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Levels of banned CFCs rising

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Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#91

Post by anonym29 »

TylerE wrote: post #74
slowmovintarget wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the difficult thing. Stop buying from China. As consumers, buy things with a transparent supply chain. Look for ESG reports on the companies you buy from. The hard part of this is it requires consumers to be educated and act. This almost never happens unless the costs for not acting are built into the prices of goods. Doing that requires political will. It's going to make a lot of people very angry; and we're not…

So, don't buy anything containing electronics?

Produce political solutions that steer the market towards developing electronics domestically again, or reducing the need for such electronics in the first place.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#92

Post by mrguyorama »

bluGill wrote: post #53
asperous wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have to trust their numbers, we have satellites that can monitor the emission levels. The US pollutes at roughly twice the amount on a per person basis as China. In addition we "outsource" some of our pollution to them by them doing our manufacturing. It's tough to both raise the standard of living (reduce poverty) while also reducing pollution but China has a lot of initiatives to be more green; for example…

The trends are the US is reducing emissions. I'm not sure what China us doing (I know they build a lot of solar, but i'm not clear if they are also building coal power plants)

They are building, buying, and using a lot of coal, but that's mostly a temporary regression in their environmentalism from a significant economic reduction. Remember, at one point they were literally closing their airports because it's too smoggy to operate safely. China will reduce their fossil fuel usage even if global warming was not a concern, simply because they don't like the lost productivity and societal happiness that comes from breathing so much smog.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#93

Post by avianlyric »

anonym29 wrote: post #12
brianwawok wrote: post #3

Why can it not be countries that don't care just using CFCs still?

China is mentioned as having been a likely culprit in the past. I don't understand why Westerners are so keen to make major sacrifices to quality of life in the name of fighting climate change when nothing we do will make a statistically significant impact in the long run with major population centers like China, India, and Nigeria continuing to grow more wealthy with rapidly increasing demand for reliable, 24/7 ener…

We’re already seeing countries decouple their economic growth from CO2 output (even after accounting for offshoring)[0]. Coupled with the fact that green technologies like wind and solar are either cheaper, or cost competitive with fossil sources of energy, plus the history of developing countries leap frogging up the tech tree (for example many African countries jumped straight to mobile banking). There’s absolutely no reason to believe that developing countries will cause anywhere near the same levels of environmental damage as western countries did during their development.

Additionally, western countries could just pay developing to use greener tech, covering extra cost’s needed to build carbon neutral economies, given western nations have profited enormously from their exploitation of the natural environment.

To believe that climate change is hopeless problem, and that solutions could not only be developed, but already exist, is pointlessly cynical and counterproductive. Rather than explain why we’re all doom, you could instead do some research and learn about the interesting work going on to solve the exact issues you mention.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#94

Post by anonym29 »

jjoonathan wrote: post #77
horns4lyfe wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as the cult goes, I think they probably mean the “we have to tear down the economy and re build it to address climate Justice” and “any sacrifice is worth it in the name of climate change crowds”. Of which a large number just pay lip service, but there are still a lot of true believers.

I would be much more sympathetic to these concerns if I saw credible green extremist policy pushes of the kind you describe, but the extent of green policy so far seems to be... EV subsidies for Elon Musk. No, right now green extremists are primarily just bogeymen invoked by the usual conservative causes. I just don't feel a pressing need to jump into this fight on the side of legacy energy. Not yet and probably not…

This is precisely my criticism of that crowd. They aren't proposing real solutions, just "EVs everywhere!" while EVs are ostensibly not even a fully mature technology the way ICE's are yet.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#95

Post by babypuncher »

VLM wrote: post #72
nluken wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean what do you propose western nations do? Nothing? Yeah stupid measures like removing straws from restaurants make 0 difference, but pushing for more fuel efficient vehicles and cleaner sources of electricity seems like a worthwhile effort without much QoL sacrifice. Green infrastructure (i.e. reducing car dependence) also seems to improve quality of life in many places, so I would argue we should be trying to d…

Not every culture values virtue signaling as much as the current regime in the west; performative acts are not necessarily going to influence other cultures such as China, etc.

Banning CFC's was not "virtue signalling". The Montreal Protocol has been a massive success and likely already saved countless lives.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#96

Post by babypuncher »

horns4lyfe wrote: post #66
jjoonathan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The factories that make solar panels and wind turbines for us today will make solar panels and wind turbines for the rest of the world tomorrow, and also more factories in between now and then. > make even a proverbial "drop in the bucket" These drops in a bucket are exponential. What did your mother teach you about exponentials? > the way things are done in China not changing China is making solar panels and nuclear…

As far as the cult goes, I think they probably mean the “we have to tear down the economy and re build it to address climate Justice” and “any sacrifice is worth it in the name of climate change crowds”. Of which a large number just pay lip service, but there are still a lot of true believers.

It's almost like solving this problem gets harder and harder the longer we put it off.

If only we knew this was a looming problem 40 years ago and started doing something about it back then. The total economic cost would have been much lower.

And the scary thing is, the cost of climate change is only going to get worse. Eventually we will reach a point where the cost is unavoidable, and we will be spending trillions dealing with the consequences rather than billions preventing them.

There is a reason our own military pegs climate change as one of our biggest national security risks in the 21st century, because things are going to get very ugly when large populated regions of the world become inhospitable.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#98

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #40
hammock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The collective annual warming effect of these five chemicals on the planet is equivalent to the emissions produced by a small country like Switzerland. Why is warming effect what matters here? During the original CFC crisis, it was the hole in the ozone layer we were more worried about.

Both matter, though warming wasn't considered a big deal, the media was still coming away from warning about a coming ice age (i've never figured out what was going on there, as a kid I heard it more than once, but now few admit the scare existed). The ozone hole was a big deal. Now that CFCs are banned the ozone layer is recovering. I'm guessing these emissions are not really enough to harm the ozone layer much (so…

[deleted]

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#99

Post by babypuncher »

anonym29 wrote: post #28
solarkraft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why Westerners are so keen to make major sacrifices to quality of life in the name of fighting climate change when nothing we do will make a statistically significant impact in the long run with major population centers like China, India, and Nigeria continuing to grow more wealthy with rapidly increasing demand for reliable, 24/7 energy production, cheap air conditioning, etc. Can't convince the…

Is the strategy of doing it ourselves and politely asking China and India to get on board this century working so far? I'm not saying we shouldn't be taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint in the west, I'm saying that doing that and hoping that other countries will voluntarily join us isn't working.

Absolutely. Wealthy nations like ours investing heavily in renewable energy makes the technology cheap enough that fossil fuels stop looking attractive even to poorer nations.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#100

Post by meindnoch »

londons_explore wrote: post #70
outworlder wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have become used to the thin ozone layer. In much of the world, you now can't stay outside all day without getting sunburn. There are not many reports of sunburn from 100 years ago. So are you saying we evolved skin melanin production from UV radiation for no reason whatsoever? People that live in the desert used to (and still do) cover themselves with clothing just because of fashion standards? Sunburn has…

Romans were believed to have a 'pale white' skin. They lived in Rome, and while there are records of sunshades (Velarium), it doesn't seem they were common. For example, the colosseum, a place people might stay many hours, had only 30% coverage. I don't think someone with similar skin would last long in Rome in the sun today...

Modern people barely spend time outside compared to the Romans. No wonder we're getting sunburnt when we finally go out in peak summer. If you spend most of your time outside year round, you'll develop a natural deep tan which offers considerable protection from the sun.
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