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UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#331

Post by benj111 »

ericmay wrote: post #287
benj111 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I wouldn't say that capitalism, at its core is a government construct. 2.capitalism is about valuing things to allow / encourage efficient allocation. There is a cost to pumping co2 into the atmosphere. Capitalism doesn't take that into account. And as that is what it should be doing, failing to do so is a failure of capitalism. Now the government could (and should) step in to fix that failure. Their failure to st…

I don't know what you mean by construct, but capitalism is an economic system that is regulated and enabled by the government because in order to own private property either you have to defend it yourself or you have the government set rules and act as the enforcement mechanism. Capitalism is one type of economic system that operates with the blessing of the government but there are others. Soviet Russia is an exampl…

>I think you are confusing a market pricing mechanic which is a feature of capitalism with the core tenet of capitalism which is the existence of the private ownership of the means of production.

Well you could argue that one means nothing without the other. But anyway, what bearing does private ownership have this context? I accept I used loose words but in this context the relevant part of capitalism is its pricing mechanism. So no I'm not confusing the 2.

If I buy a piece of a company, or land or whatever the government has no hand in deciding that value. Sure government policy could impact the value but if the government didn't have anything to do with it, it would have value, if the government is deciding the value it probably isn't capitalism (yes i know there are counter examples in 'capitalist' societies) .

What is the market value of not releasing a kg of co2? Yes people will pay to have trees planted, but who's going to pay Amazon to electrify its fleet to not emit co2? A kg of not co2 is worthless under capitalism, which isn't reflective of its value. That is a failure of capitalism. The fact that we are discussing having the govt step in to correct that failure doesn't negate the failure. A carbon tax (note taxes aren't inherent to capitalism) or carbon trading scheme will be synthetic govt constructs. Sure they harness capitalism and capitalistic mechanisms to work, but capitalism can't/hasn't got there on its own.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#332

Post by benj111 »

wazoox wrote: post #311
benj111 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I go on a diet and lose weight, is that also a trick because the average weight of the population goes up? Just because someone else does something else to negate the net effect of something doesn't mean you haven't done the thing. If we hadn't done anything emissions would be even higher. It isn't as if we have to burn a certain quota of coal and gas. This isn't an argument for doing less, it's an argument for do…

> If I go on a diet and lose weight, is that also a trick because the average weight of the population goes up? The keyword here is "imported emissions". When you reduce your consumption because you're closing a factory to import the same stuff made in worse (environmental, social) conditions elsewhere, the gain is only apparent. So following your analogy, if what you're after is the global population health, if you…

I'll repeat my metaphor.

If I go on a diet...

In the metaphor 'I' mirrors green technologies. 'global population health' mirrors total global emissions.

If I go on a diet and lost weight, that is no trick. I have lost weight.

That isn't invalidated by the rest of the world getting fatter.

If I put solar panels on my roof I will lower my co2 emissions. That isn't invalidated by you rolling coal.

I agree it's bad that co2 emissions are increasing but that doesn't mean that the proposed solution is a trick.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#333

Post by benj111 »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #320
benj111 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the goal was set it was achievable and we didn't do anything, why would it be different the second time around?

Because we're really feeling the consequences now. All over the world.

Well surely that's more motivation to meet the current target. Except even though we're all feeling the consequences we're still not really doing enough.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#334

Post by goodpoint »

macspoofing wrote: post #301
goodpoint wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"base load" is a myth.

OK. Don't focus on the semantics. There are times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow - what do you do then?

You do the very same things that electric grids has been successfully doing for the last 40 years:

- Exchange electricity with other network on national and international level to balance out the load.

- Modulate big industrial loads. It's standard practice in many countries to have fine-grained tariffs for large consumers that are willing to adapt to fluctuating energy availability and prices.

- Modulate residential consumer loads around house and water heating. Many countries have been doing day/night tariffs for decades and people store energy as heat using boilers and storage heaters.

- Store energy using pumped hydro & similar

And now we can also start modulating consumer loads more precisely using smart appliances and charging EVs at the best time of the day.

Also, despite the FUD around wind/solar the reality is that:

- currently most countries have excess energy during the night rather than not enough. In general, using more solar would help rather that create a problem!

- solar+wind combined are not going to drop down to 30% for a whole day or week in a whole continent, only on a local level. You can find detailed statistics online.

- solar is very cheap and can be overscaled to compensate for low production times

- many industrial loads can be made more flexible if that means cheaper electricity on average

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#335

Post by govg »

shuger wrote: post #181
govg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be very honest, I feel like the car culture in the US gives every household a potential large battery to sustain their house with. In a future where every car is an EV, every American house has two giant batteries, if not more, hooked up to it all night.

If you use your car as battery during the night it won't have energy in the morning when you need it. It defeats the purpose of having a car.

Modern Teslas can store double the daily usage of a US average household. And that's assuming you have literally zero generation at night (hydro / nuclear / geothermal / pumped storage ).

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#336

Post by govg »

mcone wrote: post #177
govg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be very honest, I feel like the car culture in the US gives every household a potential large battery to sustain their house with. In a future where every car is an EV, every American house has two giant batteries, if not more, hooked up to it all night.

But what happens in the morning when people wake up to an empty car battery and they need to drive to work?

A) How much electricity do you think is consumed at night? ( US average daily consumption is 30 KWh)

B) How much electricity do you think can be stored in a car battery? (Tesla batteries are >= 50 KWh )

C) What happens to existing sources of renewable power that will continue to operate at night? ( They can still provide a baseload that accounts for any shortfalls )

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#337

Post by Yizahi »

erklik wrote: post #182
Yizahi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not capitalists or communists or whateverists. The problem is sociopaths in power. Until we, collectively as a humanity, won't start regularly vetting people in power for the mental disorders, of all types - genetic, old age, chemically induced, regular mental illnesses etc. we will continue to suffer. And political compass of they day won't matter at all.

> Until we, collectively as a humanity, won't start regularly vetting people in power for the mental disorders, of all types - genetic, old age, chemically induced, regular mental illnesses etc. Who decides what a mental illness is? .... and back to Square One.

Sure, it's a super hard societal problem. But I guess step one would be publicly talk about it (in a serious way). Like invite doctors with that specialty to the talk shows and discuss who can be mentally ill, what can be consequences of this or that specific diagnose etc.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#338

Post by greenhearth »

ericmay wrote: post #310
greenhearth wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is not a clear cut binary of "public/private." This is not an essential element of this system, as you have capitalist apparatuses acting in totalitarian/communist states, such as state owned beer companies in China that still act as capitalist entities, i.e. they are invested in in expectations to grow the profits from this company. It is actually speculated by theorists like Althusser that the private/pu…

I agree that it is not necessarily clear cut, and your example is a good one but we have to start somewhere and I'm not sure that this is material to the conversation at hand anyway except that if the corporations are state-owned then it's just even more the government's fault that they're polluting. Of course new configurations of so-called private and public entities can and will occur and it's more of a shades of…

Well, I agree that it's people's fault. But "the government" is also an ephemeral entity, as you put it. It is not a monolith, but a sometimes loosely connected collection of organs of power and ideology. Is the president "government?" Are teachers or cops who are government employees "government?" Are the contractors, or air force pilots "government?" If so, how could all these individuals collectively be held responsible for pollution? The discussion on what government actually is is completely outside the scope here, but the lines between whatever government is and capitalist urges, goals and methodologies are usually blurred. Louis Althusser mentioned above explained that state power cannot be had, it can only be used. And it is used in liberal democracies by capitalist agents, just as in totalitarian states by totalitarian agents. But always there is a coalescence of ideologies and apparatuses.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#339

Post by Zigurd »

undersuit wrote: post #115
Zigurd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when nuclear power was enthusiastically embraced as the future it suffered from cost overruns, hidden and underestimated lifecycle costs, security problems such the possibility of a worse Chernobyl event as a result of an ongoing war, nuclear proliferation enablement, etc. Blaming the resulting skepticism about nuclear on the "Green approach" is backwards: Fix the things that made nuclear expensive first. Demons…

>Even when nuclear power was enthusiastically embraced as the future it suffered from cost overruns, hidden and underestimated lifecycle costs, security problems such the possibility of a worse Chernobyl event as a result of an ongoing war, nuclear proliferation enablement, etc. And here we are on an oil-based energy economy suffering from cost overruns, hidden and underestimated lifecycle costs, security problems su…

Capital investment is fungible. If investing in renewables delivers more power to the grid sooner, then that is the optimal path to freedom from dependency on fossil fuels.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#340

Post by ericmay »

greenhearth wrote: post #338
ericmay wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is not necessarily clear cut, and your example is a good one but we have to start somewhere and I'm not sure that this is material to the conversation at hand anyway except that if the corporations are state-owned then it's just even more the government's fault that they're polluting. Of course new configurations of so-called private and public entities can and will occur and it's more of a shades of…

Well, I agree that it's people's fault. But "the government" is also an ephemeral entity, as you put it. It is not a monolith, but a sometimes loosely connected collection of organs of power and ideology. Is the president "government?" Are teachers or cops who are government employees "government?" Are the contractors, or air force pilots "government?" If so, how could all these individuals collectively be held respo…

I think you're trying to have your cake and eat it too here where you are tossing up government and government employees as ephemeral but not giving the same consideration to corporate entities. Is a janitor at Exxon Mobile responsible for climate change? How long do they have to work there before they're at fault? A day? A year? If they're not at fault and it's just the executives, why would we also not place the same blame at the feet of government leadership?

My main issue here is that I don't believe blaming "billionaires" or "corporations" actually helps address climate change. Regulation and reduction of personal consumption does, but since we have been unable to regulate and we refuse to reduce personal consumption, we instead lay blame at the feet of corporations who get confused. Do you want to fly or not? You say no but you keep buying tickets. Funny enough I think out of all three of these entities, corporations are doing the most to address climate change, typically in spite of what people demand.

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