Chasing Carbon Zero

[wurm]

I figured it was safer to post this on this side, although it shouldn't have to be.

I'm about a week late, but I just watched the NOVA episode Chasing Carbon Zero.

• What really impressed me is how many great minds are thinking about this and really working toward getting to Net Zero in terms of energy use and trying to stave off the demise of the planet. Passionate, brilliant people never cease to impress me.

• What kind of depressed me is that it's going to take real changes of mindset to accomplish this. That won't come easy.

And speaking of changing mindsets, I'll add a little more fuel to the fire by pointing to Oliver Stone's film Nuclear Now. Several people whose opinions I respect have admitted to having their minds changed...or at least modified. I'll admit to being one of them. And I live about 10 miles away from a recently decommissioned nuclear power plant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c5RPk8FlIk

[gabester]

I'm hopeful that the new generation of modular plants and using different fission elements / isotopes can go a long ways towards making nuclear acceptable and mainstream as an alternate baseline source.

The thing about nuclear power that's so scary is the magnitude of danger from out of control reactions... and that the dangerous fallout is invisible to the eye... you just can't see when there's dangerous levels of radiation. We're going to have to get over that, though, and mainline as much of the stuff as we can as quickly as we safely can to get over the energy crunch in the next few dozen years or so.

[DeusxMac]

ZPG could ameliorate many of this planet’s problems, but there’s “zero” willingness to act on it.

[davester]

DeusxMac wrote:
ZPG could ameliorate many of this planet’s problems, but there’s “zero” willingness to act on it.

Nope, it would not. The problems go far beyond population growth. Incidentally, world population growth, though it was a problem in the past, is no longer an issue, as proven by projection of current demographics. See here, for example: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth

[DeusxMac]

davester wrote:
[quote=DeusxMac]
ZPG could ameliorate many of this planet’s problems, but there’s “zero” willingness to act on it.

Nope, it would not. The problems go far beyond population growth. Incidentally, world population growth, though it was a problem in the past, is no longer an issue, as proven by projection of current demographics. See here, for example: https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth
ameliorate - verb
to make better or more tolerable

“Growth enthusiasts often point out — correctly — that the global fertility rate and population growth rate are declining. But so is the number of years it takes us to add each billion new people, due to a tricky phenomenon called population momentum. As huge generations of young people reach and live out their reproductive years (considered 15 to 44 by most demographers), their children are added to an already-large base of people.”

“Africa’s population of 1 billion is projected to double by 2050, making improvements in health, education, employment and poverty alleviation for the people who live there an even more distant development dream.”

“People in countries with the highest infant and child mortality rates, lowest educational attainment rates and least ability to adapt to the climate changes that are occurring where they live at the most disastrous levels.”

https://populationconnection.org/why-population/

[Ted King]

wurm wrote:

• What kind of depressed me is that it's going to take real changes of mindset to accomplish this. That won't come easy.

And it's not just changing the mindset to accepting that CO₂ is causing severe climate issues - the bigger hurdle may be getting us to accept the lifestyle changes to make a difference even when we come to accept that there is a severe problem.

Just a small personal example: 15 years ago I had solar panels put on the house we had at the time. Five years later we went to sell the house and the real estate agent said that the panels reduced the value of the house because too many people don't like the looks of them (they were on the back of the house) or were worried about maintenance (which was almost nothing) or how much it would cost to get rid of them (even though they would keep producing electricity for a very long time and at that point still had 20 years of warranty left on them).

[Acer]

The vanguard make choices because it is the right thing. But most people are busy with living and don't feel they have the time to seek alternatives or the budget to take one for the team. When the green alternative finally reaches financial parity with the conventional, and the solutions get to a fairly narrow "turn-key" stage, we see people will accept the green alternative much more readily.

EVs & hybrids are a huge example of that; they are no longer limited to liberals. I see solar panels on the houses of people who I know vote straight-ticket republican. My blue-color neighbors get upset when they are told they can't put glass in the recycle bin.

[pdq]

I’m betting this was a Biden voter.

:wink: