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CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#51

Post by frankbreetz »

black6 wrote: post #39
frankbreetz wrote: post #8

It is always interesting to see graphs like this, I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line. A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India. I don't suspect this is true. The USA is one of the highest per capita emitters, it doesn't seem right that we would get to live like that while we take away resources from these other countries who are…

> I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line The Green New Deal ( at least in the USofA ) is a resolution, not a law or spending appropriation, and contains no action items. It’s a feel-good set of “Rah! Rah! We should do .” And as such, I do not see it moving the line at all.

I was under the impression the new green deal included something like going carbon neutral in the next ten years.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#52

Post by vixen99 »

rayiner wrote: post #23
frankbreetz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand about this is, that we were flat for about three years, and then we went up a little bit. This to me signals that we are close to if not at peak emissions and we should be able to start seeing the downturn at any time. But the chart you are showing has emissions increasing for the next 20 years. Am I oversimplifying or being naive?

We are nowhere near peak emissions. There may be dips here and there (e.g. due to recession). But look what happened to China starting in 2000: https://images.app.goo.gl/F4m9zThoK7Yr9jC66 . It added more CO2 than the total output of the US. That’s going to happen to India and Africa over the next few decades as those places develop into middle class economies.

In other words authorities in China, India and Africa pay lip service to what one might call the 'Greta Prediction' while their actions show they simply do not believe it.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#53

Post by TeMPOraL »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #41
adrianN wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, return to old style living won't save us, because the planet can't sustain our current population levels with old-style living. Unless you want to trigger civil unrest and kill many people, the solution has to be technological. Renewable energy and improved energy efficiency can do it, it just needs a few trillion dollars of investment.

Indeed, the major issue that is always conveniently forgotten is population growth. Stopping it should at the top of our priorities along with renewable energies.

The parent didn't say population growth, they said population. There's way more people currently alive on Earth than the planet's carrying capacity under 1600-level tech, to which we'd had to backtrack globally if we wanted to fix the climate crisis through reducing consumption alone. This is unacceptable for pretty much every reason.

We either find technological solutions to this problem - both on the emission end and on the sequestration end - or climate change starts killing people (and making more people kill even more people). It's that simple.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#54

Post by war1025 »

jwr wrote: post #11

These are fantastic charts. The problem is that most people will look at them, quickly find "another" large source of CO2 emissions (be it another country, another industry), point fingers and say "it's them!" without doing anything else. Which in the long term (as in, our children and grandchildren will suffer) will destroy our planet.

A thought I had the other day, that sort of fits in the context of what you're saying, but probably not completely:

It's interesting to step back and consider how the current Climate Change narrative is similar to the universal theme of "We offended God, so now he is punishing us."

Not really sure what the implications of that are, but seems like something that could be harnessed either for good or ill.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#55

Post by WhompingWindows »

godelski wrote: post #49
legitster wrote: post #17

It's super depressing to see the acceleration of coal energy in 2000. Despite the rise of renewables, they haven't even been able to keep up with the rise of coal! And the vast majority of it comes from energy production! Electric cars don't solve the problem if we are switching from high-efficiency gas engines to coal-fired electric.

While renewables are awesome and we should do everything we can to support their growth, they have a major problem (which is why they currently can't replace fossil fuels). Renewables are not constant energy providers and they cannot scale to demand (either up or down). The best bet with them is batteries. But that means that you have to produce at minimum enough to fulfill a full day's worth of energy demands within…

Don't perpetuate the myth that intermittency of renewables is a dealbreaker. While intermittency of power supply with inflexible demand is a problem when renewables hit 80% penetration, the reality is we're going to see utilities buy up demand and then flexibly shift that demand to when renewables are producing electrons.

This makes economic sense because renewables are FAR FAR cheaper than new-build nuclear, and the big businesses who supply electricity to EVs, heating, cooling, and industry are going to continue to encourage flexibility of demand.

For all the software and tech we have, you think we can't shift our electricity demand? It's laughable in the USA to imagine new-build nuclear coming online anywhere near as fast as the scenario I outlined above. It's simply far easier to shift demand than to build new nuclear.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#56

Post by McWobbleston »

frankbreetz wrote: post #51
black6 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line The Green New Deal ( at least in the USofA ) is a resolution, not a law or spending appropriation, and contains no action items. It’s a feel-good set of “Rah! Rah! We should do .” And as such, I do not see it moving the line at all.

I was under the impression the new green deal included something like going carbon neutral in the next ten years.

It does, and even if it didn't there is a need for a rallying cry. We've been well aware for years the threat climate change poses yet we can't even get a carbon tax to be a major talking point in the US, let alone enacted. We need to shift the discourse because right now it's lately wedge issues pushed by two parties trying to maintain their big tents above all else

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#57

Post by nostromo »

frankbreetz wrote: post #8

It is always interesting to see graphs like this, I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line. A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India. I don't suspect this is true. The USA is one of the highest per capita emitters, it doesn't seem right that we would get to live like that while we take away resources from these other countries who are…

> A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India.

This is true though. If you're concerned about absolute fairness, then yes, it makes sense that China should be able to emit as much as the US and Europe does per capita.

But if you care about the environment, then this is a disastrous idea.

The US needs to continue to reduce its carbon output, and China needs to dramatically slow it's increase in carbon output.

Remember, when the US and Europe industrialized, renewables were nonexistent (other than hydro) -- so I think it's fair to expect China and India to leapfrog fossil fuels as much as possible. They've leapfrogged the west on many other technologies -- like telecom and transportation -- so why not energy?

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#58

Post by jordanbeiber »

fearai wrote: post #38
aplummer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are more religious than some religious people about their science. There is no correlation between people concerned about high estimated damage using the current best effort science (warming of 3-4'C) and dogma without evidence. If you have evidence to the contrary you will have definitely earned that Nobel prize and million bucks.

what type of data do you prefer? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/21/climate-cris... also we are supposed to be "sceptics" in the science community but your scientists like to manipulate language for political reasons and call sceptics "deniers", a very religious move: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-...

Were the scientist hired by Exxon in the 70’s also participating in this political scheme?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...

I’d love to hear how the sceptics turn this fact in to present day politics.

Policy seems to be the only way we can sort this future mess out btw.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#59

Post by NotPaidToPost »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #53
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the major issue that is always conveniently forgotten is population growth. Stopping it should at the top of our priorities along with renewable energies.

The parent didn't say population growth, they said population . There's way more people currently alive on Earth than the planet's carrying capacity under 1600-level tech, to which we'd had to backtrack globally if we wanted to fix the climate crisis through reducing consumption alone. This is unacceptable for pretty much every reason. We either find technological solutions to this problem - both on the emission end…

Population is the result of population growth.

The best solution for the planet and our quality of life is to make population growth stop, and ideally see population decrease.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#60

Post by free_bread »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #41
adrianN wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, return to old style living won't save us, because the planet can't sustain our current population levels with old-style living. Unless you want to trigger civil unrest and kill many people, the solution has to be technological. Renewable energy and improved energy efficiency can do it, it just needs a few trillion dollars of investment.

Indeed, the major issue that is always conveniently forgotten is population growth. Stopping it should at the top of our priorities along with renewable energies.

No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. Top priority is getting the first world to cut down it's emissions and make green technology accessible for developing countries so they don't follow the same path

Population growth is not conveniently forgotten, it's brought up constantly in any discussion. It just isn't the cause of our current situation and won't be significantly adding to it in the time frame that the west needs to adjust

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