or "lets seed the oceans with magic beads" or "lets build city-scale HEPA filters". All fine and wonderful, but the math is the math and, at the end of the day, what is being proposed must pass physics. I have yet to find ONE case where the physics makes any sense at all. Laboratory scale? Sure. Planetary scale? Not one. Can't find one. I looked, believe me.
That's what I mean when I ask if it is even possible. We don't need to dump trillions of dollars into something to determine if it is possible. We know enough science to be able to estimate basic outcomes. We don't need calculations that are correct within 5% to confirm if something works.
What I would want to see is something that, for example, can capture twice as much carbon as the solutions entire process will produce. We can't make anything without producing carbon and other substances, so that's inescapable. The process, then, has to capture its own "new" carbon and, at the same time, double that in order to actually claim to make a dent on the 1 ppm / 500 year natural rate of change. If it only captures 10% more than it produces it isn't a solution at all in that this will not even dent the 1 ppm/500 year slope. A forest fire alone can take out the effect of a 10% solution.
That is a very difficult hurdle. And, as far as I know, nobody has shown this to be possible.
I don't know the answers. I do not claim to know them. All I am saying is the emperor has no clothes and we are delusional. We need to start talking about reality and hold everyone accountable.
What we are doing is almost the equivalent of saying we can take a bus full of people from Los Angeles to New York City on a single 20 gallon tank of gas without refueling. Everyone gets on the bus and nobody bothers to ask anyone to do the math and prove this to be possible. And 200 miles later everyone learns they have to walk home.
So, no it isn't "oh well, nothing to be done!". It's "WAKE THE FUCK UP! WE ARE NOT HAVING THE RIGHT DISCUSSIONS AT ALL! THIS IS DELUSIONAL. WE ARE ON THE WRONG PATH!". Yes, in that case I would be yelling.
I don't think we are too far apart. I have a feeling you might understand where I am coming from if you took the time to fire-up Excel and do the math --as I have-- on various purported solutions. Things break down very quickly once to demand solutions that actually pass the laws of physics.
For example, replacing our entire fleet of vehicles with electrics sounds wonderful...until you run the numbers for the entire process and realize we need to build somewhere between 50 to hundreds of 1 GW class nuclear power plants to be able to do this. And, if we don't go nuclear, the CO2 we would produce to power these cars might be shocking.
I appreciate the conversation. And, despite what it might sound like at times, I do want to be challenged. What I hate are personal attacks, which is what happens most of the time in these threads. Attackers don't do a single bit of reading, math and expend no effort to understand. Their world view on this subject amounts to just repeating the mantra rather than someone like me, who devoted over a year to actually trying to understand. In that sense they are purely religious believers, drones, if you will. And deniers? They are the worst. They truly have no clue and refuse to learn anything at all.
What I would LOVE is for someone to show me what I am missing and how I am wrong with math and physics. I truly want to understand what I might be missing. We already know that the renewable story is delusional. Fine. How about the other stuff? Am I wrong? How? Please! I want to know. No hand-wavy stuff. Science.
Math. Physics. This has never happened in the many years I have been having these conversations. I have had private discussions with PhD-level scientists in Physics and other disciplines, who, after reflection, end-up having the same questions I have. The most fundamental one being: Why are we doing this? Have we gone mad?
(can't reply to your other comment, for some reason - too deep for Hacker News? :) )
You keep saying "Why are we doing this?" I guess I don't understand what "this" is. You sound like you are being nihilistic.
The problem isn't "lets drive across the US on 20 gallons of gas", but rather "lets get across the US somehow". The math is brutal, yep, that's what we've been saying for decades. I happen to like civilization (mostly!), so I think I want to try to save it somehow.
Switching to zero emissions doesn't fix it, it stops the blood loss, but we still have the massive wound to deal with.
I can't help but feel that you are being condescending. Not sure how to react. Statements like "Glad you have caught up to the reality of the situation." are uncalled for. For now, I'll ignore it.
> You keep saying "Why are we doing this?" I guess I don't understand what "this" is.
"This" is many things. The simplest of which is an almost religious attachment to renewable energy as a savior. That is the way it is being sold. The mantra is that we need to switch to renewables as far and wide as possible and as quickly as possible to "save the planet".
So, yeah, why are we doing this when we know it will do absolutely nothing. It's a waste of money, time and resources.
I have no problem with pushing renewables to cleanup our act. Claiming that this will save the planet --which is how this is being sold-- is delusional at best.
> The problem isn't "lets drive across the US on 20 gallons of gas"
No, it is. Because when you do the math and check the purported solutions to see if they pass physics, what you discover it that they are ALL the equivalent of claiming we can drive a bus across the US with only 20 gallons in the tank.
That's the problem. That's another one of the meanings of "this". We are accepting lies as facts. We are making big decisions without demanding that the numbers pass basic process scrutiny. This --that-- is a problem.
> I happen to like civilization (mostly!), so I think I want to try to save it somehow.
Well, then demand that we stop focusing on the wrong thing. You are doing it yourself. You said:
> Switching to zero emissions doesn't fix it, it stops the blood loss
No, it does not. Not even close. When you look at the problem from a larger perspective you quickly realize these single variable "solutions" are false.
I am assuming you are speaking of vehicles, if you mean everything, even industrial processes, well, if there is such a thing as "more impossible" then that is "more impossible".
That's the problem. We are reducing everything to single variable magical solutions when reality is a complex multivariate problem.
Take a moment to list everything that has to happen to switch to zero emissions and quantify it all to the extent possible.
Then go back to my very original observation and answer the simplest question I asked:
How is going to zero emissions --which is impossible-- better than humanity leaving the planet today?
Any solution has to be OVER A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER than humanity leaving the planet. We know this. The natural rate of change is 1 ppm in 500 years. If we want to fix it in 50 years you have to be 1000 times better (actually, far more than that).
The problem keeps coming back to a very uncomfortable baseline. It's like Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. It takes a certain amount of energy to break away from earth's gravitational pull with a rocket. That's the baseline. Any solution that claims to be able to do it faster (in a rocket) either uses insanely more energy or is impossible (I also work in aerospace, helped get astronauts to the International Space Station and, with some luck, will have hardware on the moon in a few years --so, yeah, math and physics are kind of what I do). The baseline when it comes to atmospheric CO2 concentration the no-humans-on-earth scenarios. Anything that claims to be able to do better than that has to answer serious questions and show the math and physics will work on a planetary scale.
I don't know what your background might be. Maybe what I am saying is difficult to process because of this. Not a dig. I just don't know where you are coming from and if things like "Conservation of Energy" mean anything to you at all beyond a google search. I am trying to keep it super simple because I can't make the assumption that readers have the scientific background required for a different approach.
This one is current. It points to the dangers of massive reforestation and, in many ways, the hubris of thinking we can actually control (reduce) atmospheric CO2 concentration in anything approaching a human time scale:
"At Germany's Brennender Berg—literally "Burning Mountain" in German—the coal has been on fire since 1688. "
1688.
It is said that Chinese seam fires alone contribute over 1% of the total annual atmospheric CO2 generated.
This points to the hubris and danger of thinking we can actually control something at a planetary scale. Can you imagine if we planted a trillion trees and accidentally created more fires? Think back to my "if we left earth" observation.
I have looked at this from every angle, scientifically, not hand-wavy crap. I have a lot more than what can possibly be communicated in comments on HN. I should organize it and publish it on a website so it can be challenged by anyone who might care to do so.
This is not a single variable problem. "Magic pixie dust -> Less CO2" is the usual type of "solution" we are given and nobody bothers to ask about the other hundred or thousand variables that remain without published analysis. And yet everyone gets behind the pixie dust.
As you said. Not a simple problem at all. The sooner we start talking about this in real terms the better.
Have you done the math on what this actually means as a process? What I mean by this are things like:
This is the kind of analysis that is lacking when anyone makes simple statements like "lets plant more trees" or "lets seed the oceans with magic beads" or "lets build city-scale HEPA filters". All fine and wonderful, but the math is the math and, at the end of the day, what is being proposed must pass physics. I have yet to find ONE case where the physics makes any sense at all. Laboratory scale? Sure. Planetary scale? Not one. Can't find one. I looked, believe me.That's what I mean when I ask if it is even possible. We don't need to dump trillions of dollars into something to determine if it is possible. We know enough science to be able to estimate basic outcomes. We don't need calculations that are correct within 5% to confirm if something works.
What I would want to see is something that, for example, can capture twice as much carbon as the solutions entire process will produce. We can't make anything without producing carbon and other substances, so that's inescapable. The process, then, has to capture its own "new" carbon and, at the same time, double that in order to actually claim to make a dent on the 1 ppm / 500 year natural rate of change. If it only captures 10% more than it produces it isn't a solution at all in that this will not even dent the 1 ppm/500 year slope. A forest fire alone can take out the effect of a 10% solution.
That is a very difficult hurdle. And, as far as I know, nobody has shown this to be possible.
I don't know the answers. I do not claim to know them. All I am saying is the emperor has no clothes and we are delusional. We need to start talking about reality and hold everyone accountable.
What we are doing is almost the equivalent of saying we can take a bus full of people from Los Angeles to New York City on a single 20 gallon tank of gas without refueling. Everyone gets on the bus and nobody bothers to ask anyone to do the math and prove this to be possible. And 200 miles later everyone learns they have to walk home.
So, no it isn't "oh well, nothing to be done!". It's "WAKE THE FUCK UP! WE ARE NOT HAVING THE RIGHT DISCUSSIONS AT ALL! THIS IS DELUSIONAL. WE ARE ON THE WRONG PATH!". Yes, in that case I would be yelling.
I don't think we are too far apart. I have a feeling you might understand where I am coming from if you took the time to fire-up Excel and do the math --as I have-- on various purported solutions. Things break down very quickly once to demand solutions that actually pass the laws of physics.
For example, replacing our entire fleet of vehicles with electrics sounds wonderful...until you run the numbers for the entire process and realize we need to build somewhere between 50 to hundreds of 1 GW class nuclear power plants to be able to do this. And, if we don't go nuclear, the CO2 we would produce to power these cars might be shocking.
I appreciate the conversation. And, despite what it might sound like at times, I do want to be challenged. What I hate are personal attacks, which is what happens most of the time in these threads. Attackers don't do a single bit of reading, math and expend no effort to understand. Their world view on this subject amounts to just repeating the mantra rather than someone like me, who devoted over a year to actually trying to understand. In that sense they are purely religious believers, drones, if you will. And deniers? They are the worst. They truly have no clue and refuse to learn anything at all.
What I would LOVE is for someone to show me what I am missing and how I am wrong with math and physics. I truly want to understand what I might be missing. We already know that the renewable story is delusional. Fine. How about the other stuff? Am I wrong? How? Please! I want to know. No hand-wavy stuff. Science. Math. Physics. This has never happened in the many years I have been having these conversations. I have had private discussions with PhD-level scientists in Physics and other disciplines, who, after reflection, end-up having the same questions I have. The most fundamental one being: Why are we doing this? Have we gone mad?