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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#551

Post by rory »

vlkr wrote: post #464
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

China is less troubling than US if you look at per capita numbers: US 15.52, China 7.38 tons of CO2

The problem is, this CO2 difference is mostly because China has only 1/4 the per capita income of the US, and that income gap is rapidly closing.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#552

Post by epistasis »

alexgmcm wrote: post #491
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

But how much of this is due to Western nations essentially outsourcing emissions to China by shifting manufacturing etc. there? The per-capita emissions are important because countries with high per-capita emissions likely have a lot of low-hanging fruit. I mean reducing per-capita emissions in the USA could be done by improving public transport etc. whereas in China it would likely be condemning millions of people t…

I always wonder where this belief comes from. The stuff we buy from China doesn't take that much energy to create compared to, say, driving 10 miles to the grocery store a few times a week.

Consumption-based CO2 inventories, that allocate emissions based on the country of the final end-user, are remarkably close to production-based inventories.

For the US, highly geographically resolved, consumption-based CO2 estimates show that most of our energy goes to suburban land use patterns: tons of transport fuel for lots of driving, and high heating/cooling costs due to detached, poorly insulated buildings. The typical city dweller has a carbon footprint 1/3 of the surrounding suburbanites, and the difference in consumption isn't about the things they buy from China:

https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#553

Post by pfdietz »

verytrivial wrote: post #533
pmorici wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Musk the climate change guy you are looking for. He’s done more to advance the cause of sustainable energy than perhaps anyone.

He gives electric transportation and storage with one hand, and takes away with the promise of literally thousand of ultra-low-efficiency fuel (methane) burning rocket launches with the other.

How are rocket launches "ultra low efficiency"? Compared to what? I mean, no one is putting stuff into orbit with any other technology.

Rocket engines are the most efficient heat engines in existence, and the energy efficiency of a rocket (in the sense of fraction of jet kinetic energy that ends up in the kinetic + change in potential energy of the thing put in orbit) can be very high.

It takes a lot of propellant to get to orbit. That isn't because rockets are ultra low efficiency, it's because it takes a lot of energy to get to orbit.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#554

Post by wongarsu »

corey_moncure wrote: post #527
jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

We already have an ideal carbon capture technology optimized by Nature Inc. through a state of the art evolutionary algorithm running trillions of parallel processes for billions of years. It's called Trees (TM). With Trees (TM) the CO2 emissions problem has a simple two step solution that anyone can accomplish with ease: 1) Stop cutting down Trees 2) Plant more Trees That's it. The end. Problem solved.

To offset our entire current greenhouse gas emissions with trees alone, we would have to increase earth's total plant biomass by 10% each year.

Given how slow most types of trees grow that seems completely unfeasible unless we give up most meat (taking space that we now use for growing animal feed).

(Yes, we have a lot of space in the desert, but studies show limited effect on global warming from planting anything there once you account for how well sand reflects heat back into space).

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#556

Post by criddell »

headmelted wrote: post #421
jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

This. A 200% value-added tax on fossil fuels that rises by 10% every year would provide the capital. EDIT: To clarify, this is not a suggestion to raise capital from the tax as much as it's to raise capital from the use of fossil fuels. It's a suggestion for an increasingly punitive financial cost to force behavioural changes.

The chance of the electorate asking their representatives to impose punitive taxes on them has no chance of happening in the US.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#557

Post by rubyist5eva »

jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Ah, so even more cronyism on the backs of taxpayers than there already is. Perfect plan!

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#558

Post by nradov »

oakfr wrote: post #466
jsonne wrote: post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Interestingly, covid seems to have taught me the opposite. When covid hit, the time-to-market of a new vaccine was 10-15 years. The collective action of governments divided this number literally by ten. Despite all the bad words we've heard about bad policies and mistakes done by governments, I think we should be proud of what humankind has achieved during covid (granted, some governments have done and still do very…

In particular Operation Warp Speed significantly accelerated the pace of vaccine mass production by removing the financial risk for pharmaceutical companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed?wprov=sfl...

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#559

Post by epistasis »

cjbenedikt wrote: post #473
bko wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

"China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emissions per capita" If you calculate emissions per capita (US 350m - China 1b) then the US still beats China handily...just saying.

This is a good point, and China has basically already risen to European levels of energy use and emissions. For the services available to the typical Chinese person, I wouldn't expect this to rise a ton more, unless China adopts US-style car-dependent land use for the majority of its population. Look at the difference in consumption between car-dependent city planning and the urban cores where cars are not a necessity:

https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps

That's a bigger difference than the US-China difference.

But even if China does decide to go that route, they have two other advantages over the US: 1) the housing growth will come from new builds that are far better insulated, and use heat pumps rather than fossil fuel heat, and 2) they will be able to grow the car fleet with EVs, rather than having a huge existing fleet of ICE.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#560

Post by knrz »

jimworm wrote: post #257

For all the carbon capture that the Devonian/Carboniferous period did over 100 million years, humanity undid a large part of it in 150 or so years. And now to preserve human civilisation in some form, the most direct way is probably to rebuild that carbon sink within a much shorter time. Much shorter than 150 years, not 100 million. Current carbon emissions are over 10 billion tonnes per year, so the capture speed wi…

I’ve been doing a lot of research in the space and the most damning part of it all is that our civilization’s carbon capture capacity is not there yet. We don’t have the technology to do that — yet. That’s why one of the most impactful things we can do is support the technology companies in developing this technology.
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