What level of societal awareness/technological development would be necessary to reach net zero by 2000? Preferrably without reduced standards of living.
Net zero by 2000
- Thread starter Hayatgheibi
- Start date
A move to the ASB section?
More seriously, are you talking local net zero or global? It's going to be difficult to achieve in countries with birth rates below replacement levels, even without including the biological emissions from the individual humans (carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane being the primary contributors). Realistically, total global net zero is just a wet dream of scientifically illiterate tree-huggers.
More seriously, are you talking local net zero or global? It's going to be difficult to achieve in countries with birth rates below replacement levels, even without including the biological emissions from the individual humans (carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane being the primary contributors). Realistically, total global net zero is just a wet dream of scientifically illiterate tree-huggers.
There was scientific and political consensus to suppress nuclear weapon proliferation and to try to avoid excessive damage to the ozone layer.
Sure net zero requires some challenging changes, but the alternative is even worse than severely damaged ozone hole and possibly as bad or worse than nuclear war. The risks from excess greenhouse gases were recognised by the late 1970s and probably suspected before that. It's really hard to see how an effective approach could be agreed and implemented within 20 to 25 years, but not impossible.
Maybe massive expansion in nuclear and renewable power combined with recognition that cities work best when everyday needs can be met within walking distance.
Personally I'd think you'd need something like a much more severe oil shock in the early 1970s to inhibit widespread car ownership [1], and a much sronger environmental movement that manages to capture a message that quality of everyday life is what we need, rather than awful everyday conditions and a periodic escape to somewhere nice for a week or two.
[1] watching series from the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the most striking features is the low numbers of cars and in major cities like London. Find a way to keep it that way and suppress cheap air travel and net zero becomes really hard rather than wishful thinking.
I think that without the Vietnam War (say China stays under the KMT, Korea unifies under the South, the French supress the communists before granting Indochina independence), the hippies would focus way more on the environment - which would include global warming/climate change. Perhaps that’s a means. Maybe the Sierra Club also endorses nuclear power early on.
I'm talking global. I don't think it's a pipe dream seeing as major international orgs demand it as a necessity.
That is a good point, but would that translate into scientific accomplishments? Would we have to go even further back to have the necessary technology?
Even if the hippies and the Sierra Club focused way more on the environment, as a general rule, that wouldn't translate into scientific and technological accomplishments due to scientists and technologists not trusting the hippies' and the Sierra Club's not too scientific approach towards reaching net zero by 2000 and lack of scientific credentials for credit and solutions.
An earlier and heavier break towards nuclear power would go some small way towards the goal, but I'm not sure it could be done without a concerted goal by all Great Powers pre WW2, which is a tad unlikely.
If we look at this pie chart from the EPA:
A.) We can see that power generation is only a quarter of the total, but it is perhaps the least difficult area to address with the right funding and technology
B.) Transport in turn could be addressed through greater electricity generation capacity from nuclear, hydro and renewable sources to some extent, but until planes and cars don't run on petrol, the big thing would be trying to minimise their spread, as others have observed upthread. Shift from the petrol burning combustion engine for cars and the larger part of that goes away
C.) Industry is another area where there potentially could be some amelioration over time and then even a comparative reduction
D.) Agriculture and Forestry et al could be lowered by not carving great swathes from the Amazon for soybeans and cattle, amongst some other rather egregious actions post 1950. Chop that down from 24% to ~12 to 15% and there would be a marked reduction
E.) Buildings is an area where earlier and greater development, to a certain extent, would work to reduce the number, as it relates to burning fuels for home heating and cooking and onsite power generation. It would seem that the most common incidence of that wouldn't be charcoal barbecues and the like, but burning wood and coal in lesser developed countries
F.) Other Energy is a tricky one, being described as 'fuel extraction, refining, processing, and transportation'. A certain amount of this will always be necessary, for the chemical and steel industries if nothing else, but if in concert with B there is a reduction in the need for refined fuel, then less fuel will be refined
That might not get to zero emissions, so there would need to be some means of offsetting them through technology and afforestation.
If we look at this pie chart from the EPA:
A.) We can see that power generation is only a quarter of the total, but it is perhaps the least difficult area to address with the right funding and technology
B.) Transport in turn could be addressed through greater electricity generation capacity from nuclear, hydro and renewable sources to some extent, but until planes and cars don't run on petrol, the big thing would be trying to minimise their spread, as others have observed upthread. Shift from the petrol burning combustion engine for cars and the larger part of that goes away
C.) Industry is another area where there potentially could be some amelioration over time and then even a comparative reduction
D.) Agriculture and Forestry et al could be lowered by not carving great swathes from the Amazon for soybeans and cattle, amongst some other rather egregious actions post 1950. Chop that down from 24% to ~12 to 15% and there would be a marked reduction
E.) Buildings is an area where earlier and greater development, to a certain extent, would work to reduce the number, as it relates to burning fuels for home heating and cooking and onsite power generation. It would seem that the most common incidence of that wouldn't be charcoal barbecues and the like, but burning wood and coal in lesser developed countries
F.) Other Energy is a tricky one, being described as 'fuel extraction, refining, processing, and transportation'. A certain amount of this will always be necessary, for the chemical and steel industries if nothing else, but if in concert with B there is a reduction in the need for refined fuel, then less fuel will be refined
That might not get to zero emissions, so there would need to be some means of offsetting them through technology and afforestation.
You can POSSIBLE reduce but you will NEVER get net Zero in 2000. Technologically impossible. No one wants to admit it but we cant get to net Zero with current tech. Close maybe but not total net Zero.
And the world still use a ton of coal today. It is just mined and used in other countries. Go look at that train accident in South Africa. It is a coal train, and they are worried that the damage yo the rail line will bottleneck coal trains taking coal to the. docks to export.
So you want to advance somethng that. is still probably 20 years off for developed countries and farther then that for most of the world. Unless we invent something else.
And the world still use a ton of coal today. It is just mined and used in other countries. Go look at that train accident in South Africa. It is a coal train, and they are worried that the damage yo the rail line will bottleneck coal trains taking coal to the. docks to export.
So you want to advance somethng that. is still probably 20 years off for developed countries and farther then that for most of the world. Unless we invent something else.
Maybe if the POD was pre-1900 like between 1700 and 1800 and it accelerated technological development (without worsening the environment relative to OTL) it could work.
You cant accelerate technology accross as wide a spectrum as you would need by 20+ years in 125. Actually 20 isn’t enough. We are close to 24 years past the required date and we are more then 6 years out getting US/Canada and Europe to 0 much less Asia, Africa and South America.
So you are needing to advance at about 50% increased speed. Just not happening.
So you are needing to advance at about 50% increased speed. Just not happening.
I think there is a lot that could be done during the 20th century to lay the ground work for net zero in the 21st (the fact that ARPA-E was only established in 2009...) but I can't think of anyway to attain global net zero by 2000.
Slowing down industrialization probably slows down moving towards net Zero. Certain levels of technological only come with a certain level of industry as you need surplus in order to be able to do other things, I am having a hard time explaining this but in essence the more industry you have the more you have per capita. Let’s call it GDP divided by Population = X. And it takes Y to support an average person where Y is the cost of everything from food and cloths and utilities to roads, education and the military to keep the country safe as well as EVERYTHING else including profit for the company that sold him his milk and the trucker that delivered it to the store.
So what do we have left over? X-Y=Z. Z being the “disposable” money/resources. Well things like research can only spend Z. You cant/wont do research into something you do not see an obvious immediate need for while you kids are hungry, you are barefoot and you’re freezing in the winter.
There is a very good reason why most research tends to take placing in wealthier countries and why we see a lot more research being done as countries get better off and need to spend less of there GDP just to survive. And wither we like it or not we only get excess GDP (Z) by “industrialization “. So if you delay industrialization you will lose most if not all your research into the technology that moves us towards Net 0.
There is also another factor that will probably see less industrialize nations producing a lot more pollution than you may think. As we modernize and industrialize we have by sheer side effect slowing been cleaning up the world. I know a lot of folks don’t want to believe it but the world of 1990 was in the “advanced countries” much much cleaner than say 1900. With advancement of industry and science (and those mostly go hand in hand) we find better more efficient ways of doing things, For example the Move to natural gas for heating had NOTHING to do with Net Z, and was driving by it being easier to deliver to a house of building and it removing the need to shovel it into a furnace when compared to coal. The fact it burned cleaner and thus moved towards lower emissions was a happy accident. Go look at how bad the coal smog fill air in London was in 1900 vs 1990s Another example… the C&O created a fully air conditioned passenger train that was arguably the first every fully air conditioned. This was not because it was exceptionally hot on the route it was on through the New River Gorge in West Virginia. It was because the air in the Gorge was so polluted that you didn’t want to open the windows/vents to keep the cars cool. So we know that in the Gorge pre 1950 the pollution in some areas was horrible. Add in photos that show trees that are barely alive. And it was not a pretty place. But as more effective ways of doing things (mostly producing coke from coal) were invented the pollution was cut back. admittedly the coal mostly ran out in the gorge before technology completely would have ended pollution from coke/coal, but today’s methods are much much cleaner then in the past. Why? Because it is more economical. The pollution caused from turning coal into coke as it turns out can be cap and used to make a lot of chemicals and stuff so industries moved from beehive ovens to big plants that capture this pollution. Later laws and what have you reduced the pollution even farther. But the biggest change came from industry finding more efficient methods.
Similar things happen everywhere. Diesel Train Locomotives were not created bec they polluted less than coal fired steam engines. They beca dominate because they were cheeper to maintain. The less polluting jet engines in the early 70s were a result of airlines wanting yo save fuel and militaries wanting to cut the black exhaust that gave away the aircraft’s position.
I could go on and on and on. But the point is pollution is a waste on resources and thus within a set level depending on technology available it can be more efficient and thus more profitable to use methods that reduce pollution. At the same time going past that level cost money in both const and research to find out how to reduce pollution . But in either case you have to be able to afford the research as well as the cost to implement.
If you push reducing pollution too much you could destroy the economy and while in general folks care about the environment no one is going to support a. Zero emissions standard on farmers if it means that their child starves to death.
And no mater what we may want or say. It. Was the massive industrialization in the 1860s through. The 1960s that allowed the creation of the wealth that ultimately enabled the time and money to go into the research to invent technology that is reducing pollution.
So attempting to reduce industry is actually counter productive. Yes some things could have been done better. But that takes knowledge that didn’t exist in 1900. But there is a reason we see more people going to university from 1900 through 2000. The increased wealth of the nations involved ment that they had more excess and thus could afford to have larger and larger numbers of the population spend more of there most phy productive years NOT producing and sitting in class rooms learning while paying knowledgeable people to educate them.
And it was the industry that created this surplus. So slow industry and you reduced this surplus and with less surplus less education and research, And if you told a poor person from say 1890 London that you needed to make it harder for them to afford food, cloths and a place to sleep because in 100 years or even in 10 years the environment was going to get worse they would look at you like you were insane.
It take’s industry to be able to afford luxury. And while saving the environment is important long term for humanity. Make no mistake. Worrying about your potential grandkid’s future is a luxury. Feeding yourself your significant other and your 2 year old kid is a necessity.
So congrats you have found a way to actually increase how long it will take to get to Net Zero.
And if you who (like me) sit in our homes with enough time on our hands and enough money to afford access to the internet and this post think that the environment is so important that you can afford to cut things and make it. harder. we’ll go talk to some poor starving person in a third world country that basically still survives on subsistence farming and has to worry if they will have enough food for there kid how willing they are to cut back yo save the environment.
It is only with surplus that we can afford the luxury to worry about and try to invent things that will make tomorrow a better day. Because next week doesn’t matter if you starve to death this afternoon.
So we need industrialization to produce the surplus that can be spent on discoveries that will move us towards Net Zero.
Look at Tesla. Musk had to get money from somewhere to be able to afford to creat the company…. And his methods and efficiency of his plants were not invented out of nothing. They are all built on lessons learned over the past 100 plus years.
So sorry but reducing industry ultimately hurts net Zero.
So what do we have left over? X-Y=Z. Z being the “disposable” money/resources. Well things like research can only spend Z. You cant/wont do research into something you do not see an obvious immediate need for while you kids are hungry, you are barefoot and you’re freezing in the winter.
There is a very good reason why most research tends to take placing in wealthier countries and why we see a lot more research being done as countries get better off and need to spend less of there GDP just to survive. And wither we like it or not we only get excess GDP (Z) by “industrialization “. So if you delay industrialization you will lose most if not all your research into the technology that moves us towards Net 0.
There is also another factor that will probably see less industrialize nations producing a lot more pollution than you may think. As we modernize and industrialize we have by sheer side effect slowing been cleaning up the world. I know a lot of folks don’t want to believe it but the world of 1990 was in the “advanced countries” much much cleaner than say 1900. With advancement of industry and science (and those mostly go hand in hand) we find better more efficient ways of doing things, For example the Move to natural gas for heating had NOTHING to do with Net Z, and was driving by it being easier to deliver to a house of building and it removing the need to shovel it into a furnace when compared to coal. The fact it burned cleaner and thus moved towards lower emissions was a happy accident. Go look at how bad the coal smog fill air in London was in 1900 vs 1990s Another example… the C&O created a fully air conditioned passenger train that was arguably the first every fully air conditioned. This was not because it was exceptionally hot on the route it was on through the New River Gorge in West Virginia. It was because the air in the Gorge was so polluted that you didn’t want to open the windows/vents to keep the cars cool. So we know that in the Gorge pre 1950 the pollution in some areas was horrible. Add in photos that show trees that are barely alive. And it was not a pretty place. But as more effective ways of doing things (mostly producing coke from coal) were invented the pollution was cut back. admittedly the coal mostly ran out in the gorge before technology completely would have ended pollution from coke/coal, but today’s methods are much much cleaner then in the past. Why? Because it is more economical. The pollution caused from turning coal into coke as it turns out can be cap and used to make a lot of chemicals and stuff so industries moved from beehive ovens to big plants that capture this pollution. Later laws and what have you reduced the pollution even farther. But the biggest change came from industry finding more efficient methods.
Similar things happen everywhere. Diesel Train Locomotives were not created bec they polluted less than coal fired steam engines. They beca dominate because they were cheeper to maintain. The less polluting jet engines in the early 70s were a result of airlines wanting yo save fuel and militaries wanting to cut the black exhaust that gave away the aircraft’s position.
I could go on and on and on. But the point is pollution is a waste on resources and thus within a set level depending on technology available it can be more efficient and thus more profitable to use methods that reduce pollution. At the same time going past that level cost money in both const and research to find out how to reduce pollution . But in either case you have to be able to afford the research as well as the cost to implement.
If you push reducing pollution too much you could destroy the economy and while in general folks care about the environment no one is going to support a. Zero emissions standard on farmers if it means that their child starves to death.
And no mater what we may want or say. It. Was the massive industrialization in the 1860s through. The 1960s that allowed the creation of the wealth that ultimately enabled the time and money to go into the research to invent technology that is reducing pollution.
So attempting to reduce industry is actually counter productive. Yes some things could have been done better. But that takes knowledge that didn’t exist in 1900. But there is a reason we see more people going to university from 1900 through 2000. The increased wealth of the nations involved ment that they had more excess and thus could afford to have larger and larger numbers of the population spend more of there most phy productive years NOT producing and sitting in class rooms learning while paying knowledgeable people to educate them.
And it was the industry that created this surplus. So slow industry and you reduced this surplus and with less surplus less education and research, And if you told a poor person from say 1890 London that you needed to make it harder for them to afford food, cloths and a place to sleep because in 100 years or even in 10 years the environment was going to get worse they would look at you like you were insane.
It take’s industry to be able to afford luxury. And while saving the environment is important long term for humanity. Make no mistake. Worrying about your potential grandkid’s future is a luxury. Feeding yourself your significant other and your 2 year old kid is a necessity.
So congrats you have found a way to actually increase how long it will take to get to Net Zero.
And if you who (like me) sit in our homes with enough time on our hands and enough money to afford access to the internet and this post think that the environment is so important that you can afford to cut things and make it. harder. we’ll go talk to some poor starving person in a third world country that basically still survives on subsistence farming and has to worry if they will have enough food for there kid how willing they are to cut back yo save the environment.
It is only with surplus that we can afford the luxury to worry about and try to invent things that will make tomorrow a better day. Because next week doesn’t matter if you starve to death this afternoon.
So we need industrialization to produce the surplus that can be spent on discoveries that will move us towards Net Zero.
Look at Tesla. Musk had to get money from somewhere to be able to afford to creat the company…. And his methods and efficiency of his plants were not invented out of nothing. They are all built on lessons learned over the past 100 plus years.
So sorry but reducing industry ultimately hurts net Zero.
A thought… What is we keep the population of the world closer to 1900 (1.6 billion) then 2024 (8 billion)
We could pretty drastically change things is each country had 1/4 to 1/3 the population it cur has.
Especially if North America, Europe, and China/India had much reduced population.
Still won’t get near Zero but…
It IS something that can be started in early 1900s
We could pretty drastically change things is each country had 1/4 to 1/3 the population it cur has.
Especially if North America, Europe, and China/India had much reduced population.
Still won’t get near Zero but…
It IS something that can be started in early 1900s
Limiting population growth in third world countries. We are even talking about population growth of 500%, when in Europe the average was 50%, if not less.
You will reduce the demand for food, and if you create a global agricultural mechanization program. You can limit the areas you need for farming.
You will reduce the demand for food, and if you create a global agricultural mechanization program. You can limit the areas you need for farming.
Widespread use of nuclear power for electrical generation (economically possible, it's more of a political problem), nuclear powered ships (they may be economically inefficient vs. oil powered ships even in a pro-nuclear world), massive use of natural gas rather than oil or coal for heating as well as land and air transportation.
Alternatively, if geological hydrogen is discovered by the 20th century, it may be exploited and used for stuff where oil derivatives are used today... but the logistics of managing hydrogen remain problematic.
I don't think net zero is possible even after these conditions, but lower emissions may be.
Alternatively, if geological hydrogen is discovered by the 20th century, it may be exploited and used for stuff where oil derivatives are used today... but the logistics of managing hydrogen remain problematic.
I don't think net zero is possible even after these conditions, but lower emissions may be.
If anything, it would probably be easier to achieve net zero by 2000 if industrialisation started earlier.
That way (A) there's a smaller population to produce the emissions, and (B) gives more time to find a solution.
That way (A) there's a smaller population to produce the emissions, and (B) gives more time to find a solution.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Well, Europe had peak emissions in 1979; interestingly, both the US and Japan also started to go down after that, until they went up again and surpassed in the late 80’s (both surpassing their 1979 numbers in 1988, with the US eventually peaking in 2005 and Japan in 2012). So you could have the developed world getting a head start, if nothing else; interestingly, at the time of Europe's peak emissions, the aforementioned nations (EU 27, the UK, the US, and Japan) totaled about 60% of world CO2 emissions; meanwhile, the USSR alone contributed almost 14% of the world total, while China still commanded less than 6%. And recall that emissions in the former Soviet Union collapsed when said union fell.
So while Net Zero by 2000 with a late 1970's PoD may be difficult, it should be more than possible for World Peak Emissions to be reached by 1990 with these kinds of numbers, which could make efforts toward Net Zero in the 21st Century significantly easier.
So while Net Zero by 2000 with a late 1970's PoD may be difficult, it should be more than possible for World Peak Emissions to be reached by 1990 with these kinds of numbers, which could make efforts toward Net Zero in the 21st Century significantly easier.
It existed, it was free dial up internet. I had to constantly push pop up advertisements out of the way of browser content I wanted to view, and do a token click on an ad every 15 minutes or so, or the browser would shut itself off.
This was a circa 1999 service or something.
This was a circa 1999 service or something.