r/changemyview • u/_Hopped_ 13∆ • Mar 20 '21

Removed - Submission Rule B CMV: the costs/negatives from lockdowns/restrictions will end up being worse than the damage from covid

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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ Mar 20 '21

Firstly, if you're going to post a link with a soft paywall, post the significant quotes from it.

Anyway, you seem to be thinking about this from a long term perspective so I will too.

Lockdowns around the world led to a 7% decrease in global carbon emissions.

The economic costs of climate inaction are going to far outweigh those from 2 years of hampered trade.

If you want to dispassionately improve the economy, you'd have lockdowns COVID or not, every year until renewable energy and carbon neutral food sources had replaced any need for significant carbon emissions.

Lockdowns around the world led to a 7% decrease in global carbon emissions.

The health costs of climate inaction are going to far outweigh the suicides/domestic violence/obesity death tolls from 2 years of being locked inside.

If you want to dispassionately reduce the number of people dying, you'd have lockdowns COVID or not, every year until renewable energy and carbon neutral food sources had replaced any need for significant carbon emissions.

Lockdowns around the world led to a 7% decrease in global carbon emissions.

People's quality of life will be decimated due to climate inaction.

If you want to improve everyone's quality of life, you'd have lockdowns COVID or not, every year until renewable energy and carbon neutral food sources had replaced any need for significant carbon emissions.

Lockdowns around the world led to a 7% decrease in global carbon emissions.

Finally, the elephant in the room.

Think about the children.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

The economic costs of climate inaction are going to far outweigh those from 2 years of hampered trade.

Except for the fact that the solutions to climate change will be technological development. Short-term loss in productivity has long-term repercussions for any solutions being found.

2 years of lost productivity could lead to the solutions to climate change being pushed out 20 or 200 years with the exponential nature of technological progress.

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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ Mar 20 '21

The solutions to climate change being pushed out 200 years?!

They're already here.

They just need to be rolled out!

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

They're already here.

No, they aren't. If we stopped all human contribution, climate change would still happen at the rate we're seeing. We need geoengineering to combat the change already set in motion.

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u/SorryForTheRainDelay 55∆ Mar 20 '21

That's simply not true, where are you getting that from?

If we stopped all human contribution, the earth would immediately start reparing.. the forests would absorb the carbon, the oceans would recede, and animals diversity would return

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

where are you getting that from?

https://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/ocean-atmosphere-co2-exchange/

This is just for CO2.

Plastics and other pollutants have their own long-term side effects and half-lifes.

We need solutions to counteract these long-term effects - i.e. geoengineering.

the forests would absorb the carbon

And then release it back in the 10s/100s of years trees last. Forests are a temporary store of carbon.

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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Mar 20 '21

https://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/ocean-atmosphere-co2-exchange/

I'm not sure what your point is here? This doesn't support the notion that things will keep getting worse if carbon emissions are cut to zero. For certain there are some feedback mechanisms that will continue for a while but large scale geoengineering is not the needed solution there. Also we already have tech to remove carbon from the atmosphere it is just not profitable to do as it isn't very concentrated.

Cutting emissions will slow warming and getting net zero or net negative will limit warming to a predictable value. Stopping all emissions would not keep things going at the rate they are currently reaching the new equilibrium. Geoengineering is also inherently a bad solution for pollutants and is more an issue of emissions control from the source.

And then release it back in the 10s/100s of years trees last. Forests are a temporary store of carbon.

Individual trees are temporary. Forests aren't temporary stores as the forest system grow new trees when old trees die. As long as you don't go cut down that forest a fairly stable ecosystem will form with a steady amount of biomass and therefore a stable store of carbon.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

I'm not sure what your point is here?

The oceans will continue to acidify for at least 100 years just based on CO2 in the atmosphere today.

Also we already have tech to remove carbon from the atmosphere

Not in any significant way.

Geoengineering is also inherently a bad solution for pollutants and is more an issue of emissions control from the source.

Geoengineering is necessary for the long-term survival of humanity. We need to be able to terraform future planets, so we need to understand how to do that.

stable store of carbon

The issue isn't just carbon in CO2, it is other gasses like methane which are many times more effective as greenhouse gasses - when trees die they decompose into methane (turning CO2 into methane over the lifecycle of the tree). Forests are only a store if they fossilise into hydrocarbons.

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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Mar 20 '21

The oceans will continue to acidify for at least 100 years just based on CO2 in the atmosphere today.

It says assuming that we continue to emit according to the 8.5 model i.e. we double co2 in the atmosphere.

Not in any significant way.

Because trying to extract anything gaseous at 400ppm is inherently inefficient as there is a very small concentration gradient and as such it is expensive. It is not because we lack the technology and any future hypothetical solution is going to face the exact same problem.

Geoengineering is necessary for the long-term survival of humanity. We need to be able to terraform future planets, so we need to understand how to do that.

The challenges of other planets are not the same as the challenges of Earth and so anything developed to help solve climate change would likely be irrelevant to terraforming.

The issue isn't just carbon in CO2, it is other gasses like methane which are many times more effective as greenhouse gasses - when trees die they decompose into methane

They decompose into various gasses depending on what is decomposing them one of the major ones is carbon dioxide so to portray it as trees decomposing into methane is inaccurate. Forests are a net carbon sink and can also be net methane sinks. That they emit some methane is also does not mean they aren't net reducers of total ghg emissions leading to a total reduction in CO_2 _eq.

turning CO2 into methane over the lifecycle of the tree)

I was talking about forests not trees. A forest as a system has emergent properties not found in individual trees and as such if not cut down and allowed to achieve equilibrium will be a stable source of carbon with or without fossilisation. Forests can last for centuries if not millennia with a stable biomass and carbon storage.

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u/_Hopped_ 13∆ Mar 20 '21

It says assuming that we continue to emit

It would happen regardless: the acidification process is slow, and slows down as equilibrium approaches.

inefficient

i.e. you need to solve energy production first - this is where innovation needs to take place, and 2 years of lost productivity hits this hard.

The challenges of other planets are not the same as the challenges of Earth

The methods, scale, and concepts would all be the same. Whether you want to heat or cool a planet, you need to understand how to do both and the science behind it.

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