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Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

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Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#111

Post by ericmay »

whimsicalism wrote: post #60
ericmay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best reading recommendation would be to look at climate change projections from NOAA or similar organizations for where you live or want to live, assume those will be true within some +-, and then base your decisions off of that. There doesn't seem to be a substantial downside to getting it wrong if bad scenarios don't occur but if they do occur you'll want to have gotten it right. > People will always say "just use…

Right, but, to a large extent, Americans love the burbs and you are not going to be able to get them to vote for their demise, no matter how many benefits you can see .

Well I don't think all Americans love the suburbs for sure. Home prices in the city where I live for example seem to be skyrocketing compared to the suburbs and that's despite bad schools.

I think you are right in that many Americans won't "vote" for a lot of these benefits. Again the "300 new manufacturing jobs" headline sounds better than "16 small businesses and a 2% drop in obesity-related premature deaths over a 5 year period" [1] and that's what we optimize for.

To your point though, as many Americans won't "vote to get rid of the suburbs" they'll eventually just go bankrupt trying to maintain all of the highways and cars [2], or we'll have to go to war to secure oil flows. There's certainly a social choice to be made and I think we'll choose suburbs, cars, war, heat, and all of those things.

[1] There's nothing wrong with 300 new (or any amount) manufacturing jobs, and the numbers I'm using are made up, though my point is largely that better urban planning and design, zoning, etc. will produce greater economic benefits it's just that they aren't concentrated into a single headline that some dumb idiot can point to and say "Mission Accomplished".

[2] Please note that there's nothing wrong with cars existing, the main problem is cars being a hard requirement (government mandate really) for every single thing you do in your life.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#112

Post by phpnode »

slashdev wrote: post #82
hannob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can't reach 1.5°C then we should try to reach 1.6°C. If we can't reach that then 1.7°C. Ultimately: It doesn't matter whether we can reach 1.5°C, because everything we try helps making things better. And any carbon sequestation technology will only help significantly after drastic emission cuts, not as a replacement for it.: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00953-x

How about we aim for an achievable goal instead. What’s the point of setting ourselves up for failure? That’s part of effective goal setting. Anything else is fantasy and counterproductive.

we did aim for an achievable goal, and steamed straight past it with our fingers in our ears.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#113

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

pfisch wrote: post #91
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0.2% of all emissions sounds like a disproportionately big win. Like the entire emissions of small country. That's a low hanging fruit. Let's do it!

It is low hanging fruit to get every country in the world to agree to outlaw private jet travel!? How ridiculous. The US can't even pass basic legislation to stop schools from getting shot up once a week, but this is low hanging fruit??? Ok...

Yes, it's a fair bit easier than that mess.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#114

Post by scythe »

tonmoy wrote: post #11
piuantiderp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes it did, and sea levels have risen too: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/... Note that since we are not about to stop carbon emission in the near future, the ice melt and sea level rise would increase well into the future

IIRC projected sea level rise over the next three decades is the same as observed sea level rise over the last century, i.e., it's accelerating. But keep in mind that it is partially driven by thermal expansion of water, not just ice melting.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#115

Post by jaggederest »

pseg134 wrote: post #70
whimsicalism wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me to be incredibly arrogant to be reasoning starting from humanity as saviors of life in 500 million years. And to say that that somehow means that the eco-movements (many of which are focused on the keeping us alive for the next few thousand years) are flawed seems wrong. The focus put on silly Greenpeace actions and fights about nuclear in the media is part of a somewhat intentional strategy to paint a…

Well if someone other than humanity wants to step up and save life I’m sure we would be okay with it but my dog still spends his time licking himself and my houseplants are not especially active so I think it’s up to us.

500 million years is longer than the time it has taken to evolve mammalian life. Assuming that no other intelligent species would ever evolve is pretty crazy, it's only taken us 200 million years. If that's an average, we could be looking at 1 to 3 other intelligent species developing on this planet alone.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#116

Post by circuit10 »

slashdev wrote: post #82
hannob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can't reach 1.5°C then we should try to reach 1.6°C. If we can't reach that then 1.7°C. Ultimately: It doesn't matter whether we can reach 1.5°C, because everything we try helps making things better. And any carbon sequestation technology will only help significantly after drastic emission cuts, not as a replacement for it.: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00953-x

How about we aim for an achievable goal instead. What’s the point of setting ourselves up for failure? That’s part of effective goal setting. Anything else is fantasy and counterproductive.

If you only just fail on a more ambitious goal that’s better than succeeding on a less ambitious one

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#117

Post by teawrecks »

hannob wrote: post #45
slashdev wrote: post #3

I’m not sure what’s the point of focusing on 1.5C anymore. I think the writing on the wall is pretty clear that we’re going to double that at least. Barring any miracle in carbon sequestration technology anyway. I hope we get a miracle.

If we can't reach 1.5°C then we should try to reach 1.6°C. If we can't reach that then 1.7°C. Ultimately: It doesn't matter whether we can reach 1.5°C, because everything we try helps making things better. And any carbon sequestation technology will only help significantly after drastic emission cuts, not as a replacement for it.: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00953-x

If we're already going to have to heavily adapt our living arrangements to account for extreme climate change, at what point does 0.1° not matter? 5.0° vs 5.1°? 10.0° vs 10.1°?

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#118

Post by prepend »

ahelwer wrote: post #9

One eye-opening fact I recently learned is that fossil fuel infrastructure being built today is expected to have a three-decade lifespan, after completion of its construction. So every time you hear about a new pipeline, drilling project, or refinery being built you know that the people sitting in the rooms authorizing billions of dollars being allocated to the project all believe it will safely be operating and prod…

> Every new fossil energy project is incompatible with a world that takes climate change seriously. Money talks.

This depends on more information. It’s unlikely we’ll be using zero fossil fuels in 35 years. So the goal is to reduce over time, so a new project today could be replacing an old project going offline.

Or perhaps the project has a transition path to do something else.

I don’t think these are pedantic clarifications as things aren’t fatalistic. Investors are rational and while money talks it doesn’t mean that all the billions put into these projects isn’t a waste in climate terms.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#120

Post by joshstrange »

slashdev wrote: post #82
hannob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can't reach 1.5°C then we should try to reach 1.6°C. If we can't reach that then 1.7°C. Ultimately: It doesn't matter whether we can reach 1.5°C, because everything we try helps making things better. And any carbon sequestation technology will only help significantly after drastic emission cuts, not as a replacement for it.: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00953-x

How about we aim for an achievable goal instead. What’s the point of setting ourselves up for failure? That’s part of effective goal setting. Anything else is fantasy and counterproductive.

I think most of us would be fine with an "achievable goal" but that's not really what you asked for or proposed in your first comment and most of the people who say something like "I’m not sure what’s the point of focusing on 1.5C anymore" aren't offering new goals as much as they are throwing up their hands and essentially saying "oh well, what are you going to do". I'm not saying you think that way but that's the people who suggest giving up say the same things.

Too many people are just "hoping for a miracle" as if that's doing something. Or they think "technology will fix this before it gets too bad". It might, but it will be in spite of those people, not because of. If we want technology to save us we have to make investments today, not "when it gets bad".

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