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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

#191

Post by corethree »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #131
corethree wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is pointing to the end of these companies. Shell is maximizing its returns before the end. It is the most long term outlook you can get. What's more important?a future where my children are billionaires or a future with slightly less global warming? Shell is not the only source of global warming on this earth. You need to think in terms of human scale choices. Not just simplistic right or wrong choices. If…

It's not the "tragedy of the commons," it's capitalism. They're opposite things. The "commons" were fenced in and taken from the public by private entities. In the same spirit, a healthy environment and stable climate system are being taken from all of us by private corporations. I would argue, in fact, that if the public had control over these resources, we would govern ourselves in a far different manner that would…

Corporations don't make money unless the people purchase their products.

In fact who is actually causing emissions? They sell products and it's the end users who burn the product.

Every gallon of oil you use is equivalent to a democratic vote for oil ... we all can choose to vote in the other direction right now... but we don't.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#192

Post by tw04 »

oceanplexian wrote: post #172
tw04 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 60% of the population is enough to pass laws such that it doesn't actually matter if the other 40% is willfully ignorant. I also think as the climate becomes more and more inhospitable, that 40% number will continue to decrease.

The world isn’t just the USA and Europe, and their proclamations aren’t the law of the world nor are they the world police. Nor do the majority of the Earth’s emissions come from developed countries. Go ask some people in developing countries if they think they should sacrifice economic growth for climate change. The answer is going to be overwhelmingly no. The developing world also has the majority of the world’s po…

I think what you'll find is if all the developed nations believe their very existence is at stake due to actions of the un-developed, it will result in war/the end of the threat very quickly.

Case in point: the fabricated idea that Iraq had chemical weapons that could hit western Europe. There wasn't a lot of debate on whether or not the western world was willing to eliminate the threat if it existed.

(note, I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion of the fabricated information, simply using it as an example that war is always on the table if a country feels its existence is in danger).

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#193

Post by corethree »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #183
corethree wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you work for a corporation? Most likely you do. What is a corporation made up of but the people themselves?

We all have a choice. It's just a hard choice that you are not willing to make. You aren't willing to sacrifice.

If the corporation made the choice for you, you'd still be paying the same cost. It's no different. You either stop buying oil or they stop selling oil to you.

It's just a blame game your playing with no solution.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#194

Post by UncleMeat »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #145
coding123 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we've KNOWN what this shit does to the air and water for at least, what 40 years? At what point do we blame ourselves to increasing fossil fuel usage, even in the what, past 5 years?

> we blame ourselves So I buy shrimp that was grown locally. Then I read up that shrimps were transported to the other side of the world, peeled there, and shipped back, travelled 20,000 miles, before landong on my plate. I buy canned pairs, and turns out the same story. What am I suppose to do, starve? The capitalist machine prioritises fictitious resource of money, over real resource of oil. It wastes huge amount o…

Yep. Even if consumers want environmentally friendly products, this only achieves the advertisement of environmental friendliness unless there is associated regulation. Companies can find a way to convince consumers that their products are environmentally friendly without actually changing the effect they have on the world. Consumers have minimal access to information to see through this effect. We need help from governments.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#195

Post by corethree »

rcpt wrote: post #159
corethree wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the tragedy of the commons. Every industry contributes a negligible amount. It is logical and rational to maximize your own benefites by contributing negligible damage to the environment. The tragedy arises in aggregate. When every industry contributes negligible amounts at the same time the aggregate contribution is no longer negligible. Rational individual action leads to total destruction. Yeah we are all…

> Every industry contributes a negligible amount. What? No.

Practically yes. You have to look at it more granularly. Likely you're looking at it by economic sector.

You need to look at it by sub industries in industries. That's more closer to the logical perspective people are acting on.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#196

Post by UncleMeat »

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…

They don't need to all shut down. They can stop interfering with regulation that allows for cleaner power generation, for example.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#197

Post by IKantRead »

thworp wrote: post #79
robnado wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can slow down the use of fossil fuels, but as long as we are 8 billion people on the planet and we find no better way to produce ammonia, steel, concrete and plastics, we will keep needing huge amounts of fossil fuels. Personally, I feel that the solution is to gradually raise the tax rate on fossil fuels in order to disincentives their use and incentivize the production of alternatives. We've done this for cigare…

I would like to add a point that is rarely spelled out: A shock-therapy style stop to fossil fuel extraction will kill millions of people through starvation, economic collapse and insufficient heating in winter. Depending how shocking the shock therapy is it could be billions.

Wait until you see what climate change does with continued carbon emissions!

But this has always been the problem with stopping climate change.

We are choosing between lesser, but certain immediate pain vs larger but less certain future pain.

In the 1880s we could have easily stopped climate changed, but been forced to slow growth. The pain would have been minimal for those living, but the probability of extreme catastrophe seemed remote so nothing was done.

As we move forward the probability of extreme catastrophe becomes more certain, but so too does the immediately pain.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#198

Post by saalweachter »

ff317 wrote: post #46
TinyRick wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> public opinion would still make it palatable to continue hydrocarbon fuels extraction for another 2 to 3 decades I don't think it's public opinion so much as it is necessity to maintain current standards of living for the next few decades. Renewable energy is still a relatively small fraction of overall energy use, and net global oil consumption has been steadily increasing the past few years (likely to surpass pre…

I think we'll never stop extracting oil in the foreseeable future, we'll just be doing a lot less of it. There will always be corner cases where diesel or other oil derivatives (or NG) are the /only/ reasonable option for fuel. Think generators for an antarctic station that can only use solar in certain months and wind isn't enough (or reliable enough)). Even if efficient electric commercial aviation at scale ever ha…

The US military uses about 5% of the oil used in the US.

That's a lot, but if we only used oil in the US for the military, we'd still be using 95% less oil, and we'd also still be producing enough oil to have an economy of scale.

In any case, realistically speaking, we aren't coming for oil tomorrow. Instead, we need to come for coal immediately. If it takes us decades each time we cut our oil consumption in half, that's one thing... but the coal, that needs to stop sooner.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#199

Post by pmarreck »

To clarify, this article is mainly a criticism of the lack of effectiveness of offsets. This is why Shell shelved it. They were spending a ton of money on this, and getting almost no actual carbon footprint reduction. That is a waste by almost any measure. Hopefully, they are investigating better ways to shrink their catastrophic carbon footprint contribution.

Almost NONE of the comments in this forum so far reflect this observation, which I find concerning. If you are angry about the state of affairs here (which I would completely understand), at least read the article (and take a deep breath) before commenting

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#200

Post by sokoloff »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #77
TinyRick wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita metrics are useless when it comes to climate stats. The ice caps don't care about how much hydrocarbons are burned per person, they are only affected by the net amount of hydrocarbons burned on a global scale.

True, but it disproves the narrative that oil consumption must inevitably go up. And if per capita consumption can go down in the 2010's when we had negligible amounts of wind, solar, EV's and heat pumps, what'll it do in the 2020's when we have non-negligible amounts of wind, solar, EV's and heat pumps?

There were a lot of heat pumps in the 2010s (and before). There’s been a lot of attention and press about heat pumps recently, including some push for heat pumps as sole-source space conditioning, but they’re nowhere as new-tech as mass-market EVs or even the adoption of solar/wind/battery farms.
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