Jancovici : Will technology save us from Climate Change ? MIT Media Lab - 23/02/2021
Jean-Marc Jancovici4 HN recommenders · 2021–2024
84K views · talk · evergreen · Uploaded 2021-02-25
Jean-Marc Jancovici gives an MIT Media Lab talk on whether technology can save us from climate change. He argues from a physical view of energy that economic growth, energy use and climate impact are tightly linked.
Recommended in climate and energy threads as a numbers-based explanation of why energy underlies growth and emissions.
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8 comments from Hacker News
You can try talks from this guy, he's a french energy and climate expert. I found that he explained very well the root of the issue between growth, energy and climate impact. Here is a talk he did for the MIT media lab in english: [VIDEO]
> What's the argument against researching it? It's a diversion. They're all stopgap measures with no real long term application. You can paint all the road white and add artificial clouds, if you continue to live like resources are unlimited and pollution isn't an issue you'll sooner or later hit another problem. If we don't take care of the root cause we're bound to fail. Unlimited growth and exponential energy usage isn't possible in a closed system. All these new "green" economy, "green" growth, &c. are perpetuating the idea that we're going down the right path and simply have to tweak a few variables to go from "catastrophic failure" to "idyllic paradise" I don't think people truly understand how fucked we are and how deep the problem runs. [VIDEO]
The current trajectory has locked us into 2C+ of warming. Even if some magical technology appears out of nowhere and allows us to start capturing and sequestering carbon at the gigaton volumes required to make a dent we're still locked into 2C+ of warming. [1][2] At this point it is no longer a matter of doing enough, it's a matter of actively adapting to the reality of a warmer planet because no matter what we do 2C+ warming is an immutable fact. 1: [VIDEO] 2: [LINK]
I pulled that number as an exaggeration to illustrate the fact that even if "our civilization" survives (whatever it may mean), it doesn't mean things are going to be OK. Even if you make that 50% it's still not great news in my book. I've read Dire Predictions written by members of the IPCC, the famous Limits to Growth and I follow the works of Jancovici, a French engineer specialized in these issues (here is a talk in English he did for MIT Media Lab: [VIDEO] ) Do those qualify as biased sources to you?
Jancovici is a legend. Listenening to him and reading his latest comic book ( Le monde sans fin ) made me very aware of climate issues and directly influenced my behavior. He deserves to be better known by international audiences. Here are some of his talks in english: - [LINK] - [VIDEO]
Interesting related presentation on what is energy and how it relates to the economy from a physical point of view [VIDEO] Note: presented in a controversial way, that's the style of this speaker
If you can suffer the french accent, I believe Jean-Marc Jancovici is making some good points about this issue : [VIDEO]
Indeed you have to look at the figures, no amount of wordage without computation will get you a true answer, still calling someone or something deplorable is, I am sorry, a dog-whistle. So to clear the air I propose you look at this substantive set of answers: [LINK] (cc to english should work ok) [VIDEO]