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Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

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Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#111

Post by vegetablepotpie »

hhw wrote: post #94
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no policy that can change that fact. That statement is completely false. There are many policies that China and India can enact to reduce production of greenhouse gasses. - put a price on carbon emissions (ex: California cap and trade) - put a tax on carbon (ex: Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act) - provide grants or tax breaks to clean energy projects

Why focus on China and India, when on a per capita basis they have a small fraction of the carbon footprint that we have in Canada and the US? When we can get our per capita carbon footprint down below theirs, then maybe we'll have a right to criticize their environmental policies. But in the meantime if we're being at all objective, trying to point a finger at them makes us look like absolute hypocrites.

If you read the Great-grand parent comment, which I authored. I advocated for the US to lead by example to encourage other nations to drop their GHG emissions to zero.

Having China and India, being large producers of GHGs, reduce their emissions is necessary but not sufficient to stop further climate change.

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#113

Post by Woberto »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #21
fouc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice read. Covid-19 is another example of discontinuity, I'm surprised the author didn't mention that. Perhaps covid-19 prepared us for dealing with the larger discontinuity of climate change.

covid-19 was a test run for communist shortages. If you like waiting in lines, because the shelves are going to be empty. Then I suppose its good prep. Nobody except ideologues want that. Regular people want prosperity and abundance. Shortages tend to make life harder and kill people. When you need to jerry rig solutions to simple problems due to lack/restrictions of availability of products. Ontario locked down the…

If anything, I saw shortages as a failure of the capitalist system by which shortages are caused by greed, particularly by those with more money. From my understanding with a more socialist system in place, people would be limited to purchase only what they need to make sure that there could be enough for everybody (which there definitely was)

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#114

Post by dukeofdoom »

dc3k wrote: post #108
dukeofdoom wrote: post #17

I've been in that part of BC where the fires are happening. It's the dry region beyond the Rocky Mountains. Clouds coming in from the Pacific Ocean rain themselves out when the wind forces them rise above the mountains. So the other side of the mountains range gets very little rain. Grass is dried yellow in the summer. Easy for fires to start.

The Rocky Mountains are hundreds of kilometres east of the Fraser Valley. The mountains between the coast and the Fraser Valley is the Coast range.

you're right

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#115

Post by dukeofdoom »

Woberto wrote: post #113
dukeofdoom wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

covid-19 was a test run for communist shortages. If you like waiting in lines, because the shelves are going to be empty. Then I suppose its good prep. Nobody except ideologues want that. Regular people want prosperity and abundance. Shortages tend to make life harder and kill people. When you need to jerry rig solutions to simple problems due to lack/restrictions of availability of products. Ontario locked down the…

If anything, I saw shortages as a failure of the capitalist system by which shortages are caused by greed, particularly by those with more money. From my understanding with a more socialist system in place, people would be limited to purchase only what they need to make sure that there could be enough for everybody (which there definitely was)

A free market will take care of shortages, the higher price of a particular commodity will mean higher profits and incentives the production of that good. So it's actually opposite. Look for videos from the communist block countries, people were waiting in line to purchase things like bread and toilet paper daily. Its not the Utopia you have in your mind. Take air travel, right now there are extra costs of tests, and quarantine hotels in Canada, can add thousands to a potential trip. Making it financially impossible for many people to afford it. The rich and connected are not nearly as affected, they can still afford it. Or the government will leave loop holes for them to get around the laws. Litteraly

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#116

Post by nate_meurer »

xroche wrote: post #96
choeger wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern reactors are also much more expensive and take literally decades to build. Right now the option is to choose between comparatively cheap solar and wind energy (and their immense land usage) and nuclear power plants that are decades old. If we could build modern fission reactors more cheaply and quickly and if we had the water to operate many more of them they would be an option. Right now, they are not.

> cheap solar and wind energy You don't have a baseline energy with wind and solar, which are not on-demand. That's the big issue. And nuclear _can_ be cheap if (and only if) funded by states, that can borrow zero-interest loans.

The only nuclear power plant under construction in the USA will cost nearly thirty billion dollars. That's not cheap no matter how low the interest rate.

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#117

Post by rglover »

Retric wrote: post #105
rglover wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? Re: China, there's clearly not an effort to move away from coal if they're constructing new plants. The percentages may be less, but if the overarching thesis is to limit things that produce CO2 altogether, this statistic is irrelevant when contrasted with their actions.

> And Coal power plants age. As their power demand has skyrocketed there are currently few 40+ year old coal power stations to be decommissioned. Looking at say 2050 the existing stock will mostly be replaced by whatever ratio they built between 2010 and 2050. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country Solar in China went from 78 GW in 2016 to 254 GW 2020. The US had 40 GW of solar in 2016 and 75 GW in 2020…

Replaced by other coal power stations, though, not alternative sources. So again, not an incorrect statistic, but irrelevant in the context of the goal of reducing emissions globally (and the associated moral arguments/intimidations). Or does China get a pass because they produce goods cheaply for Westerner's?

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#118

Post by nate_meurer »

hhw wrote: post #94
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no policy that can change that fact. That statement is completely false. There are many policies that China and India can enact to reduce production of greenhouse gasses. - put a price on carbon emissions (ex: California cap and trade) - put a tax on carbon (ex: Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act) - provide grants or tax breaks to clean energy projects

Why focus on China and India, when on a per capita basis they have a small fraction of the carbon footprint that we have in Canada and the US? When we can get our per capita carbon footprint down below theirs, then maybe we'll have a right to criticize their environmental policies. But in the meantime if we're being at all objective, trying to point a finger at them makes us look like absolute hypocrites.

I agree about the West's hypocrisy, but per-capita emissions is a red herring. Regardless of how many people live there, the Chinese government controls the most polluting economy in the history of civilization. The CCP is thus in the position to help more than any other entity in the world right now.

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#119

Post by nate_meurer »

poutine wrote: post #89
LightG wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, then it's doesn't take a genius to sugget a multi-pronged strategy. 1) Lead be example. If that fails: 2) Import-tax the f@ck out of them, unless they comply with regulations. 3) Goto (1).

Carbon taxes and tariffs would work yes. But you're imposing serious costs on people that they haven't shown any desire to support. Further, tariffs would disproportionately impact the poor in the developing world.

> tariffs would disproportionately impact the poor in the developing world.

So will climate change, and more so.

Re: Canada battles more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave

#120

Post by nate_meurer »

rglover wrote: post #56
curuinor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

solar + batteries is $40/mwh?

Go further. How many batteries would it take to supply stable energy for the entire/majority of U.S. grids (and how long will those panels/batteries last)? How much energy will be produced relative to the number of solar panels that need to be installed? Is land conservation taken out of the equation in favor of panel installation? This line of questioning was my "mind blow." It turns out, there are technological sol…

Everything humans build is accused of being an "aesthetic nightmare". Houses, roads, farms, feed lots, cities, etc. This is not a good argument against building important infrastructure.
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