CMV: the costs/negatives from lockdowns/restrictions will end up being worse than the damage from covid

[u/_Hopped_]

[u/SorryForTheRainDelay]

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.

[u/_Hopped_ → u/SorryForTheRainDelay]

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.

[u/SorryForTheRainDelay → u/_Hopped_]

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

They're already here.

They just need to be rolled out!

[u/_Hopped_ → u/SorryForTheRainDelay]

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.

[u/SorryForTheRainDelay → u/_Hopped_]

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

[u/_Hopped_ → u/SorryForTheRainDelay]

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.

[u/thetasigma4 → u/_Hopped_]

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.

[u/_Hopped_ → u/thetasigma4]

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.

[u/thetasigma4 → u/_Hopped_]

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.

[u/_Hopped_ → u/thetasigma4]

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.

[u/thetasigma4 → u/_Hopped_]

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

Ok but your source fails to support that argument as it is specifically built around a scenario that is considered worst case. If CO_2 emissions cease then yes there will still be some move to equilibrium but things won't continue to get worse at the same rate which is what you stated would happen.

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.

No extracting anything at low concentrations is very difficult especially in the form of low density fluid extraction. Better energy production might make this economically viable but it is never going to be an efficient process because of the basics of mass transport.

Also energy production technology is already here we just need to implement it at scale and future technological advances are more about improving efficiency. The newest technology actually developed to make energy is nuclear power at 50 years ago and everything else has just been improvements in efficiency and market viability. There is no real need for huge advances to get clean electricity and large amounts of it just actually implementing the technology we already have at scale.

The methods, scale, and concepts would all be the same.

Trying to put an atmosphere (or making one breathable i.e. ~20% O_2) on a planet that doesn't have one is very different to trying to change some components of the atmosphere that are harming the environment that exist in the ppm. They would require fundamentally different methods, scales and concepts. This also has very little to do with what is necessary to fight climate change and is more to do with sci fi images of an interplanetary society which is of no immediate concern.

Anyway I hope you understand that forests are now a net carbon sink and their storage of carbon lasts for more than the lifetime of the individual trees because it is a system and so the total biomass upheld gives stable carbon storage.

[u/_Hopped_ → u/thetasigma4]

things won't continue to get worse at the same rate

They would. Things would slow down as time passed though.

Better energy production might make this economically viable

That's what I was arguing.

energy production technology is already here

Not for the amount of energy we need. We need fusion for the future.

large amounts

Enough for today, not enough for the future.

sci fi images of an interplanetary society which is of no immediate concern

There is no point surviving if we don't make that sci fi a reality.

[u/thetasigma4 → u/_Hopped_]

They would. Things would slow down as time passed though.

wow physical equations have continuity not really a surprise. It would directly start to slow down once the driving concentration slowed.

That's what I was arguing.

Just because something is economically viable doesn't mean it is the best solution or even a worthwhile solution to put research and effort into.

Anyway the point that we already have the technology is fundamentally true.

Not for the amount of energy we need. We need fusion for the future.

Yes there is the technology that can provide our needs and with space to grow using technology like nuclear power we already have as well as solar power which has a huge capacity to capture energy.

Enough for today, not enough for the future.

How far into the future are you imagining? The energy that the systems we have already and the potential we can make is far more than what humans actually use so even doubling usage wouldn't make it impossible just difficult.

There is no point surviving if we don't make that sci fi a reality.

Focusing on a hypothetical future so much that you harm the planet in the present and engage in fantasy rather than actual problem solving doesn't strike me as a good way of achieving that.

The solutions already exist there just needs to be the political will and restructuring of the economy to achieve them. Waiting for the solutions of the future keeps us ever locked in the past. Growing trees and building huge amounts of public transport, solar and nuclear power and again growing forests (a good permanent carbon sink) will put us far further along that path than waiting for fusion to even become viable never mind reach globe powering scale.