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Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

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Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#331

Post by wkat4242 »

runarberg wrote: post #327
flangola7 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that climate change will bring about human suffering far beyond anything most people envision. But I am mostly confident that extinction is not in the cards. Nukes could only erase a few thousand square miles, not enough to kill a majority of humans much less all of them. Starvation and collapse would kill many more, but still far from extinction. If you mean novel bioweapons then I can see that being a probl…

For the record, when I stated: “We are all going to die!” I meant it as a hyperbole. I actually don’t believe a literal total extinction of the human species is a likely scenario (even in a +4° horror scenario; even with a nuclear holocaust on top of it). “We are all going to die” is more of a you and me are personally very likely to die because of climate inaction, or at the very least, our lives will suffer, and th…

I understand, I just objected to it because I see in my environment that there are seriously people thinking now that climate change can be a human extinction event (though it will be for many other species of course)

There seems to be a 'project fear' movement that thinks it's ok to overblow scientific conclusions in order to sway people to act. I personally think this is a very bad idea as deliberate lies will only lead to deep disillusionment with government and the scientific community. It can also lead to fatalism where people won't act because they believe the worst outcome is already locked in.

And really, the truth about climate change is scary enough as it is. But we do still have the opportunity to mitigate some of the worst of it.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#332

Post by wkat4242 »

orwin wrote: post #167
amrocha wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing unachievable about 1.5C It would require sacrifices and global cooperation, but any real solution to climate change will require that

It is though. The Co2 we emit today will only have a greenhouse effect in 20 years. The average climate we have today is the result of the Co2 we put in the atmosphere in 2003.

Indeed, this inertia has been missing in the media coverage recently where it was mentioned very often a few years ago. I wonder why.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#333

Post by wkat4242 »

andyjsong wrote: post #10
slashdev wrote: post #3

I’m not sure what’s the point of focusing on 1.5C anymore. I think the writing on the wall is pretty clear that we’re going to double that at least. Barring any miracle in carbon sequestration technology anyway. I hope we get a miracle.

Carbon sequestration is promising, but still years away. We need to start looking at stop gap solutions that buy us more time.

Sequestration only starts making sense when we have basically unlimited green energy to throw at it. I know some moments have excess green energy already but you're not going to build a huge plant and run it only 2 hours a day.

The amount of natural resources needed to build enough plants to make it more than a drop in the bucket is also going to require significant mining operations and other big polluters. It's a nice idea but science fiction for now, at least at a scale that is actually effective at countering climate change.

And even if we had unlimited energy and materials the inertia of greenhouse emissions (the CO2 heating us now was emitted decades ago) building it at scale will come too late to avert a crisis.

It's still much easier and more efficient to avoid emitting the carbon we still do than to try and capture it back. Though even that will come too late really.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#334

Post by midoridensha »

amrocha wrote: post #127
slashdev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we aim for an achievable goal instead. What’s the point of setting ourselves up for failure? That’s part of effective goal setting. Anything else is fantasy and counterproductive.

There's nothing unachievable about 1.5C It would require sacrifices and global cooperation, but any real solution to climate change will require that

>There's nothing unachievable about 1.5C >It would require sacrifices and global cooperation

Is IS unachievable. You just said right here exactly why it's unachievable: "global cooperation" is pure fantasy.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#335

Post by midoridensha »

wkat4242 wrote: post #233
runarberg wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is 50% chance that in the next five years we will experience a year where the global average temperature is greater than 1.5° C. We are already in 1.2° C and the El Niño index is negative. There is high probability that 2024 will be the hottest year on record (probably getting really close to 1.5° C). Global carbon emissions are still rising. Climate policies are not being rolled out, new fossil fuel projects a…

I agree we will hit the 1.5 degrees for sure. There's a lot of inertia in climate change anyway. Even if we stop tomorrow it will still continue to rise for years. But I don't agree we're all going to die. It's not a human extinction type problem. There will still be habitable places and some places will become more habitable (the Russians even had a crazy plan in the 60s to dam the Bering strait and melt the Arctic…

>I'm not saying it's not an unprecedented disaster. It certainly is. The country I'm from (the Netherlands) might mostly disappear. But it's not an apocalypse. There will still be places where people can live.

The Netherlands will be fine if they just dam up the North Sea. The main problems with this are 1) the English Channel is a huge trade route and damming it (without a way of passing ships through) would destroy the EU economy, and 2) Russia would be very hostile to anything that restricts their access to the ocean from the Baltic.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#336

Post by wkat4242 »

midoridensha wrote: post #335
wkat4242 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree we will hit the 1.5 degrees for sure. There's a lot of inertia in climate change anyway. Even if we stop tomorrow it will still continue to rise for years. But I don't agree we're all going to die. It's not a human extinction type problem. There will still be habitable places and some places will become more habitable (the Russians even had a crazy plan in the 60s to dam the Bering strait and melt the Arctic…

>I'm not saying it's not an unprecedented disaster. It certainly is. The country I'm from (the Netherlands) might mostly disappear. But it's not an apocalypse. There will still be places where people can live. The Netherlands will be fine if they just dam up the North Sea. The main problems with this are 1) the English Channel is a huge trade route and damming it (without a way of passing ships through) would destroy…

I could imagine damming off the channel. But on the north side? It's way too wide there. It would be shorter to just dam around the entire country.

But the cost would be extreme. Shipping access isn't a major issue though. A dam can have locks.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#337

Post by midoridensha »

wkat4242 wrote: post #336
midoridensha wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not saying it's not an unprecedented disaster. It certainly is. The country I'm from (the Netherlands) might mostly disappear. But it's not an apocalypse. There will still be places where people can live. The Netherlands will be fine if they just dam up the North Sea. The main problems with this are 1) the English Channel is a huge trade route and damming it (without a way of passing ships through) would destroy…

I could imagine damming off the channel. But on the north side? It's way too wide there. It would be shorter to just dam around the entire country. But the cost would be extreme. Shipping access isn't a major issue though. A dam can have locks.

It's not too wide: the Netherlands actually did a study on this.

It is a pretty extreme proposal of course, but it is possible. It would have some big benefits, not just to Netherlands, but all the countries around it, because all of them (UK, France, Germany, Belgium) stand to lose a lot of land to rising sea levels. Instead, with this dam, they could actually create a LOT more new land in what's now the North Sea. Remember, much of the North Sea used to be dry land (we call it "Doggerland" now), only about 8000 years ago, and had human settlements.

I think shipping could still be an issue. Sure, dams can have locks, but the sheer amount of ship traffic there might be difficult. Maybe they should build new some ports and use freight rail to move cargo around.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#338

Post by CatWChainsaw »

slashdev wrote: post #3

I’m not sure what’s the point of focusing on 1.5C anymore. I think the writing on the wall is pretty clear that we’re going to double that at least. Barring any miracle in carbon sequestration technology anyway. I hope we get a miracle.

The "miracle" would be admitting that technology can't get us out of every predicament we throw ourselves into, and disabusing ourselves of the notion that anything - the economy, civilization, human population - can grow infinitely on a finite planet without complete catastrophe. Admitting any one of those three things is anathema, though, so we comfort ourselves with pipe dreams of carbon sequestration, dyson spheres, and sending out probes to mine all our resources from the asteroid belt.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#339

Post by nedt »

antisthenes wrote: post #154
hannob wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can't reach 1.5°C then we should try to reach 1.6°C. If we can't reach that then 1.7°C. Ultimately: It doesn't matter whether we can reach 1.5°C, because everything we try helps making things better. And any carbon sequestation technology will only help significantly after drastic emission cuts, not as a replacement for it.: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00953-x

Goals should be realistic. Aiming for 1.5C, then missing it and then continuously failing on 1.6C, 1.7C, 1.8C etc. is akin to a fat person missing their goal of 200lbs, and then telling themselves in front of the mirror every extra 10lb - "I'm going to stop eating junk food today! No, really, this is the day!" It's a cognitive failure to adequately process signals that the real physical world is sending to you. Or me…

If you make the speed limit for cars 55mph people will still got a bit faster, 60mph, 65mph. But almost no one would be driving 85mph. But if you say "nah people drive 65mph anyway, let's be realistic and make the the speed limit" they will go 75mph and more.

So if you want to not reach much more than 1.5°C, let's say 2°C or 2.5°C, you need to be realistic and set a lower goal. We will always be above any goal.

Re: Shell admits 1.5C climate goal means immediate end to fossil fuel growth

#340

Post by jdshupe »

ericmay wrote: post #33
jdshupe wrote: post #12

Does anyone have recommendations for good reading on this subject? What this means for combustion engines as a whole? I am trying to imagine where the push for clean energy will lead. I am fully on team green but I think the switch happened too late. I feel like there is a future where you have a large percent of the population (at least in the US) where EVs are too expensive to afford the monthly payment/up front pa…

Best reading recommendation would be to look at climate change projections from NOAA or similar organizations for where you live or want to live, assume those will be true within some +-, and then base your decisions off of that. There doesn't seem to be a substantial downside to getting it wrong if bad scenarios don't occur but if they do occur you'll want to have gotten it right. > People will always say "just use…

Thanks for the response! I will definitely dive into that.

> even though building a few sidewalks and converting surface parking lot into businesses bring even more economic activity.

I will say, I think we are seeing a bit of movement this direction. The work-from-home boom from Covid has shows that living at the office isn't the dream it used to be. People are beginning to see the benefits of local community and business as not just the economic impact but the freedom that that proximity can provide.

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