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

resilience.org

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

#131
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city where I live is considering a tree ordinance, driven by some local NIMBYs. I did some rough numbers based on things I found around the internet and: One year of carbon sequestration from a mature tree == 1 or 2 days of commuting to the city 20 miles away that many people who are priced out of this town drive back and forth from. Trees are great, and most places should plant more street trees. But if you pres…

That... seems obvious. Why do you assume the person you're responding to is proposing we increase sprawl? Increase density, increase public transit, and rewild outlying areas. It all goes together.

I was just stating some stuff. I was pretty surprised by just how much CO2 cars put out compared to what trees store.

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

#132
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon sequestration is promising, but still years away. We need to start looking at stop gap solutions that buy us more time.

Carbon sequestration is trivial: we rewild destroyed ecosystems. We don't need to die waiting for Elon. I await my downvotes.

It’s just not enough. Fossil fuels represent millions of years of the stored output of fully wild ecosystems. Rewilding the Earth today only gets us to the starting line to repeat that process.

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

#133
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.

A recent piece in The Economist argued that China is doing more to combat global warming than is any other nation, and if America is going to do better then we'll have to become more like China. I agree on both points. And I think that will be the outcome eventually.

China is building a huge amount of renewable power and shipping tech to the world. But they're also burning a phenomenal amount of coal: so much so that they alone may determine whether we survive this next few decades.

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paragraph 3 of here [0] probably [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth

TL;DR the sun is expected to continue brightening, and that's likely to cause the end the carbonate-silicate cycle in a few hundred million years, which will mean the end of photosynthesis soon (for geological values of "soon") after that starts to grind to a halt. The end of photosynthesis means the end of large, complex life-forms on earth, permanently, forever, never to return. This means that the practical end of…

Personally I think you are underestimating evolution - we can fix carbon in other ways, but I agree life will be dramatically different.

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

#135
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon sequestration is promising, but still years away. We need to start looking at stop gap solutions that buy us more time.

We can reforest vast swaths of land right now. For instance, most of the US east of the Mississippi. That can happen with tax code changes and land trusts. We don't need to wait for new tech to scale up. We need to prioritize the planet.

We can't stop climate change by making it profitable. That's literally what got us into this mess in the first place.

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

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our kids, who will shoulder far more of the effects of this than us, didn't get to choose this. This is their inheritance, generations of neglect for the environment and rampant profiteering culminating in a climate catastrophe.

We have a solution to this problem, it's build more nuclear plants and electrify everything with nuclear and renewables. Unfortunately, we are shutting these plants down instead of building more of them.

Nuclear needs such a highly complex organisation to keep it running. I really don't think that's a long term vision with the current technology. Also Ukraine just last year was close to a drama with.the fighting.

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our kids, who will shoulder far more of the effects of this than us, didn't get to choose this. This is their inheritance, generations of neglect for the environment and rampant profiteering culminating in a climate catastrophe.

I'd add that all our models include some form of carbon removal, which is still within the realm of fiction in any meaningful capacity. So not only do our children inherit the mess, but our most optimistic scenarios all include our children being the ones to invent some sort of miracle tech. Meanwhile we're mostly sitting on our asses and not even a global pandemic could convince us to make any sort of meaningful cha…

> and not even a global pandemic could convince us to make any sort of meaningful change.

How is this related? What change was expected from the pandemic?

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

#138
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.

Our kids, who will shoulder far more of the effects of this than us, didn't get to choose this. This is their inheritance, generations of neglect for the environment and rampant profiteering culminating in a climate catastrophe.

Our kids will also benefit from the advances provided by fossil fuels. Such is life.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our kids, who will shoulder far more of the effects of this than us, didn't get to choose this. This is their inheritance, generations of neglect for the environment and rampant profiteering culminating in a climate catastrophe.

We have a solution to this problem, it's build more nuclear plants and electrify everything with nuclear and renewables. Unfortunately, we are shutting these plants down instead of building more of them.

It's unfortunate that this is such a common belief. There is no silver bullet for solving these problems. Yes, nuclear energy has a part to play. But it's a relatively small part, and absolutely not "a solution" in itself.

MIT has a really neat policy simulator called En-ROADS [1] where you can tinker with applying various policies at various levels, and estimate their impacts. Check it out, and see just how minimal nuclear energy's effects are on their own. Compare that to, for example, just "highly reducing" methane emissions.

[1] https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=23.2...

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