Ask HN: How do we fight the existential threat of climate change?
Doing little things as an individual is not impactful enough, maybe except eating less to no more meat ( in all its forms )<p>The only thing for this kind of issue that has proved efficient historically is massive non violent protesting ( that is what Extinction Rebellion, aka XR, does ), with people landing in prison...<p>As for trying to provide policies, we should, like any problem, have a look at the stats to prioritize, and aim at better rather than worse, we&#x27;re already at risk of hitting up to +26°C in 2026 if unlucky and not doing something,  hard.<p>Fossil fuel out phasing is not simple to address, so we should limit it as much as possible while scaling alternatives. It also means that anything producing fossil fuels or ( CO2 ) should not be able to give any kind of money or service to any kind of politicians, to avoid conflicts of interests.
Scaling alternatives (e.g. solar, wind, energy storage) means a lot of new buildings, and building something using portland concrete does create a lot of CO2.<p>Portland concrete is already the second more polluting stuff yearly on the planet after fossil fuels. Scalable and carbon negative ( actuaally removing CO2 from air) alternatives do exist to Portland concrete:<p>- MgO based concrete is carbon dioxide producing at first, but even more carbon dioxide absorbing during the 6 first months. It can be even be made from sea water, and was used by Romans and Egyptians in stuff still standing today. It can be 700 times stronger than usual concrete, dry even in wet climate, and doesn&#x27;t need metal structure to be mechanically good, you can just use wood or plant fibers instead.<p>- wood is of course one of the best alternative should it come from actually sustainable and renewable source, and if well integrated with nature, which is a challenge and where there is already a ton of abuse.<p>So as a politician, the first and best measure that is needed is to phase out Portland concrete as quick as possible ( e.g. in about 2 years ). Carbon Tax ( with NO exception to it) and subvention should help, probably a lot of control is also needed to avoid harming ( too much? ) nature because every massive and quick change we do is likely to harm and destroy nature.<p>Regarding energy, nothing is simple, yet we have to find solutions to phase out oil&#x2F; gas&#x2F;coal based as quickly as possible<p>- oil&#x2F;gas&#x2F;coal should be forbidden to search for more, as using already what we have access to is more than enough to kill us all.<p>- ( small ? ) nuclear is one of the best short term option despite all the cons everyone knows about it ( including needing a lot of water to cool down, which is unlikely sustainable. But we need to build a bunch of them, and it is dangerous.<p>- solar means a lot of concrete, land use and planet albedo change ( except offshore ), plus the solar panels themselves are essentially China based, and using rare earth elements, which is not good for scaling. It also needs to deploy very fast, we should probably deploy 1 every day for dozen of years, or maybe more to be faster and avoid risks. It also means we have to efficiently store the energy to be able to use it during the night.<p>- offshore wind is not bad, though like solar, it means energy storage. Onshore actually kills birds, which is not good ( plus it uses quite some land )<p>- Energy storage is also quite a problem:<p>* Li-ion batteries are not really sustainable, are not really recycled yet, and rely on rare earth element, plus they aren&#x27;t really safe either.<p>* Blue solution&#x27;s (aka Bollore) ones are a lot better, as they provide more cycles and don&#x27;t use ( much?) rare earth elements, though they are only good to store energy for at most a day<p>* Nawa ones would also be quite good, as they can be charged and discharged a lot faster than li-ion or BS ones, plus have a lifetime of millions of cycles, plus they are carbon based, which is really great (and they designed that to be great regarding CO2), though can hardly store energy for more than a day. As cells, they should be on the market in a few months, but there is no utility offers around it yet AFAIK.<p>* multi lake&#x2F;Dam energy storage ( with an upper and lower lake, and a pump in between) is not that good, as it indirectly produces a lot of Methane and should be improved to avoid that, or phased out.<p>Ideally to build what is needed regarding energy we should only use carbon negative technologies, and replace phased out plants with  something locally integrated, probably something like a Permaculture inspired forest would be good.<p>Regarding transports:<p>- we should not allow airports to grow, and only allow flights short term to cross oceans. It also means building new infrastructures everywhere to compensate.<p>- Train should probably be only electric, and subsidized somehow. Research should go into making it more efficient and faster.<p>- Electric cars are also a must, though the battery technology has to change, quickly.<p>- A new generation of Ekranoplans should also be a good solution to replace planes to cross oceans and seas, while  using less energy ( and maybe be electric? ), but can&#x27;t  probably be achieved quickly.<p>Cotton and synthetic fabrics, plus leathet based products should probably be phased out, and you should have a multi year warranty on clothes you buy, or you should &#x27;rent&#x27; them to get a good incentive for durability instead of the current fast fashion harming nature, using a lot of water, and producing CO2<p>All the public research we do worldwide should be focused on the sole problem of climate crisis and survival, or get no funding ( I know it is tough, and maybe reducing but I see no better option )<p>We should also give people help and incentives to move to more suitable locations regarding climate crisis and new transportation constraints.<p>We should test and see if the policies are able to provide decorrelation between economic growth and CO2e growth, and if not, look hard at a sustainable way to un-grow economically to save ourselves.<p>As all of this must be made at an global scale, the biggest economic powers should show the example as fast as possible, and be ready for war with countries not following.<p>Nothing easy in there, though I see no escape from it