> A new study shows that current policies are not enough to phase out coal and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Note that this is not entirely surprising, as event the lowest-emission IPCC pathway does not reach net zero by 2050 (p.13) That scenario -- SSP1-1.9 -- has an expected max warming of 1.6C (p.14), falling to 1.4C by 2100.

So while it's certainly worth pushing for coal to be phased out earlier (the reduced carbon emissions and the reduced air pollution will each prevent enormous suffering) and for pushing for net zero ASAP, there is a large difference between "we will not meet a target that is more ambitious than even the most ambitious one considered by the IPCC" and "we're fucked".

In particular, the IEA expects CO2 emissions to fall 15-20% by 2030, putting the world roughly in line with the IPCC's SSP1-2.6 pathway which projects an estimated 1.8C of warming, in line with Climate Action Tracker's policy-based estimate.

Less warming would absolutely be better, of course, but it's worth recognizing there are more than just the two extremes in the space of possible futures.

> With a few billion people trying to lift themselves out of poverty, there is no way emissions go lower in the next 50 years.

Despite that, all major projections are that emissions will decline, and much more quickly than that.

In particular, the IEA WEO projects a 20% emissions decline by 2030. That's using the mid-range scenario ("APS"), since clean energy progressed much faster than even their most optimistic scenario from 5 years ago, and their mid-range scenarios have in general been the closest for fossil fuels.

The major reason is that the energy sector has has undergone a seismic shift in the last 5 years, with renewables accounting for virtually all net new power generation and over 100% of additional power generation expected by 2030.

A similar shift has started in ground transportation; oil-burning car sales peaked 5 years ago and are in permanent decline. Per their analysis, EVs will become a majority of light vehicle sales around 2030, resulting in a permanent decline in oil consumption (peaking around 2024 and declining 5-10% by 2030).

So, yes, there will be several billion people consuming much more energy in 2050 than now, but the available data strongly indicates that the energy they consume will mostly be clean.

> The US got roundly criticized for intervening in Somalia.
> ...
> Then Rwanda happens

For reference, those were only 6 months apart:

• Oct 3, 1993: Battle of Mogadishu ("Black Hawk Down")
• April 7, 1994: Rwandan genocide starts

The fact that so little time passed between those two events is highly likely to have played a role in determining the response to the latter.

> Fresh water costs more than oil and that will not change anytime soon.

Even water from the tap is over 100x cheaper than oil.

For example, Los Angeles homes pay ~$10/hcf; 1 hcf = 748gal, so that's about 1.3c per gallon for tapwater.

> All true, but I still don't think hydrogen makes the leap. I wouldn't mind if it did, but the use cases won't stack well against some of the upcoming battery technologies.

That's a reasonable assessment, but as others have noted there're use cases that use hydrogen chemically rather than for energy (steel, fertilizer, etc.), so I expect significant hydrogen production for those.

Given that there will be significant hydrogen production, and given that hydrogen can be stored efficiently in the same salt caverns currently used for natural gas, I wouldn't be surprised to see hydrogen have some role in the power grid for seasonal storage.

Hydrogen for transportation is much more questionable; small-scale (cars) seems highly unlikely, but large-scale (container ships) might happen.

> Storing hydrogen is insanely difficult. Doing it at grid scale has to have astronomical costs

Surprisingly, storing hydrogen at grid scale is the only time it's relatively easy to do so.

Hydrogen can be stored in salt caverns, and those are already used extensively for long-term natural gas storage, so the infrastructure for grid-scale hydrogen storage is more-or-less already there (some piping would need to be upgraded).

Small-scale use (like cars) doesn't make economic or logistical sense, but large-scale use (like seasonal electricity storage or green steel manufacturing) is looking fairly reasonable.

> The methane reforming reaction is orders of magnitude more effective at making hydrogen than electrolysis.

That's just not accurate -- industrial electrolysis is around 75% efficient, meaning the amount of energy required to produce hydrogen will be in roughly the same ballpark regardless of whether it's via steam reformation of methane or via renewable-powered electrolysis.

Much of the price difference, then, is driven by natural gas being a cheaper energy source than electricity. There are 293 kWh per mcf, and in the US gas is about $5/mcf, so that's about 1.7c per kwh of energy. That's low, but renewable costs are falling to meet or even beat that -- solar has fallen to 1-2c/kWh in excellent locations, and much US wind is around 2c/kWh.

So the cost of hydrogen from electrolysis is actually not that far off the cost of hydrogen from steam reformation, and it's getting more cost-competitive all the time as scaling up renewables puts downward pressure on their costs.

Interesting; looking at Table 2:

• Significant effect only for age >11
• Significant effect only for males (surprising; I expected the reverse due to menstruation)
• Significant effect only for higher-dose, longer-duration
• Significant effect even if non-anemic (surprising)

> The sun is the best trash disposal in the system, just have to nudge things in it's direction

No, interestingly.

Anything that hasn't fallen into the sun yet is in a relatively stable orbit around it, meaning pushing it into the sun would require cancelling out most of that orbital velocity, or about 20-30km/s of delta-v.

Getting anything to fall into the sun is actually really hard.

> Serious question do “people” in general really start to want EVs

EVs/PHEVs were 1-in-7 cars sold globally this year, up about 50% from last year, so there does indeed seem to be strong demand.

> And still the IEA noted that current global renewables investments are 30% higher than projected just a year ago.

Slight correction, the 30% increase is to what will be installed over the period 2022-2027, not just for 2022 (IEA report).

However, that's a pretty minor correction, as the phrase the prior comment was complaining about is pretty much straight from the title of the IEA's press report:
> "Renewable power’s growth is being turbocharged as countries seek to strengthen energy security"

> Also, the only real difference between Ukraine and Kazakhstan here that matters is Ukrainians are white.

Well, that and the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine.

(Russia sent >100,000 troops to Ukraine in a full-scale invasion, whereas it sent 2,500 troops for 1 week as part of CSTO at the invitation of the Khazakstan government. The situations are not remotely similar, and it's disengenuous at best to pretend otherwise.)

EDIT:

> You're just trolling and not even reading what I wrote.

No, I'm pointing out -- with sources -- how lazy and uninformed your assumption of racism is.

There are fundamental differences between Ukraine and Kazakhstan in terms of their relationships to Russia and the West; to assert that the only relevant difference between them is "Ukraine is white" is verifiably wrong.

> > emissions growth rates have declined 80% in the last 15 years, yearly emissions are expected to peak within 3 years, and emissions are expected to fall 10-20% by 2030.
>
> Critically though, your argument does also make the assumption that we can lower/stop emissions gradually and halt effects.

That's not an assumption, that's an observation of recent data.

> There are some tipping points present which may be irreversible.

Important tipping points have their effects over centuries of highly elevated temperatures.

This paper examined known tipping points; I extracted a list of them with the paper's values for:

• Threshold temperature
• Effect
• Timescale
  If you look at those values, it turns out that there are no nearer-warming (<4C), near-term (<200 year timescale) tipping points with large global impact.

> Guys we are fucked :)

That's not a very scientific analysis. Let's look at what the scientists said:
> "The findings also indicated the onset of the PETM lasted about 6,000 years....“We are now emitting carbon at a rate that’s five to 10 times higher than our estimates of emissions during this geological event”"

Let's parse that numerically:

• This event occurred over 6,000 years.
• We are currently emitting at 5-10x the rate of this event.
• Thus, at current rates we will match this event's emissions in 600-1,200 years.

So, yes, it would be very bad news if we continued current emissions rates for another 5-10 centuries. Is that a realistic assumption, though?

Almost certainly not, for several reasons:

• First and most obvious, there probably aren't enough accessible fossil fuels to emit at the current rate for that long even if we tried.
• Second, emissions growth rates have declined 80% in the last 15 years, yearly emissions are expected to peak within 3 years, and emissions are expected to fall 10-20% by 2030.

Climate change is a hard enough problem without demoralizing people with doomist hyperbole.

Link to paper.

Figure 2 shows the basis of their analysis; cumulative ratings showed a small increase for Asian restaurants and were more-or-less flat for others.

Figure 5 shows the differences they report between their modeled synthetic ratings and the actual ratings. There's a clear increase for Asian restaurants (black line), although arguably it's continuing the trend from the prior few months. Three other lines have slight declines (Latin, Italian, Mexican), and two have slight increases (Caribbean, American). The paper says the two with increases can't be counted, but doesn't clearly explain why:
> "We were able to find robust synthetic controls for many cuisines, but were unable to calculate robust controls for Caribbean and American cuisines. Yet for Caribbean and American cuisines, the gap between actual and synthetic does not change before and after December 2019.
> For both American and Caribbean cuisines no conclusions can be drawn regarding their synthetic controls since it assigned a weight of 1 to Italian and Latin cuisines respectively, meaning that their comparison groups are not a weighted average of other cuisines but rather only one cuisine that resembles them the most."

First, I don't see how their model could reasonably assign all of its weight for American to Italian and for Caribbean to Latin. Looking at Figure 1, the monthly citations for American (dark purple) are very different from those for Italian (light purple); in particular, Italian has a huge spike down in the second half of 2021 whereas American is largely flat over that period, making it much more similar in movement to Latin. Similarly, the monthly citations for Caribbean (green) are very different from those for Latin (red); in particular, Caribbean has a massive spike up and down, totally unlike the relatively-flat Latin.

Second, it's simply not the case that the gap for these cuisines does not change before and after December 2019; it's clear from their Figure 5 that both increase, one continuing an increasing trend and the other reversing a (short) declining trend. Perhaps these increases are not statistically significant, but no statistical significance is described or examined anywhere in the paper. Their analysis boils down to "look at these lines".

So while I agree with their general premise that anti-Asian racism definitely spiked after covid, and it seems very plausible that that would drive some of the increase seen in citations of Asian restaurants, without actual statistical analysis there's no way to say whether that's just noise in the data or an actual effect. My guess is that there is statistical significance there, but they haven't done the work to allow anyone to conclude that.

Of note:
> "The total land use of a wind power plant comprises the area within the perimeter surrounding all turbines."

i.e., the inter-turbine area is counted as "used", even if it's 99% available for farming or wildlife.

You can see this more clearly in Table 11 where there's an order-of-magnitude difference between "single string" (one line of turbines that need spacing only in a single direction) and other types (where spacing is needed in both ground directions due to multiple lines of turbines). 100 turbines in a 2D configuration has no larger of a tower footprint on the ground than 100 turbines in a "single string" (1D) configuration, yet their methodology would assign its land use as 10x as much and hence its power density as 10x lower.

As a result, the values in this paper can not reasonably be considered land used for power generation, as their definitions often mean that the vast majority of the area they calculate will be fully available for its prior use.

> > a tiny fraction of people are flying twice a week and also driving 400 miles a week, indicating that this is not a realistic estimate for the bulk of people it is being applied to.
>
> I do drive 400 miles a week easily as an Uber Driver

Do you also take an average of 7 flights a month?

If so, congratulations, you're part of the tiny minority of people that estimate describes.

If not, perhaps that helps illustrate why this is not a reasonable estimate for the vast majority of people it's being applied to. Per this calculator, most of these people are either (a) people just retired after a lifetime of saving, or (b) people soon to retire after a lifetime of saving (i.e., ~15% of people in the US age 55-75 have $1M+).

Do you think 10%+ of people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s are taking 80+ flights per year? Do you think even 1% of retirees take that many flights? If no, then you may see why this estimate seems questionable.

It's worth noting that their reference for carbon footprint for the wealthiest 1% (net worth of $1M+) has some questionable data:

• Their data comes from interviewing four people.
• Their estimate of average flights comes largely from asking one of those people (a pilot) about his clients, an inherently skewed dataset.
• 2 of the other 3 interviewees flew twice a week.
• That estimate of weekly flights accounts for half of their estimated carbon footprint.

That type of behavior might be typical of "the super-rich" defined as Ultra-High Net Worth individuals ($50M+), but they represent only 0.5% of the people this estimate is being used for (148,000 vs. 36.05M "High Net Worth" with assets $1M+). Speaking as someone who's known quite a few people at the (very) low end of that range due to time in tech and academia, a tiny fraction of people are flying twice a week and also driving 400 miles a week, indicating that this is not a realistic estimate for the bulk of people it is being applied to.

> Not sure why you’re being downvoted.

If you're asking in good faith, it's because so far neither of you have backed up the assumption that increased demand for raw materials won't lead to increased supply of them.

Silicon (for solar) isn't rare.
Lithium (for batteries) isn't rare.

> If the prices are high for the end product, more companies get into the market to try and make some money.

Yes, and why does this not apply when the end product is "silicon" and the market is "mining"?

Maybe there are significant restrictions there, but that's not something you can expect people to take on faith.

> Mutual assured destruction was never real.

Published research says otherwise.

That paper predicts global mass starvation from a nuclear exchange involving 250 smallish warheads, mostly from reduced agricultural output caused by reduced sunlight caused by massive soot emissions from burning cities.

Given that the USA and Russia still have 40x that many warheads between them even after arms reductions, mutual assured destruction was -- and is -- a realistic concern.

> approximately four decades earlier than that previously suggested

It's worth noting that the previous estimate of 2070 was from March 2022 and by one of the same authors (Wenju Cai, the author of the linked article), so this appears to be in large part an incremental refinement of modeling results.

> Eh you could be right about the explanation OF the dichotomy

To be clear, that's what I'm questioning, the idea that the West was based on hunting/gathering vs. agriculture in the East. Agriculture was the base of all settled populations worldwide, with very few (and relatively small) exceptions.

> but THAT the dichotomy exists is an empirical question and had already been answered by decades of (cross-cultural psychology) research

Interesting; that does not match my experience of American and Chinese cultures. What would you say is the best empirical evidence supporting the idea of a simple competitive-West/cooperative-East dichotomy?

Anecdotally, I'm reasonably familiar with Chinese and American cultures, and that simplistic dichotomy does not fit what I have observed. Competition is brutal right now for Chinese parents and their kids, and also in many other ways (for people seeking spouses, for top university spots, for desirable apartments, etc.). Chinese families in the USA are markedly more competitive than their white peers; witness the "Tiger Mom" stereotype. In many ways, this competition has deep cultural roots, notably including the imperial examinations needed to become a civil servant which date back centuries.

My understanding is that there's more evidence for a consistent difference in individualism vs. collectivism, but (a) that's a different thing than competition vs. cooperation, and (b) that's in large part due to many of the comparisons being made against the USA, which itself stands out as unusually individualistic even compared to its Western peers.

> and especially trading played much larger roles, all of which emphasized direct competition between neighbors and neighboring city states.

Trading inherently has a strong cooperative element, though, so I don't see how Ancient Greece's significant reliance on trading supports the "competitive West/cooperative East" dichotomy.

In particular, trading generally requires making mutually-beneficial agreements with peer groups outside your immediate circle. By contrast, farming essentially relies on monopolistic use of a piece of land, and as a result could most certainly be framed as competitive (more food grown = more people = take over more land = even more food grown, etc.).

Either direction could be spun to support the dichotomy; as a result, there's a strong chance that the book is cherry-picking its analysis to support its target narrative, and as a result is not presenting a realistic view.

> his explanation FOR these cognitive differences: it involves differences between the primary mode of economy of ancient Western societies (i.e. Greek)—hunting and gathering, which favors a competitive approach—and ancient Eastern societies (i.e. China)—agricultural, which favors a more cooperative approach.

"The prosperity of the majority of Greek city-states was based on agriculture".

Golden Age Greece was fed by crops, not by "hunting and gathering". Similarly for Egypt and Mesopotamia during their cultural peaks.

Either you're misremembering the book or the book is in error, but cities of tens of thousands are too large to feed via hunting and gathering.

> The last time this happened was the laschamp event

Per this paper the last time there was a validated geomagnetic excursion was Mono Lake, 8,000 years after Laschamp.

> which is argued to be the event that killed Neanderthals.

Not really an "event", as it lasted 1,000 years, but there is indeed one paper which argues this. Comments published on that paper (essentially mini-papers of their own) indicate that that is a fairly controversial claim.

However, that may not be a near-term concern, as the earth's magnetic field has weakened only 10% over the last 180 years, and is apparently not likely to flip any time soon.