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Europe's fires are just the start

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Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#182
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "like Germany", but singling out Germany seems a strange choice given that the main global offenders are orders of magnitude worse in terms of their greenhouse gas emissions. Germany is currently producing more than half of its electricity from renewables. Check out this year's edition of Ember's Global Electricity Review [0]. The table on p. 78 lists the following five countries…

Germany is singled out because decided to close their safe and well functioning zero emission power plants for no good reason, thus exploding their CO2 emissions. Yeah, other emit more, but the rank stupidity of this environmental vandalism deserves the scorn it gets!

> thus exploding their CO2 emissions

Except their emissions have continued to go down.

Whether you count just electricity or economy wide.

And even before this "explosion" they were about half the US on per capita economy wide and now are less than half.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...

I believe they are singled out in a feeble attempt by climate change deniers and fossil fuel boosters to discredit renewables. Which Germany played a pivotal role in kick-starting and which are currently saving the world.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#183
post #31
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as major countries like Germany are keeping their ban on nuclear power, climate change cannot be that urgent.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "like Germany", but singling out Germany seems a strange choice given that the main global offenders are orders of magnitude worse in terms of their greenhouse gas emissions. Germany is currently producing more than half of its electricity from renewables. Check out this year's edition of Ember's Global Electricity Review [0]. The table on p. 78 lists the following five countries…

> should probably be put into perspective, though, by taking the population size into account

Obviously, each individual should have a right to emit a certain amount of GHGs independently from the size of the country he happens to be born in. So the correct list is this (2024 data [1]). Quite surprising in places (e.g. the position of the UK, Australians emitting GHGs at the level of a petro-state, and Canadians too, well above the US).

    | Country              | MtCO2e/ capita
    | Qatar                | 54.54
    | Kuwait               | 38.14
    | Bahrain              | 35.13
    | United Arab Emirates | 25.62
    | Oman                 | 24.02
    | Saudi Arabia         | 22.79
    | Australia            | 22.26
    | Canada               | 19.76
    | Russia               | 18.02
    | United States        | 17.34
    | New Zealand          | 15.59
    | South Korea          | 12.83
    | Ireland              | 11.86
    | China                | 10.81
    | Poland               | 9.28
    | Belgium              | 9.15
    | Netherlands          | 8.35
    | Germany              | 8.17
    | Italy                | 6.32
    | Spain                | 6.16
    | Brazil               | 5.93
    | France               | 5.68
    | United Kingdom       | 5.63

1 - from here: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025?vis=ghgpop#emissi...

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#184

People are truly having a climate change discussion fatigue. They hear all the time from politicians, celebrities, influencers, etc. that they should stop eating meat, should not drive non-electric vehicles, should not use AC, reduce consumption, and all other bullshit while the people preaching those have started wars that emit billions of tons of carbon, travel on their private planes to climate change summits, tak…

The propaganda has done it's job here, because your base assumption is that dealing with climate change is a cost.

But all the research suggests dealing with climate change is the cheaper option.

There's complexities there but you're effectively saying that you're too poor to pay off a credit card. Okay, but your only going to get poorer by not engaging with reality.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#186
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets repeated again and again, but wouldn't the money required to build/maintain nuclear plants be much better invested in building out renewables and battery storage? They already produce power much cheaper, and cost efficiency keeps increasing. Meanwhile power from nuclear plants are very expensive, comparatively. So why should we invest in nuclear energy? I have the impression a lot of the debate about nuclea…

I think the point of this question is that the Green party of Germany chose in 2003 that closure of nuclear power plants was more important than global warming. They had this as an explicit choice, and they demanded other parties went along with closing the nuclear power plants. They knew, it was discussed, that keeping them open would help with global warming, and they explicitly chose against that. Then they stood…

I'm sorry, but your comment to me just reads like a long rant about the Green party.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much battery you could install in a typical nuclear site. Maybe even stacked; if we make an apples-to-apples comparison in materials and say we can use the same amount of concrete and metal, could probably have several levels of batteries. Except no water needed, and no waste risks.

I'm not so sure about the "no water needed" as batteries require cooling (and sometimes heating). And perhaps batteries are not risky like nuclear waste, but by volume there would me much more battery material than nuclear material, and there is fire risk that must be mitigated. You can't just wire up a big stack of batteries, they need carefully designed separation and fire suppression so that if one battery goes in…

I imagine it wouldn't be nearly in the same ballpark, since one side does not perform the classic mechanical generation from temperature difference, and deal with the associated waste heat.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#188

People are truly having a climate change discussion fatigue. They hear all the time from politicians, celebrities, influencers, etc. that they should stop eating meat, should not drive non-electric vehicles, should not use AC, reduce consumption, and all other bullshit while the people preaching those have started wars that emit billions of tons of carbon, travel on their private planes to climate change summits, tak…

The propaganda has done it's job here, because your base assumption is that dealing with climate change is a cost. But all the research suggests dealing with climate change is the cheaper option. There's complexities there but you're effectively saying that you're too poor to pay off a credit card. Okay, but your only going to get poorer by not engaging with reality.

You can label it anyway you want, if you want pay it with all your credit cards be my guest, but one thing for sure is that paying for it even more is not going to make me any richer or even elevate my living standards. That’s the hard reality. Normal people are F’ed either way so absolutely no incentive for me to care at all

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#189

I'm a firm believer that sooner or later we will be extinct by extreme heat and suffocation. Two weeks ago here in Umbria, Italy the heat was extreme. It was 40°C without a breeze of air, it literally felt like braathing hot air. One morning while I was walking I couldn't believe the amount of dry leaves on the street, by pictures people would have guessed that it was autumn. I have a really good tolerance to high te…

This has happened to the earth before, the earth will change, Northern Atlantic will freeze over, stopping the currents of the ocean, and raise water levels at least several meters, enough to flood most cities on the East Coast.

Re: Europe's fires are just the start

#190
post #4

There is no "new normal", we are in a slope. As long as we emit CO2, the climate will get worse. Year after year. With effects like fires accelerating it, or the loss of the Amazon (it's pretty much lost already, isn't it?) that will just result in more CO2 being released. We don't have to adapt to the situation as it is now , because it is pretty much the best scenario. We have to adapt to the fact that it will get…

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