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We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

aljazeera.com

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Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#171

Post by [deleted] »

jotato wrote: post #170
lumb63 wrote: post #67

Some of what the author says is accurate. Carbon offset credits are bunk. Industrial agriculture is harmful. There are environmental issues to a lot of the “greening” practices. There are issues around how equitably the climate change revolution is going to impact different demographics. Some of what the author says is false. Consumer choices do make a difference. I work in climate tech and the product my company pro…

> I work in climate tech and the product my company produces monitors electricity usage in the home. The average user reduces their home electricity usage by 7% in the first month, solely due to becoming aware of what they are using. What product is that? I'd like to learn more

[deleted]

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#172

Post by aaplok »

dhosek wrote: post #105
petodo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vijay Kolinjivadi is a Writer with Earth Negotiations Bulletin, as well as a post-doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB) of the University of Antwerp. He is a U.S. national and has focused on assessing biodiversity and ecosystem service-based policies, especially ""payments for ecosystem services"" for the better part of a decade. Al Jazeera may not be unbiased, but it seems the author is not…

So he wrote the article for free?

What GP is saying is that he wrote the article without monetary retribution from Al Jazeera. He was paid by someone else (one of his employers) to write an opinion piece published by Al Jazeera.

It's not uncommon in academia.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#173

Post by notacoward »

dublinben wrote: post #118
korroziya wrote: post #21

From the article: "The supposed energy transition that has been undertaken has seen renewable energy production expanded, but there has been no indication that oil and gas are being substituted and ultimately phased out." That's not going to happen for another 27 years at least. I've said it before: Most people (including those who post here) are staggeringly illiterate when it comes to energy. Hydrocarbons store an…

Half of all car trips in the US are under 3 miles.[0] If even a quarter of already existing roads were turned over for use by pedestrians and cyclists, then most people could accomplish those trips without driving with little to no new infrastructure investment. That would substantially reduce our use of gas for transportation overnight, save hundreds of millions of dollars, and millions of tons of CO2 emissions. It…

> most people could accomplish those trips without driving with little to no new infrastructure investment.

Cost is not the only issue. Often not even the main one. Please go to a town meeting (or planning board meeting) some time. Pay attention to what arguments people actually put forth, and how. They'll cite not only cost but inconvenience, damage to local businesses, historical character, even environmental issues. And here's the thing: any new project has to win every one of those battles, while the NIMBYs only have to win one. That's what we call systemic bias. It can be fixed eventually, but not just hand-waved over. Until then, better sidewalks and bike lanes will take years in most towns if they're allowed to proceed at all, even when the money is readily available.

> Meaningful changes like this could happen in well under a year if the political will were there.

Not just political will but authoritarian political will. The US is a country where toxic individualism rules all, to the extent that even agreeing to pay our bills is a major political fight. Starting major new initiatives is even harder, which is why there haven't been many since NASA was formed. The structural support for obstructionism has to be weakened - local, state, federal - before meaningful change can occur.

> None of these problems are impossible to solve.

Not impossible, but not easy.

> Defeatism doesn't do anything to contribute to a solution.

Neither does hand-waving, which seems to be the favorite way to do nothing productive around here lately. Recognizing the difficulty or complexity of a problem isn't defeatism. Would you make that claim about building a new compiler or relational database? Indeed, that recognition is an essential part of doing the planning and resource marshaling to solve a problem where and how it needs to be solved. The Manhattan Project didn't go with the first day's design. Neither did NASA. Neither did the allies at Normandy. Nor, most relevantly, did cities and countries that did put in decent transit infrastructure. "Just whack away at it without a clue and look down your nose at anyone not joining you" is not generally the way to really get things done. And if you don't like that characterization, fix your own first.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#174

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #31

> the push to replace fuel-engine vehicles with electric ones As opposed to what, replacing cars with public transit? It takes a serious amount of hubris to look at the world and think that we can just wave a magic wand and make public transit work in places that largely rely on cars (even in Europe, which is much denser and more friendly to public transit, there are a lot of personal cars). We will run out of oil wa…

[deleted]

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#175

Post by notacoward »

nostromo123 wrote: post #149
bambax wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could make it harder and harder to use/own a car: more expensive, difficult to park, slower to use, etc. Then people would seek out other solutions by themselves, be it using a bike, public transport, or moving less (asking for more remote work options, for instance). We don't seem to even be trying to do this and it's depressing.

Oh, "we" are trying this in Austria! Especially in Vienna, the Greens have introduced harsh parking rules for commuters, blocking of new road infrastructure projects that have already been in planning for decades, and so on. But I and many others who commute to Vienna don't want to go back to commuting by public transport. Been there, done that - in one direction, it's 1.5h by train + 2 metro lines, vs. 30-40 mins by…

Thank you for adding that perspective. If only we could hope that people will listen to others with actual experience of the solutions they so blithely propose.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#176

Post by Krssst »

imtringued wrote: post #169
thinking4real wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where you live is no doubt a minority use case for the global situation. Right?

Almost nobody generates electricity from oil in significant quantities.

OP probably meant fossil fuels in general (gas/oil/coal).

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#177

Post by kolinko »

thinking4real wrote: post #147
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live the great majority of electricity generation is renewable. Switching from internal combustion to EV is absolutely a net positive.

And where you live is no doubt a minority use case for the global situation. Right?

Even in Poland - the coal capital of Europe - EVs lifetime co2 emissions are now lower than ICEs.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#178

Post by elwebmaster »

landemva wrote: post #114
lumb63 wrote: post #67

Some of what the author says is accurate. Carbon offset credits are bunk. Industrial agriculture is harmful. There are environmental issues to a lot of the “greening” practices. There are issues around how equitably the climate change revolution is going to impact different demographics. Some of what the author says is false. Consumer choices do make a difference. I work in climate tech and the product my company pro…

> The proper path forward IMO is capturing externalities so they can be incorporated into the existing economic framework. I totally agree! No way China should be able to have price advantages due to lack of manufacturing pollution control. And Mexico makes engine blocks for the north because of the difficulty of getting environmental approval for foundries in the north. Pollution parity import tariffs will level the…

That is the only way forward. The only problem is the Fed fighting a “war” with inflation. If they would just accept inflation as the necessary evil and impose tariffs on every polluting import, both the economy and citizens of the West would be much better off. Many more jobs would be created and and the competition for labor would keep driving compensation. After 10 years just denominate the dollar and all problems solved.

Re: We are ‘greening’ ourselves to extinction

#180

Post by notacoward »

rootusrootus wrote: post #32
korroziya wrote: post #21

From the article: "The supposed energy transition that has been undertaken has seen renewable energy production expanded, but there has been no indication that oil and gas are being substituted and ultimately phased out." That's not going to happen for another 27 years at least. I've said it before: Most people (including those who post here) are staggeringly illiterate when it comes to energy. Hydrocarbons store an…

I haven't met that many people who think we can do it in a year. But it won't happen in 27 years if we don't make a consistent effort every year between now and then.

The key is to make the right efforts. Putting so much passion into "build more bike lanes", discouraging people from buying EVs or installing solar "because of the environmental cost" etc. either doesn't move the needle or moves it in the wrong direction. It is its own form of greenwashing. What we need to do is look at the actual flows of carbon-energy production and usage, and work our way down from the biggest to the smallest. Here's a starting point from LLNL.

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/commodities/energy https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/commodities/carbon

(I'm pretty sure I've seen an even better one somewhere that breaks down e.g. personal vs. commercial transportation, but I can't find it right now.)

Parallel to that, we need to address the political issues that obstruct even minimal progress. And yes, sometimes that means holding our noses and voting for awful "moderates" or "centrists". Why? Because in a divided country (as most are) getting elected means getting the votes in the middle. Education helps some, in the long term, because it helps move the dividing line between the two sides of any issue (not just environment). Condescension and demonization don't help at all. In the short term, though, the biggest bang for the buck is to vote for people who will meet voters where they are ideologically and get them to support some kind of progress. Secondarily, electing people who will vote to dismantle the structures that favor obstruction and NIMBYism over doing something will also help - not this election cycle or next, but hopefully within a 27-year time frame.

So yes, consistent effort every year, but in ways that bear fruit and don't just satisfy someone's sense of superiority or self-righteous anger. There has been enough posturing. Every "that isn't good enough" or "they're both the same" delays actual progress. Like everything there's a strategy to this, and about 90% of what I see is a losing strategy.

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