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Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

bloomberg.com

261–270 of 322 posts

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#261
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do fewer climate related deaths; down 98% the past century and a more green planet than a century ago and far fewer people in poverty all lead you to believe it's becoming uninhabitable?

Why is the planet more green today than a century ago? Perhaps because of all the chemical-induced algae blooms turning previously blue water into murky green?

There were an estimated 750 billion trees worldwide in the 1920s. We now have approximately 3.04 trillion trees in the world.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do fewer climate related deaths; down 98% the past century and a more green planet than a century ago and far fewer people in poverty all lead you to believe it's becoming uninhabitable?

because half of bees are gone, half of barrier reef is gone, 75% of insects are gone, UK has like 10% tree cover left, emperor penguins, had zero chicks survive Do you think you can survive if the biosphere is gone?

In 2022, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) reported the highest levels of coral cover across two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in over 36 years.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those solutions can be enforced by regulation. But when you get regulation like generation shifting, corporations and the political right wing collude to say that the regulations are unconstitutional.

> But when you get regulation like generation shifting, corporations and the political right wing collude to say that the regulations are unconstitutional. The argument wasn't that they're unconstitutional, it's that they weren't authorized by Congress. To have the law you have to actually pass the law.

First, "created in a way outside of the federal government's enumerated powers" is a kind of unconstitutionality.

But the argument was bullshit. Major Questions Doctrine just exists to say "nu uh, that authorization you have from Congress doesn't count" when it is politically expedient. The Clean Air Act exists. Congress passed it. Roberts just thinks that the law shouldn't be able to do anything controversial but there is absolutely nowhere in the Constitution that says that Congress' delegation authority is limited only to uncontroversial things.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#265
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was a typo, I meant first world countries.

So China is first world? Though I do admit, electric is less compelling where the electric grid is unreliable.

Well this whole first/second/third world nomenclature is not really pertinent in most cases but yes, I rank the parts of China that do buy cars as developped even though other parts of the same country is in a completely different state.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to ditch your car (an absurd proposition for most people), you could just get an EV.

Do you realize how they get batteries for an EV? And where the electricity comes from? And what every part of the EV are made out of?

If you have a cogent point, I invite you to make it explicitly.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was a typo, I meant first world countries.

Still not negligible.

but not enough to make a impactful dent in carbon emissions, especially if the electricity used charge them is produced by fossil.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious how you think that the damage of climate change can be worse than this. Oh, much worse. First off we, fertilizer or no, we're already facing crop failures in the US [0] and will continue to face even more extreme crop failures [1]. Even if we had unlimited fertilizer we've already signed up for massive famine. But if you really want to talk about the unmitigated climate change path, which is what happen…

Sounds like the classic trolley problem where your choice is to pull a lever and immediately kill half the world's population because 100 million kilometres away, the entirety of life on earth is comfortably resting on the train tracks. You're saying, let's pull that lever. I'm saying, let's organize a project to move the trolley tracks since we have ample time to do so. Sure some people will get hit by the trolley a…

> You're saying, let's pull that lever.

First off, I'm not saying "starting tomorrow now fossil fuels!", I'm saying you must keep fossil fuels in the ground to avoid worst case. And the start of that means you have to identify some fossil fuels that will never be extracted.

> since we have ample time to do so.

I seriously have no idea where you got that impression, but with climate change once you start feeling the effects you're already in the danger zone. We've already signed up for famine and potentially billions dead even if we had zero emissions today.

I do suggest you read up a bit more on the topic. No serious research around climate change would claim we have "ample time".

The bigger question is: how close are we to climate "tipping points". We do know that geologically it seems there are points where positive feedbacks start accelerating climate change rapidly. We just don't know where the line is for those tipping points.

If we seriously want to avoid extinction of the species we should already be starting to strategize a schedule of what fossil fuels reserves we promise to keep in the ground, and what we're going to do about future discoveries.

To be honest, I don't really think we will do this, but if we wanted to survive at all we should start talking about it very seriously.

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#269
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they are dismissive points. I think specially the ending makes a whole lot of sense to me. I'd give negative shits about the environment if I struggled for food or housing or basic essentials. The same way the best way to tackle crime is through better education for the people, getting the existing people out of poverty might be the single best thing we can do to have them realize the impact, reproduce…

They're not just dismissive, they're pretty obviously bad faith arguments. "CO2 is plant food" is a classic climate denier talking point that you hear from your crazy uncle on Facebook, who's parroting something they heard from a pundit on Fox News. Water is also plant food, but that's not a helpful piece of information if you're in a flood. The world is releasing 97 million barrels of gasoline into the atmosphere pe…

[deleted]

Re: Shell abandons its plan to offset CO2 emissions

#270

As one of the thousands who planted one of the million trees within Sacramento, California during the 1970s, I did my part toward reducing CO2 and added cooling of urban areas. You should too. It's not that hard. I am doing it again, but in another city.

The average lifetime co2 emissions per person seems to be in the tens or hundreds of tons (probably on the higher end of the spectrum for Americans, especially those decades in the latter half of the 20th century). Most trees weigh a single digit number of tons when fully grown, and many trees don't survive to full growth and in any case they may release much of that carbon through decay or combustion. It seems prett…

ah, yes, a throwaway account.

At least, provide for some citation to be worthy.

https://www.globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archiv...

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