u/Easy_Interest_6832

There is a workable strategy with a 66% chance of success. It consists, in a condensed description here, of using natural processes to sequester carbon while simultaneously moving to a cessation of CO2 emissions.

A slightly longer description is this: replant and nurture six ecosystems, three marine and three terrestrial. These are kelp beds, mangrove estuaries and sea grasses; and boreal forests with their fungal understories, tropical rain forests, and prairie grasses with their bovine inhabitants. Simultaneously we must reduce to zero the carbon emissions from fossil fuels for transport, energy, and heating, powering industrial manufacturing, deforestation, and making materials like cement. These two things--carbon sequestration and elimination of CO2 emissions must both happen at once all over the planet or we are screwn. However, if we do them, there's a 66% chance of success.

I've been reading Sunvault, and so far I have not found a complete path to a Solarpunk future. But I've read this other book, Stellar, that proposes an essential component to such a future, and that is free energy. I hope I get the format correct this time. The text below came from a reply I made on /r/leftistsforAI, and I have embellished it somewhat down below.

There's a book out (2024) called Stellar by James Arbib and Tony Seba that examines a culture and economic system which happens post AI. In short, it posits electricity generated by solar and wind and stored in batteries hooked to a smart grid (SWB) that generates essentially free electricity. We can see some examples of that today in three Australian states with a fourth set to do it in October, that gives free electricity every day during peak sun--each state has different rules, so check it out. But it is happening. It is real, not fiction.

The government builds the solar and wind farms as an investment. Since upkeep of the system is quite affordable, it gets paid off quickly, allowing the government to pump out free electricity. Stellar says we live in an extractive economy; this refers to mining, oil drilling, lumber, and extracting labor from wage slaves. The new economy it proposes it calls a Stellar economy. This new economy is based on AI and what it calls Artificial Labor, AL. This AL (robots) builds and maintains itself, raising food, making manufactured goods, and providing services like recycling existing goods made from extracted resources. Apparently this frees up humans to do things like create and spend time with families and so on. It sounds pie-in-the-sky, but its reasoning is sound as long as we step out of the extractive economy and into the Stellar economy. It's a decent book that reads quickly as if the authors are talking rather than writing to you. The ideas are, well, stellar.

The Artificial Labor (AL) will do most of the work. An extractive economy would then pay people Universal Basic Income at the bare minimum to prevent riots. Everyone but the few would live in poverty and scrabble over the few jobs just to get an extra buck. But under a Stellar economy with free energy and AL that builds and repairs itself, AL would build housing, raise food, and provide many services we now as humans do. As a retired teacher, I hesitate to say AL would teach our children, but of course it will. And it will do much of our surgery and health care, much of our counseling, our firefighting, run our electric transportation, and so on. Remember: free electricity 24/7/365 based on wind, solar, and a smart grid backed up by batteries. I'm certain that there would also be some hydro along with tidal turbines and wave power generators where appropriate.

So I'd encourage Solarpunk types to pick up the book and dig through its discussions on extractive versus Stellar economies, and about what could be done. If it works like it's beginning to in Australia, then that is tickety-boo.

Some folks oppose AI just because. Others have reasons for opposition, like environmental degradation from the operation of data centers. AI as used in search engines is really an open source approach to ideas. These are really three different approaches to AI. I would like to write here about the latter, that AI used in search engines is an open source approach to ideas. // We can't really avoid considering environmental degradation from data centers if we want to talk about AI and an open source approach to ideas. I claim that with activism, degradation can be mitigated. So I would briefly like to, first, list and provide options to the degradation, then, second, look at AI as an open source approach to ideas and knowledge. // Data centers do several bad things to the environment. First, there is waste heat. Second, there is potential ground water contamination and depletion. Third, there is noise pollution. Fourth, there is resource extraction used in their construction. Fifth, there is a tremendous use of electricity in the operation and cooling. // First, waste heat can be used in several ways, including the drying of agricultural products like rice and nuts. It can also be used to heat local buildings during cold seasons. And it can be used to purify polluted water through evaporation and collecting the distilled water. Second, ground water pollution and depletion is a significant thing. This may be mitigated by pumping cool ground water through proper pipes through the data center, then pumping that warmer water back down into the ground without it getting polluted via contact with heavy metals and so on--thus the call for "proper pipes." Third, noise pollution can be mitigated via thick insulation and/or locating the cooling fans below ground and insulating them. Fourth, extracting minerals to construct data centers is a problem, the need for which may be reduced via proper recycling of all computer components worldwide--but this is not a total solution, admittedly. Fifth, is the yuge amount of electricity needed to run and cool these centers. Ordinances may be enacted requiring data centers to employ 100% locally-generated electricity from renewable sources like hydro, solar, and wind, and to use batteries to power the center when the other sources are weak due to no wind, night time, or low flow. // That was really brief, as I want to write about open source knowledge and information. // There are two major issues with AI used for research. The first is accuracy. When we use an AI for searching, at the end of various sections we find links out to the original sources so we can check that accuracy. Users must click those links and peruse the sources to determine whether the AI summaries are accurate. It's work, but it's necessary work. // The second issue is theft of intellectual property by AI bots. Now, one of the tenets of Solarpunk is the concept of open source. The problem with AI is that some people will use your writings to make money. That happened to a friend of mine. His publisher discovered the theft, and that publisher and some others sued the culprit, and my friend got some money. But not all of us has a publisher like that. More's the pity. When we look at published books and theft from them, publishers who make money from publishing your stuff have the money necessary to go hassle the culprit. Not so with your average internet poster. In a way, the internet is an open source sewer of all kinds of writing--this being one example--and when we put it out there for folks to read, it is vulnerable to being swiped and used nefariously. But no one pays us, so this is what happens: I have some knowledge or an idea and give it to you through a post. You now have it, but I still have it also. That's part of open source. If someone steals my writing and makes money off of it, well, I might be upset. But I knew at the outset that that could happen. But I still have that knowledge, and so do a hand full of others. // So, there it is. I made this post in an effort to head off some of the opposition I have detected from some of my posts in /r/Solarpunk. I hope the mods understand my motives and do not get upset.