Climate change: has anyone actually said what life would have to look like to prevent catastrophic warming?

[workwoes123]

I’ve been reading articles about the very gloomy, completely ignored, most recent IPCCC report.

What I can’t find is anything saying what daily life would look like if we adopted the measures that are necessary to prevent catastrophic warming? Like, in the UK, if we were to do what’s necessary:

how would we Heat our homes?
What kinds of homes could we build?
How would we travel / what transport could we have?
What would we eat?
What industries would still operate?

The reports all talk about the need to move away from fossil fuel use. What I can’t find is anything telling me what my life will look like if / when we do this?

I know people make what they think are big changes (eating veggie, holidays in the U.K., bamboo toothbrushes etc) but I suspect all these personal lifestyle changes add up to bugger all on a global scale and that the actual impacts on our lifestyles - however modest we think our lifestyles currently are - would be massive and negative (and that’s why no-one’s talking about this aspect of it). Am I right?

The middle and upper classes in the West wouldn't be prepared to accept the drop in living standards required, particularly as the growing middle classes in China and India increase theirs.
The train of conspicuous consumption has been roaring away since the late 50s and now no one will dare jump off.

@DesidaCrick

Homeowners can and do afford this kind of thing, and there have been various grants around for ages to use. I’ve used various grants for loft and cavity wall insulation. Solar panels and air source heat. People with old, poorly insulated homes will be uncomfortable unless they invest unfortunately.

Yes some can, but not everyone! What about those who can't afford it? I have no cavity walls so a grant is useless to me. The cost of heat source pumps will have to reduce dramatically. I replaced my gas boiler last year for around £1500, why would I spend more on a heat source pump?

I think your statement that electric cars will be acceptable only when they're as quick to refill as petrol is probably not going to happen. You need a decent size and reliable charging network without the desperately disorganised problems we have at the moment, but once that's in place I suspect that anyone who can't charge their car at home, work, the supermarket, the motorway service station while having a bite to eat or on-street near their home, will probably have to choose between spending half an hour charging every few hundred miles or paying through the nose for road tax on an ageing ICE car.

I do think that some of the people who rail about the impossibility of finding somewhere to charge talk as if they currently have a petrol tap in their driveway, instead of having to drive to a specific location, fill up and pay every eight hundred miles or so (and it used to be far more often).

I go in a petrol station when I drive past. It takes me 5 minutes to fill up, I don't have to factor in 30-60 minutes to fill up. I don't go to the supermarket, I can't charge at home. The other issue is the ridiculously short range on some of the more affordable electric cars. I quite like the Mazda for example but the range is (or was) just over 100 miles. What's the point of that when I can get over 300 miles out of my MX5?

I have nothing against electric cars but they aren't the answer for everyone.

I think that electric cars will have to be the answer for everyone, and if that means sparing an extra half an hour couple of hundred miles then that's what they'll have to do if they don't want to pay ever increasing ICE taxes. If an electric car with a 100 mile range doesn't work for you then don't get one with a 100 mile range.

I'll pay the ICE taxes for as long as I can in the hope that there'll be a decent car in a reasonable price range in the future.

If an electric car with a 100 mile range doesn't work for you then don't get one with a 100 mile range.

It's easy to say that but have you seen the price of the cars with the equivalent range of an ICE car?

Sorry, that wasn't meant to sound aggressive! What I'm trying to say (badly!) is we need cars with an equivalent range of ICE cars that are affordable.. Battery replacement also needs to be reasonably priced and not in the thousands.

@BattledoreAndShuttlecock Although up to 20% hydrogen can be added to the existing gas supply it is very unlikely that there is a long term future for domestic hydrogen distribution. Where hydrogen is used it will be in niche transport at either high pressure 700bar or cryogenic 4 to 16 Kelvin. Hydrogen from electrolysis has a very low efficiency around 25% after combustion, ASHPs have an efficiency more than 300% in most cases. In addition hydrogen cannot be easily distributed via the existing gas network.

Lots of the gas network can transport hydrogen- I think it depends on area

And a lot of pipes are being replaced with suitable materials

@PinkSparklyPussyCat I have an electric car. But I 100% agree with your statement that they aren't the answer for everyone. I see transport as a pie chart. At the moment most of the pie is privately owned petrol cars. What we need is more of a mix of slices. Yes, lots of electric. But maybe not all privately owned and charged. Maybe more ability to rent an electric car ad hoc, collect from a really local location when you need it. Much much more public transport, it needs to be cheap and efficient. More cycling. Reduced need to travel eg hybrid working is becoming the norm for many. Cleaner shipping. With a better transport mix, it won't matter if some people need to keep their petrol cars. Hopefully they will be made really efficient and greener too.

@mudgetastic there's still too much metal which will suffer hydrogen embrittlement but the biggest problem is the volumetric energy density at low pressure. And that air source heat pumps are 10x as efficient.

I completely agree with you @Reluctantadult. Public transport definitely needs to be improved. I work 4 miles from home and it takes me 10-20 minutes by car whereas public transport would take over an hour. I could cycle, but I have the choice of the lonely towpath or the busy, winding road, neither of which have decent lighting!

Air source heat pumps for larger and older houses are unlikely to cut it

If hydrogen is generated during excess times of off shore wind farms the efficiency becomes less important/ it becomes a way of storing excess energy

To be fair , I amn't totally convinced but I think we probably need a range of solutions and it feels a bit like it's more sensible to try everything hard and fast

@mudgetastic there are ASHPs specifically designed for retrofit that supply temperatures up to 75C.

You're right that there will be a range of solutions but hydrogen in the domestic heating network is very very unlikely.

[quote Daftasabroom]@mudgetastic there are ASHPs specifically designed for retrofit that supply temperatures up to 75C.

You're right that there will be a range of solutions but hydrogen in the domestic heating network is very very unlikely.[/quote]
Don't they need a lot of space though?

@PinkSparklyPussyCat about 1m tall, 1m wide, 0.5m deep for a monobloc, some have an indoors unit as well, others need a dedicated megaflow type tank.

I think it's the space thing that worries me as much as anything, although not quite as much as the cost. I live in a one bedroom flat and if it couldn't go in the same place as my existing boiler I'd be stuffed.

I think they go outside. Think along the lines of the air conditioning units you see on apartment blocks abroad.
They stand on the ground, or hang on heavy duty brackets.
I might be wrong, but that's what I think.
For apartments or flats the solution is much more likely to be local district heating systems.
I would say the solutions are not to be found by individuals taking action, the scale of change required is too radical and transformational for that.
Local authorities are thinking about this, many have net zero carbon plans.
I work in the field (not in a local authority but linked) and we're at the stages of pulling together heat decarbonisation plans now, its up to local and national government to decide how we get there and then put in place the policies and fiscal levers to make it happen.

Thanks @MichaelAndEagle and @Daftasabroom, that's interesting. We're not in a block of flats, it's a terrace with ground floor and 1st floor flats so it might be doable here, but who knows. I only replaced the boiler last year so hopefully it'll be a long time before I have to worry about it!

@PinkSparklyPussyCat @MichaelAndEagle they do indeed go outside but they can be wall mounted. I would fully expect for flats and apartments there will be a communal or district solution probably on the roof.

It is going to require such a monumental change in attitudes, particularly in the west; "we" (collective we) are going to have to stop thinking that increasing "things" and showing off those things to each other is the only measure of success out there, and start focusing on creativity, and spirituality, and other forms of fulfilment.

I can't see it happening in my lifetime; it actually makes me really glad I'm not any younger, and that I've had some good times. Sadly, it makes me relieved that I don't have my own kids to worry about - though that doesn't mean I don't worry about nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, and the future of the World as We Know It.

As others on this thread have said, the time to do something about this was 30, 40, 50 years ago.

The Russia/Ukraine conflict is starting to show exactly what the consequences are; but human nature being what it is, and the "human beings" in charge being, mostly, what they are, the Titanic has to metaphorically sink before anything will get done - and even then, they'll only do it for the wealthy and the few proles they need to service them. (Unless we've all been replaced by robots, of course...)

If you want a pretty accurate picture of what the future may well look like, watch the science fiction series Firefly. (Obviously without the space travel aspect, despite the best efforts of Musk, Bezos, Branson and the rest...!)

I think in general it will become more unusual to whizz around over vast distances because modes of transport will be slower or less convenient. Our lives will become more localised.

People who speak about going in hard with a range of possible solutions are probably along the right lines. Technology is being refined all the time. For example, my air source heat pump is one of the early iterations and is relatively noisy, like an air conditioning unit, but my neighbour has just had one fitted a few months ago and it is really quiet in comparison, and the footprint is smaller.

And unless there is some kind of intervention, there will be adjustment in the housing market as some older properties are more challenging / expensive to retrofit with insulation or new heating systems.

But I think tackling all of this is too big for individuals alone, it's going to take big bold intervention from governments to make it all really work. It's unfortunate that the current lot in power in the UK seem ideologically determined to shrink the role of the state instead of stepping up with well thought through policies.

Our lives will become more localised.

Now that to me sounds really depressing!

Which probably means you don't like where you live

Many more roles could and should be WFH to reduce commute pollution and enable
People to live in an environment they can be happy in

It's also worth general reflection - how there is no evidence that people are happier with the trappings of modern life ( provided warm homes and full bellies) than they were centuries ago

I do like where I live, I just don't want to be confined here!

I would also be much happier if I could go into the office every day as I'm sick of feeling like I live at the office. I have no work life balance any more.