Posted Apr 25, 2021, 6:17 AM UTC
Incase you guys get the impression that Koonin is some right wing climate denying hack, here's a lecture on urban energy efficiency and what can be done in that domain in regards to Manhattan specifically. He was working on this for NYU specifically as part of a special investigation/targeted research in option and effective methodologies.
Koonin is legit one of the best green energy guys out there, specifically because he's hyper aware and educated about what can be done and what feasible gains are, how important various issues are, and so this study specifically is in looking at gains that are imminently attainable, in high value, wealthy areas, that cities can effect locally on a basis that does not require them to involve larger state or federal organizations in some case.
No, Steve consistently misrepresents and downplays dangers. He's literally not a climate scientist and it's unsurprising that his new book is now beloved by climate deniers.
You are aware that climate science is quite literally applied theoretical physics, right?
What degree would you suggest would be more appropriate in preparing someone to vett climate modeling efficacy and accuracy?
You're aware that medicine is quite literally a matter of physics as well? That doesn't mean I trust steve's input on that matter.
Call me crazy but I would suggest a degree in climate science.
And can we please acknowledge the biggest and most influential voice of climate doubt, the late fred singer. He was an established physicist as well.
He didn't believe that the sun caused skin cancer or that second hand smoked caused lung cancer either. Does his expertise in physics mean those the entire bodies of evidence were wrong? No.
I trust people who actually study what they talk about. Not someone with a vague understanding and perhaps even shady motives.
Koonin is literally an internationally recognised expert, specifically in the area of computational and extrapolatory models and data science.
There is literally an incredibly short list of people who are as qualified as him to be critiquing what he's critiquing, and I'm sure the majority of the people who read his book and "love it," don't really understand it.
The unfortunate reality is that most people, and when I say most people, I'm looking at what has been in my experience 99.9% of people I've ever spoken to about this, are not willing to take drastic action on climate, for a hunch. Many of the things we are doing right now are inefficient or mean absolutely nothing, and there are much more impactful things that we could be doing instead. Bjorn Lomberg is one of the few people talking about this issue intelligently.
Now we can ignore that model, and we can go with my favored solution, which is climate crusade, but it's a bit genocidey, and people nope out of it really quick. I can think of Derrick Jensen, me, and one person I've met in my entire life who's honestly down for drastic action. I know of several other figures, and even I think they are cunts, mostly because they are over eager and they won't accomplish anything as rogue agents, and people just aren't on board. Kaczynski's off the board, or I'd count him. People just don't care, and they will gamble with the environment, and all the pretending to be serious that people do, or the proclamations about banning internal combustion cars in 2030 or 2035 and hand wringing needs to be seen very explicitly as gambling with how much carbon we can put in the air without doing anything that matters.
How are we going to get the Chinese, the Indians, the Indonesians, the Nigerians. the Ethiopians, the Brazilians, to take this seriously, when they are struggling to develop? When they are struggling to educate, when they are struggling to give their citizens a sense of accomplishment and respite from the grind? When their politicians are wildly corrupt? Pretending we know things we don't know about climate modeling and taking some holy than thou stance and then spending all our money on ineffectual expenditures that promise only that we will pay a lot of money for wind generated electricity, not that wind has a future or that new technology will be developed... There's nothing good about that, nothing to be proud of.
If we're not going to force compliance, which again, I'm 100% down for, and I already live like a filthy peasant on a permaculture farm, but, I see very little compliance, and we aren't going to bring a real pandemic against the human race, and we aren't going to invest in sensible development that moves the global population towards giving a fuck about voluntarily complying with climate concerns, we might as well know how good our predictions of our future of being fucked by the long dick of climate blow back. The kinds of shit people are actually willing to do, the kinds of things that can actually make big impacts, aren't giving up cars, they are the kinds of things that Koonin is investigating, radically improving our capacity for urban efficiency, improving the livability and quality of life of urban centers which are far more efficient than suburban or rural living (well if you don't live like me).
You're basically just ignoring the work of Koonin and then making a fallacious appeal to a degree, not even a person who holds the degree, but the literally degree regardless to the fact that Koonin's career is far more meaningful, and he's respected by a massive international corporation, the US government, NYU, Caltech, and isn'5 scientifically disgraced or a pariah at all.
You know what he did for that multinational oil company? Murdered baby animals! DUH. Oh wait, no, he set up this thing, which is an open published program from fucking CAL, you know the bastion of conservatism, for 350 million in research grants to develop tech to move away from fossil fuels and remove atmo carbon etc. AKA pure evil, right?
Koonin's one of the few guys who isn't sitting around with his dick in his hand hoping that severe warnings will make a difference and change people's minds about how much they care.
Or you know, depopulation is always a solid Plan A.
Can't wait for Steve "Coomin'" Bonnell's take on Steve Koonin
I think the pod might be sus, but he gave an interview here as well:
https://youtu.be/MTsyQ0fXgTw
I think Steve's point is not that alternative energy and low carbon is bad, I think his point is that the problem is far more complicated both in our ability to accurately project the future and in our ability to solve it. There is a tendency to take the median results of climate modelling as the most likely, but the reality is that the range is insanely divergent, and that doesn't at all mean that we will have an easy go. Things could be substantially worse than they are often suggested to be according to median selection of modelling.
Koonin is not at all suggesting that we don't engage in developing new technology, and he's not at all suggesting that we don't move towards zero carbon. He is however definitely being honest about the difficulties and the pointlessness of doing so if we don't also get the same emissions reductions responses from the rest of the world. If we simply cut our emissions down to zero in the west, we will see India, maybe China and definitely Africa as it develops, simply take up that reduction in production.