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Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

greenpeace.org

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Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#161

Title is a little misleading (for me at least), this is not one of the many cases where a group of young people sued their government for a broad violation of their rights. This is a more narrow case where the plaintiffs said the government is supposed to consider emissions impact when approving oil and gas projects, and did not. There aren't really any youth directly involved. The court didn't say Norway can't drill…

"you obviously have to assess the impact of burning the oil."

It's not at all obvious.

1) If we assess all the indirect negative impacts that happen in remote places, nothing will ever be done. Should a factory making phones assess the DALY lost by drivers who get into accidents because of distracted driving?

2) Also, if we are going to assess hypothetical impacts of burning oil, why not assess the positive impacts? This oil could be used to build wind turbines, or to deliver food to a famine-impacted areas, or to raise living standards in the developing world. Generally oil is energy and energy is a precursor to GDP and high living standards.

The end result on not developing European (or US) energy reserves is that Europe is going to buy energy from dictators all over the world. Frankly it's one of these cases where I switch to my cynical mode "I hope there's enough civilization left for my lifetime, cause if you are THAT dumb, you deserve to be defeated."

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say that when they are simultaneously radically increasing coal power generation, as highlighted in the article? It appears to me they have an "all of the above" strategy driven by their desire for prosperity.

Because their renewable sector is growing faster than everything else? And has 3x the size of the vastly more rich USA? I did not say they are 100% green. They have real constraints, mainly yes, they need economic growth first - so they also build coal (only some countries do not build coal plants anymore).

The data shows that one sector grows faster than the other. To conclude from this that they care about the climate is wishful thinking.

Also even you yourself claim

> they need economic growth first

Which weakens your point even further.

Moreover your claim of

> only some countries do not build coal plants anymore

is completely unsubstantiated.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#163
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because their renewable sector is growing faster than everything else? And has 3x the size of the vastly more rich USA? I did not say they are 100% green. They have real constraints, mainly yes, they need economic growth first - so they also build coal (only some countries do not build coal plants anymore).

The data shows that one sector grows faster than the other. To conclude from this that they care about the climate is wishful thinking. Also even you yourself claim > they need economic growth first Which weakens your point even further. Moreover your claim of > only some countries do not build coal plants anymore is completely unsubstantiated.

"> only some countries do not build coal plants anymore

is completely unsubstantiated. "

Germany opened its last new coal plant 3 years ago. In theory the last one, but soon the government will change and this likeley as well. And our eastern neighbors poland and co. certainly won't give up on coal anytime soon. So much for rich countries.

And china which is on average still poor, indeed invested more in coal than I was aware. But a coal tax specially for china seems rather geopolitical motivated to me.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#164
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data shows that one sector grows faster than the other. To conclude from this that they care about the climate is wishful thinking. Also even you yourself claim > they need economic growth first Which weakens your point even further. Moreover your claim of > only some countries do not build coal plants anymore is completely unsubstantiated.

"> only some countries do not build coal plants anymore is completely unsubstantiated. " Germany opened its last new coal plant 3 years ago. In theory the last one, but soon the government will change and this likeley as well. And our eastern neighbors poland and co. certainly won't give up on coal anytime soon. So much for rich countries. And china which is on average still poor, indeed invested more in coal than I…

You claimed "only some countries" which seems to claim that most of the 200-something countries in the world are building coal plants.

Now you say that you only think of Germany, Poland and China.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#165
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonderful opinions can come from anyone. Are these scientifically founded opinions. Not necessarily, hence why "following the science" is valid if you are following experts in their field. If you're a software consultant, would you take on the opinions from a marketing client on the best algorithm to implement for their solution? Probably not. If someone put in the effort and time to throughly research the topic and…

You would be silly not to take a better algorithm. It doesn't matter if it came from sales, a student or a homemaker. If you can't judge something on it's merits and must rely on other signals then you end up judging the envelope and not the message.

If it was a better algorithm - then of couse. You wouldn't be a very good software engineer (or scientist) if you couldn't recognise that.

This has veered off from my original point. In that saying "follow the science" is not a issue - there is nothing wrong with following the opinion of experts in their field.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway is a beautiful modern liberal democracy, Saudi Arabia is a theocratic desert dictatorship hellhole.

Smug westerners love to say that stuff, and yet people in Saudi Arabia are much happier than Norwegians. The rate of suicide is double in Norway what it is in Saudi Arabia. I guess there's more to a country and people's worth than their willingness to fly LGBT flags?

Saudi Arabia age distribution got absolutely nothing to do with it obviously. Nor does the taboo on suicide can possibly lead to suicide being reported as accidents...

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#167
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"> only some countries do not build coal plants anymore is completely unsubstantiated. " Germany opened its last new coal plant 3 years ago. In theory the last one, but soon the government will change and this likeley as well. And our eastern neighbors poland and co. certainly won't give up on coal anytime soon. So much for rich countries. And china which is on average still poor, indeed invested more in coal than I…

You claimed "only some countries" which seems to claim that most of the 200-something countries in the world are building coal plants. Now you say that you only think of Germany, Poland and China.

"most of the 200-something countries in the world are building coal plants."

They are. According to this only 56 countries currently do not plan to do so. And I think germany is included in that number - and I know for a fact, that this can change very quickly.

https://apnews.com/article/coal-climate-change-eliminate-ele...

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threat is not certainty. If somebody is out there to kill you, you are under an existential threat, until they are caught. It's not a reason to start playing Russian roulette, saying "I'm already in danger, cannot get worse than that!"

The same logic applies to shutting down oil and gas production: if we are not certain, then why risk the downsides? I’m not saying this is a good way to think, just that it shows the fault in your logic.

I was not commenting on any measures intended to stop/reverse the climate change. (I don't have enough knowledge to various probabilities).

I was just exposing a flaw in _your_ logic :-) You said:

> Existential threat means things can’t get worse

And I disagree, things can get a lot worse. You know, like replacing a threat with certainty...

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, take out the save the world comment. Can you point to a promising project from the link you posted? Like I said, it lists a lot of funding, but not a lot of actual carbon sequestration. Your rebuttal doesn’t actually provide evidence that carbon sequestration is a technology that is on its way to working on the small scale. All of those projects are sequestering carbon by consuming massive amounts of energy from…

It’s early stage tech, they’re all promising in that _they are trying to develop tech to help_. How can I prove a developing tech will scale? How can you prove it won’t? It started at 0 and is now at millions of tonnes scale. If that isn’t good enough progress then I have nothing for you. Imagine using the same logic in the 80s “solar panels produce hardly any power and use lots of fossil fuels for production, why ar…

All I’m asking for is a specific project that looks promising instead of a Wikipedia page that is mostly a list of available funding.

Re: Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

#170
post #161

Title is a little misleading (for me at least), this is not one of the many cases where a group of young people sued their government for a broad violation of their rights. This is a more narrow case where the plaintiffs said the government is supposed to consider emissions impact when approving oil and gas projects, and did not. There aren't really any youth directly involved. The court didn't say Norway can't drill…

"you obviously have to assess the impact of burning the oil." It's not at all obvious. 1) If we assess all the indirect negative impacts that happen in remote places, nothing will ever be done. Should a factory making phones assess the DALY lost by drivers who get into accidents because of distracted driving? 2) Also, if we are going to assess hypothetical impacts of burning oil, why not assess the positive impacts?…

1) If we assess all the indirect negative impacts that happen in remote places, nothing will ever be done. Should a factory making phones assess the DALY lost by drivers who get into accidents because of distracted driving?

IMO they really should!

2) Also, if we are going to assess hypothetical impacts of burning oil, why not assess the positive impacts? This oil could be used to build wind turbines, or to deliver food to a famine-impacted areas, or to raise living standards in the developing world. Generally oil is energy and energy is a precursor to GDP and high living standards.

And that's what a comprehensive assessment will include. Both positive and negative arguments. But you can't cherry-pick the ones you like. That would invalidate the results.

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