Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
https://twitter.com/AndrewYNg/status/1736577228828496179 This is one of those perspectives that feels wise but I quite disagree with. Consider Covid in Jan 2020. At that time, was it right to focus on (i) actual current realized harm, or (ii) hypotheticals based on projecting exponential functions? Clearly (ii).
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Sean Wince 🎩
@seanwince
Thank you for saying this. Climate change is somewhat similar in that the current harm is bad and rightly draws attention, but future harm will be catastrophic in comparison.
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Tito - Air Miner
@tito.eth
Curious for more of Vitalik's thoughts on climate change. Especially pieces of the solution like carbon removal from ambient air. Climate scientists may "win" the prediction game but where are the levers to take action.
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
I admittedly know much less about world-of-atoms science than world-of-bits science, but climate change does feel like it has pretty severe tail-end risks. Carbon removal tech seems really cool, though I think the biggest gains will come from large-scale change toward solar power over the next couple of decades
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Tito - Air Miner
@tito.eth
I just got back from COP28. One thing I want to suggest for your mental model: Decarbonization alone (ie large-scale solar power etc) doesn't get us a stable climate anymore. IPCC models require full decarbonization AND 10 billion tons/year of carbon removal by 2050. Both decarb and removal are necessary.
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Sean Wince 🎩
@seanwince
Sadly that ideal scenario is not going to happen because there are strong economic forces working against it. IMO we are stuck with an unstable climate at this point. Still, can we achieve 75% of those ideal metrics? 50%? Anything is better than nothing. And some instability is still better than total mayhem.
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