Post #4366175

2026-08-02 21:31 UTC

Problem is that it seems like every time i hear ‘adapt to climate change’ it is almost immediately followed by a reduction in effort to achieve net zero. I don’t think that’s a fair characterization around most of these discussions. For indoor “climate” control, switching to more efficient heat pumps that can be reversible air conditioning, or improving insulation, or architecture/design that allows for better passive cooling or airflow, often has the dual effect of making the building more comfortable and reducing the energy requirements of keeping the building comfortable. For adapting to water use and changes in precipitation patterns, the “adapt to climate change” positions are about using less water (and less energy), and wasting fewer resources in general. Even the debates around moving people or industries or agriculture tend to center around adapting to resource scarcity, and tend to describe methods for reducing resource use at the places where they are scarce: ecological conservation at places where it floods, reducing human presence where natural disasters are more likely to occur, etc.

Replies (1)

@GMac@feddit.org 2026-08-03 08:07

It’s fine to have a different opinion but you havent actually contradicted anything. You just listed adaptations without any actual steps to reduce carbon emissions in power generation. Efficiency may help with other resources but for power generation, efficiency alone is just a strategy to lose the planet more slowly, and given the increasing speed of change in recent years i’m not even sure it can achieve that to a meaningful extent. Hell, look at coca cola: they could, all alone, reduce plastic pollution massively overnight by removing 500ml bottles and selling only alu cans. They have the production facilities already but they dont do it. Being more efficient about resources used is all well and good, but we still NEED to get carbon neutral on energy production. And that is something that requires political will; and politicians will not touch net zero (or upset rich lobbies) if they think the electorate will settle for an efficiency drive. Already the nuance in this thread far exceeds anything the political class will engage on. Just in a few comments we have introduced separating power generation from use of other natural resources like water, and factoring human mobility, architecture, materials technologies, national housing stocks, and more. There are just too many places for the energy companies and polluters to dissemble and hide. Net Zero is a simple, single target that can be measured and people can be held accountable.

Open ##4366366