this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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The memes of the climate
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That sound really bad. So then I have a couple questions.
... if no then how could the consequences of that be worse then mass death and starvation?
Geo-engineering should be an absolute last resort and should not be considered viable until we are on the brink of destruction. We need to cut emissions not spray more chemicals into the sky because we're too fucking greedy to actually fix the problem.
Power generation is only one part of the problem, so I have questions for you. Do you support zoning reform? Do you support bike infrastructure and public transportation? Do you support spending billions on rail projects to curb plane use?
We can't techbro ourselves out of this problem, society needs to fundamentally change in order to solve climate change. Are you willing to change your way of life?
I'm a fan of both, personally. I mean we are already experimenting with geo-engineering on an absolutely massive scale.
I'm ok with both. Whats your point?
That I don't understand why we're not doing more of those two things. Geo engineering seams to have strong opposition even within climate activist circles, and nuclear power use is on the decline.
Nuclear is on the decline for the same reason we aren't fighting climate change in other ways; it's expensive. Building new nuclear powerplants is far more expensive up front than other methods of generating power so a new power plant won't actually start seeing a return on investment for a decade at least. Shareholders now a days are allergic to anything that doesn't see a return on investment within 3 months. Nuclear power plants also take much longer to build than other power plants. Don't take this as me being antinuclear. I would have a nuclear power plant in my basement if I could; but nuclear power does have it's disadvantages.
As far as geoengineering goes it's just that our governments are already dramatically mishandling the current situation. Do we really want to risk them making it much worse in new and exciting ways when we could just be lowering our CO2 output instead?
"Nuclear costs too much, and nations can't be trusted to not cut corners" is basically what it comes down to for Nuclear. As much as I will always always always be a support of Nuclear, humans probably won't handle it properly. We haven't in the past, and I wouldn't trust that we've changed enough to handle it properly in the future.