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A 3°C world has no safe place

economist.com

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Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#141

Post by ClumsyPilot »

_eht wrote: post #67
spoonjim wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could live in 200 square feet. You could bathe with one bucket of room temperature water. You could use no air conditioning whatsoever. You could eat only vegetarian food. Etc etc. You won’t, (and I won’t either) but if it comes down to human survival, forces will find a way to make you do it.

Not sure why you're being down voted-- This is the right answer. I see people getting mad at suppliers but they have yet to realize they would still please like their consumption supplied...

AWS and GCP are both suppliers, one of them is carbon neutral, the other is still polluting. The end consumer hets the same product.

This idea of consumer fault is deplorable, its not lile i gey accurate information about carbon footprint when i shop

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#142

Post by abeppu »

jdavis703 wrote: post #85
abeppu wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until now, I think it's been too hard to direct your money away from the companies emitting loads of carbon. But I wonder, now that Europe is talking about a border tax for imported carbon, and the US has introduced legislation for a border tax, could that change, even before other places institute the same? To be eligible for import to Europe, would producers elsewhere need to tally and report the carbon associat…

Most of the companies on the various “top polluters” lists are energy companies. We can direct our money away from them by walking, biking, transiting or buying an EV.

... but also shipping goods, right? The 3000 mile caesar salad, spread-out global supply chains, etc?

Yes, green transportation (or just less) is good. But if I sit at home and order goods to be delivered to me, it's actually quite difficult to pick which have the smallest footprints.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#143

Post by lsllc »

gruez wrote: post #118
MyKneeGrows wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades. 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals. And hey we got the PRC military adding the equivalent of the German Navy, every year, in ships to their roster. No they don't run on solar panels in case you were wondering. So take…

>Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades Source? > So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there. Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's…

https://www.ecowatch.com/military-largest-polluter-240876060...

https://weaversway.coop/shuttle-online/2020/04/us-military-w...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.h...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/13/report...

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#144

Post by dillon »

mrits wrote: post #88
titzer wrote: post #29

Keep in mind that it's 3C average , over the entire globe, over a year. The locale, variance, seasonality all matter. Like, suppose that you are "lucky" in that your region gets only the average of 3C, so your year is 3C warmer on average, but that only happens during 3 months of the year, so you get 12C hotter in summer--basically, el fuego--or you get 12C in winter--basically, no more winter. A warmer winter can be…

Wouldn't it take a short amount of time to kill the beetles? Certainly it doesn't take a whole winter?

My understanding, from whatever nature TV show when I was younger, is that the beetles don't actually die. They literally freeze in ice. I also remember reading that certain countries are releasing tens of thousands of birds (possibly hummingbirds?) to deal with them as well. I don't have links so possibly grain of salt here. If you look at California as an example, you can see hundreds of acres of trees that are dying year over year. I remember going camping in lush green forests that are all gone now. I'm in the PNW now and from what I've seen and heard from others the summers are getting longer and hotter so it's only a matter of time before what's happening to California comes here.

EDIT: From what I remember as well, every tree comes with defenses to keep beetles away. This is why trees are sappy. In order to produce sap the trees need water, and they produce their own sugars through photosynthesis (sap being a mix of water and sugar). Trees in certain areas are adapted to the length of their winters. A longer winter means more time without dealing with beetles but might also mean less time spent in dry soil.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#145

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #107
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than world war, what mechanisms do you propose to get China, India, and the entire 3rd world on to an effective carbon tax plan? I mean, if the answer is world war, I’ll at least give you credit for an honest answer. I just rarely see that come up. The truth is yes we can and should do better, but also realize that other nations will take any advantage they can, including ignoring climate concerns. So if it’s a…

The EU already have a solution for this - they tax imports from nations that don't have an ETA themselves.

Yes. Taxing our way to a better climate is one consideration.

But what happens when you need something more than they need to sell it? As in the case of China… steel, aluminum, titanium, food, machinery, computers, plastics, vehicles, or clothing… you know… those “couple of things” that we have collectively allowed China to make for us while pretending we’re all so green and the slave labor isn’t a problem.

India, maybe you can tax into compliance. Third world, maybe, but someone will scream it isn’t “fair”. But China? I’m skeptical we tax ourselves greatly and them effectively without them becoming the number one superpower and then doing as they please anyhow.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#146

Post by rhino369 »

RedditKon wrote: post #110
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. This isn't a right/left problem - both parties have let corporations get away with runaway pollution for entirely too long.

This line of thinking allows consumers to pass off their responsibility for their own choices.

Who is really to blame for the emissions for my flight to Turkey to sit on a beach even though I live 4 blocks from another (worse) beach. Under your view it would be Lufthansa or whoever sold them the fuel.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#147

Post by scoofy »

fallingknife wrote: post #123
scoofy wrote: post #49

American here. I took a bunch of earth science classes in college in 1999. I realized then, I would just plan ahead and aim for an urbanist lifestyle, because our country would have to change. I focused on transit alternatives as my primary advocacy, because it was the most obvious low-hanging fruit and paired with the public health. I never imagined this would happen, but as the years went on, I grew less astonished…

> We don't even have serious bicycle or transit prioritization in our major urban areas. We don't have any concern for reducing our meat consumption. We don't have any concern for alternatives to airlines. Sorry, but this stuff is a joke. Population control and non carbon based energy sources are the only things that can really make an impact.

Cool, the low hanging fruit is a joke. Let's do nothing then, how about that.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#148

Post by zabzonk »

No human civilisation has lasted very long. I guess that ours has been going on since the Renaissance, but eventually it will fall. And then maybe another will come along, or maybe not - if we make the world too hard to exist in.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#149

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

revscat wrote: post #36
wyager wrote: post #22

This article smells more like religious eschatology than rational economic discussion about the costs and benefits of climate change. This sort of sensationalist and opinionated reporting hardly advances the credibility of its cause.

"It's not what you're saying, it's how you're saying it that I have a problem with." This doesn't change the underlying reality, and I have a strong suspicion there is no means of discussing this issue that would meet with your approval, or your recognition that this is a crisis requiring significant action.

I can't speak for the original commenter, but I'm thoroughly on board with every concrete action item proposed in the article. By all means, let's cut emissions, let's invest in prevention and mitigation for natural disasters, and let's understand how we could geoengineer temperatures back down if needed.

I don't like the crisis framing because I think it leads people to hyperfocus on stopping climate change - on cutting emissions - to the exclusion of the rest. If I proposed a huge subsidy to put HVAC systems in more homes, that would be a huge help in fighting the actual human impact of climate change, but quite a lot of people would see it as irrelevant to climate change because it doesn't reduce emissions.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#150

Post by garblegarble »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #61
noasaservice wrote: post #27

I'm sitting in my air conditioned room, in the USA. Doing computer stuff, naturally. I look at what I can do about this. I can turn up the temp in my room, and the house. Meager difference. I can use less water - I already am, with getting showers every other day on average. I can eat less meat - which I do with purchase of the beef CSA. I'm big into the repair movement, and repair household equipment and electronics…

Apparently, a reasonably sustainable level of CO2 production is about 3T per person per year. The average in the US is about 17.5T pp/yr. But ... 5.3T pp/yr of that amount is caused by the existing coal fired power plants in the USA. So one thing you could do is to write to your elected representatives to specifically petition for the abandonment of this form of power generation and its replacement with renewable sys…

I don't think those figures are right - 5.3T/7.5T would mean 70% of CO2 in the US is caused by coal-fired power plants. According to the EPA data for 2019 [1], power generation accounted for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, and 62% of that was fossil fuels ("mostly coal and natural gas") - so that means fossil fuels for electricity accounted for 16% of the greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA report shows transportation as the largest source, at 29%

Their figures also suggest CO2 emissions were 20T pp in the US in 2019! (6558MT of CO2, 328.2M population)

1: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

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