Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 89 posts

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#61

Post by NotPaidToPost »

free_bread wrote: post #60
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.

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…

> No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions.

For now.

Developing countries like China and India are the ones adding the most because that's what happens when a huge population is brought out of poverty.

Emissions are far from being the only environmental problem.

Population is obviously the main cause of the pressure we put on the environment and of our current situation.

As I said top priorities are both cutting emissions and putting the brakes on population growth and aim at reducing population.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#62

Post by TeMPOraL »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #59
TeMPOraL wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Population growth is slowing itself. So we have that covered. And now what? Turns out, it's not enough, not even before considering that 2/3 of this population is still in developing countries, which are going to increase their emission levels in the pursuit of decent quality of life.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#63

Post by briandear »

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…

However, correlate per capita emissions with per capita economic output and the calculus changes. The US also has one of the highest per capita economic outputs of the world. Suggesting that a million people in Yemen (producing very little) should have the same CO2 allowance as the US is just strange. The question isn’t about per capita output of CO2, but of per capita economic value created from that output. If a Yemeni farmer outputs x and an American farmer outputs 10x, but the American farmer is producing 15x the amount of food, we that means that 10x CO2 is a net gain, because we are getting significantly more food per x output. That would mean the Yemeni farmer should produce less CO2 since they are using it so inefficiently compared to an American farmer. In other words, fossil fuel buses produce more pollutants than a car, but they move move dramatically more people per unit of pollution. Suggesting per capita CO2 should be equal across the world is saying that a bus should emit the same as a car, despite a bus being more efficient per passenger than a car.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#64

Post by NotPaidToPost »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #62
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Population growth is slowing itself. So we have that covered. And now what? Turns out, it's not enough, not even before considering that 2/3 of this population is still in developing countries, which are going to increase their emission levels in the pursuit of decent quality of life.

And thus population control is critical... QED. We don't have that covered at all at the moment: We are already 7 billions and will possibly be 11+ billions by the end of the century. That's insane.

Let's not forget that emissions are only a tiny part of the pressure we put on the environment.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#65

Post by pjc50 »

perfunctory wrote: post #36
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.

It's even worse. Fossil investments are still growing in 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-iea-energy-investment-idU...

"Molecules of freedom"! https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/29/politics/doe-freedom-gas-...

Beyond parody.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#66

Post by antisthenes »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #55
godelski wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not to mention the new HVDC tech that allows for very long transmission lines. That means that demand can be shifted by 2 hours in each direction in case of solar, depending on geography.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#67

Post by fearai »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #58
fearai wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. Thank you for providing more evidence that scienists are bought for political gain. And you want "policy" based on scientists? lol

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#68

Post by frankbreetz »

nostromo wrote: post #57
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 incr…

If this is the case we should be investing heavily in research cheap renewables that would allow them to leap the carbon emitting phase. This seems like something even a Republican Congress could get on board with.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#69

Post by jordanbeiber »

fearai wrote: post #67
jordanbeiber wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. Thank you for providing more evidence that scienists are bought for political gain. And you want "policy" based on scientists? lol

Well the scientist gave word, and the Exxon board covered it up, so... yes please!

Preferably policy is made based on facts and common sense.

If you’ve ever worked a reasonably complex system I’m sure you’ll agree that minuscule changes or additions can have unforeseen and sometimes devastating consequences.

In large systems of complexity you usually end up with really weird, cascading issues. Things triggering other things, hitting edges etc.

I don’t think I ever worked anything remotely as complex a system as the earth (or... have I?), but looking at the graphs of co2 since the beginning of industrialization it’s quite clear we are making massive changes to a system that have had many thousands of years to get in tune.

Couple this with the fact that almost all experts in related fields seem to agree that the changes we’re seeing will be destructive and also difficult to mitigate you have something that just simply makes sense.

It would be utterly foolish not to make policy of it.

Re: CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

#70

Post by free_bread »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #61
free_bread wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. For now. Developing countries like China and India are the ones adding the most because that's what happens when a huge population is brought out of poverty. Emissions are far from being the only environmental problem. Population is obviously the main cause of the pressure we put on the environment and of our current situation. As I said top…

Increasing population will be a contributor in the future if we do not change our technology, but that does not matter because even if everyone but the west (who has a stable population level) stopped emitting carbon we'd still be screwed

Focusing on reducing population is literally preemptive optimization on something that may or may not be a problem depending on the trajectory of energy/production over the next 10 years. It is also just a polite way of saying eugenics

Post reply on HN