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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

nytimes.com

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Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#101

Post by mywittyname »

rootusrootus wrote: post #44
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #30

It seems to me we are truly and globally fucked: 1. There were just massive protests and riots in France (a relatively ecologically-aware country) due to an increase in the diesel tax of about 8 cents a liter meant to help wean the country off carbon. As a result of the riots, the tax was cancelled. 2. Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction, i.e. doing everything it can to support coal.…

I'm reminded of Stein's Law. It is not exactly right, but it is how I feel this will likely play out. At least if reduction in carbon emissions is the only card we have in our hand. I.e. we will stop emitting carbon when (for all practical purposes) we run out. Not before. At some point I do expect people will start having more serious discussions about how much climate engineering we are willing to undertake. Certai…

It looks to be a self-correcting problem. Eventually the side-effect of burning hydrocarbons will kill off the creatures who insist on burning hydrocarbons.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#102

Post by ip26 »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #22
calvinbhai wrote: post #9

I cannot take any of these reports seriously unless they are comparing emissions from each country on a per capita basis. This is an easy way to make US look like a responsible polluter compared to India and China. Its a different ball game, if you factor in the total emissions per capita over last 100 years, in which case, US emissions are probably a few multiples over China and India combined (that's my guess. I'm…

Earth's atmosphere doesn't care about per-capita emissions - it just cares about absolute concentrations of greenhouse gases. If you want to solve the problem, largest (in absolute terms - not per capita) emitters need to cut back. Somewhere in the world one human emits more CO2 per capita than everyone else in the world. If they stop emitting, we haven't solved anything.

Obviously both are important. The biggest absolute polluters must cut back. But the highest per capita emitters have the biggest room for easy improvement.

It's like the debate over water in the West. 80% of water goes to agriculture, so they make the biggest splash and there's no way to cut water usage in half without improving agriculture. But of the 7-20% that goes to residential, half is used on lawns, which is a luxury good. And speaking of lawns, we generate quite a lot of emissions taking care of them.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#103

Post by sctb »

fromthestart wrote: post #29

If you want proof as to how taboo climate science skepticism has become, look at how quickly (less than ten minutes) my sourced, rational comment in this thread was down voted and flagged. Flagged! For skepticism!

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#104

Post by cbkeller »

cronix wrote: post #31
cbkeller wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a new development: > United States emissions are expected to rise 2.5 percent this year after several years of declines > “We thought oil use had peaked in the U.S. and Europe 15 years ago,” he said. “The cheap gasoline prices, bigger cars and people driving more miles are boosting oil use at rates that none of us expected.”

That's the result, and we can probably see the cause here with the number of environmental rollbacks we've had. Read them, especially the ones related to oil/coal. I'm sure there will be even more to come now that Andrew Wheeler is the new head of the EPA (a former coal lobbyist): http://environment.law.harvard.edu/policy-initiative/regulat...

Pretty scary that it seems to have happened this fast!

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#105

Post by lifeformed »

fromthestart wrote: post #29

If you want proof as to how taboo climate science skepticism has become, look at how quickly (less than ten minutes) my sourced, rational comment in this thread was down voted and flagged. Flagged! For skepticism!

[flagged]

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#106

Post by i_am_proteus »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54
orblivion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction, i.e. doing everything it can to support coal. And apparently failing miserably in this effort: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/17/epa-cheers-...

I think this article helps me clarify a great point, mainly in these sentences: "The yearslong decline in U.S. emissions has been widely credited to the oil and gas boom. Power plants increasingly turned from coal to natural gas as innovations in extraction technology resulted in lower prices." Lots of people talk about carbon emission reductions, but there is a much simpler way to think about it. There is a lot of c…

If gas reserves are exploited along with coal reserves, your conjecture holds. If gas reserves are exploited in lieu of coal reserves, it does not.

If the cost per Joule of carbon-free energy goes down over time, carbon-free energy will eventually dominate the energy economy. This is generally expected to happen "too late" because of how much carbon will be released before we get there.

If burning oil and gas instead of coal reduces carbon emissions prior to carbon-free sources taking over, overall carbon emissions are reduced and the amount of warming is reduced.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#107

Post by black6 »

fromthestart wrote: post #47
cbkeller wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your flagged post began with an allegation of bad faith against the entire field of climate science. edit: looks like it's not even flagged anymore.

My "allegation of bad faith" is a regular topic on HN, because it is plaguing most soft sciences in modern academia. Climate science is not immune - especially because of it's practical unfalsifiabity. If science is broken then it's conclusions must be treated with skepticism - even if researches are on average well meaning.

Without another Earth-like planet to act as a control, and geologic time-scales in which to perform the experimentation, the science is bunk. Climate science must rely on models -- models which are constantly being tweaked as they continue to fail to accurately predict reality.

But the groupthink here just cannot objectively look at climate science, compare it to the scientific method, and realize there may be something amiss.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#108

Post by IanCal »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #81
alphabettsy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your argument, but the people living in rural areas are bigger contributors to pollution since they tend to drive more and live in single family dwellings. Why shouldn’t the actual road users pay the cost of using the road? I agree any industry using fuel should pay an equal tax though.

Some people have no choice but to live in the countryside. I don't live in France anymore but in the village that I used to live in which was 40km from Paris, the rent for a decent size apartment i.e, not a broom closet was around 700 euros per month. Many people in France make less than 1800 euros per month. Which means that in the best case scenario they are left with 1k euro before any basic necessities such as fo…

Isn't this all the point though? People live further out and travel more because it's cheaper. The goal is to change behaviour by making more polluting choices less cheap.

If the problem is the poorest, why not use the fuel duty raised to help them? They're surely not using all the fuel, so this could be a net benefit to them.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#109

Post by newnewpdro »

alphabettsy wrote: post #68
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protesters are not protesting just the taxes on fuel. They protest the fact that taxing fuel is not the solution if you don't provide an alternative mode of transport. Some people live far from the cities, Should they be the ones paying for everybody else and let the people living in the cities without a car not pay their fair share of the burden? The problem with taxing the diesel is that you are telling people that…

I understand your argument, but the people living in rural areas are bigger contributors to pollution since they tend to drive more and live in single family dwellings. Why shouldn’t the actual road users pay the cost of using the road? I agree any industry using fuel should pay an equal tax though.

I think you're confusing rural areas and suburban areas.

It's the suburban wastelands that are saturated with families of daily-driven automobiles and commuters.

I live in a rural area, most of my neighbors only drive to a grocery store ~10 miles away once a week. The rest of the time is spent at home.

Then on the weekends a bunch of city folks blast through disrupting everything on their way to/from Las Vegas and/or to hike in the national park. It's absolutely nuts, the small town becomes a microcosm of LA via weekend tourism, every weekend.

The rural folks I know are mostly poor, they can't afford to be burning fossil fuels like it's going out of style. They live relatively frugal lives, they're not the problem.

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