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Oceans hit highest temperature on record

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Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#231
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the US. That's because it's also the cheapest source of energy. So markets are working. https://abcnews.com/US/solar-generates-energy-coal-us-1st-ti... "Solar and storage provided 90% of all new power added in the U.S." is mind blowing. How about we give the US credit for this? Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Given th…

> So markets are working. > Instead of politics and blame we need to focus on markets and let them take care of the problem. Blind faith in the markets is what got us in this mess. > Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Yes, and usage is not decreasing. As solar is growing, it's only adding capacity, not replacing fossil fuels. 2025 was the record year for global emissions and…

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

Still a ways to go but trending down for some time now. India and China are trending up and might cross us by 2030-2035 unless they reverse direction.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#232
post #193
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm weird. Just to be fair I'll acknowledge that certain political actors in the US deny there's any man made climate change and fight renewable energy because it conflicts with some narrow business or political interests. I'm not denying that. But... The political criticism in the US (and in Canada where I'm from) against fossil fuel extraction makes no sense. We should want that fossil fuels are extracted here . No…

I don't understand. Are you making the argument that extracting fossil fuel here is better than extracting it elsewhere? Or, perhaps more to the point, you do see that the issue is the use of fossil fuels and that extracting _more_ is just contributing to it? About the (unrelated) boycott question, I would invite you to consider the reasons motivating people to boycott Tesla. If think everyone do that to "hurt" or "p…

Yes. I am making the argument that if we extract a barrel of oil in Canada that is all in all better than in Russia or Saudi. We have more environmental standards and we put that money towards better things.

Canada was able to give me a rebate on my EV purchase. Where do you think that money comes from? I drive a Tesla because at the time it was (and maybe still is) the best EV. I benefit from the network of superchargers. It is one, if not the, of the most efficient EVs in terms of energy/km. Batteries last a very long time due to battery management. It has been very reliable for me. My decision (way back) was really strictly on what is the best EV with no political considerations (and that was before a lot of the more recent political issues).

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#233
post #26
post #9

As someone who works in risk management, I think I have a hard time understanding how anyone can be so blase about climate change. Like, it truly takes a level of willful ignorance to have something so dire happening, and just choosing to either ignore it, or ignore the evidence for it. Like, even if you think the science isn't that accurate, the impacts , the massive potential harms, should outweigh the choice to ju…

I do care. I see a species ending disaster hanging over the future. I recycle, I have solar panels, a heat pump, an EV (that I leave on my driveway whenever my bicycle will do the job). But the planet is being ruined by greed on an unfathomable scale and aside from doing what I can and voting for parties that see the problem, I feel like there’s not a god damn thing I can do about it.

What about food and overall consumption?

Eating meet, beef especially, with fish a close second, is insanely impactful on the planet. Cows use tons of food, fresh water and release tons of methane, a gas 200 times worse than CO2.

Do you use AI?

Just saying, we could care but being light on the planet is very difficult without dramatically changing our life styles.

I know I do so much, but honestly an emission tax is the very first thing we need out there.

Because we can't be blamed into being eco-friendly as individuals, it's up to taxes to regulate consumption.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#234
post #10

BBC did a pretty good deep dive a few days ago on what we're in for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xZCh8eDZFc DW also, similar stuff, but the guest is quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcl5Mn373Oc Anton Petrov covered it from a much more science lens a couple months back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRoU3whzX_Q

That BBC documentary shows or exposes very shallow thinking skills at this timestamp 6m42s: https://youtu.be/_xZCh8eDZFc?si=AHyDPgoDucsCRllS&t=402 They claim the panama canal is continuously fed by freshwater for the canal locks (which segment the canal into sections with different water levels, and which enable ships to be raised or lowered to the next water level during travel along the canal). It's 2026, why are h…

> Keep the freshwater, use it for irrigation etc.

In this scenario, haven't you poured a bunch of ocean water into the lake? I don't see how to can fill the locks with ocean water and not have it pour into the lake.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs? 1.5% is a //huge// amount. If it was a “drop” in your bucket, it would only hold 67 more of those drops.

> we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs? No, we couldn't, because degrowth solutions aren't really an option.

I call degrowth "abstinence based" environmental policy in allegory to abstinence based sex education. The latter is the "we don't need condoms or birth control, just teach people not to have sex" thing, which doesn't work either.

You really think you're going to convince people to become poorer? Not possible in a democracy. It'd require some kind of ecofascist totalitarian thing where you take peoples' energy and resource use away and fire tear gas and rubber bullets at them when they protest.

Or we could build non-carbon-based energy sources. Cause we have those, and they work. You can also have safe sex if you put a rubber thing on your wing-wong.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#237

Thank God we have a new technology that is aggressively using water, power, and making the world increasingly hotter.

I know. Banning internal combustion engines is a good first step.

I have said multiple times that we should ban combustion engines in the energy grid. Sadly there isn't a single party that support such action here in Sweden, and the largest supporter of thermal power plants are the green party who see it as essential to enable renewable energy (is written as such in their party platform, website, and argued in public debates).

It would however be a really good first step to make the energy discussion a bit more honest. We don't need combustion engines in order to generate energy.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#238
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are doing a lot. Almost 90% of electricity capacity added last year was renewables. Nearly 1 in 3 cars sold are now EVs. The world is spending over $2 trillion every year on low‑carbon energy investment. Solar and wind have already avoided more than 2 gigatons of CO2 being added to the atmosphere. In the US, the IRA will drop emissions 40% to below 2005 levels. What do you mean we are doing nothing?

The federal government is paying energy companies to cancel plans to build wind farms: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o Yes we're still building renewable energy, but goddamn is our government making it hard.

We are still building renewable energy even with a stupid government because it's now cheaper than fossil fuels in many markets.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#239
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So markets are working. > Instead of politics and blame we need to focus on markets and let them take care of the problem. Blind faith in the markets is what got us in this mess. > Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Yes, and usage is not decreasing. As solar is growing, it's only adding capacity, not replacing fossil fuels. 2025 was the record year for global emissions and…

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita Still a ways to go but trending down for some time now. India and China are trending up and might cross us by 2030-2035 unless they reverse direction.

That's per capita. Total keeps increasing: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...

Per capita decreasing is not nothing, but unfortunately the climate doesn't care about that particular metric.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#240
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs? No, we couldn't, because degrowth solutions aren't really an option.

I call degrowth "abstinence based" environmental policy in allegory to abstinence based sex education. The latter is the "we don't need condoms or birth control, just teach people not to have sex" thing, which doesn't work either. You really think you're going to convince people to become poorer? Not possible in a democracy. It'd require some kind of ecofascist totalitarian thing where you take peoples' energy and re…

And right now the fuel for fascism seems to be coming from the newly minted billionaires who own or profit off of the data centers.
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