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Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

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Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you discount export emissions? Is it forced on them against their will or they don't profit from it? Shall we also adjust for things like how much of their emissions could have been green, etc?

I'm not the same commenter as above, but, why not? In the extreme hypothetical scenario, a country could be net-zero and have the newest iPhone every year, throw away their good PCs because Windows 11 needs a modern one with TPM 2.0, fast fashion, and steak for dinner every night, because everything's produced in the neighboring country. And then when the world says "We need to be better about our carbon output", you…

How you describe is not how demand & supply works. To think that every product China puts on Amazon and whatnot is there because there's demand for it doesn't make sense. A lot of the time existence of supply creates demand. I see it first hand all the time. Some new thing is put out (accessory, electronics, etc), everyone gets on the bandwagon and buys it. It also helps if there's fashionable aura and gov subsidies (EVs). If it was not made & sold, people would instead buy something else made locally even if it cost more or simply not buy.

Yes, part of it is consumer choice (and yes some consumers do choose to not buy if they think it supports environmental damage or such) but it's wrong to pretend one side is the one who makes all the choices and the other side is powerless to resist because it's convenient for your argument.

> because everything's produced in the neighboring country

Unless the first country dictates neighbouring country's policies, not sure it's that relevant.

> it seems like a philosophical question about economics. Do you go to work willingly, or because you're forced to, because you want to be able to afford food, housing, and iPhone 17?

Either there's freedom of choice or not. This logic can go to "I should deceive people or dump waste into rivers or use slave labour, because market & I want to afford a new fancy yacht or invade a country". Yes, I can choose not to work or do different work that is more or less friendly to environment and I use an old iPhone.

> their citizens are forced by government to give up sources of income There's unlimited hypotheticals. Should we say we are forced to give up sources of income if they involve crime or morally wrong things that are discouraged?

> And consumers in the West enable this behavior by wanting the cheapest bang for the buck.

"Enabling" can be used to justify anything or assign any guilt. It's a bit narcissistic. It reminds me of "America started the war in Ukraine" a little.

> Or it's a tragedy of the commons scenario.

I agree there is some tragedy of the commons here.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Short of China and India voluntarily holding themselves to the same standards as Western Europe and the US China and India emit significantly less CO2 per capita than Western Europe and the US [0] - and that's ignoring the fact they do all of our manufacturing. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

Per capita doesn't mean shit when their actual gross is way higher.

Agreed. Per capita arguments sound like toddlers arguing over who is closer to the other.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop living in a fantasy. Direct air carbon capture can never be more efficient than just not burning fossile fuels in the first place.

Sure it can. Why wouldn't it? Say you find a source of energy with zero cost. Now direct air carbon capture is free. "But you don't have a source with zero cost." Great, now we're talking numbers, how cheap does it have to be? So long as energy transport has inevitable losses, carbon capture stands a chance. In other words, IMO we should consider fossil fuel offsetting with carbon capture as a highly lossy energy tra…

Even with free energy, you'd need to invest a lot of capital and then dispose of the CO2 somewhere.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will but not at our current numbers. Rich countries will suffer the most.

Absolutely wrong. India, China and the more polluting poorer countries are the ones who'll always suffer more. With >300 AQIs in most highly-populated areas, dirty water from rivers almost all of which are hazardously polluted, combined with a tropical climate that's already hot enough to kill thousands of people from heatstroke alone in summers - pollution-related misery in US and Europe isn't anywhere close enough…

"Absolutely wrong. India, China and the more polluting poorer countries are the ones who'll always suffer more."

....until the migrations.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#165
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article was written in 2019 before a number of extraordinarily significant events with major climate policy impacts: - a noticeable and rapid dip in emissions has proven to be viable due to COVID lockdowns - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Europe and the US to accelerate plans to diversify energy generation away from natural gas - China’s insanely rapid growth in green energy production domestically It seems…

And yet, do you know when the hottest month on record was? It's easy to answer: last month. It's been "last month" for the last 12 months at least. Basically, we've hit the J curve. The "extraordinarily significant events" you cite amount to little more than a guy who jumped off a bridge thinking: "you know, I think I've changed my mind". (And yet, we just bought $700 of seedlings and I spent my birthday, and many ot…

On the bright side, at least the CO2 and warmer weather will help the seedlings grow. "Greenhouse" effect and all that.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China and India emit significantly less CO2 per capita Which would be great if CO2's heat trapping properties depended on the per capita emissions of their nation of origin. Unfortunately CO2 molecules don't know where they came from and can't adjust their heat trapping properties accordingly, and instead it's about absolute amounts as ppm of the atmosphere. But there's a silver lining for China and India - which is…

Just no. In terms of bang for buck it's easier to reduce emissions in rich countries with high emissions per capita. Unless by "buck" you mean the number of decisions that need to be made, but that's hardly the limiting factor. Country sizes are arbitrary. With your logic if China was to split into a bunch of smaller nations their emissions wouldn't matter any more? Per-capita emissions is the only reasonable way to…

It costs more bucks to change a rich person's mind, than a poor person's mind.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop living in a fantasy. Direct air carbon capture can never be more efficient than just not burning fossile fuels in the first place.

Sure it can. Why wouldn't it? Say you find a source of energy with zero cost. Now direct air carbon capture is free. "But you don't have a source with zero cost." Great, now we're talking numbers, how cheap does it have to be? So long as energy transport has inevitable losses, carbon capture stands a chance. In other words, IMO we should consider fossil fuel offsetting with carbon capture as a highly lossy energy tra…

Energy is not the only cost. There are also massive material costs building the carbon capture infrastructure. A reasonable estimate for the scale required is the existing fossile fuel infrastructure.

That is, direct air carbon capture means investing an amount on the order of the value of the existing fossile fuel infrastructure to spend energy to achieve nothing of value (except offsetting the damage we caused by not switching to renewables earlier).

It's a complete nonstarter. Only a vehicle used by the fossile industry to delay the transition.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They collectively still emit substantially more than the US and Western Europe, and much more importantly, GHG emissions have been declining in the US and Western Europe for over two decades. In that same time period, they have done nothing but grow rapidly in China and India. All the information we have so far suggests that India will continue to grow rapidly in this regard even after China plateaus on carbon emissi…

> We can play semantic games with per-capita consumption, but the fact of the matter remains that even if the entirety of the planet, except China and India, went 100% carbon neutral overnight, it would still be impossible to avoid hitting catastrophic climate change thresholds due to GHG emissions from those two countries alone. Of all the countries China is doing the most to curb its emissions. > Global annual rene…

> Of all the countries China is doing the most to curb its emissions.

False. They have good green PR to justify other governments funneling taxpayer money via subsidies but meanwhile they are building the most coal plants than any country and this has been only ramping up in recent years with more new fossil fuel power plants being approved year on year.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-...

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They collectively still emit substantially more than the US and Western Europe, and much more importantly, GHG emissions have been declining in the US and Western Europe for over two decades. In that same time period, they have done nothing but grow rapidly in China and India. All the information we have so far suggests that India will continue to grow rapidly in this regard even after China plateaus on carbon emissi…

I wrote about why saying it's their fault and not ours is not admitting our own fault is... bullshit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41015413 > that middle class is going to want to enjoy the spoils of materialistic consumerism (the true root cause of human-induced climate change) just as much as our grandparents did, our parents did, and we do. The last 3 words is key there. WE also don't want to give up those…

You manage to make it look like no one can make a sane choice for themselves. Other countries can only do what we want (because WE want cheap products WE make them do bad stuff), and we can only do what they want (if they offer something that is cheaper then we automatically must buy it and not care about any damage or side-effects). It's a paradox isn't it?

In reality it is government's choice, to go for short term riches and maintaining power or act more ethically and think long term. And consumers pay more all the time for things like "no slave labour" (idk how well it's enforced, I just say it's a value), "ethically sourced materials", "recycled", "no spying malware", blahblahblah, just look at Android vs iPhone.

Re: Multisatellite data depicts a record-breaking methane leak from a well blowout

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They collectively still emit substantially more than the US and Western Europe, and much more importantly, GHG emissions have been declining in the US and Western Europe for over two decades. In that same time period, they have done nothing but grow rapidly in China and India. All the information we have so far suggests that India will continue to grow rapidly in this regard even after China plateaus on carbon emissi…

I wrote about why saying it's their fault and not ours is not admitting our own fault is... bullshit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41015413 > that middle class is going to want to enjoy the spoils of materialistic consumerism (the true root cause of human-induced climate change) just as much as our grandparents did, our parents did, and we do. The last 3 words is key there. WE also don't want to give up those…

>But hey, it's not happening in our country, so we're fine?

No, but even if the US and Western Europe went net zero, that's still not enough to offset global GHG emissions coming out of China to prevent catastrophic climate change.

If you, a wealthy westerner, want to tell billions of people in China to stop enjoying middle class luxuries for the first time because it's bad for the environment, be my guest. I have no such desire.

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