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The world has probably passed peak pollution

sustainabilitybynumbers.com

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Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#61

Post by knowaveragejoe »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #58
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posted from a huge house with air conditioning while using multiple petroleum products (iPhone/computer, chair, desk, fleece, etc). The pollution lifted every single person’s standard of living across the globe to levels unimaginable 100 years ago. It’s easy to be in Seattle or New York and say we gotta stop burning oil and coal but there are trade offs that were worth making. If you live in a developing country with…

Every single person? Not exactly. What about farmers forced off their land for corporate interests? What about people working in the garbage dumps of Tijuana in Mexico [1]? I've actually lived in the "first world" (born there) and now have lived over a year in a developing country where most people (including myself) don't have "aircon", and whether technology has improved things is not as clearcut as you might think…

> Actually, I think the standard of living, at least in the long-term and for the many future climate refugees, is not actually that much improved.

This is basically pure anecdote.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#62

Post by vondur »

WaxProlix wrote: post #39
cpill wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In the same way that your local power plant isn't solely responsible for the pollution created in heating surrounding homes, it's probably not reasonable to look at the places that have done the fabricating, weaving, injection molding, spinning, etc for the rest of the world as being the major center of pollution. China specifically is decarbonizing fast , and at some expense to their own economy over the last decade…

Regarding China: China accounted for 95% of the world's new coal power construction activity in 2023, according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Construction began on 70 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in China, up four-fold since 2019, says GEM's annual report on the global coal power industry China started construction on 70.2 GW of new coal-power capacity last year, almost 20 times the rest of the world's 3.7 GW.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#63

Post by silverquiet »

randomdata wrote: post #56
silverquiet wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the economics trump the social factors mostly. It seems to take ever more education in order to grasp at an ever more ephemeral stability, and children need a decade or two of stability when growing up. I can’t imagine anyone will be encouraging their 16 year old daughters to have children any time soon.

It is true that once you are rich enough you no longer need children to help support the family unit as was an imperative historically (and still in the poor parts of the world), so we cannot discount the economics. That is no doubt why it became the fashion. It was a demonstration of how rich we've become. A display of human progress and achievement. But I see some change in sentiment around questioning what good is…

I look back at Leo Tolstoy's "A Confession" and I think that it's a bit more complicated than that. He summed up my own thoughts quite well more than a century before I was even born.

> No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false. The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing -- art as I called it -- were no longer sweet to me. "Family"... said I to myself. But my family -- wife and children -- are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.”

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#64

Post by joshuahedlund »

skissane wrote: post #44
bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the miracle of exponential growth means that within 2-3 centuries, I don't know if any realm of human sciences where extrapolating exponential growth yields trustworthy results, outside maybe of wealth accumulation, and even then not for 2 centuries .

I never claimed that it is inevitable that they'll sustain their current growth rate for the next 2-3 centuries, only that it is entirely possible . And I don't see why it wouldn't be. If you look at ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York/New Jersey, I don't see how they'd hit any natural barriers to their continued growth until they are many times larger than they are now, at which point they'd be a serious challenger for…

What are their historical and present population and growth numbers?

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#65

Post by jereze »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #48
jereze wrote: post #20

Well, such an optimistic title, considering that greenhouse gases are excluded in the article.

Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

Even if we are close to peaking emissions, we must consider the phenomenon of accumulation. Given that CO2 has an effective lifespan of around 100 years and methane about 10 years in the atmosphere, reductions in emissions now will still result in these gases accumulating and impacting the climate for decades to come.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#66

Post by hollerith »

jereze wrote: post #65
bryanlarsen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

Even if we are close to peaking emissions, we must consider the phenomenon of accumulation. Given that CO2 has an effective lifespan of around 100 years and methane about 10 years in the atmosphere, reductions in emissions now will still result in these gases accumulating and impacting the climate for decades to come.

Where you have "accumulating", you mean persisting.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#67

Post by AtlasBarfed »

monero-xmr wrote: post #6
Animats wrote: post #2

That's encouraging. - Peak pollution - check. - Peak coal - not yet. - Peak oil - maybe 2019, but aftermath of COVID affects numbers.[1] - Peak baby - 2013. [2] [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-19/the-status-of-... [2] https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/2022/11/12/the-stats-guy...

My problem with the “peak population” hypothesis is that all of the non-breeders will eliminate themselves from the gene pool soon. All of us that have kids for whatever reason chose to reproduce despite the abundance of modern society. Also the groups that have many kids (the Amish have 7 children on average, and you also have Mormons and Orthodox Jews) will expand exponentially.

My problem with it is that it is a public policy failure. Capitalism and perpetual economic growth fundamentally needs more people.

At some point economies will do the math and public policy and figure out how to keep the expansion going.

The US hasn't done it because Mexican immigration fills the gaps. But Germany, China, Russia, and (holy crap) South Korea (although I suspect South Korea will absorb a shitton of North Koreans some day when the regime collapses).

What happenes when biotech extends human life and achieves the artificial womb? Go ahead, say its impossible.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#68

Post by Retric »

vondur wrote: post #62
WaxProlix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way that your local power plant isn't solely responsible for the pollution created in heating surrounding homes, it's probably not reasonable to look at the places that have done the fabricating, weaving, injection molding, spinning, etc for the rest of the world as being the major center of pollution. China specifically is decarbonizing fast , and at some expense to their own economy over the last decade…

Regarding China: China accounted for 95% of the world's new coal power construction activity in 2023, according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Construction began on 70 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in China, up four-fold since 2019, says GEM's annual report on the global coal power industry China started construction on 70.2 GW of new coal-power capacity last year, almost 20 times the…

That’s misleading because they are idling their existing coal power plants more often. Essentially they are using new coal as demand following peaker plants rather than base load power generation. “In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They're now running around 50%.” https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants#....

By comparison China added 217 GW of PV in 2023 alone which came online over the year. IE adding ~20GW in December has 1/12th impact in 2023, but it’s now online for the next ~25 years. Which is why some predictions have China using less coal in 2024 despite bringing new power plants online in 2023.

China alone represents 30% of the world’s electricity production/consumption so it has real impact, but they just don’t have the natural gas supplies which the US has used to ween itself off coal.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#69

Post by AtlasBarfed »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #48
jereze wrote: post #20

Well, such an optimistic title, considering that greenhouse gases are excluded in the article.

Greenhouse gases will most likely peak in 2024, but 2023 & 2025 are also probable. https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...

You mean the growth of emission rates. Emissions will still be ongoing for a looooong time.

Re: The world has probably passed peak pollution

#70

Post by [deleted] »

vondur wrote: post #62
WaxProlix wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way that your local power plant isn't solely responsible for the pollution created in heating surrounding homes, it's probably not reasonable to look at the places that have done the fabricating, weaving, injection molding, spinning, etc for the rest of the world as being the major center of pollution. China specifically is decarbonizing fast , and at some expense to their own economy over the last decade…

Regarding China: China accounted for 95% of the world's new coal power construction activity in 2023, according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). Construction began on 70 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in China, up four-fold since 2019, says GEM's annual report on the global coal power industry China started construction on 70.2 GW of new coal-power capacity last year, almost 20 times the…

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