The solutions you note cover only 30% approx of what is required. There is a lot more required than just solar, battery and EV cars & trucks.
If you look upthread you will see I despise the lack of government in driving the required changes. The main reason I don’t vote for the major political parties.
I think the point Sniggles is making is there was a sliding doors moment last century about how to tackle climate change, and government, society and industry chose industrialisation and growth at whatever cost
Absolutely there was a sliding doors moment to reduce the current and future impact. Not doubting that in any way.
There is an also a lack of existing technology element to this as well and an individual / combined will to reduce living standards and the current way of life which is required.
This, with the addition that any loss of economic activity, reduction in living standards or productivity would have been minor if not non-existent had action been taken when it should have been.
We’re a morbidly obese 45 year old who made poor choices when 20. We let Colonel Rinehart convince us that Kentucky Fried Coal was the only reasonable dietary option and that going for a wind run or eating a solar salad was woke communism and even is there such thing as obesity? Now we need life altering surgery.
Very good point, they exported a lot of deeply rotten tactics and personnel to the UK and US. So proud
With two 9 year olds, I constantly flip flop between worrying about the impending doom incoming from either climate change or AI. Sometimes both. And with them both unlikely to ever afford their own homes, if their generation completely embrace nihilism I shan’t hold it against them. Those are all constant narratives in the backdrops of their childhood unfortunately.
Oh…I forgot about wars. Nice.
Yep. And no end in sight. Add to that the goings on in the Red Sea with the Houthis and Russia/Ukraine in the Black Sea and it is an interesting time for a society where energy is the lifeblood. The next 12 months could be a struggle. And since we’re in the climate thread, why not throw in the strongest El Niño in history, just to make things really tasty.
if we were worried about national security we would be making our own evs or at least have a foreign company manufacturing them in Australia.
and also downstream battery manufacturing.
If everyone changes from Petrol/ diesel to EV our grid couldnt handle it.
would be interesting to see industry fuel use versus personal fuel use.
Not just scientists. Even people on Blitz have been posting warning us of the outcomes now for decades.
For example, I made a post like one above of Joe’s back in the early 2000’s. This was howled down by all and sundry for being too alarmist.
We get the Government we deserve and vote for in all democracies. If we actually cared about the environment then we would vote Greens. It is a sad fact that majority cares about their own personal comforts than the future of the planet. So put the blame where it belongs, with the voters .
You’ll have that bullshit on your gravestone. When Albanese goes on about climate change being the biggest issue of our times then gives Plibersek the cursed chalice and says “fill it up with oil love”, you reckon a lot of people weren’t deceived into expecting much, much better for their vote? Especially given the other mob are advertising their gimp status to the fossil fuel industries brazenly?
Your answer will be, well if they’re stupid enough to believe that they get the government they deserve. And then you’ll tell us that the vast majority of politicians are good honest folk trying to do a good job for their constituents.
A hell of a lot of people’s ‘personal comforts’ extend beyond nice cars and steak dinners, they consist of having faith their kids are going to have decent lives, and romantic notions like the survival of other species on the planet
I guess for me the biggest reckoning is not what is happening - I’ve known for a long time what would happen if we took no action - it is the speed with which it’s happening. Naive me had it in my head that this would all be linear and we had some time. We are going to be at 2⁰C quite soon. It’s actually quite staggering when you consider it from a geological timeframe. Just a split second.
He literally said in an interview before he was elected the first time that he wanted it to be his legacy. What has changed in themeantime? I wonder if he has come to the conclusion that it’s too late now and we might as well go full steam ahead with a couple of token gestures along the way to keep the masses settled. Or has been bought? I really don’t know.
Privy to the worst information upon taking office? In any case the catch up on renewables had to be lightning pace even just to make us competitive in the twilight, and that has not happened. Thirty years of more or less conservative government, thanks guys.
Increased demand on the grid from EV charging is both a challenge and an opportunity. Similar to the mythical data centers , which are currently both overwhelming ARMO in the scale of connection requests and almost all withdrawing before getting locked in.
Increased demand will stretch the supply to the grid and cause transmission bottlenecks during peak periods. It will also set a higher floor to demand during off-peak periods. Currently one of the key dilemmas facing grid stability is low demand periods. If we can encourage battery charging during off-peak windows, the grid as a whole becomes more resilient and the energy prices will encourage more generation. More electrons on the transmission network also spreads the cost, lowering the transmission costs to the end user.
So a real issue, but a real opportunity if managed well.
I think I found the flaw in your otherwise excellent argument
I had a chat with a electrician yesterday and he was saying that we should be using the heat from data centres in a positive way like heat public pools.
They also said that the data centres could be a drain on the current internet speeds in areas that don’t have great infrastructure.
I know of a power plant in the US that sends waste steam next door to a potato factory to melt the skins off the spuds.
There’s really clever things that can be done like that. Unfortunately the AI companies aren’t chasing the small efficiencies. Their costs are mostly in chips, so power, water, land and everything else are such a small component of their spend that they aren’t likely to invest much effort.
Then why the fark don’t they do something about it. All Parties policies are pretty clear, and the only Party with the clear and obvious message on environmental protection are the Greens who get around 12% of the vote. One Nation, Nationals and Liberals are winning 5 times that together at present. Labor has had environmental wins in the past but are not saving the Planet quickly enough.
Politicians follow what people want closely, and there is no real stomach by Voters to do whatever it takes to protect the future. R
Plenty still see the Greens as crackpots and having absolute farkwits like Bandt in charge doesn’t dispel those notions. Personally outside their environmental policies I dislike a lot of their other policies so are not a real option to vote for currently