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Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

bloomberg.com

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Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#181

Post by trashtester »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #158
User23 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no credible path for reducing carbon emissions enough to reverse warming under current models that doesn’t involve gigadeaths.

I suppose that's what happens when we leave it as late as possible to even start to do anything. Unfortunately, we're going to have far more gigadeaths when crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous. It always surprises me that people claim that deaths will result from cleaning up our act when that's a small fraction of the deaths that will be caused by climate c…

"As late as possibe" might be something like year 2200-2300, after global temperatures have already risen 5-10 degrees.

> crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous

Currently, we're facing what can become the worst famine in decades because of a single war that was NOT caused by global warming or access to water. Just simple nationalism.

The food supply 50-300 years from now is really hard to predict. If the birth rate stays at current levels, and also reach such levels in the few countries where the birth rate is still high today (mostly Africa), there will be a lot fewer mouths to feed in 2100 than today.

And if the birth rate goes back up, and exponential population growth resumes, no amount of food production will ensure that we never run out.

Right now (or rather, before 2022), the amount of food produced per capita globally, is probably higher than at any time before since the dawn of time.

Thanks in very large parts to fossil fuels used for farm machinery and in fertilizers.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#182

Post by throwaway894345 »

Aachen wrote: post #97
cagenut wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Insert "buying from" before the last word This is entirely within people's own hands. Not all of those people are you and me, it also includes our boss who decides to buy combustion vehicles for employees still (what year is it?), but in the end it's individual humans that decide for themselves whether to continue paying for oil products when there are alternatives available such as with personal vehicles. Maybe a ma…

Of course, if we can just wish businesses into making climate-friendly choices (like moving fleets to EV instead of ICE, per your example), then we can just wish Shell into getting out of oil and gas altogether. And the corollary is that if we can't wish Shell into getting out of oil and gas altogether, then we can't wish other businesses into making climate-friendly choices, so we're left with politics: penalizing (instead of incentivizing) fossil fuel consumption (including border adjustments so we don't just export our consumption of fossil fuels) and/or national programs to shift the grid to renewables and electrify fossil fuel applications.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#183

Post by kjkjadksj »

corethree wrote: post #117
cagenut wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Don't blame them. Blame the people who buy their products and enable them. Who does this? You, me, all of us. The story of the end wasn't about shell or oil companies. It's about us and our own incompetence at stopping ourselves.

The consumer is only capable of choosing among options capital has made available in the market. Placing the blame on them misses how the system works. The idea of consumers having a choice is an illusion created by marketing to make consumers feel like they have some free will in their actions.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#184

Post by jonahrd »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #139
sobkas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then civil forfeiture every dollar and every thing they own. For some reason police can do it to the poor, why not do the same for corporations and people making decisions there? Maybe executives are "not guilty", but their possessions doesn't have same rights as they do. So take it all away.

Everything who owns? The corporation? What you think is a harsh fine, even "everything they own" is nothing more than the cost of doing business. Even if you seize a few tens of billions of dollars, what's that compared to the trillions they've earned and paid out as dividends over the last century? > For some reason police can do it to the poor, Which is an interesting discussion if you wanted to have it, but is not…

I don't fully agree with parent poster, but the questions in your comments begged for some legitimate answers:

> What do you expect them to do with office buildings filled with conference rooms and thousand dollar conference room chairs?

Turn them into public housing, public spaces, publicly funded cafeterias, etc.

> Not to mention now you've put a 100,000 people out of work, probably more. I guess making them starve

Now with the excess in housing and all these public spaces and cafeterias, maybe it wont be as necessary for people to hang on to fulltime work.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#185

Post by badRNG »

wonderwonder wrote: post #178
coliveira wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their entire plan is: - Deny the existence of the problem. - Pay for others to join the denialist movement. - Pay others to say that individuals should fix the problem, not the company. - If they cannot deny anymore, promise they will certainly do something in the future. - When the future arrives, say they couldn't do anything for financial reasons. - Finally, say that the harm is already done, and nothing else can…

I think its deeper than that. Its not an oil company issue (I am not implying in anyway that they are the good guys here) What would happen to society if tomorrow all oil companies just said the risk of global warming is too great, we are all shutting down. Society would collapse. Its not so much they are doing this for profits; which of course they are, but society as a whole very much needs them to continue to do s…

> I think its deeper than that. Its not an oil company issue.

> Its not so much they are doing this for profits

Funding a massive climate change denial movement in the US for decades, consequently eating up our limited window of time to make the kinds of societal changes to avoid the worst consequences of climate change is very much an "oil company issue" that is done exclusively for profit.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#186

Post by corethree »

wredue wrote: post #143
corethree wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it still 40 percent? Seems much more evident now what's happening. Maybe 40 percent is still pro big oil but they don't deny the causal link. I'm pro big oil because I still drive a gas car. In that sense if you use big oil products you are a supporter. I would put supporters at over waaaaay over 40 percent. 95% is a better estimate.

That’s a weird way to put it. Driving a gas car doesn’t make you pro-big oil. Most of us are beholden to market pressures and have no realistic option. Everyone still has to make their living, and they have to do it inside the elites construction of the market.

The elites didn't construct the market. You're just looking for someone to blame. The market came as an emergent property.

The elites are at fault as much as you and I are at fault. The story of oil is a human crisis caused by humanity itself. We like to blame specific groups but that's just not reality.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#187

Post by crote »

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #142
mdgrech23 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't see what other option we have other than drill baby drill. Yes we're killing our planet but renewable aren't able to provide the energy we need at scale. Switching to 100% renewables and not drilling means increased oil prices and ultimately less consumption across the board. Less food, less driving, less heat, less AC. We'd all have to give up a lot and no one is signing up for that. There's this mag…

why can't we do nuclear with plugin hybrids in urban areas. the federal government , which, as an issuer of money, can afford anything, unlike states/municipalities, should massively fund nuclear to save the environment meet energy demands. seems like such a no-brainer.

> why can't we do nuclear

Because the free market is not willing to bear the risks - even when you ignore the whole "nuclear waste" and "meltdown" part. The construction costs are extremely high and basically guaranteed to wildly exceed initial estimates, while electricity price is highly volatile.

The only way companies are interested in building reactors is by having a guaranteed government subsidy. For example, Sizewell C in the UK has negotiated a guaranteed electricity price of £119 / MWh. The long-term electricity spot price in the UK for 2013-2021 is closer to £70, so taxpayers have to pay an additional £49 / MWh in subsidies. Good luck selling that to the nuclear-skeptic taxpayers.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#189

Post by trashtester »

4ggr0 wrote: post #114
trashtester wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the world stopped consuming fossil fuels today, overpopulation would no longer be an issue in about a year or two. Because 90% of the population would die.

Well you don't have to stop in a matter of one day, because that's impossible and unrealistic anyways, but we could at least finally start with reducing our consumption, with the goal to land as close as possible to 0 as soon as possible. Then again, we missed the window to stop long ago. So why bother anyways, right?

My main point is that demonizing the use of hydrocarbons is absurd. Our use of them is one of the main reasons we've been going from a world where most people was incredibly poor 200 years ago, to most of the world's population living in relative prosperity today (compared to 200 years ago).

Now that we're developing alternative energy sources, we should start/continue to move away from fossil fuels, but if we try to do it too quickly, the price may be higher than the benefit.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#190

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

trashtester wrote: post #181
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose that's what happens when we leave it as late as possible to even start to do anything. Unfortunately, we're going to have far more gigadeaths when crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous. It always surprises me that people claim that deaths will result from cleaning up our act when that's a small fraction of the deaths that will be caused by climate c…

"As late as possibe" might be something like year 2200-2300, after global temperatures have already risen 5-10 degrees. > crops fail due to the climate becoming unpredictable and wars over clean water become ubiquitous Currently, we're facing what can become the worst famine in decades because of a single war that was NOT caused by global warming or access to water. Just simple nationalism. The food supply 50-300 yea…

I have difficulty believing any of what you are claiming.

e.g. how is Africa going to have a high birth rate when it'll be largely inhabitable due to the high temperatures?

Also, what famine are you referring to and why does it not feature here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

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