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Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

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Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#101

Post by apatters »

tzs wrote: post #65
apatters wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Victory Gardens worked because they had a patriotic, pro-war, pro-America appeal. Sort of a "Keep America Great" thing. I suspect there's zero chance that this type of sentiment could be harnessed for "Hey, let's offset carbon emissions [of whom the #1 emitter is our chief political rival, China]" In fact that's the biggest problem with broadening support for decarbonization in general. The largest share of global ca…

> The largest share of global carbon is emitted by countries like India and China India emits about 7% of global emissions. The United States emits about 16% [1]. Per capita India emits about 1/9th what the US does. [1] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emi...

Thanks for the catch, off the top of my head I remembered that India was #3 but didn't realize how far below the US they were.

I still think the basic thesis I am driving at holds, instead of cleaning up their act 20 years ago, multinational corporations shipped all of these polluting jobs to nations where it was OK to pollute, acting as a sort of escape valve which allowed them to continue belching carbon into the air and keep their profits high.

US and EU industry are among the cleanest in the world and asking the working class in these places to make more sacrifices is a slap in the face which has been going on for years. The Kyoto Protocol established no carbon targets for developing countries. The Paris Agreement established targets but they were laxer than the targets for developed countries.

This is a decarbonization strategy designed to optimize the profits of multinational corporations. If the working and middle classes don't push back it will continue, but corporate-owned media is ready to put Greta Thunberg on stage at every opportunity and shame you for questioning any part of the party line on climate change.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#102

Post by keanzu »

pmontra wrote: post #87
bazzert wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima, "1 death from radiation, 2202 from the evacuation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

As awful as it can sound it's not about the deaths. It's about people not being able to enter that area basically forever, on their time scale. If Fukushima was in New Yersey the USA would have lost New York City.

"This solar farm in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India has a capacity of 648 megawatts and covers an area of 10 square kilometres." [1]

That's 10sqkm that's been lost basically forever, or as long as it humans require solar power for only 648MW during the day when the sun is shining.

Fukushima Daiichi was 5,306 MW and generated that 24hrs a day.

[1] https://www.originenergy.com.au/blog/5-largest-solar-farms-i...

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#103

Post by bambataa »

gfodor wrote: post #60
willis936 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the thing about this issue: humans aren’t built to deal with it. > When people start to truly panic and fear death you can be sure the nukes will start getting built quickly. By this point it is far too late for any action to have meaningful consequence. People are raising hands now, when the effects are practically nonexistent on a human timescale, because if we wait until the effects affect us, then we are w…

Well, my own prediction is a) that we will mitigate climate change and b) it will not be through any of the activism methods being pursued today. The reason we will succeed is because we are, luckily, converging on market incentives which will (as a side effect) fix climate change. Specifically, it seems likely that the next iteration of technology startups focused on energy should be able to create products that are…

Clean energy solutions are only desired by the market because activism impelled governments to try to price in the externality costs of dirty energy.

How do you foresee the other environmental pressures (water, soil etc) being resolved? Are we merely maturing through a series of dirty technologies and are on the cusp of a clean tech revolution that will allow us to arbitrarily increase the Earth's carrying capacity? At what point does absolute decoupling of growth and resource consumption occur?

I do hope you're right, as it seems like the only viable path, but I am still doubtful.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#104

Post by LatteLazy »

kiliantics wrote: post #93
LatteLazy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write to your representatives. You vote for greener parties. You donate to green peace etc. None of those things are actually likely to work. But they're infinitely more likely to work that talking about local action and cutting back your meat intake. Sorry if I wasn't clear, this problem is really hard. Likely unsolvably hard. But that doesn't make an impractical solution practical.

There are effective things you can do but they require coordination with your community. Mass protests and worker strikes can force the hands of governments and big business. There are many historical examples that this works and just look at how much success the French are having right now. But they need to happen at scale and very frequently. Voting only happens once every few years for a reason.

I have to really blunt, I'm sure you're a nice guy/girl/person, and we both would love to see this problem solved but...

No, there are no effective things my community can take. None.

Even my whole nation has zero actual power. That's the whole point here. I don't know why people keep saying that.

Im a limey brit. We have a huge economy, lots of cars and houses, all pouring out co2. But we only produce 1% of world emissions. So even if we cut our emissions to zero today, that would be only 1/8th of the global cut needed just for 2020. Given world co2 emissions are growing at 2.7%, the problem would still be getting worse.

Nothing the UK does matters in the face of this issue. And we're one of the bigger, more powerful, more polluting nations.

Before we can find an actual solution, we need to stop wasting time and effort pretending this can be solved by communities. It really really can't.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#105

Post by bambataa »

apatters wrote: post #101
tzs wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The largest share of global carbon is emitted by countries like India and China India emits about 7% of global emissions. The United States emits about 16% [1]. Per capita India emits about 1/9th what the US does. [1] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emi...

Thanks for the catch, off the top of my head I remembered that India was #3 but didn't realize how far below the US they were. I still think the basic thesis I am driving at holds, instead of cleaning up their act 20 years ago, multinational corporations shipped all of these polluting jobs to nations where it was OK to pollute, acting as a sort of escape valve which allowed them to continue belching carbon into the a…

The question of apportioning responsibility (or "blame", if you prefer) is very tricky. Many Americans (and Europeans etc) have for decades had the relatively luxury of living comparatively emissions-intensive lives without having to worry about the environmental impact of their lives. The differentiated responsibility in the treaties is partly to account for historical emissions.

Whether or not that felt like a luxury at the time is kind of irrelevant from an accounting perspective but important from a political perspective.

That said, for someone in the U.S. to try and pass off responsibility to a country emitting three times less per capita [1] seems borderline absurd to me. And that's not even accounting for the fact that -- as you point out -- much of China's emissions are exported from the U.S and EU. If the U.S. had the cleanest industry and its people had already made significant sacrifices in the name of climate protection we should see that the U.S. has comparatively low per-capita emissions. It clearly doesn't.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#106

Post by bjoli »

simonsarris wrote: post #95
jeffdavis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter is vegan and sometimes I worry about her diet. A diet is what you do eat, how much, when, etc.; but being vegan only tells you what you don't eat. Surprisingly little about vegan promotional stuff gives practical advice. It's mostly talking about how wasteful meat is and how foolish meat-eaters are. Where is practical material about daily eating habits? Like, what should an athletic teenager eat, how much…

I'd be very worried about brain development and health. I suspect they are making a big mistake, but its especially so for children. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1... > The present paper argues that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics ignores or gives short shrift to direct and indirect evidence that vegetarianism may be associated with serious risks for brain and body development in…

Cofnas' is not someone who has any claim of being someone you should listen to when critiquing the AND. He is well known for peddling pseudo-science and twisting results of studies to make points the studies do not support.

Not only that, he is against vegetarianism on the base of it being a thing liberals do.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#107

Post by bazzert »

pmontra wrote: post #87
bazzert wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima, "1 death from radiation, 2202 from the evacuation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

As awful as it can sound it's not about the deaths. It's about people not being able to enter that area basically forever, on their time scale. If Fukushima was in New Yersey the USA would have lost New York City.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11...

Michael Shellenberger is one of my favorite writers on this topic. The radiation around Fukushima is less than the naturally occurring radiation in Colorado.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#108

Post by bazzert »

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #89
bazzert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. “The damage done by these wind installations is out of all proportion to the benefit,” https://www.ft.com/content/d8b9b0bc-04a6-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e...

Heya, Do you have either a non-paywall version of that article or an alternative article with a similar view? I'm curious what it says, but I can't read it with the paywall in place.

https://docdro.id/SjaNeM6

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#109

Post by bjoli »

jeffdavis wrote: post #96
simonsarris wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very worried about brain development and health. I suspect they are making a big mistake, but its especially so for children. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1... > The present paper argues that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics ignores or gives short shrift to direct and indirect evidence that vegetarianism may be associated with serious risks for brain and body development in…

Thank you for your concern and helpful research. I am concerned as well. As a teen, she has her own mind and determination so my opinion only goes so far. But the links might be helpful.

Read a bit about the Cofnas guy WHO wrote that and judge for yourself if he seems like a guy you want summing the scientific literature regarding veganism.

Re: Deep Decarbonization: A Realistic Way Forward on Climate Change

#110

Post by beerandt »

willis936 wrote: post #99
beerandt wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that not still social engineering? It's just collective and punitive instead of individual and guilt driven. A carbon tax (at least without going 100% to sequestration) is only an behavior penalty. It's not even a net gain, it's just slowing a net loss. There's nothing innovative about that. The sequestration part of the equation is where there's potential for technological breakthroughs. If we go carbon negat…

A carbon tax is not paying someone to not do something. It is charging someone for the actual cost of their actions. It is pure utilitarianism.

I said carbon credits (in it's current enron-accounting form) is paying someone to do nothing, and that carbon credits and a carbon tax are both types of negative action social engineering, likely to fail.

If you're going for utilitarianism, pick a more politically agreeable utility, like actual sequestration, if you want to be successful.

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