A lot of people don't actually care about climate change or making any kind of personal sacrifice, and yes, they want other people to do the sacrificing instead of them. The problem is that these people who act this way - it doesn't legitimize the fact that we need to do something and take the issue seriously. The problem is still there, even if there's a lot of BS from politicians and leaders. Problem is that for political reasons - many people just talk the talk, and only walk the walk when the cameras are on. But it's not about walking the walk honestly - because that won't fix the problem. It's about how do we change society to stop what is happening. I have little faith in our political leaders to solve climate change. All we've managed to do is politicize it and turn people blindly against it. I think fusion power is what needs to be pushed and pushed hard now.
personal sacrifice is not the answer to climate change. Hundreds and hundreds, even thousands of nuclear power plants are the answer to climate change
You going to design them? Yes nuclear energy can help significantly with reducing carbon emissions. But when people tout the safety of nuclear reactors its a post hoc analysis that ignores that the safety of nuclear reactors is BECAUSE of the the multiple year long red tape and design process that ensures high factor of safeties at every aspect of potential failure at every proposed site as every new proposed site is a new structural engineering challenge. So yes nuclear energy should be utilized but the half decade long process to get them up and running is a core factor in why they are so safe and we can't just skip that part. How rapidly can you employ nuclear energy SAFELY?
Low cost energy from fossil fuels brings more benefits to society than any negatives brought on by "climate change". Especially for lower-income individuals, which is the vast majority of people on earth. An all-of-the-above strategy to energy production: natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear, logical renewables, and hydro is the best path forward for greater prosperity. Greater prosperity brings more money and technological advancement to further drive productivity gains and innovation.
I dunno, I think the tone deaf hypocrisy of those in power might make me ignore the fact that I'm consistently burning to death six months out of the year
Humanity is not capable of personal sacrifice for the greater good. Which is why it's silly to complain about politicians using jets or limos. I am also pretty sure building thousands of nuclear plants will never happen. Oil industry will stop it on the right, and environmentalists on the left. The world is pretty hostile to nuclear power.
Only under a perceived imminent threat. Even then a lot of the country wasn't interested in going to war. Climate change is too slow of a disaster for people to react to it. We may understand the threat, but because it isn't imminent no one wants to sacrifice.
That's not entirely fair. There are many who will do their best to resolve a perceived crisis, but it's usually in terms of convenience-to-cost, frequency (one and done, like disaster donations, is best), finality of the resolution (it's proven without a doubt that CFCs ruins the ozone, then ban CFCs and leave me alone), and overall fairness (if emissions are increasing and there are exceptions, am I being a sucker?) Another aspect is a feeling of crushing helplessness due to the sheer scale of pollution and being one out of 7.5B people. For example, many vegans and vegetarian converts genuinely forsake meat out of personal sacrifice rather than taste/culture. Great for them, and highly commendable. Except in America, there's a ridiculously wasteful farm-to-market apparatus that incentivizes restaurants and grocers to throw more than a quarter of perfectly edible food into the trash heap. This means that a "freegan" dumpster diver can gorge on beef and pork and will still contribute just as much CO2 emissions as a righteous, rose farting Vegan. Utterly depressing stuff. When you have national and regional market forces that overwhelms personal choice and accountability, it can remove an individual's agency to "act with their dollars" among the weaker or less privileged converts. You can have a boycott to cripple the sale of one hillbilly light beer brand, but will these outraged masses forsake all hillbilly light beers? They're not going to microbrew their own piss to make a point. In a sense, American capitalism is an unsustainable and virulent culture. I like the aspects of ingenuity, industriousness and the willingness to experiment for solutions, but I'm not sure how wedded those traits are to the more individually extravagant, obsessively preening, and mercenary aspects. Besides, mandating personal sacrifice is more of a religion. Lasting culture change has to make sense and appear fair to everyone unless you want an unending line of Popes decreeing from the top.
look into small modular reactors (SMRs): https://www.energy.gov/ne/advanced-small-modular-reactors-smrs
Yes the goal is to replace every coal plant with a SMR.... it's a great idea........ I'm happy you agree with the Biden folks agenda. Biden folks are practical.
Or we engage in developing a variety of power sources that can be built and put into use much faster and cheaper than nuclear power plants. That are also distributed so if some of them go down there is a robustness in the system. Also improve energy efficiency of technology while also changing development patterns to be both more energy efficient and also better able to deal with climactic event alike what we’re seeing in New England right now.
It’s a difficult problem no doubt and definitely beyond any single individual but I’m not quite that pessimistic. As noted several times even in this very thread we addressed things like getting lead out of many products when it was once considered a necessity for a lot of technology. We’ve dealt with Acid rain and even have greatly reduced the destruction of the ozone layer. All of these required a mixture of governmental policies along with developing new technology and practices.
