We need to stop extracting fossil fuels from the ground. Period. Any other solution is just a gimmick. Unfortunately, the rate of extraction hasn't slowed. It's increased, or, at best, stayed relatively flat. The outcome, of course, will be quite predictable.
All of this "green" technology we've produced hasn't made an iota of a difference, yet, in terms of the actual problem. Maybe it will soon? Let's hope.
Nobody cares... most people are completely ignorant to what is going to happen, so nobody fucking cares. I was in college in '99 taking earth science, thinking people were reasonable. I took up cycling as transit at the time and cut down sharply on meat consumption. I assumed i was getting a head start on the changing infrastructure.
I fought hard for transit-alternatives in Austin... left the city when they ditched the bicycle master-plan to build an express lane on the freeway. I fought for transit alts in NYC, and they've seen a bunch of progress, and I'm fighting for the same in SF now, also seeing slow progress.
To this day, the vast majority of people are so deeply dependent on fossil fuels, the asks put forward are considered unacceptable. How do we run AC in Texas? How do we convince people to, not just build up, but to build anything. How do we turn suburbs into commuter towns? How do we convert interstate highways into high-speed rail. How do we convince people that meat should be a special occasion food, not the basis for every meal. The concept of a carbon tax is so, so obvious, but people have built their lives around carbon every second of every day. We can't even solve the fucking duck curve for electric generation even though getting batteries in every home is an easy solution.
I'm so jaded at this point, but I'll never give up fighting for mitigation, even if it seems so fucking impossible. I have my plans in place to move to places that will likely benefit from the changes... but that's just the world we live in.
If anything, countries should stop fossil fuels as a matter of their own security. The Russia situation alone should be a wakeup call for Europe. E-bikes, electric cars, solar, electrified rail, and heat pump systems should be a top priority for every country for that reason alone.
We stop extracting it and we're back in the 19th century. The whole economy runs on the stuff. From energy extraction to product development involving anything made of plastic. That's not going to change any time soon. That's the cold hard fact. We are already starting to see some of the consequences of scarcity of energy in farmers not being able to get enough fertilizer to grow the crops. The Ukraine crisis is largely about energy availability which could lead to 100 million people in Africa and elsewhere facing food shortages. These policy changes have consequences.
Currently it also is an extremely profitable business again while prices for fossil fuels dropped significantly in the years before. So you either mandate it internationally, which has a very low chance of being accepted, or you at least try to reduce consumption.
Meaningful action will happen by semi-random chance (breakthrough in low-emission energy) or by force of nature (climate changes so much that we have no choice but to act). In general, I don't think the average, or even somewhat above-average, person will be motivated by an abstract risk like the specter of CO2-induced climate change, unless incentives are created at a societal level to celebrate advancements in this field of technology and the associated low-emission lifestyle.
And would it be safe to assume that low-emission energy has much lower ROI, in a traditional sense, than fossil fuels? If so, I double down on my above predictions about triggers for meaningful change.
But that's life, isn't it? We're only capable of optimizing towards a finite distance in the future. If that weren't the case, we would be gods, not humans. And we certainly wouldn't be in this mess, or perhaps any mess, in the first place.
I'm always at a loss about people arguing about CO2. Like there is a single graph to rule them all - a so called Keeling Curve, is is freely available to all, it is always monitoring and it is NOT POSSIBLE AT ALL to derive any conclusion from looking at it, other than we are heating the planet fast. Also it is painfully obvious that ALL so called "green" technologies are either fake or not impacting climate at all (especially those "carbon neutral" ones are def. scam, just shuffling emissions like a hot potato game, to other corporations or countries).
The rate of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing every year and the rate of increase (acceleration) is also only increasing every year. It takes one minute to confirm this :)
In the U.S. (don’t know about other countries) the issue got tied to politics and religion. Some peoples’ identities and beliefs are zealously tied to denialism. A refutation of their beliefs in this area is an attack on them personally. So any objective evidence to the contrary is discounted. Often times using conspiratorial thinking. Such is the way for all extremists.
> ALL so called "green" technologies are either fake
WTF? Let's take one example, the F-150 Lightning. When it replaces a gasoline truck sale, it eliminates 150 tons of CO2 from burning gasoline, and about 80 tons of CO2 from drilling, refining and transporting that gasoline.
Sure, producing the truck takes a little extra energy, and electricity isn't carbon free in most places, but that doesn't come anywhere close to 200 tons of CO2.
And yes, it is as dire as it sounds. My children are breathing 1/3 more CO2 than my parents were at the same age. But it's not the breathing that is a concern (not until we get above 1000 ppm at least), but rather the warming. There is significantly more sunlight energy being trapped in the biosphere today than there was two generations ago.
The last decade or so for me have really confirmed the old fable of "The Emperor's New Clothes" or the Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
I never understood how people could believe such obviously foolish things. I think part of it for me is just getting older, but I also think the last decade has just been more blatant in a lot of ways.
Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union (EU) decreased by almost 4 % in just one year (2019). Even accounting for imports, it's decreasing.
Green tech clearly works.
> Also it is painfully obvious that ALL so called "green" technologies are either fake or not impacting climate at all (especially those "carbon neutral" ones are def. scam, just shuffling emissions like a hot potato game, to other corporations or countries).
You’re gonna have to provide some evidence for these assertions please
Just stop arguing. Seriously, we don't have to wait until every last person is convinced climate change is real (or is dead). We can act now (any many do). If you live in a democracy, all it takes is a majority willing to act.
Some people seem to think that a democracy means the world has to act my way. If you argue with them, try to convince them, you only fuel their belief that their opinion matters. Just move on and do something productive with your day.
The graph is not the sole reason we think the planet is heating.
If it was just the graph, there would be other possible interpretations. (You know, causation vs correlation and all that). However we have more than just a graph to confirm climate change.
Wouldn't matter if there were major US cities underwater, hot areas freezing, cold areas overheating, even if there was not only 100% indisputable proof but 100% inconvenience and 100% cost increase.
The past two years of dealing with a pandemic shows you exactly what will be done. Nothing. Millions will suffer from it and it will all be written off, spun politically and turned into another part of the rat race for people to literally walk over other people to get whatever they want at that moment.
The well off will just move up higher in their apartment buildings and turn up the A/C higher, while looking down at the masses made to fight among themselves for less and less resources.
I think a lot of the green technologies are intended more to make us feel better about warming the Earth, not so much actually turning the corner. Simply blaming Fox News viewers is a helpful distraction for the industry owners who are actually in charge.
Renewables have gotten so cheap that it's mostly fine that they're so unpredictable(for a certain definition of that word though, because we have weather reports to account for that) - at least for the time being, especially that so many long-distance HVDC are currently in place to distribute all that energy.
Also all this CO2 in the air postponed the next glaciation by tens of thousands of years, so if our species gets through this crisis, it will have ample time to prepare for the inevitable decrease in temperatures.
My back of the envelope calculations show that 30 years of coal mining alone would dump that much CO2 into the atmosphere... so most of it is getting absorbed... which is good, or we'd be roasted by now.
Perhaps, in addition to burning less fossil fuels, it would be a good idea to see where the carbon sinks are, and help those work more effectively? I know that sustainable farming captures a lot of carbon in the soil, for example.
“CO2 levels are now comparable to the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when they were close to, or above 400 ppm. During that time, sea levels were between 5 and 25 meters higher than today offsite, high enough to drown many of the world’s largest modern cities. “
Oh boy, that’s not good. I mean it’s going to take a while for it to raise up, but so long Florida.
Also it is probable that we will see a big extinction event even before +1m sea level mark. Imagine climate changes enough and staple crops start to fail en masse - wheat, rice etc. The hunger and rising costs will likely case a world war, or several.
Where has this water gone exactly? Freezing wouldn’t explain it. Is it lagged thermal expansion of the ocean water as it catches up to the air in heat?
The sea-levels have always fluctuated, no need to worry for Florida, if it happens, it happens. Also, no need to look 4 million years back for similar events, Doggerland [1] was still a thing with actual humans living on it only ~8,000 years ago.
>> During that time, sea levels were between 5 and 25 meters higher than today offsite, high enough to drown many of the world’s largest modern cities.
That makes for a great headline, but a large part of the Netherlands' coastal areas are currently below sea level, and yet are not "drowned".
It is clearly a real threat, that's why we have advocates for strict "climate regulations" buying multiple beach-front homes, their own islands, and private jets...
I remain stunned by the lack of action on fossil fuels and lifestyles generally. Even leaving aside the fact we are wrecking the planet, we rely on some deeply unsavoury countries for oil, gas and coal and we could have made a conscious choice to mitigate our dependence on them years ago and simply haven't done it.
What's worse is politicians have no desire to lead, so it is life to people with "alternative" (eg sustainable) lifestyles to retrofit their homes, ride bicycles, and generate less waste. Presumably the fear is that we have invested so deeply in fossil fuels that we can't unwind that rapidly. I'm sure everyone here knows a sunk cost when they see one.
I really do fear for my old age, and my kids lives. We've created too many incentives to wreck the world and people quite reasonably respond to them. Things have to change.
It's true that total emission and reuptake is quite large compared to human-caused emissions: about 29GT from humans, 750GT total in the carbon cycle annually. However, the systems that reuptake the CO2 are fairly sensitive and don't have a lot of slack in them, so adding that additional 29GT turns out to have an impact.
The Earth's atmosphere weighs about 5.5 quadrillion tons. Ignoring the differences in weights of different air molecules, adding 5.5 billion tons of CO2 would increase the CO2 concentration by ~1PPM.
So if all 29 billion tons of human emissions were not reabsorbed into the biosphere, we would expect to see global CO2 concentrations increase by between 5 and 6 ppm. In reality we see an increase of just over 2ppm per year, meaning that while much of human emissions are indeed reabsorbed into the biosphere, ~40% is not.
Imagine you have a big tub, and it has a faucet which outputs 100 gallons per hour, and a drain which drains 100 gallons per hour. Over time, the amount of water in the tub will be stable. Now suppose I come by and start pouring in 3 gallons of water per hour. Now what happens to the amount of water in the tub over time? My contribution is only about 3% (a hair under that, even), but it can still change a stable tub to an overflowing tub.
Don't care; nothing I can meaningfully do about it. Just going to focus on earning enough money and living in the right location for my family and myself to continue eating steaks
My understanding is that land plants are probably doing better. However, the acidification of the oceans is the real problem. Despite what most people think, at least half of our oxygen comes from marine plants. The main concerns it that continued acidification will continue to decrease plankton growth and have drastic effects on the entire ocean ecosystems.
Unfortunately, most Republicans in Congress (and Trump) don't believe in human made climate change. But I guess that's not a surprise, since they don't believe in human evolution and other scientific models.
There will never be any major solution here in the US unless this changes
[+] [-] boplicity|3 years ago|reply
All of this "green" technology we've produced hasn't made an iota of a difference, yet, in terms of the actual problem. Maybe it will soon? Let's hope.
[+] [-] Retric|3 years ago|reply
Globally industrialization and increased economic activity hides these improvements, but without green technology things would be much worse.
[+] [-] scoofy|3 years ago|reply
I fought hard for transit-alternatives in Austin... left the city when they ditched the bicycle master-plan to build an express lane on the freeway. I fought for transit alts in NYC, and they've seen a bunch of progress, and I'm fighting for the same in SF now, also seeing slow progress.
To this day, the vast majority of people are so deeply dependent on fossil fuels, the asks put forward are considered unacceptable. How do we run AC in Texas? How do we convince people to, not just build up, but to build anything. How do we turn suburbs into commuter towns? How do we convert interstate highways into high-speed rail. How do we convince people that meat should be a special occasion food, not the basis for every meal. The concept of a carbon tax is so, so obvious, but people have built their lives around carbon every second of every day. We can't even solve the fucking duck curve for electric generation even though getting batteries in every home is an easy solution.
I'm so jaded at this point, but I'll never give up fighting for mitigation, even if it seems so fucking impossible. I have my plans in place to move to places that will likely benefit from the changes... but that's just the world we live in.
[+] [-] zip1234|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starkd|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|3 years ago|reply
It has, without all the green tech we'd be in even worse shape.
[+] [-] raxxorraxor|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sieabahlpark|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ken47|3 years ago|reply
And would it be safe to assume that low-emission energy has much lower ROI, in a traditional sense, than fossil fuels? If so, I double down on my above predictions about triggers for meaningful change.
But that's life, isn't it? We're only capable of optimizing towards a finite distance in the future. If that weren't the case, we would be gods, not humans. And we certainly wouldn't be in this mess, or perhaps any mess, in the first place.
[+] [-] Yizahi|3 years ago|reply
The rate of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing every year and the rate of increase (acceleration) is also only increasing every year. It takes one minute to confirm this :)
[+] [-] suture|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|3 years ago|reply
WTF? Let's take one example, the F-150 Lightning. When it replaces a gasoline truck sale, it eliminates 150 tons of CO2 from burning gasoline, and about 80 tons of CO2 from drilling, refining and transporting that gasoline.
Sure, producing the truck takes a little extra energy, and electricity isn't carbon free in most places, but that doesn't come anywhere close to 200 tons of CO2.
[+] [-] dotancohen|3 years ago|reply
https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/
And yes, it is as dire as it sounds. My children are breathing 1/3 more CO2 than my parents were at the same age. But it's not the breathing that is a concern (not until we get above 1000 ppm at least), but rather the warming. There is significantly more sunlight energy being trapped in the biosphere today than there was two generations ago.
[+] [-] hotpotamus|3 years ago|reply
I never understood how people could believe such obviously foolish things. I think part of it for me is just getting older, but I also think the last decade has just been more blatant in a lot of ways.
[+] [-] aero-glide2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cycrutchfield|3 years ago|reply
You’re gonna have to provide some evidence for these assertions please
[+] [-] danybittel|3 years ago|reply
Some people seem to think that a democracy means the world has to act my way. If you argue with them, try to convince them, you only fuel their belief that their opinion matters. Just move on and do something productive with your day.
[+] [-] bawolff|3 years ago|reply
If it was just the graph, there would be other possible interpretations. (You know, causation vs correlation and all that). However we have more than just a graph to confirm climate change.
[+] [-] tejohnso|3 years ago|reply
No. You're coming to a conclusion based on some internalized facts that may not be internalized by the people you're referring to.
Looking at the graph doesn't tell you anything at all about heat. It tells you about CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
[+] [-] ck2|3 years ago|reply
The past two years of dealing with a pandemic shows you exactly what will be done. Nothing. Millions will suffer from it and it will all be written off, spun politically and turned into another part of the rat race for people to literally walk over other people to get whatever they want at that moment.
The well off will just move up higher in their apartment buildings and turn up the A/C higher, while looking down at the masses made to fight among themselves for less and less resources.
[+] [-] havblue|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tade0|3 years ago|reply
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-worst-climate...
Renewables have gotten so cheap that it's mostly fine that they're so unpredictable(for a certain definition of that word though, because we have weather reports to account for that) - at least for the time being, especially that so many long-distance HVDC are currently in place to distribute all that energy.
Also all this CO2 in the air postponed the next glaciation by tens of thousands of years, so if our species gets through this crisis, it will have ample time to prepare for the inevitable decrease in temperatures.
[+] [-] mikewarot|3 years ago|reply
Perhaps, in addition to burning less fossil fuels, it would be a good idea to see where the carbon sinks are, and help those work more effectively? I know that sustainable farming captures a lot of carbon in the soil, for example.
[+] [-] shrubble|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brohoolio|3 years ago|reply
Oh boy, that’s not good. I mean it’s going to take a while for it to raise up, but so long Florida.
[+] [-] Yizahi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oneoff786|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tim333|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paganel|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
[+] [-] gadders|3 years ago|reply
That makes for a great headline, but a large part of the Netherlands' coastal areas are currently below sea level, and yet are not "drowned".
[+] [-] macinjosh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meatsauce|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hkt|3 years ago|reply
What's worse is politicians have no desire to lead, so it is life to people with "alternative" (eg sustainable) lifestyles to retrofit their homes, ride bicycles, and generate less waste. Presumably the fear is that we have invested so deeply in fossil fuels that we can't unwind that rapidly. I'm sure everyone here knows a sunk cost when they see one.
I really do fear for my old age, and my kids lives. We've created too many incentives to wreck the world and people quite reasonably respond to them. Things have to change.
[+] [-] chancePear|3 years ago|reply
Is that wrong?
[+] [-] margalabargala|3 years ago|reply
The Earth's atmosphere weighs about 5.5 quadrillion tons. Ignoring the differences in weights of different air molecules, adding 5.5 billion tons of CO2 would increase the CO2 concentration by ~1PPM.
So if all 29 billion tons of human emissions were not reabsorbed into the biosphere, we would expect to see global CO2 concentrations increase by between 5 and 6 ppm. In reality we see an increase of just over 2ppm per year, meaning that while much of human emissions are indeed reabsorbed into the biosphere, ~40% is not.
[+] [-] Imnimo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blindmute|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jelliclesfarm|3 years ago|reply
At half the current population, the planet and species will thrive.
[+] [-] readerbaza|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hexo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarf21|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hn2017|3 years ago|reply
There will never be any major solution here in the US unless this changes
[+] [-] throwawaymanbot|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tim333|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] am1on|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsuvc|3 years ago|reply
It seems like the challenge is getting all countries to take action to reduce CO2 emissions, especially the biggest emitters.
[+] [-] martini333|3 years ago|reply