HelloThere @ hellothere @sh.itjust.works

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2 yr. ago

Oh, hey Wong; I still miss PWOT.

That's not exactly the case, your second link even states that HS2 would offset (via modal shift) more carbon than it emits during construction.

That ofcourse isn't to say we should hand wave it away, construction is one of the worst industries when it comes to pollution. But, the problem is we will need to build things, because the structure of society needs to change to stop being so carbon dependant. If we do nothing, then we still have all the structural problems which caused the problem in the first place.

HS2 stops, some, people having to drive. Longer term, it would also help to move business concentration away from the south east. Decentralisation across the entire UK would mean that a lot more things are a lot more local to a lot more people. HS2 doesn't do that alone, but HS2-type projects (my original comment) absolutely do.

Even if you support degrowth as a method, that still requires substantial change, which in turn means construction.

I try not to be all doom and gloom, but this is the exact sort and scale of project the UK needs to be successfully completing to combat climate change. The fact we can't is legitimately terrifying.

There's a few issues with what you're saying

• you don't need emersion heating for space heating, but you will likely need a hot water tank for water heating for showers, etc
• "not enough heat in the air" is nonsense, heatpumps are standard issue kit in Scandinavia
• we barely burn any oil in the UK. Total installed capacity is ~370MW and is basically never used - see https://electricityproduction.uk/plant/oil/ ** The coal plants are nearly gone too, we do burn an absolute shit load of gas however, and that definitely needs reducing.

Heatpumps are not a one size fits all solution, and they are very expensive, that much is true.

Not safe for waists.

Andor is incredible.

Perfection.

I'm very surprised you didn't do a self insert here, simple.

Which is essentially what happened to create coal in the first place, kinda sorta.

It's a difficult topic, those of us already engaged with the problem are already aware that the current solutions are inadequate, but, every year we are making improvements.

Is that going to be enough? It depends on what you define as enough. I'd describe myself as short term pessimist but long term optimist.

By that I mean, short term there are far too many vested interests (stranded capital, the income of various nation states, nationalism in general, the 8 hour day, our built environment and the car centric nature of its design) to do the sort of immediate changes that we needed to have averted this problem. We needed to have started meaningfully pursuing this in the 70s, not the 2010s.

But that shouldn't take away from the fact that the ever increasing rollout of renewable energy generation is better than continuing to use coal and gas. Every ton of CO2 we don't emit is a ton we don't have to get rid of later. That is as true today was it was 50 years ago, or 50 years in the future.

Long term, I'm optimistic that humans will continue to develop new technologies and the political and economic will shifts to meaningfully tackle climate change and we ultimately will survive, but I am expecting billions to die explicitly due to climate change - ie from floods, droughts, famine, war caused by the preceeding, internment of fleeing refugees, etc - in the interim. I won't be surprised if towards the end of my life terms like ecocide start to shift to mean genocide of humans via negligent climate policies, eg when Bangladesh goes under water.

The next 100 years is going to be a brutal mix of exciting technological breakthroughs, coupled with soul crushing deaths of people in countries who predominantly did very little to cause the problem.

I'm going to try and go in with a positive view of "yay more futurama" rather than expecting any specific thing.

If I dislike it, then that doesn't stop the old episodes existing.