15 ms·

The world has probably passed peak pollution

278 points by robertn702 2y ago

Animats 2y ago
That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-global-oil-production-2023-update/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy-peak-baby https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...
- defrost 2y ago
  Peak Coal - Probably, very likely, more or less about right now. Global coal supply likely peaked in 2023 and then to decline https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Can't say for sure until another few years have passed, nonetheless every country in the world has coal on hold or in decline save for India and China. China is the largest producer of renewable technology and energy (?), India is building out the worlds largest solat array farm (albeit "only" good for 16 million households).
  - cpill 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - WaxProlix 2y ago
      In the same way that your local power plant isn't solely responsible for the pollution created in heating surrounding homes, it's probably not reasonable to look at the places that have done the fabricating, weaving, injection molding, spinning, etc for the rest of the world as being the major center of pollution. China specifically is decarbonizing fast, and at some expense to their own economy over the last decade or so.
      - vondur 2y ago
        Regarding China: China accounted for 95% of the world's new coal power construction activity in 2023, according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Construction began on 70 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in China, up four-fold since 2019, says GEM's annual report on the global coal power industry China started construction on 70.2 GW of new coal-power capacity last year, almost 20 times the rest of the world's 3.7 GW.
        Retric 2y ago
        That’s misleading because they are idling their existing coal power plants more often. Essentially they are using new coal as demand following peaker plants rather than base load power generation. “In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They're now running around 50%.” https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants#:~:text=The%20capacity%20factor%20of%20China's,re%20now%20running%20around%2050%25 https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants#.... By comparison China added 217 GW of PV in 2023 alone which came online over the year. IE adding ~20GW in December has 1/12th impact in 2023, but it’s now online for the next ~25 years. Which is why some predictions have China using less coal in 2024 despite bringing new power plants online in 2023. China alone represents 30% of the world’s electricity production/consumption so it has real impact, but they just don’t have the natural gas supplies which the US has used to ween itself off coal.
        dalyons 2y ago
        Also critically they don’t have to build these coal plant to be economically used in the same way as free market states do. They’re building them mostly as a hedge - if they end up barely used , which is likely given renewable trends, that’s ok for state owned power. It makes everything a bit more expensive, but you can’t exactly vote for an alternative. If they need to get used a lot for whatever reason, no one is unhappy either, you avoid shortages and discontent. Whereas coal stopped being built in market economies roughly as soon as it became uneconomical.
        2y ago
    - mulmen 2y ago
      Do you believe what you wrote here is a constructive, insightful comment? The comment you are replying to addressed that even India and China are building renewables. It requires very little energy for you to spread negativity but potentially thousands of people then have to internalize it. Why choose to do that? Like burning coal, your negativity pollutes the environment of HN and the internet at large.
    - Brian_K_White 2y ago
      What of it? China + India = 2.864bn Not China or India = 5.244bn I think the characterization that a turning point has occurred is perfectly supportable. The article never even tried to say anything other than that it only just barely happened 11 minutes ago and a few metrics metrics don't show a clear past peak yet.
      - fooker 2y ago
        Whatever China and India do, their neighbors follow with impunity. Your math might need adjusting for that.
      - defrost 2y ago
        "The article" https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply was a few paragraphs summerising the global coal supply as a subsection of the IEA Coal 2023 report. If you fell that detail was lacking you can look to either the executive summary https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/executive-summary or download and read the full 130 page report (PDF) https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/a72a7ffa-c5f2-4ed8-a2bf-eb035931d95c/Coal_2023.pdf https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/a72a7ffa-c5f2-4ed8-...
  - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
    China still builds more coal power, but they intend to use it only as a backup for when renewables are not producing enough. The YouTube channel Just Have a Think did a video on China's energy future recently, highly recommend checking it out (sorry for not linking directly, writing on my phone).
    - bamboozled 2y ago
      Doesn’t it take a while to bring a coal station up to energy producing capacity ? Isn’t they why gas is more popular for this ?
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        China has domestic coal reserves, so they build coal. It's the same reason as West Virginia and just as bad. If you have any amount of energy storage then the time delay doesn't matter. You turn on the alternate generation method when the storage is starting to run down. It doesn't matter if it takes an hour to come up to temperature because you still have two hours of storage left. The actual problem is that "shortfall" is a relative concept. Do you have to burn coal because it's cloudy all week, or just because you spent a lot of resources building coal-fired power plants instead of solar panels or wind turbines or nuclear reactors? How often are you going to run the things? The economics of building and maintaining an entire fleet of coal power plants to use only in a demand emergency is extremely poor. Like you're better off spending half the money on nuclear reactors you can run 100% of the time and the other half on electrifying transportation so you can have a huge demand buffer in the form of vehicle batteries and then get people who only drive a few miles per day to delay their charging by a few days through pricing because a full charge lasts them three weeks anyway.
        bamboozled 2y ago
        This is what makes me think it’s all a lie. It makes no economic sense to use coal as a “backup”?
        2y ago
- monero-xmr 2y ago
  My problem with the “peak population” hypothesis is that all of the non-breeders will eliminate themselves from the gene pool soon. All of us that have kids for whatever reason chose to reproduce despite the abundance of modern society. Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially.
  - developerDan 2y ago
    Who is to say children today will have children of their own tomorrow? People who are choosing not to have kids “leaving the gene pool” (you say it as if they are some filth to be done away with) doesn’t change anything.
    - monero-xmr 2y ago
      If you don’t reproduce then your genes are not passed on. You have self-selected not to be part of the human race any longer. My hunch is that the people who still decide to reproduce, despite all the reasons people who advocate for not having children talk about, likely have some sort of genetic predisposition for reproduction - a strong innate need. After all the non-breeders die off, the future belongs to the reproducers.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - skissane 2y ago
        Not just in terms of selecting genes, but also selecting cultures. If allele A causes increased desire to reproduce than allele B, then in a society in which reproduction is viewed as an optional extra, all else being equal, allele A is likely to predominate allele B over time. Conversely, in a more traditional society in which everyone is subject to a strong social expectation to reproduce, allele A would have far less of an advantage over allele B. An allele might lead to increased reproduction indirectly rather than directly. For example, if an allele makes a person more likely to be religious, and if religious people are more likely to have kids, then even though that allele does not directly impact desire to reproduce, it may be selected for due to its indirect impact on reproduction. That's genetics; coming to culture: if subculture A puts higher emphasis on reproduction than subculture B, then all else being equal, in the long-run subculture A is likely to outnumber subculture B, irrespective of any genetic factors. However, defections from subculture A to subculture B may erase much of its innate demographic advantage. This suggests in the long-run, the most demographically successful subcultures will be those which combine sustained high fertility with sustained insularity (social barriers to defection to other subcultures)–which is exactly what we observe with groups like the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
- skissane 2y ago
  > - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So, that seems to support the article's contention, at least for the US – and if we look at other countries, we observe things are broadly similar, so that in turn supports that contention for the planet as a whole. However, we also observe in the US small, ultra-conservative religious minorities, such as the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews, who still have a high fertility rate, and also have high youth retention (80-90% of their children will stay in the group as adults). Now, even though these groups are a tiny percentage of the population, the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, they could be the majority of the US population, which could then result in a national baby boom. And, eventually, as they spread across the globe (they exist to varying degrees in other countries too), a global baby boom. So 2013's "peak baby" may end up being surpassed. Of course, there is no guarantee that is going to happen – maybe they'll get to a certain size, and then they'll stop growing. And of course, it is physically impossible to sustain exponential growth indefinitely. However, it remains a possible future that they won't stop growing until after they've gotten so big that 2013 turns out not to be the year of "peak baby" after all. Maybe it will actually be 2213 or 2313 instead. Our descendants (if one happens to have them) will find out.
  - bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
    > the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, I don't know if any realm of human sciences where extrapolating exponential growth yields trustworthy results, outside maybe of wealth accumulation, and even then not for 2 centuries.
    - skissane 2y ago
      I never claimed that it is inevitable that they'll sustain their current growth rate for the next 2-3 centuries, only that it is entirely possible. And I don't see why it wouldn't be. If you look at ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York/New Jersey, I don't see how they'd hit any natural barriers to their continued growth until they are many times larger than they are now, at which point they'd be a serious challenger for becoming the population majority. The main ways it might not happen would be if either (1) they (gradually or suddenly) abandon their current culture for a less fertile one, (2) mainstream society persecutes them sufficiently. Both are entirely possible, but neither is anywhere near certain. The situation for the (Old Order) Amish is more difficult, since – unlike ultra-Orthodox Jews – they'll run out of enough land to sustain their agrarian lifestyle, and will have to transition to a more urban one. While the more urban lifestyle of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrates it is possible for insular high fertility religious minorities to exist in an urban setting, there is a real risk that they might lose their fertility and/or their insularity in the process. Also, people often bring up the problem Israel has with many ultra-Orthodox Jews not working and relying on government subsidies to live. That is much less of a problem in the US than it is in Israel, so the sustainability of that lifestyle is less of a barrier to future growth in the US than it is in Israel. Furthermore, the fact they manage to grow so much in the US without doing that, means being forced to stop doing that isn't necessarily going to stop their growth in Israel either.
- iiovemiku 2y ago
  Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly. I had always thought that low birth rates were a problem for only countries like Germany, Spain, Japan, etc. (at least for the time being). Seeing countries like India even out (and even going under replacement rate) gives me some heavy pessimism about population graying. I had always thought that heavy swingers like them would carry on the whole growing population thing for a good few more decades. Looks like we're more or less on a crash course in the next few decades, especially with lifespans moving as they are.
  - Nicholas_C 2y ago
    Will be very troublesome for countries with low fertility that can’t attract immigrants to keep the population from declining.
    - missedthecue 2y ago
      Countries like India, all of South East Asia, all of LatAm, a good amount of North Africa... all below replacement and falling fast. Argentina's incoming preschool class in 2024 is 30% smaller than the class of 2020. That's how quickly this is happening.
  - grecy 2y ago
    > Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?
    - hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
      100% agree, this is not a real problem and is better than the alternative.
    - sidewndr46 2y ago
      Yeah, I've never understood the panic over a declining birth rate. Are we to be scared that long after we're all dead and gone there would only be several billion humans on this planet?
- xnx 2y ago
  Crossing my fingers that we've also hit "peak extinction", and not just because we've killed off most of the vulnerable species already.
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  Peak Plastic?
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Hopefully peak plastic pollution, anyways. Plastic is a very useful substance, the issues are that it is made from fossil fuel and that its pollution is significant. If we capture carbon and then use that carbon as a feedstock to create plastic in a form that won't end up as a pollution (aka not plastic bottles or synthetic fleece) we can turn it into a positive.
- elijahbenizzy 2y ago
  “Peak baby” is an objectively bad thing
  - WA 2y ago
    It's not. We need a sustainable size of population. Unlimited population growth is not sustainable. It doesn't mean that we are going to die out. It just means that there are as many newborns as old people dying. Check out this good old Hans Rosling video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sMarsIntruder 2y ago
  Everyone is entitled to their own ideas, but are we really associating 'peak baby' with global pollution? Humans certainly contribute to pollution, but we should address some ethical questions first.
  - mpreda 2y ago
    Well, yes. And, what are the ethical questions we should address first?
- spintin 2y ago
  [dead]
- cs702 2y ago
  I'm not sure "peak baby" is a good thing, but agree with you that the other three peaks are encouraging. Arguments by smart people like Sabine Hossenfelder have led me to question the conventional wisdom on population growth. For example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 .
  - faeriechangling 2y ago
    A shrinking population is fine, this planet has its limits. A rapidly shrinking population is not ideal.
    - jandrese 2y ago
      There is a lot of panic over shrinking population where people project it out 1000 years and find there are only like 5 people left in the world. Steady state population should be the long term goal, at least until we start moving into orbital colonies or something. But unfortunately that's an anathema to growth oriented economies which makes it the bad guy in economics and politics.
      - missedthecue 2y ago
        At fertility rates of 1.6, it takes just 25 generations for the global population to go from 8 billion to 900k. Just 10 generations for the global population to drop below 1 billion. Pretty scary stuff.
        rcxdude 2y ago
        assuming fertility rates stay constant, which they rarely have. 250 years is a lot of time for things to change. (and of course there's no need for fertility rates to grow to as high as they have been historically, due to the massive drop in child mortality).
        missedthecue 2y ago
- tiborsaas 2y ago
  - Twin Peaks - 2017
- sandworm101 2y ago
  Anyone one to watch is 'peak road' or peak transport. Most countries continue to steadily expand transport infrastructure. Returning some of that back to a natural state, or just abandoning it, does happen but remains very rare.
bamboozled 2y ago
Positive on the one hand, stupid it took us this long on the other.
- defrost 2y ago
  It's worth looking back at 50 years of fossil fuel producers going into overdrive on casting FUD on harmful effects of CO2 since it was first raised at the UN in the 1970s.
  - hackerlight 2y ago
    To clarify the article. This isn't peak CO2. It isn't even peak pollution. It's peak first derivative of pollution ex. greenhouse gases. We'll get to peak CO2 when emissions of CO2 are net zero, so in a few decades at best. Until then atmospheric carbon and average temperatures will keep rising.
    - defrost 2y ago
      IIRC I had to do some of that calculus stuff before cutting loose on writing upwards and downwards magnetic field continuations for geophysical exploration software suites, so, yep, cheers for that. That aside, fifty years ago was when the dangers of increasing atmospheric insulation was raised as a serious potential issue in the UN, and fifty years ago was when the think tank ecology surrounding fossil fuel producers started churning articles on ice ages, Climate, who really knows?, killing public transport initiatives, etc. Hindsight is famously 20|20 but it serves us well to remember past playbooks; it wasn't just pure stupidty, there were people who knew better actively promoting larger cars and greater per capita consumption rather than looking to lower total emissions.
      - 082349872349872 2y ago
        Speaking of pure stupidity, I definately sometimes am. That said, even when there's evidently plenty of malice around, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that enough cooperators can figure out how to coordinate despite all the damned defectors!
jereze 2y ago
Well, such an optimistic title, considering that greenhouse gases are excluded in the article.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-emissions-start-falling https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...
  - hackerlight 2y ago
    No they won't. Only the first derivative of greenhouse gases ('emissions') will peak. Greenhouse gases itself will only peak after the world achieves net-zero.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      Since you're being pedantic, greenhouse gases don't have an infinite lifetime in the atmosphere so they will start going down slightly before we hit net-zero. I hope most understood that I meant to say peak greenhouse gas emissions.
  - jereze 2y ago
    Even if we are close to peaking emissions, we must consider the phenomenon of accumulation. Given that CO2 has an effective lifespan of around 100 years and methane about 10 years in the atmosphere, reductions in emissions now will still result in these gases accumulating and impacting the climate for decades to come.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      Where you have "accumulating", you mean persisting.
      - voxelghost 2y ago
hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
The good news is you’ve taken your foot off the gas. The bad news is the car is going 100mph and there is a cliff edge in 10 feet.
- perrygeo 2y ago
  Nailed it. We're confusing the second derivative (how much are we "accelerating" pollution) with the real scalar value of interest (distance from the pollution "cliff"). Taking your foot off the gas does nothing. Putting your foot hard on the brakes may not even do anything! Momentum do what it do. If humanity can't work through these fundamental math and science comprehension problems, we're doomed.
- el_nahual 2y ago
  Given that (with regard to greenhouse gasses) we've a) unlocked positive feedback emission loops from tropical & arctic methane and b) still pumping increasing amounts of carbon into the air, it's clear to anyone paying attention that we've already fallen off the cliff. We're just hovering for a second like Wile E Coyote.
  - hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
    I often wonder if Looney Tunes physics explains more about our world than classical economics…
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    Is a) actually clear at this time? My impression is that there are some questions about methane levels, but I don't know if sources of them are clear given that humans activity also causes a lot of methane emissions. But yes, apparently we also just had the largest ever recorded jump in CO2 levels at 4.7ppm year-over-year and the sea surface temperature data over the last year is sobering.
- tech_ken 2y ago
  The best news is that your hush puppies are ready: youtube.com/watch?v=L7eFdTGC3N4
methuselah_in 2y ago
With humans burning and producing waste can nothing be like peak. They will keep on going. I don't understand why people don't understand it's human nature until you don't stop them with fines you squeeze the availability of the fossils, they will keep on going on. What soul awakening scientists expects is possible only in few. Govt have to push people with policies and shift their behaviour.
ISL 2y ago
We may not yet have had the war that ends all wars. Whenever I think about protecting the environment, I think about preventing the catastrophes that are wars.
- xeornet 2y ago
  It would seem politicians, especially in the West do not care at all about that concern.
  - zizee 2y ago
    Especially in the west?
    - xeornet 2y ago
      The war in Ukraine was created by the US/Nato. It's incredibly naive to assume that Russia was the sole malicious actor here. I wonder how we would react if the soviet union was tipped to expand into Mexico. https://www.cato.org/commentary/four-western-provocations-led-us-russia-crisis-today https://www.cato.org/commentary/four-western-provocations-le... That being said, this is the wrong forum for this both in terms of audience and topic. Awaiting the mass downvotes for an argument that holds merit but is difficult to swallow for the US public.
      - dragonwriter 2y ago
        > The war in Ukraine was created by the US/Nato. No, it was created by the Russian Federation invading Ukraine in 2014. It was exacerbated by the Russian Federation launching a larger scale, broader invasion in 2022. > It’s incredibly naive to assume that Russia was the sole malicious actor here. Whether or not there is some standard by which some other actor is “malicious”, Russia is, in fact, the aggressor in the war. > I wonder how we would react if the soviet union was tipped to expand into Mexico. Mostly wondering where the Soviet Union hid out for the last 33 years.
        2y ago
benatkin 2y ago
Many will regret being distracted by the world's problems when they could have been building their lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0 > Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable. > While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is. > But it’s not. None of it matters to you now. https://sive.rs/berklee https://sive.rs/berklee
- tech_ken 2y ago
  Kind of repeating myself from another comment, but the person making this comment is basically standing atop one of the most singular vantage points in all of human history. To say this advice is non-generalizable is an understatement, IM personal O. Setting aside that this was the entry point of the ZIRP years (unique even among US history), the United States from 1920-2020 was basically unprecedented in terms of global hegemony, access to material resources, and scientific knowledge. Even a cursory examination of the global situation indicates that these factors are not going to hold forever, probably not even for the next 50 years. I think a prudent person has to ask themselves "do I really want to turn off the news and focus my entire being on creating a startup? Or do I want to have some Plans B-Z in case the Roman Empire falls?" It's true you can't fix everything yourself, and many people waste their lives trying, but tbh that seems less foolish than taking serious advice from an '08 UC Berkley graduation speech.
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    Wrong Berkl(ee)
    - tech_ken 2y ago
      Lmao whups
- orthecreedence 2y ago
  It's possible to build a life that attempts to solve the world's problems. Then you have personal accomplishments and meaningful social contribution. But your comment reads like "who cares about the planet we live on, just do whatever you want" which isn't really great advice or a particularly sustainable mindset. I'm getting strong Ayn Rand vibes.
unnouinceput 2y ago
2B humans out of 8B are in China. You do not have numbers for China nor, if you manage to get it, can those be trusted anyway. I feel that while the West started the downtrend, China will not offset that but surely pass as how much pollutants it spews. We are not out of the woods until China gets on board too.
- deleted 2y ago
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- iamthemonster 2y ago
  I think I trust the numbers for China more than your estimate of China's population which is out by 43%
  - unnouinceput 2y ago
    If you really think the official numbers spilled by the communist party from there is the truth then I have a bridge to sell to you.
illiac786 2y ago
I find this title highly misleading “peak emission” would be much more accurate. “Peak pollution” sounds like the amount of pollution in the environment will actually _decrease_ going forward. That is simply not true, it will continue to increase, just slightly less fast. Sorry if I don’t feel euphoric right now.
- tmvphil 2y ago
  For e.g NOx with a high half-life, you are probably right that we are still increasing pollution. For short half-life pollutants like SO2 and CO, I would expect this means the actual atmospheric levels are decreasing.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > For e.g NOx with a high half-life Their half-life is shorter than a day. On the same magnitude of SO2. The one of CO is indeed much smaller.
- mycall 2y ago
  I thought greenhouse gasses will increase in concentration as the feedback loop of polar region is forcing trapped gasses out of the ground.
  - gavindean90 2y ago
    I thinks that’s been predicted but not observed thus far.
    - graeme 2y ago
      We have on a small scale. Methane is escaping as the permafrost thaws. Boreal forests are also burning down as their climate warms. Reduction in polar ice changes the albedo of the earth to reflect less heat. At a certain point sufficient warming could trigger a cascade. So far we haven't done that, but it's incorrect to say there's been no release of stored CO2.
benreesman 2y ago
If economic and political capture fail to destroy civilization before climate change does I’ll be glad because we have science for the latter but not the former. Science almost always gives you a fighting chance but there seems to be no motivation let alone research directions on unchecked income inequality. I’m from the United States, a very wealthy country if you use the arithmetic mean to calculate prosperity (which is the devil’s own summary statistic in such matters), but children live in tent encampments even in ostensibly wealthy cities and it goes downhill from there. I hope climate damage becomes a relevant problem because we have ideas for how to tackle that, arguably even credible plans. Income inequality is utterly unchecked and will wreck civilization sooner.
- diob 2y ago
  The problem is that the two are entangled. Those at low incomes (heck even middle income), will be disproportionately hurt by climate change.
  - benreesman 2y ago
    I think the problem is that the best and brightest (of which HN’s readership is a plausible sample) dislikes this observation: a great many people who rarely use anything but hard rationality still believe that not only will they be the one to join the tiny elite (can’t be all of them, most are wrong by construction), but that this is acceptable. Of secondary importance is what a depressing commentary this is on the ethical caliber of our intellectual elite. Of primary importance is that only a tennis court and a guillotine will stop them, something one hopes we’d all like to avoid.
    - matthewdgreen 2y ago
      We've faced a similar version of this problem before, in the 1910s and 1920s. What happened in that case was a global depression, followed by reforms (in some places) and communist/fascist takeovers in others. Then we had a world war.
      - 2y ago
tim333 2y ago
Peaking nitrogen oxides has made quite a difference for me personally living near Oxford Street. A decade ago it had some of the highest NO2 levels in the world and I was getting stinging eyes and thinking of moving. It's quite a lot better now mostly down to the vehicles having less polluting power sources.
ninininino 2y ago
Peak pollution (that we're aware of). Given the modus operandi of "manufacture first, find out about carcinogenic / animal-extinction-properties second", it's almost certainly a given that we've not yet passed peak pollution because we keep creating new forms of pollution that are harder and harder to clean up.
riffic 2y ago
we still got forever chemicals, industrial accidents, radiation, and microplastics to keep us company for a while yay. edit: how can I leave out space junk, that's always been my fav.
deleted 2y ago
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selimthegrim 2y ago
I just got Hannah Ritchie’s book out of the library yesterday and I was like oh I think I know where this is from.
faeriechangling 2y ago
The population still hasn't peaked so I'm doubtful.
- kshahkshah 2y ago
  China's population is rapidly declining and India's population already peaked and just started declining. More to do elsewhere, but is is really not the case population hasn't peaked or is about to? edit: well according to: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022 https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022 it'll be 2083 (!) before we peak in population
deleted 2y ago
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bionhoward 2y ago
Tell that to the toolbags who leave their truck idling while they use multiple gas powered lawnmowers, trimmers, leaf blowers!
- barbazoo 2y ago
  People leaving their cars/trucks idling with no one inside are on the same level as those still throwing their cigarette butts on the ground. I guess we can't reach everyone or some people just don't get it.
nostrademons 2y ago
It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions. But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, declining fertility, and the rising (opportunity) cost of raising a family. Instead of seeing a collapse in industrial output because of declining resources, we're seeing a collapse in industrial output because of market saturation and a shift toward services and online experiences. Instead of pollution growing unbounded, it's actually declining because of green technology and de-industrialization. The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicates-1972-mit-prediction-that-society-will-collapse-soon https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicat...
- detourdog 2y ago
  It might be more like the "dark ages". The people got along we don't know what they were doing but the result was the "renaissance".
  - 2four2 2y ago
    The growth in power of megacorporations has been coined a new type of feudalism, so dark ages might not be a bad description.
  - maxwell 2y ago
    They were called such due to the decline of written material: the written record went "dark" compared to antiquity and then modernity. Definitely in another dark age in that sense, due to the postmodern decline of meaningful written communication on paper.
hpeter 2y ago
I emit less methane than a few years ago, since I changed my diet. No gluten and lactose.
idunnoman1222 2y ago
Really do forever chemicals go away or something? or do they mean the peak output of pollutants because that’s not the same thing at all.
Dibby053 2y ago
I'm skeptic. United States. Population: 335M. Vehicles: 305M. Germany. Population: 85M. Vehicles: 52M. India. Population: 1428M. Vehicles: 79M. China. Population: 1400M. Vehicles: 500M. Ethiopia. Population: 121M. Vehicles: 1.2M. Nigeria. Population: 230M. Vehicles: 13M. Indonesia. Population: 279M. Vehicles: 23M. etc.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Recently launched MethaneSAT locates anthropogenic ultra-emitter methane plumes to their sources. CH₄ GWP is ~70 in 20 years. Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from Russia and US (2022) https://archive.ph/eYig4 https://archive.ph/eYig4 https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/overview https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/over... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo... (2022, 400k t) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak (2015-2016, 100k t)
atleastoptimal 2y ago
Now it’s time to bring pollution back. Without sulfur dioxide warming will accelerate. As many people pointed out it had been accidentally load bearing on warming
gavin_gee 2y ago
Perhaps the planet but definitely not the mind.
jmakov 2y ago
Probably not. Nice try
greentxt 2y ago
Reminds me of Fukuyama, and yes I know he wasn’t saying that exactly. Pretty sure this is not true as long as birth rates are declining. What is that saying about assumptions…

278 points by robertn702 2y ago

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-global-oil-production-2023-update/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy-peak-baby https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

defrost 2y ago
Peak Coal - Probably, very likely, more or less about right now. Global coal supply likely peaked in 2023 and then to decline https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Can't say for sure until another few years have passed, nonetheless every country in the world has coal on hold or in decline save for India and China. China is the largest producer of renewable technology and energy (?), India is building out the worlds largest solat array farm (albeit "only" good for 16 million households).
- cpill 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - WaxProlix 2y ago
    In the same way that your local power plant isn't solely responsible for the pollution created in heating surrounding homes, it's probably not reasonable to look at the places that have done the fabricating, weaving, injection molding, spinning, etc for the rest of the world as being the major center of pollution. China specifically is decarbonizing fast, and at some expense to their own economy over the last decade or so.
    - vondur 2y ago
      Regarding China: China accounted for 95% of the world's new coal power construction activity in 2023, according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Construction began on 70 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in China, up four-fold since 2019, says GEM's annual report on the global coal power industry China started construction on 70.2 GW of new coal-power capacity last year, almost 20 times the rest of the world's 3.7 GW.
      - Retric 2y ago
        That’s misleading because they are idling their existing coal power plants more often. Essentially they are using new coal as demand following peaker plants rather than base load power generation. “In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They're now running around 50%.” https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants#:~:text=The%20capacity%20factor%20of%20China's,re%20now%20running%20around%2050%25 https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants#.... By comparison China added 217 GW of PV in 2023 alone which came online over the year. IE adding ~20GW in December has 1/12th impact in 2023, but it’s now online for the next ~25 years. Which is why some predictions have China using less coal in 2024 despite bringing new power plants online in 2023. China alone represents 30% of the world’s electricity production/consumption so it has real impact, but they just don’t have the natural gas supplies which the US has used to ween itself off coal.
        dalyons 2y ago
        Also critically they don’t have to build these coal plant to be economically used in the same way as free market states do. They’re building them mostly as a hedge - if they end up barely used , which is likely given renewable trends, that’s ok for state owned power. It makes everything a bit more expensive, but you can’t exactly vote for an alternative. If they need to get used a lot for whatever reason, no one is unhappy either, you avoid shortages and discontent. Whereas coal stopped being built in market economies roughly as soon as it became uneconomical.
        2y ago
  - mulmen 2y ago
    Do you believe what you wrote here is a constructive, insightful comment? The comment you are replying to addressed that even India and China are building renewables. It requires very little energy for you to spread negativity but potentially thousands of people then have to internalize it. Why choose to do that? Like burning coal, your negativity pollutes the environment of HN and the internet at large.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    What of it? China + India = 2.864bn Not China or India = 5.244bn I think the characterization that a turning point has occurred is perfectly supportable. The article never even tried to say anything other than that it only just barely happened 11 minutes ago and a few metrics metrics don't show a clear past peak yet.
    - fooker 2y ago
      Whatever China and India do, their neighbors follow with impunity. Your math might need adjusting for that.
    - defrost 2y ago
      "The article" https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/supply was a few paragraphs summerising the global coal supply as a subsection of the IEA Coal 2023 report. If you fell that detail was lacking you can look to either the executive summary https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2023/executive-summary or download and read the full 130 page report (PDF) https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/a72a7ffa-c5f2-4ed8-a2bf-eb035931d95c/Coal_2023.pdf https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/a72a7ffa-c5f2-4ed8-...
- karmakurtisaani 2y ago
  China still builds more coal power, but they intend to use it only as a backup for when renewables are not producing enough. The YouTube channel Just Have a Think did a video on China's energy future recently, highly recommend checking it out (sorry for not linking directly, writing on my phone).
  - bamboozled 2y ago
    Doesn’t it take a while to bring a coal station up to energy producing capacity ? Isn’t they why gas is more popular for this ?
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      China has domestic coal reserves, so they build coal. It's the same reason as West Virginia and just as bad. If you have any amount of energy storage then the time delay doesn't matter. You turn on the alternate generation method when the storage is starting to run down. It doesn't matter if it takes an hour to come up to temperature because you still have two hours of storage left. The actual problem is that "shortfall" is a relative concept. Do you have to burn coal because it's cloudy all week, or just because you spent a lot of resources building coal-fired power plants instead of solar panels or wind turbines or nuclear reactors? How often are you going to run the things? The economics of building and maintaining an entire fleet of coal power plants to use only in a demand emergency is extremely poor. Like you're better off spending half the money on nuclear reactors you can run 100% of the time and the other half on electrifying transportation so you can have a huge demand buffer in the form of vehicle batteries and then get people who only drive a few miles per day to delay their charging by a few days through pricing because a full charge lasts them three weeks anyway.
      - bamboozled 2y ago
        This is what makes me think it’s all a lie. It makes no economic sense to use coal as a “backup”?
        2y ago
monero-xmr 2y ago
My problem with the “peak population” hypothesis is that all of the non-breeders will eliminate themselves from the gene pool soon. All of us that have kids for whatever reason chose to reproduce despite the abundance of modern society. Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially.
- developerDan 2y ago
  Who is to say children today will have children of their own tomorrow? People who are choosing not to have kids “leaving the gene pool” (you say it as if they are some filth to be done away with) doesn’t change anything.
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    If you don’t reproduce then your genes are not passed on. You have self-selected not to be part of the human race any longer. My hunch is that the people who still decide to reproduce, despite all the reasons people who advocate for not having children talk about, likely have some sort of genetic predisposition for reproduction - a strong innate need. After all the non-breeders die off, the future belongs to the reproducers.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - skissane 2y ago
      Not just in terms of selecting genes, but also selecting cultures. If allele A causes increased desire to reproduce than allele B, then in a society in which reproduction is viewed as an optional extra, all else being equal, allele A is likely to predominate allele B over time. Conversely, in a more traditional society in which everyone is subject to a strong social expectation to reproduce, allele A would have far less of an advantage over allele B. An allele might lead to increased reproduction indirectly rather than directly. For example, if an allele makes a person more likely to be religious, and if religious people are more likely to have kids, then even though that allele does not directly impact desire to reproduce, it may be selected for due to its indirect impact on reproduction. That's genetics; coming to culture: if subculture A puts higher emphasis on reproduction than subculture B, then all else being equal, in the long-run subculture A is likely to outnumber subculture B, irrespective of any genetic factors. However, defections from subculture A to subculture B may erase much of its innate demographic advantage. This suggests in the long-run, the most demographically successful subcultures will be those which combine sustained high fertility with sustained insularity (social barriers to defection to other subcultures)–which is exactly what we observe with groups like the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
skissane 2y ago
> - Peak baby - 2013. [2] I think your source's claim that "The planet will never see more babies than it has in 2013" is open to question. To just use the US as an example: mainstream Americans have a declining fertility rate, and we have no reason to think that is going to reverse in the foreseeable future. Immigrants have higher fertility, but they tend to converge to the mainstream after a generation or two. So, that seems to support the article's contention, at least for the US – and if we look at other countries, we observe things are broadly similar, so that in turn supports that contention for the planet as a whole. However, we also observe in the US small, ultra-conservative religious minorities, such as the Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jews, who still have a high fertility rate, and also have high youth retention (80-90% of their children will stay in the group as adults). Now, even though these groups are a tiny percentage of the population, the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, they could be the majority of the US population, which could then result in a national baby boom. And, eventually, as they spread across the globe (they exist to varying degrees in other countries too), a global baby boom. So 2013's "peak baby" may end up being surpassed. Of course, there is no guarantee that is going to happen – maybe they'll get to a certain size, and then they'll stop growing. And of course, it is physically impossible to sustain exponential growth indefinitely. However, it remains a possible future that they won't stop growing until after they've gotten so big that 2013 turns out not to be the year of "peak baby" after all. Maybe it will actually be 2213 or 2313 instead. Our descendants (if one happens to have them) will find out.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  > the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, I don't know if any realm of human sciences where extrapolating exponential growth yields trustworthy results, outside maybe of wealth accumulation, and even then not for 2 centuries.
  - skissane 2y ago
    I never claimed that it is inevitable that they'll sustain their current growth rate for the next 2-3 centuries, only that it is entirely possible. And I don't see why it wouldn't be. If you look at ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York/New Jersey, I don't see how they'd hit any natural barriers to their continued growth until they are many times larger than they are now, at which point they'd be a serious challenger for becoming the population majority. The main ways it might not happen would be if either (1) they (gradually or suddenly) abandon their current culture for a less fertile one, (2) mainstream society persecutes them sufficiently. Both are entirely possible, but neither is anywhere near certain. The situation for the (Old Order) Amish is more difficult, since – unlike ultra-Orthodox Jews – they'll run out of enough land to sustain their agrarian lifestyle, and will have to transition to a more urban one. While the more urban lifestyle of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrates it is possible for insular high fertility religious minorities to exist in an urban setting, there is a real risk that they might lose their fertility and/or their insularity in the process. Also, people often bring up the problem Israel has with many ultra-Orthodox Jews not working and relying on government subsidies to live. That is much less of a problem in the US than it is in Israel, so the sustainability of that lifestyle is less of a barrier to future growth in the US than it is in Israel. Furthermore, the fact they manage to grow so much in the US without doing that, means being forced to stop doing that isn't necessarily going to stop their growth in Israel either.
iiovemiku 2y ago
Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly. I had always thought that low birth rates were a problem for only countries like Germany, Spain, Japan, etc. (at least for the time being). Seeing countries like India even out (and even going under replacement rate) gives me some heavy pessimism about population graying. I had always thought that heavy swingers like them would carry on the whole growing population thing for a good few more decades. Looks like we're more or less on a crash course in the next few decades, especially with lifespans moving as they are.
- Nicholas_C 2y ago
  Will be very troublesome for countries with low fertility that can’t attract immigrants to keep the population from declining.
  - missedthecue 2y ago
    Countries like India, all of South East Asia, all of LatAm, a good amount of North Africa... all below replacement and falling fast. Argentina's incoming preschool class in 2024 is 30% smaller than the class of 2020. That's how quickly this is happening.
- grecy 2y ago
  > Wow, seeing peak baby is a little scary honestly Are you worried 8 billion is somehow not enough humans?
  - hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
    100% agree, this is not a real problem and is better than the alternative.
  - sidewndr46 2y ago
    Yeah, I've never understood the panic over a declining birth rate. Are we to be scared that long after we're all dead and gone there would only be several billion humans on this planet?
xnx 2y ago
Crossing my fingers that we've also hit "peak extinction", and not just because we've killed off most of the vulnerable species already.
SubiculumCode 2y ago
Peak Plastic?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Hopefully peak plastic pollution, anyways. Plastic is a very useful substance, the issues are that it is made from fossil fuel and that its pollution is significant. If we capture carbon and then use that carbon as a feedstock to create plastic in a form that won't end up as a pollution (aka not plastic bottles or synthetic fleece) we can turn it into a positive.
elijahbenizzy 2y ago
“Peak baby” is an objectively bad thing
- WA 2y ago
  It's not. We need a sustainable size of population. Unlimited population growth is not sustainable. It doesn't mean that we are going to die out. It just means that there are as many newborns as old people dying. Check out this good old Hans Rosling video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVk1ahRF78
deleted 2y ago
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sMarsIntruder 2y ago
Everyone is entitled to their own ideas, but are we really associating 'peak baby' with global pollution? Humans certainly contribute to pollution, but we should address some ethical questions first.
- mpreda 2y ago
  Well, yes. And, what are the ethical questions we should address first?
spintin 2y ago
[dead]
cs702 2y ago
I'm not sure "peak baby" is a good thing, but agree with you that the other three peaks are encouraging. Arguments by smart people like Sabine Hossenfelder have led me to question the conventional wisdom on population growth. For example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1AaZ9OkH8 .
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  A shrinking population is fine, this planet has its limits. A rapidly shrinking population is not ideal.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    There is a lot of panic over shrinking population where people project it out 1000 years and find there are only like 5 people left in the world. Steady state population should be the long term goal, at least until we start moving into orbital colonies or something. But unfortunately that's an anathema to growth oriented economies which makes it the bad guy in economics and politics.
    - missedthecue 2y ago
      At fertility rates of 1.6, it takes just 25 generations for the global population to go from 8 billion to 900k. Just 10 generations for the global population to drop below 1 billion. Pretty scary stuff.
      - rcxdude 2y ago
        assuming fertility rates stay constant, which they rarely have. 250 years is a lot of time for things to change. (and of course there's no need for fertility rates to grow to as high as they have been historically, due to the massive drop in child mortality).
        missedthecue 2y ago
tiborsaas 2y ago
- Twin Peaks - 2017
sandworm101 2y ago
Anyone one to watch is 'peak road' or peak transport. Most countries continue to steadily expand transport infrastructure. Returning some of that back to a natural state, or just abandoning it, does happen but remains very rare.

bamboozled 2y ago

Positive on the one hand, stupid it took us this long on the other.

defrost 2y ago
It's worth looking back at 50 years of fossil fuel producers going into overdrive on casting FUD on harmful effects of CO2 since it was first raised at the UN in the 1970s.
- hackerlight 2y ago
  To clarify the article. This isn't peak CO2. It isn't even peak pollution. It's peak first derivative of pollution ex. greenhouse gases. We'll get to peak CO2 when emissions of CO2 are net zero, so in a few decades at best. Until then atmospheric carbon and average temperatures will keep rising.
  - defrost 2y ago
    IIRC I had to do some of that calculus stuff before cutting loose on writing upwards and downwards magnetic field continuations for geophysical exploration software suites, so, yep, cheers for that. That aside, fifty years ago was when the dangers of increasing atmospheric insulation was raised as a serious potential issue in the UN, and fifty years ago was when the think tank ecology surrounding fossil fuel producers started churning articles on ice ages, Climate, who really knows?, killing public transport initiatives, etc. Hindsight is famously 20|20 but it serves us well to remember past playbooks; it wasn't just pure stupidty, there were people who knew better actively promoting larger cars and greater per capita consumption rather than looking to lower total emissions.
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      Speaking of pure stupidity, I definately sometimes am. That said, even when there's evidently plenty of malice around, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that enough cooperators can figure out how to coordinate despite all the damned defectors!

jereze 2y ago

Well, such an optimistic title, considering that greenhouse gases are excluded in the article.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-emissions-start-falling https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...
- hackerlight 2y ago
  No they won't. Only the first derivative of greenhouse gases ('emissions') will peak. Greenhouse gases itself will only peak after the world achieves net-zero.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Since you're being pedantic, greenhouse gases don't have an infinite lifetime in the atmosphere so they will start going down slightly before we hit net-zero. I hope most understood that I meant to say peak greenhouse gas emissions.
- jereze 2y ago
  Even if we are close to peaking emissions, we must consider the phenomenon of accumulation. Given that CO2 has an effective lifespan of around 100 years and methane about 10 years in the atmosphere, reductions in emissions now will still result in these gases accumulating and impacting the climate for decades to come.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    Where you have "accumulating", you mean persisting.
    - voxelghost 2y ago

hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago

The good news is you’ve taken your foot off the gas. The bad news is the car is going 100mph and there is a cliff edge in 10 feet.

perrygeo 2y ago
Nailed it. We're confusing the second derivative (how much are we "accelerating" pollution) with the real scalar value of interest (distance from the pollution "cliff"). Taking your foot off the gas does nothing. Putting your foot hard on the brakes may not even do anything! Momentum do what it do. If humanity can't work through these fundamental math and science comprehension problems, we're doomed.
el_nahual 2y ago
Given that (with regard to greenhouse gasses) we've a) unlocked positive feedback emission loops from tropical & arctic methane and b) still pumping increasing amounts of carbon into the air, it's clear to anyone paying attention that we've already fallen off the cliff. We're just hovering for a second like Wile E Coyote.
- hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
  I often wonder if Looney Tunes physics explains more about our world than classical economics…
- silverquiet 2y ago
  Is a) actually clear at this time? My impression is that there are some questions about methane levels, but I don't know if sources of them are clear given that humans activity also causes a lot of methane emissions. But yes, apparently we also just had the largest ever recorded jump in CO2 levels at 4.7ppm year-over-year and the sea surface temperature data over the last year is sobering.
tech_ken 2y ago
The best news is that your hush puppies are ready: youtube.com/watch?v=L7eFdTGC3N4

methuselah_in 2y ago

With humans burning and producing waste can nothing be like peak. They will keep on going. I don't understand why people don't understand it's human nature until you don't stop them with fines you squeeze the availability of the fossils, they will keep on going on. What soul awakening scientists expects is possible only in few. Govt have to push people with policies and shift their behaviour.

ISL 2y ago

We may not yet have had the war that ends all wars. Whenever I think about protecting the environment, I think about preventing the catastrophes that are wars.

xeornet 2y ago
It would seem politicians, especially in the West do not care at all about that concern.
- zizee 2y ago
  Especially in the west?
  - xeornet 2y ago
    The war in Ukraine was created by the US/Nato. It's incredibly naive to assume that Russia was the sole malicious actor here. I wonder how we would react if the soviet union was tipped to expand into Mexico. https://www.cato.org/commentary/four-western-provocations-led-us-russia-crisis-today https://www.cato.org/commentary/four-western-provocations-le... That being said, this is the wrong forum for this both in terms of audience and topic. Awaiting the mass downvotes for an argument that holds merit but is difficult to swallow for the US public.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > The war in Ukraine was created by the US/Nato. No, it was created by the Russian Federation invading Ukraine in 2014. It was exacerbated by the Russian Federation launching a larger scale, broader invasion in 2022. > It’s incredibly naive to assume that Russia was the sole malicious actor here. Whether or not there is some standard by which some other actor is “malicious”, Russia is, in fact, the aggressor in the war. > I wonder how we would react if the soviet union was tipped to expand into Mexico. Mostly wondering where the Soviet Union hid out for the last 33 years.
      - 2y ago

benatkin 2y ago

Many will regret being distracted by the world's problems when they could have been building their lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0 > Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable. > While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is. > But it’s not. None of it matters to you now. https://sive.rs/berklee https://sive.rs/berklee

tech_ken 2y ago
Kind of repeating myself from another comment, but the person making this comment is basically standing atop one of the most singular vantage points in all of human history. To say this advice is non-generalizable is an understatement, IM personal O. Setting aside that this was the entry point of the ZIRP years (unique even among US history), the United States from 1920-2020 was basically unprecedented in terms of global hegemony, access to material resources, and scientific knowledge. Even a cursory examination of the global situation indicates that these factors are not going to hold forever, probably not even for the next 50 years. I think a prudent person has to ask themselves "do I really want to turn off the news and focus my entire being on creating a startup? Or do I want to have some Plans B-Z in case the Roman Empire falls?" It's true you can't fix everything yourself, and many people waste their lives trying, but tbh that seems less foolish than taking serious advice from an '08 UC Berkley graduation speech.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Wrong Berkl(ee)
  - tech_ken 2y ago
    Lmao whups
orthecreedence 2y ago
It's possible to build a life that attempts to solve the world's problems. Then you have personal accomplishments and meaningful social contribution. But your comment reads like "who cares about the planet we live on, just do whatever you want" which isn't really great advice or a particularly sustainable mindset. I'm getting strong Ayn Rand vibes.

unnouinceput 2y ago

2B humans out of 8B are in China. You do not have numbers for China nor, if you manage to get it, can those be trusted anyway. I feel that while the West started the downtrend, China will not offset that but surely pass as how much pollutants it spews. We are not out of the woods until China gets on board too.

deleted 2y ago
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iamthemonster 2y ago
I think I trust the numbers for China more than your estimate of China's population which is out by 43%
- unnouinceput 2y ago
  If you really think the official numbers spilled by the communist party from there is the truth then I have a bridge to sell to you.

illiac786 2y ago

I find this title highly misleading “peak emission” would be much more accurate. “Peak pollution” sounds like the amount of pollution in the environment will actually _decrease_ going forward. That is simply not true, it will continue to increase, just slightly less fast. Sorry if I don’t feel euphoric right now.

tmvphil 2y ago
For e.g NOx with a high half-life, you are probably right that we are still increasing pollution. For short half-life pollutants like SO2 and CO, I would expect this means the actual atmospheric levels are decreasing.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  > For e.g NOx with a high half-life Their half-life is shorter than a day. On the same magnitude of SO2. The one of CO is indeed much smaller.
mycall 2y ago
I thought greenhouse gasses will increase in concentration as the feedback loop of polar region is forcing trapped gasses out of the ground.
- gavindean90 2y ago
  I thinks that’s been predicted but not observed thus far.
  - graeme 2y ago
    We have on a small scale. Methane is escaping as the permafrost thaws. Boreal forests are also burning down as their climate warms. Reduction in polar ice changes the albedo of the earth to reflect less heat. At a certain point sufficient warming could trigger a cascade. So far we haven't done that, but it's incorrect to say there's been no release of stored CO2.

benreesman 2y ago

If economic and political capture fail to destroy civilization before climate change does I’ll be glad because we have science for the latter but not the former. Science almost always gives you a fighting chance but there seems to be no motivation let alone research directions on unchecked income inequality. I’m from the United States, a very wealthy country if you use the arithmetic mean to calculate prosperity (which is the devil’s own summary statistic in such matters), but children live in tent encampments even in ostensibly wealthy cities and it goes downhill from there. I hope climate damage becomes a relevant problem because we have ideas for how to tackle that, arguably even credible plans. Income inequality is utterly unchecked and will wreck civilization sooner.

diob 2y ago
The problem is that the two are entangled. Those at low incomes (heck even middle income), will be disproportionately hurt by climate change.
- benreesman 2y ago
  I think the problem is that the best and brightest (of which HN’s readership is a plausible sample) dislikes this observation: a great many people who rarely use anything but hard rationality still believe that not only will they be the one to join the tiny elite (can’t be all of them, most are wrong by construction), but that this is acceptable. Of secondary importance is what a depressing commentary this is on the ethical caliber of our intellectual elite. Of primary importance is that only a tennis court and a guillotine will stop them, something one hopes we’d all like to avoid.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    We've faced a similar version of this problem before, in the 1910s and 1920s. What happened in that case was a global depression, followed by reforms (in some places) and communist/fascist takeovers in others. Then we had a world war.
    - 2y ago

tim333 2y ago

Peaking nitrogen oxides has made quite a difference for me personally living near Oxford Street. A decade ago it had some of the highest NO2 levels in the world and I was getting stinging eyes and thinking of moving. It's quite a lot better now mostly down to the vehicles having less polluting power sources.

ninininino 2y ago

Peak pollution (that we're aware of). Given the modus operandi of "manufacture first, find out about carcinogenic / animal-extinction-properties second", it's almost certainly a given that we've not yet passed peak pollution because we keep creating new forms of pollution that are harder and harder to clean up.

riffic 2y ago

we still got forever chemicals, industrial accidents, radiation, and microplastics to keep us company for a while yay. edit: how can I leave out space junk, that's always been my fav.

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selimthegrim 2y ago

I just got Hannah Ritchie’s book out of the library yesterday and I was like oh I think I know where this is from.

faeriechangling 2y ago

The population still hasn't peaked so I'm doubtful.

kshahkshah 2y ago
China's population is rapidly declining and India's population already peaked and just started declining. More to do elsewhere, but is is really not the case population hasn't peaked or is about to? edit: well according to: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022 https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-update-2022 it'll be 2083 (!) before we peak in population

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bionhoward 2y ago

Tell that to the toolbags who leave their truck idling while they use multiple gas powered lawnmowers, trimmers, leaf blowers!

barbazoo 2y ago
People leaving their cars/trucks idling with no one inside are on the same level as those still throwing their cigarette butts on the ground. I guess we can't reach everyone or some people just don't get it.

nostrademons 2y ago

It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions. But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, declining fertility, and the rising (opportunity) cost of raising a family. Instead of seeing a collapse in industrial output because of declining resources, we're seeing a collapse in industrial output because of market saturation and a shift toward services and online experiences. Instead of pollution growing unbounded, it's actually declining because of green technology and de-industrialization. The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicates-1972-mit-prediction-that-society-will-collapse-soon https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicat...

detourdog 2y ago
It might be more like the "dark ages". The people got along we don't know what they were doing but the result was the "renaissance".
- 2four2 2y ago
  The growth in power of megacorporations has been coined a new type of feudalism, so dark ages might not be a bad description.
- maxwell 2y ago
  They were called such due to the decline of written material: the written record went "dark" compared to antiquity and then modernity. Definitely in another dark age in that sense, due to the postmodern decline of meaningful written communication on paper.

hpeter 2y ago

I emit less methane than a few years ago, since I changed my diet. No gluten and lactose.

idunnoman1222 2y ago

Really do forever chemicals go away or something? or do they mean the peak output of pollutants because that’s not the same thing at all.

Dibby053 2y ago

I'm skeptic. United States. Population: 335M. Vehicles: 305M. Germany. Population: 85M. Vehicles: 52M. India. Population: 1428M. Vehicles: 79M. China. Population: 1400M. Vehicles: 500M. Ethiopia. Population: 121M. Vehicles: 1.2M. Nigeria. Population: 230M. Vehicles: 13M. Indonesia. Population: 279M. Vehicles: 23M. etc.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

Recently launched MethaneSAT locates anthropogenic ultra-emitter methane plumes to their sources. CH₄ GWP is ~70 in 20 years. Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from Russia and US (2022) https://archive.ph/eYig4 https://archive.ph/eYig4 https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/overview https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/over... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo... (2022, 400k t) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak (2015-2016, 100k t)

atleastoptimal 2y ago

Now it’s time to bring pollution back. Without sulfur dioxide warming will accelerate. As many people pointed out it had been accidentally load bearing on warming

gavin_gee 2y ago

Perhaps the planet but definitely not the mind.

jmakov 2y ago

Probably not. Nice try

greentxt 2y ago

Reminds me of Fukuyama, and yes I know he wasn’t saying that exactly. Pretty sure this is not true as long as birth rates are declining. What is that saying about assumptions…