What’s he mean “young people”? I’m 50, I’ve felt that way since 1990 because I pay attention. We are addicts, addicts use until they die, they don’t quit because their health suffers.

At 3 degrees some developing countries won’t be able to feed their population!?! WTF?! That was the case before any climate changes, dummy. It’s bad now. It will be apocalyptic relatively soon…like decades, not centuries.

WILL cause trillions in damage!?….guess again, already happened. It WILL cause tens of trillions in damage per year, eventually outpacing global gdp.

What scientists are he counting when he says “most agree” we won’t see this kind of future? Certainly not climate scientists, they agree it’s happening, and none see it even slowing, much less getting better. From what I saw, they just went on strike because they’re sick of being ignored.

Leveled off, eh? Look at your own graph to see that China’s coal consumption went up by 5000 twh equivalents since 2010, and is insanely massive…it went up by more than the US used at its highest levels (in his timeline). But he calls that “leveled off”. Who is this guy? He’s insane or lying through his teeth.

Solar and wind have been better than coal economically for decades, but we haven’t switched over, have we?

Where does he get his statistics, because every time I see real numbers we’ve only slowed our increased emissions by 4%, we have not actually reduced them….like saying Obama reduced the military budget because he didn’t increase it as much as previous administrations. It’s asinine.

India isn’t building trillions in solar, they’re building fossil fuel power plants and hydro electric, also disastrous for the environment….and useless after their glaciers fail.

The CO2 in the atmosphere will be there for 300-1000 years, carbon capture is a ridiculous pipe dream that completely ignores the scope of the problem. Methalhydrate is already destabilized, and it’s 25 times as potent as CO2. The total global amount of methane carbon bound up in these hydrate deposits is in the order of 1000 to 5000 gigatonnes – i.e. about 100 to 500 times more carbon than is released annually into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas). It’s melting now faster every day, and will surpass human carbon emissions.

None of his “requirements” are happening. What we need is less people….like 90% less.

Progress is being made, minor progress in small amounts on tiny scales…so are increases in emissions but on massive scales and unfathomable amounts….emissions that needed to be at zero decades ago to save civilization as we know it. Climate refugees exist today in huge numbers, think how difficult 1 million Syrians were for Europe to absorb, now multiply by 2000 or more when all equatorial nations become uninhabitable. Where will we grow food with refugees covering every bit of land? Get real.

He admits that stopping warming below 1.5 degrees is impossible, and 3 degrees before 2021 likely (many say by 2050). Did he forget that 1.5 degrees warming is where we lose control and feedback loops make our emissions moot?

Do you even science, dude?

He gave me zero hope, because I know most of his pie in the sky “hope” is utterly ridiculous and runs contrary to reality and human nature. I wanted some good news, I got pablum.
Booo Kurzgesagt. Try being honest and not ignoring the facts, please. BOOOOO!

It was pretty disappointing that they didn’t include small generators in these equations. My solar is on my roof, it only uses transmission lines when I make more than I use, and then it stays local. Same thing with small home wind turbines and micro hydro. All these non centralized generation methods are incredibly better than huge farms IMO.

1) No transmission needed, power is generated and used locally.
2) multiple generation methods are tied together, so when it’s dark and solar doesn’t produce, wind and micro hydro are still available vs giant single method “farms”.
3) decentralizing power generation hardens the entire grid, and individual adoptors, against infrastructure attacks. (That alone should sway the climate change denying nationalist crowd to buy in if they could still consider thoughts, sadly they can’t .)
4) barring an emp, the entire grid could not go down and power outages would be limited to tiny areas and be easily repaired in the future.

A bit odd they're making an enormous concrete dam as a carbon emission offset, because cement makes .9lbs of CO2 for every lb of cement. (Cement makes up approximately 10% of concrete by weight...1 gallon of concrete weighs approximately 20 lbs, they used 21.4 million gallons) ....that's a shitload of CO2 for materials alone.
Plus big dams kill their rivers.
Hydro electric is not really green energy....not this kind of hydro electric anyway. Maybe micro hydro.

Not in this climate of fear over all things Nuclear post-Chernobyl. Besides, with so much de-regulation and lack on competency & accountability, would you trust the 21st-century private Nuclear energy sector MORE than the 20th century's? We really need to leverage as much renewable energy sources like Wind/Solar/Hydro first and use nuclear as backup. Fossil based must be the dead-last option for those places that got no other viable means...

Depends on your definition of "need", and your definition of "stopping" climate change.

Because I'm convinced enough natural feedback loops are in effect that there's no chance at all of stopping further climate change, and only a slight chance of slowing the rate of change and only if humanity fundamentally changes first, I find the question flawed.

I find it odd that tidal energy (different from hydro) is never considered in these debates. It's simple, relatively cheap, easy to maintain, and best of all predictable and consistent. All you need is a shoreline with a relatively large tide swing, a small inlet, and a tidal flat.

At best, nuclear is a stop gap measure that trades one planetary poison for another.....largely because we aren't responsible with it....building on shores in earthquake zones for convenience, banning fuel recycling, having no long term waste plan and handling waste insanely (Japan, I'm looking at you and your plans to dump Fukushima irradiated water into the ocean)....It's far from "green" the way we do it.

*promote
Not a silver bullet, but a useful system where it's feasible. I would like to see home systems designed that could store home solar/wind/thermal generation for later use. Batteries suck, are expensive, wear out relatively quickly, and are usually not "green". Micro pumped hydro could eliminate distribution issues (a big deal in California where they shut down the grid during wind storms now), and decentralizes power storage/generation, eliminating a major terrorist target, the power grid.

It's a truly tiny pumped hydro station compared to the truly massive ones.

Kinda lost me when he claimed wind creates 11g CO² per kwh with no reference, calculations, or explanation.
Wind energy production is zero emission.
Are they including every gram produced by every step of construction and estimating a short lifespan, but not doing the same for nuclear, which takes exponentially more resources to build, run, fuel, store waste, and dismantle?
I also have a problem with him saying more expensive, higher profit natural gas plants have better prices because they're much HIGHER than nuclear prices per kwh.
He seems to ignore the spent fuel disposal/storage costs, which are significant in both cases, but while the natural gas plants don't pay for their waste (massive amounts of CO² and methane), nuclear has no choice.
Diablo canyon refurbishing was canned after Fukashima, because it's got all the same dangerous issues of being in an active earthquake/tsunami zone right on the coast with no way to shield itself from tsunamis. Before Fukashima, they totally planned to revamp and continue operations.
His levelized cost of electricity slide conveniently ignores the cost of environmental damage caused by fuel production/use.
Include all costs, coal is worst, followed by natural gas, then nuke, hydro, wind, and solar cheapest. Geothermal is great, but only in areas where it can be easily tapped, which are few and far between.

In short, his vast oversimplification and inconsistencies in what's included in his cost basis make his conclusions relatively meaningless, imo.

There are >10 million doctors worldwide. Thousands equates to .02% think it's the right treatment. That means ten million doctors worldwide disagree. The only medical studies done so far have shown it's not effective against covid19, but is deadly when taken with diabetes medications. The anecdotal evidence that it helps comes from places where it's used in conjunction with antibacterial or antiviral drugs, when used alone it's useless.
Jebus, @bobknight33, the dangerous stupidity is increasing with every post. Not one bit surprising, you get all your information from unethical, amoral propagandists like Trump , Faux, and OAN, all of which are verified constant liars whose listeners are less informed after listening....calling any actual verifiable information "fake news".
Your idiocy would be laughable if this wasn't life and death information.

A quick reminder of hydrooxychloroquine side effects-
Blistering, peeling, loosening of the skin
blurred vision or other vision changes
chest discomfort, pain, or tightness
cough or hoarseness
dark urine
decreased urination
defective color vision
diarrhea
difficulty breathing
difficulty seeing at night
dizziness or fainting
fast, pounding, uneven heartbeat
feeling that others are watching you or controlling your behavior
feeling that others can hear your thoughts
feeling, seeing, or hearing things that are not there
fever with or without chills
general feeling of tiredness or weakness
headache
inability to move the eyes
increased blinking or spasms of the eyelid
joint or muscle pain
large, hive-like swelling on the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, throat, hands, legs, feet, and sex organs
loss of hearing
lower back or side pain
noisy breathing
painful or difficult urination
red irritated eyes
red skin lesions, often with a purple center
severe mood or mental changes
sore throat sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or in the mouth
sticking out of the tongue
stomach pain
swelling of the feet or lower legs
swollen or painful glands
trouble with breathing, speaking, or swallowing
uncontrolled twisting movements of the neck, trunk, arms, or legs
unusual behavior
unusual bleeding or bruising
unusual facial expressions
unusual tiredness or weakness
yellow eyes or skin
death

Edit:oh, now I get it. I've now read Giuliani told Trump this crap works, and of course trump trusts him over the medical community or scientific studies...as do .02% of doctors if this opinion piece isn't pure *lies like OAN trades in. Remember, they are essentially a subsidiary of Pravda. It will be interesting to find out how many people pushing the untested hydroxychloroquine recently invested in companies that make it.
Btw-Giuliani had his Twitter account suspended for lying and claiming hydro has 100% effectiveness at eradicating covid19 despite zero evidence to support that claim and tons to refute it.

Safest...of those we discussed, maybe. It's certainly not safer than well designed solar, wind, micro hydro, wave/tidal, etc.

Some in Fukushima have seriously elevated risk for cancers, but no one died of radiation poisoning that I've heard of (but many still can't go home). Not true in Chernobyl. I've not seen claims of thousands dead since the very early days, but a short investigation shows estimates vary widely, from 4000-60000 early deaths from radiation related cancers, and even the lowest estimates are unacceptable. Direct radiation related deaths seem to be around 100 there.

It does seem that today the evacuations cause more deaths, likely because of safety measures required after Chernobyl and the fact that most are only exposed for extremely short times because they evacuated and are not allowed to return until exposure levels are low.

There are real, honest health concerns involved, including indirect impact caused by evacuations or shelter in place stress. That said, there's plenty of exaggerated fear mongering too.

@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.

Nice to finally hear pumped hydro mentioned when discussing energy storage.
Sure, it takes space, but it's non toxic, proven, doesn't bleed off like compressed air, and doesn't wear out every 10 years. Chemical batteries should be just for quick load shifts with hydro used for the majority of energy storage, imo.

To add to @eric3579's comment, the work was fairly carefully planned to occur over Summer, and after the water level had been reduced, to minimise the chances that they would get caught out like that. The hydro plant should be able to release more water than required for the duration of the second phase of works.

Their first phase was designed to leave the main spillway usable over winter, so this second phase could commence afterwards. The emergency spillway was designed never to be used, it was more like a fuse to allow evacuation if the dam fails. The revised design, taking into account the fact that the emergency spillway was required, appears to have strengthened it enough to be used as a backup instead.

The repairs would have been a heck of a lot cheaper if they had been conducted a decade ago, although I do wonder if all the flaws would have been obvious at the time.

I agree for the most part, but with batteries, now becoming reasonable in size and price, it's not so hard to be totally off grid. Micro hydro can also be efficient power storage if properly designed with a dual reservoir system.
Granted, that seems to work best in small scale setups so far, but there is an island .....(https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/09/17/349223674/tiny-spanish-island-nears-its-goal-100-percent-renewable-energy)
...currently (since 2014) using this tech to be nearly 100% green.

Dismissing projections as unrealistic without fully examining them may doom our economy and planet.
That's what happened with solar, people just claimed it's expensive and unreliable, which meant those they convinced didn't know how wrong that is, and didn't buy systems or support solar farms. I ignored them and did some light math, and found that even an expensive high tech system with batteries, professionally installed, would pay for itself in about 8 years, with a 20 year expected lifespan (and I live in Humboldt county, with the foggiest airport in America, not Arizona). I'm damn glad I didn't listen. Even a 2 year delay would have cost me 1/2 my rebates, making the system take an extra 2+ years to pay for itself by costing me thousands upon thousands of dollars (instead of saving me thousands per year).

Edit: Also, here in Humboldt we just switched to choice in electricity, we can choose regular pge power (mostly old school generation), a mixture of up to 75% (I think, maybe higher) renewable for cheaper, or 100% renewable for more. All 3 now bill transmission (including voltage/frequency regulation) separately, so it's easy to see what generation alone costs. It's clear so far that mostly renewable is the best bet economically, and I assume it will become more renewable as new technologies become available.....at least I hope so.

No Netflix for me, and no luck on a quick search of torrents, but I'll keep my eye out for that show/series.

Many metrics to compare. Ecologically, that system sounds great for static locations with enough of an elevation gradient and reservoir areas to make it work. On the other hand it seems like the ecological damage done by constructing batteries, factories, and disposing of them is likely quite small compared to many other alternatives, particularly fossil fuels (which also have long-term scarcity concerns on top of plenty of other issues).

A major advantage of battery tech over hydro storage would be mobility. If the thing consuming energy doesn't sit in one place, hydro storage won't work. Another somewhat less significant advantage is the ability to install anywhere -- a battery farm recharged by mains and/or a solar/wind farm could be installed in places where hydro storage couldn't. And for one more item in favor of batteries, I'd wager that the land area footprint required for batteries is much smaller per kWH stored, although that might be wrong for extremely large reservoirs (ie. a hydroelectric dam, pretty much). But by the time you're getting to that large scale, the location requirements and ecological disruption are also much more extreme.

Anyway, I don't mean to pooh-pooh the idea of hydro storage -- it really does seem like a very good and ingenious idea where it would be applicable. But there's certainly room for improved battery tech, too. I don't think that we're going to get fully or even significantly weaned off of fossil fuels quite as fast as the video would have us hope for, either. Fossil fuels were the primary tool in our toolbox for a LONG time. And as the saying goes, since all we've had is that "hammer", we've started to think of everything as a nail.