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U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#101

Post by bamboozled »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #94
bamboozled wrote: post #64

I hope I’m wrong but it seems the world may have to leave the United States in the 1950s where it currently plans to reside. Seriously, it’s time counties who want to improve the situation need move on from worrying about what the United sates is doing because it doesn’t look like much will be happening for a long time.

If this were the 50's again we'd have an 84% marginal rate on income over $400,000. Which we would use to fund our infrastructure and energy projects.

He he he, it’s the 1950s without the good bits then.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#102

Post by throwaway0a5e »

nahuel0x wrote: post #57
corty wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The silver bullet is natural self-regulation. Mankind will shrink automatically after hitting a real ceiling.

"natural self-regulation"... of human population, in the best case. But before we will extinguish all the biodiversity left. Future generations will see us as the stupid ones, killing the richness of the planet created after eons of evolution.

You're never going to look smart to the people of the future. Look how people crap all over various historical figures because despite some great achievement they did some other thing or had some other views that were not out of line for their time but are not ok anymore.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#103

Post by giantg2 »

Ygg2 wrote: post #76
giantg2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Tesla is being built in China? That's not what I've heard. In fact Tesla has shipped cars to China. Just look at the recent recall. China has their own versions of electric cars (see NIO as an example).

> So Tesla is being built in China? Non-sequitur. I never said about things US internally makes. Also Tesla makes like 1% of all US cars? But a lot of US imports are from China. And if a large part of those imports became "green", I doubt Chinese authorities would build non-green infra just to spite Americans and/or the World.

You specifically mentioned electric cars in the US, of which Tesla is the largest producer. So this is a valid assumption to make. Do you have any information that would suggest a change in this model, such as GM or Ford sourcing their motors or batteries from China?

What examples do you have of green tech exported from China that has found widespread adoption in China?

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#104

Post by Cthulhu_ »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #32
originalvichy wrote: post #3

As a European this is the main fear I have during this election. 4 more years of inaction from the government of one of the biggest polluters in the world will really bite us in the ass. Not that I’m super proud of how we are doing in my country, but it can’t get worse.

US entrepreneurism kickstarted the electric vehicle transition (thx Elon1). Batteries prices are falling. PV is already incredibly cheap and getting cheaper. Coal is becoming increasingly uncompetitive. Nuclear is making a comeback, also thanks to US entrepreneurs. Science, Capitalism and entrepreneurship will be the unstoppable force that will solve our energy crisis, if western governments let them. Africa, India a…

Capitalism and enterpreneurship is how we got here in the first place. Elon and renewables are only becoming a thing because of economic incentives from governments - positive incentives in the form of subsidies on e.g. new EVs, solar panels, etc, and negative incentives in the form of carbon taxes.

Take those away and the "green" companies would have NO incentive to push their work. They'd be working with people wanting to do better first and foremost, and then they would - ironically - be competing with petrol and energy companies, who also have "green" all over their marketing.

Renewables and EVs could not compete without government incentives.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#106

Post by mola »

treypitt wrote: post #55
__jf__ wrote: post #29

Meanwhile, awareness/disclosure of climate risk is rising sharply in large publicly traded companies, measured by counting the percentage of companies reporting "climate risk" in their 2019 annual reports: - 26% of companies in EU - 9% of companies in APAC - 7% of companies in US Still a long way to go obviously, but these numbers have doubled compared to fiscal 2017.

Wow. Rising sharply, from what, 0%? Assuming the size of the US public markets is the largest in the world, and that we needed to take action decades ago to prevent climate change's worst effects, these statistics place the blame squarely on large corporations

No, blame is spread also on consumer mentality, consumer love a new and shiny, brainwashing advertising, economic thinkers pushing the idea of continual growth. Etc etc etc.

Our whole culture is culprit. Like, When people preach not to use plastic straws, while they define themselves by the shiny crap they excessively shop online.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#107

Post by belorn »

cher88 wrote: post #21
roenxi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some interesting graphs from arguably the most transformative economic miracle in human history [0]. The risk isn't the US doing nothing, it is India, Africa, etc, etc deciding that they seriously want a comfortable standard of living. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN

Isn't this the more pertinent graph? https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=USA~IND...

Which graph to look at depend on what question one has. If the question is "Who is polluting the world and need to stop" then country’s annual CO2 emissions is the single most relevant graph since that is where the pollution is right now coming from.

If one is to ask "whom's individual citizen way of living is contributing most" we would look at per capita C02. If the question is "Who is at risk of increasing their pollution" you would look at living standards and growth rates. If you ask "Who has the beast means to invest into climate change preventing technology" you would look at GDP. If you ask "where in the production chain pollution is created" then looking at trade gives that. If the question is whom is to be blamed historically for getting us into this situation then the historical global cumulative CO2 graph shows that, through I am a bit skeptical that it actually gives a correct picture since ww1 and ww2 were very central in ushering us into the age of fossil fuels.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#108

Post by swiley »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #35
roenxi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure. Nature, being unconcerned with fairness, has little regard for per capita statistics. If we want 8 billion people living in comfort, we need more energy. As always, I think we should have been building more nuclear plants back in the 90s. And again in the 2000s. And the 2010s. Maybe now we can go wind and solar. But we need lots of something.

The definition of comfort is the issue. There are simply not enough resources for everyone on Earth to live like an American. Maybe Europeans if we stretch with renewables and quickly cut down overfishing and stripmining agricultural practices. My money (unfortunately) is on a whole lot of death and despair from crop failures, drought, and mass migrations due to climate change even if we’re able to rapidly decarboniz…

Do you have a source for this? Because last time I checked this wasn't the case.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#109

Post by TeMPOraL »

ptr wrote: post #66
perfunctory wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess people who say this kind of things don't believe they themselves will be part of the cohort undergoing the shrinkage. This so called natural self-regulation will be ugly and painful. I don't envy the generation that will have to go through it.

If every woman gives birth to less than ~2.1 children, we're shrinking. Is having <= 2 children painful and ugly?

That's not how "natural self-regulation" works. People aren't PID regulators and don't suddenly adjust their fertility to not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment.

Natural self-regulation means hitting resource limits, followed by sudden and drastic mass dying off, through wars and starvation.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#110

Post by harpiaharpyja »

coffeefirst wrote: post #68
eznzt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main fear I have during this election is that Biden wins, he picks up where Obama left waging wars, and once again they flood Europe with "refugees".

You realize Obama didn’t start any wars and spent 8 years trying to close Pandora’s box?

So why does the situation only start to improve after he leaves?
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