Good.
Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
141–150 of 356 posts
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#142One 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 clari…
Well, here's your more information: https://i.imgur.com/B2QBY6u.png
Fossil fuel investment has been climbing year-over-year. Fossil fuel companies aren't replacing existing infrastructure to taper out usage of fossil fuels. They are introducing and expanding with new infrastructure.
From the Bloomberg NEF 2023 Energy Transition Investment Trends report, which is incredible reading: https://about.bnef.com/energy-transition-investment/
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 is not the only solution though. There are several choices we can make, but only we choose not to. Simplifying everything to just nuclear power is nonsense.
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Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#144Earlier 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…
I’m not sure it is arrogant. Arrogant would be saying we have some divine right or special capacity that places us at the center of this. I think we’ve gotten incredibly lucky in the last 600 years or so and have stumbled our way into a viable exit strategy for life on our planet. We don’t necessarily deserve this role. I think I’m well aligned that keeping life alive for the next few thousand years is absolutely nec…
Oh, I certainly disagree with people who put the environment above humans. But usually I just discount such people - they "are not serious people."
> my friends adopt a “humans were a mistake” mindset over the past decade.
This is an edgy take that I see increasingly adopted by young people in cities.
Generally I try to recenter around "okay, if humans are a mistake, who would you like to kill first?" People find it easy to reason about the end of a species in the abstraction, not when it is their friends and family who either die or cannot have children because the world is in such shambles.
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#145Earlier 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…
It's not all bad. The "business as usual" scenario was actually always unlikely and we're already far from realizing it, because it assumed, among other things, that China would increase its coal consumption much more than it actually did.
No reason to celebrate because there's much to do, but it's not all doom and gloom.
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#146Earlier 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…
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Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#147Earlier 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…
"Us" is, of course, influence- and wealth-weighted. Plenty of people wanted many of the pandemic changes to stick. We liked seeing clear air and water, we liked inclusive work and communications policies that kept people off roads and consuming less. But there's too much money tied up in the status quo, on one hand, and too many loud extroverts who cannot bear any real shift away from their social advantage (and emotional safe space) on the other. It wasn't so much about convincing everyone, as it was about us getting dragged by the throat back to "normal".
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#148Growth? Growth?! Yes, we absolutely 100% should stop immediately digging the hole deeper.
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#149Earlier 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
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°?
The difference is how many billions of dollars it costs, and by proxy, who can afford to survive climate change.
Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth
#150I’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.
I'm not having kids - I'm already shouldering all the terrible decisions of my parents and their parents.