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One Planet Only Forever at 02:38 AM on 8 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
This is a timely presentation of Options for Helpful Leadership action by global leadership.
It would have been beneficial for helpful global leadership (those claiming to defend democracy) to have pushed harder for Option 2 starting 30 years ago. That would have reduced the harmful pursuits of control, and the related acceptance of harmful regional leadership, in the Middle East and parts of Africa (and Russia). And it may have avoided the harmful power play by Putin today.
There is an important supplementary action that everyone can be helpful with right now (it is never too late to learn to change to be less harmful and more helpful).
Everyone who is consuming more than their basic needs can help by reducing their consumption, especially their direct use of fossil fuels. That would reduce the need for Option 1 and maximize the rate of achievement of Option 2.
There can be very rapid benefits realized if everyone transitions quickly (immediately) to cooler indoor spaces in winter and warmer indoor spaces in summer. People can also have shorter showers and fewer baths starting immediately. And people can also help fight the harmful likes of Putin by stopping unnecessary power consuming trips (Walk and bike more. Use public transit more. Enjoy 'getting away to somewhere close' rather than going far away for a change).
There is growing evidence that consumers who attempt to be Greener while maintaining or increasing their consumption are far more harmful and less helpful than consumers who simply reduce their consumption without pursuing 'greener options' (of course reducing consumption is improved by pursuing genuinely less harmful options for the remaining reduced consumption).
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Eric (skeptic) at 22:48 PM on 7 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
I'm glad someone finally brought this topic up. Every time I listen to a story in the media about "sanctions" I think about the BBC hard talk interview with the Prime Minister of Norway last month. They asked him why Europe was sending a billion dollars a day to Russia. The PM tried to make the case outlined above, but he was constrained by the hard talk interview "gotcha question" format.
The amount is less than a billion a day now, and I don't have a figure. Some omissions from the article above: Putin attacked in winter at the time of peak demand. Russia had a debt to GDP ratio of just 19% last year up from 18% the year before, an extremely strong financial position compared to most countries.
One question that needs an answer, therefore, is how to deal with the increased demand for fossil in winter, in Europe and elsewhere. It's hard to say no to fossil when you need it for heat.
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EnergyRethink at 09:50 AM on 7 April 2022Energy transformation can strengthen democracy and help fight climate change
What about Option 3: follow France and dispatch more Nuclear ?
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nigelj at 07:28 AM on 7 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Meurig: Geothermal power is already very flexible, and appears quite suited to working with solar and wind power: "At the same time, geothermal power plants offer more flexibility than some other types of baseload power sources, as it is relatively easy to ramp their power production up and down depending on need."
www.rff.org/publications/explainers/geothermal-energy-101/
"It (geothermal power) can run as baseload power around the clock, including at night, or “load follow” to complement renewables’ fluctuations."
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meurig at 03:45 AM on 7 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
This potential source of lithium is great news, and I would be interested as to where else in the world the same might apply.
However, one point about geothermal. In order to properly complement low-cost low-impact variable sources like wind and solar, we don't need traditional (inflexible) "baseload" - that would merely compete with wind and solar for high merit-order grid slots and actually reduce the ability of the grid to be responsive. Instead, we need sources which can be ramped up and down easily and rapidly, to "fill the gaps" when solar and wind aren't able to fully meet demand. I can conceive of ways (high temperature heat storage, for example) that geothermal can be made somewhat flexible, but I'm wondering how much work has been done on this.
This is an important consideration as we shift to renewables-based grids in places where a substantial proportion of hydro isn't an option. As the IPCC AR6 WG3 TS states (box TS.9, p.55),:
"An increasing reliance on electricity from variable renewable sources,
notably wind and solar power, disrupts old concepts and makes many
existing guidelines obsolete for power system planning, e.g. that
specific generation types are needed for baseload, intermediate load and
peak load to follow and meet demand. In future power systems with high
shares of variable electricity from renewable sources, system planning
and markets will focus more on demand flexibility, grid infrastructure
and interconnections, storage on various timelines (on the minute,
hourly, overnight and seasonal scale), and increased coupling between
the energy sector and the building, transport and industrial sectors." -
Nick Palmer at 07:51 AM on 6 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Philippe. Sorry I missed your mentioning this. It would have been nice to have seen someone else who sees the enormous potential for this. Possibly the greatest aspect is that it would even up the share of global energy supply that most nations would have because the newer techniques can access the energy almost everywhere on earth - no small set of nations would have a stranglehold on the supply of large amounts of energy
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BaerbelW at 05:27 AM on 6 April 2022Getting involved with Climate Science via crowdfunding and crowdsourcing
Update notice: This article was re-published on April 5 2022 to mention the short term crowdfunding project "Warming Stripes on the Sachsenbrücke" in Leipizg, Germany. We also added a fourth section to highlight our own projects you can contribute to.
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:48 AM on 6 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Nick Palmer, on that point we definitely agree, although I'd say that it is not that new. I have mentioned it several times over the years in various threads without arising much interest. Nonetheless, it remains one of the best options available. The small surface footprint, the 24-7 operation independent of weather, the lack of any waste product ending up in the environment, the lack of any kind of fuel needing to be extracted, exchanged and transported, the lack of risks of harmful by-products escaping, make a compelling argument in its favor. The plant in France drilled to 5000 meters, many locations would not require such deep drilling, but there is now technology that allows for even deeper wells. Of course, geology won't allow it to be done anywhere, but it should be done everywhere it can be. It's as close to a freebee as we can possibly find on our planet.
Last I read, the Soultz-sous-Forets plant was feeding 1.5 MW in the grid. Much knowledge and experience were gained in the development of what was intended to be a pilot experimental facility, that was later converted in a commercial electricity generation operation.
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michael sweet at 02:43 AM on 6 April 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #13
This article in The Guardian describes how small solar set ups (not specifically described in the article but probably one or two panels and a storage battery) have improved the lives of refugees in Rwanda.
Recently several commentors suggested that developing countries might need to use coal to get their economies started. This use of solar is more environmentally responsible and much cheaper than coal or other fossil fuels. In addition, it can be impemented in small steps that are more easily funded. Why build a fossil generating plant that will be obsolete in ten years and is subject to extreme price swings like current fossil energy supplies?
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michael sweet at 02:25 AM on 6 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
It is very interesting to hear about echnologies that have dual applications. Here generating electricity and producing lithium. The amounts of lithium sound very large. We will have to see how their pilot plants work.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:57 PM on 5 April 2022It's the sun
krit242 @ 1298:
The argument that short wavelengths of solar radiation have a large effect on climate is usually tied to the "it's cosmic rays" argument. The total amount of energy at those shorter wavelengths is very limited - although individual photons have more energy at shorter wavelemgths, there are just a lot fewer photons. A large percentage change in a small number is still a small number.
As for cosmic rays, Skeptical Science has a page for that, too.
The review I linked to at 1297 looks at a paper that tries to argue in favour of "indirect" solar effects - i.e., effects that are related to "something unknown" that is not the direct heating/energy input from variations in solar output. (Spolier alert: it's not a good paper.)
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Nick Palmer at 23:44 PM on 5 April 2022How a few geothermal plants could solve America’s lithium supply crunch and boost the EV battery industry
Yup. Geothermal has been rather overlooked. Even this article doesn't really refer to the exciting new development of 'enhanced geothermal' and ultra-deep geothermal, both of which promise huge capacity available to almost all areas of the world, not just the current 'hot spots'
wiki article about some enhanced geothermal systems -
Eclectic at 21:14 PM on 5 April 2022It's the sun
Krit242 @1298 ,
Please look again at the diagram Figure 1 at the top of this page. The blue line shows the solar irradiance (in watts per square metre) has been decreasing since about year 1960. There is no increasing. The planet Earth is warming, and the warming is not due to solar changes.
That is why Pepper @1296 is wrong also ~ and the paper linked @1297 [ Ziskin & Shaviv, 2012 ] is poor science. Pepper has been deceived by Shaviv & some of the other (very tiny number of) scientists who are acting as propagandists. And why are these propagandists trying to deceive people ? . . . yes, that is an interesting question ! Most likely, these propagandists are first trying to deceive themselves.
Krit242 ~ please look at "the big picture". Look at the huge forest of climate evidence, and not at just one or two trees.
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swampfoxh at 16:15 PM on 5 April 2022Understanding the promise and peril of fusion power: Chimera or climate panacea?
Global birth licensing and enforcement would be easier and less risky.
Moderator Response:[BL] Off-topic and inflammatory statements deleted.
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plaifonz at 12:43 PM on 5 April 2022Climate scientists are in it for the money
I feel like scientists in every field are important to us. Scientists are vital to the globe since they assist individuals in comprehending how the world operates in very particular ways. Humans have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to stay alive and happy, and science has proven to be an useful tool for doing so, even if it doesn't always make us happy. Science is a certain perspective on the environment. It's a mode of thinking, a means of organizing what we know in order to better comprehend how things work. I also think there aren't much people choosing the environmental science field because of the "they are doing it for money" reason and also there aren't much people paying much close attention to their result/studies.
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krit242 at 12:42 PM on 5 April 2022It's cooling
The Earth is not in radiative balance with forcings and will continue to warm for some time yet until that balance is reached. Even the warming is uneven. Further, current levels of the warming of the globe likely exceed those found both in the Holocene and in the previous interglacial.
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plaifonz at 12:11 PM on 5 April 2022Planting a trillion trees will solve global warming
I think that planting many trees would be able to help with climate change but it wouldn't be that much effective. Sure, plants are cheap and can absorb carbon dioxide. Can also remove a substantial portion of heat-trapping emissions from the atmosphere. However, there are more different problems that makes climate change way worse. For example ocean pollution, industrial activity and agricultural activity. I also think that planting trees will take time to grow because of the environment. Temperature rising would make it hard to grow and there will also be people who would deforesting the trees. Which means that planting more trees would be useless. So i think we should focus on the people first then the environment.
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krit242 at 11:54 AM on 5 April 2022It's the sun
The video tell the problem of energy balance. Temperature is tightly coupled variables. The solar irridiance is increasins during the past 50 years, I think it's important to know that solar irridiance changes most in the shorter wavelengths. It might not look like large effect for this change but there is something more.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:47 AM on 5 April 2022It's the sun
Pepper: Welcome to Skeptical Science.
Although there is a lot of noise about solar variations being a possible cause for recent warming, the papers that make this claim usually suffer major flaws.
The numbers that you are quoting need a reference - "they" is not enough detail! It sounds like you may be referring to the results of the paper that is reviewed in this blog post at Skeptical Science. Follow that link to see an example of how papers claiming a significant solar effect can have serious shortcomings.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:37 AM on 5 April 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #13
Hello, all Skeptical Science readers.
I am using this weekly digest post as a place to make a comment about recent activity on a number of blog posts.
A few years ago, we had a collection of students from KMIDS college in Bangkok that were assigned work that included reading and commenting here at Skeptical Science. It looks like we may be seeing similar activity this month. (We are trying to confirm if it is indeed the same school.)
When this happened before, we wrote a short blog post explaining the situation.
Please try to provide these students (if we have correctly identified them as such) wtih a warm welcome and encourage them to read material here and engage in constructive dialog.
Thanks.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:27 AM on 5 April 2022There is no consensus
Sun:
There is a lot in between the two extremes of "catasrophe" and "no need to do anything". It is not a binary system or "right or wrong" - it is a range of likely outcomes and risks.
We know with pretty much 100% certainty that adding CO2 causes some warming. For doubling of CO2 (from 300 to 600ppm) it is very unlikely that it will be less than 1.5-2.0C. It will also be very unlikely that it will be more than 4.5-5.0C. But that leaves a lot of range of likely temperature effects that will cause serious changes in climate and very likely serious (and expensive) impacts on society. The larger the temperature change and the impact, the more important it is that we take additional action.
The idea that CO2 limits will harm the economy is discussed in this thread at Skeptical Science.
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Pepper at 11:25 AM on 5 April 2022CO2 lags temperature
The time lag between CO2 and temperature is due to the time offset between warming oceans and continued ocean CO2 emissions. with this cumulative effect Carbon dioxide, therefore it will becomes the main driver of temperature during glacial and interglacial warming. Shakun et al 2012 paper showed that warming was indeed triggered by the Milankovitch cycles and that a small amount of orbital cycle-caused warming eventually triggered the CO2 release, which caused most of the glacial-interglacial warming. So while CO2 did lag behind a small initial temperature change, it led and was the primary driver behind most of the glacial-interglacial warming. According to the Shakun data, approximately 7% of the overall glacial-interglacial global temperature increase occurred before the CO2 rise, whereas 93% of the global warming followed the CO2 increase.
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Pepper at 11:20 AM on 5 April 2022It's the sun
Total solar radiation has a huge impact on climate change, according to the scientific article below: Combine the data below with the closure of the ozone hole over the past 20 years, and that in itself could explain global warming. All hot in the last 25 years. They estimate that the Sun was responsible for 45–50% of global warming and 25–35% of global warming in 1980–2000. It may have played a key role in continued climate change over the past century. It also pointed out that the impact of solar on climate change over the same period was much stronger than what some theoretical models had predicted.
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GraceKanyanat at 11:20 AM on 5 April 2022Sea level rise is exaggerated
Sea level rise is one of the most common topics among the environmental science community and it should be since this topic is a topic that everyone should acknowledge. Sea level rise is caused by global warming which leads to ice and glaciers melting in the polar regions. This caused water to run off to the ocean which causes the sea to be above land.
This is extremely dangerous, especially to people who live near the shore or anywhere in particular since we cannot predict when there will be flooding. According to the graph above, it is safe to say that the sea level has been rising a lot during the past decades which also shows that global warming is getting worse and worse every single day. For me, sea-level rise is an important topic because it affects human lives in a bad way.
For example, flooding can cause damage to our areas of living, and it can also harm our drinking water and the crops that we grow for food or the country to send out for trading or any other opportunities. We can help solve this problem by again raising awareness of people living near the shores to watch out for signs of flooding. We can also help each other lower global warming by burning fewer fossil fuels and using more organic stuff. Please help each other resolve this problem for your own safety.
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GraceKanyanat at 11:19 AM on 5 April 2022Climate's changed before
Global warming has always been one of the most concerning and dangerous things that humans and the climate can experience. Global warming is when the concentration of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, making the planet heat up.
Although global warming is genuinely concerning, a lot of people all over the world still look over it and do not seem to really care. This might be because people think that global warming is impossible to solve since we still need to use the stuff that is causing the problem, like burning fossil fuels. But for me, I do not think that is the case.
I think that global warming is especially important because it affects us as human beings e.g., extremely hot weather can damage our lungs. Moreover, it affects a variety of biodiversity across the world. An example would be in the polar regions where it starts to get warm which leads to animal deaths. I believe that we can help solve this problem and make the planet a good place to live in again. We just need to put our hands together and fight through it. We can start off by raising awareness and using fewer fossil fuels.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:18 AM on 5 April 2022Climate's changed before
Welcome to Skeptical Science, hmmyes and Fya.
hmmyes: you ask about how much CO2 the climate can handle? The earth-atmosphere system can handle a lot, and climate will always be there - it is simply what is observed, however cold or hot things are. From a human perspective, though, there are an awful lot of climates that earth can tolerate that humans cannot. 18,000 years ago was 4-6 C cooler than now, and cie covered huge areas of current land. Running today's modern civilation in that earth would be very difficult. On the flip side, a 4-6C warming would also be very expensive for humans, if not intolerable. The past changes in climate tell us that 4-6C of change is a big change.
Fya: mass extinctions from things like meteor impacts are indeed a very abrupt and severe form of change, and CO2 wll not have that rapid effect. But the effects of a 4-6C rise in temperatures (the high end of esitmates for a doubling of CO2 from 300 to 600ppm) will not be gentle.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:10 AM on 5 April 2022CO2 lags temperature
Welcome to Skeptical Science, Fya.
It is difficult to know what you are responding to here. It helps if you refer to the comment number, or the portion of the post you are responding to.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:07 AM on 5 April 2022Climate change solutions are too expensive
It has taken six years, Grace, but we finally have a comment on this thread!
As you point out, the desire to supply enough energy to meet demand can be helped by reducing demand as well as increasing supply. And the economics need to properly look at environmental costs. Factoring in environmental costs is difficult when the costs will be paid by someone else - or at some time in the future.
In economics. they call these costs "externalities". You can read about it on wikipedia.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:00 AM on 5 April 2022Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
Welcome to Skeptical Science, Grace.
You have correctly identified the issue of rapid cycling of carbon versus slow cycling. Some plants grow and die on an annual cycle. Animals maye live for tens of years, and forests grow and die over hundreds of years. But fossil fuel is coming from sources that were stored away millions of years ago.
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Bob Loblaw at 10:55 AM on 5 April 2022It's cooling
Welcome to Skeptical Science, Sun and anika.
One of the things that you will notice here is that no discussions are ever closed. But you do need to pay attention to when comments were made, as very old discussions may not be active.
Sun: you mention several items, but it is not clear if you are responding to the main article, or comments from others. It helps if you refer to the comment number, or the portion of the post you are responding to. In looking at global temperatures, "global" will assign a weighting to the land temperature record based on the global land area, while sea surface temperatures will be weighted according to ocean area. As for older data: global coverage is much less dense in the 1800s, so for some purposes the older data may be too unreliable to be able to say that it represents "global" conditions.
Anika: you raise an important point. Each individual characteristic (temperature, ice cover, vegetation, etc.) will have short-term variation that makes it harder to see the long-term trend - but when you see similar response in a wider variety of characteristics it becomes much less likely that any single one is "by chance". There is a "big picture" that is more than just the sum of the parts.
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anika.ag at 02:44 AM on 5 April 2022It's cooling
Global warming is definitely still happening, and there are many factors that show this. Saying that the earth is “cooling” does not make any sense, due to the many indicators that it is such as snow covers, ice melts, and the temperatures over the land and ocean. I really like the quote: The question of global warming stopping is often raised in the light of a recent weather event...For climate change, it is the long term trends that are important; measured over decades or more, and those long term trends show that the globe is still, unfortunately, warming.” I think it sums up the entire argument well and makes it very simple for people who still may be confused to understand.
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GraceKanyanat at 01:41 AM on 5 April 2022Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming
In my opinion, I think that burning fossil fuels is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases emissions because more fossil fuels = more CO2 being released into the atmosphere, making the temperature warmer. Though I also think that deforestation is also a huge contributor to GHG emissions, but deforestation might not happen as frequently as burning fossil fuels.
Ok sure cutting down trees can lower the amount of CO2 absorption while animals and humans continue to produce CO2, but can it really make much of a difference since new plants are also being grown every day?
But to take into consideration that animals shouldn’t even be part of the greenhouse gas emissions since many of them are being killed every day to provide people with food. Animals also take a much longer time to grow than plants, so I think that animals shouldn’t really have much of a contribution to the GHG emissions.
I agree with the fact that everyone can help contribute to reducing GHG emissions if we all come together and set our minds to the same goal, which is to minimize the emissions of greenhouse gases. -
GraceKanyanat at 01:40 AM on 5 April 2022Climate change solutions are too expensive
We all know deep in our hearts that climate change will take a lot of effort to reverse. It would take a lot of both time and money to be able to make a single little change, but it will be for the better. As you have said in the text, “solar and wind farms are currently the cheapest sources of new electricity,” I totally agree with your solutions, but can there also be other ways to create electricity like hydropower? Could there also be a change in the lifestyles of people so that we consume less energy?
According to the data from Lazard, “Leveled Cost of Energy Comparison,” also shows that the cost for renewable energy is cheaper than conventional ones yet they are still cost-competitive with conventional energies. I would like to know if it is possible that one day there would be no more conventional energies since renewable energies might come out on top?
I also feel like we will be able to achieve this goal of slowing down climate if we all start caring less about the finances and more about the environment, governments could make policies where fossil fuel will be banned so that there would be less greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere. -
Fya at 23:45 PM on 4 April 2022CO2 lags temperature
It redirects focus over to like the greater part of the compelling anticipated from a multiplying of CO2 ought to have as of now occured except that is unrepresented. For this reason, assuming there was a space. Without it, however, input numbers or moderately.
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Fya at 23:34 PM on 4 April 2022Climate's changed before
There were changes in climate that caused species extinctions, but those changes were caused by physical impact in scale and duration far beyond what we can do by adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
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anika.ag at 15:43 PM on 4 April 2022Ocean acidification isn't serious
Even just a slight change in the pH of the ocean can affect it a lot, this includes all the animals living in it as well. As time goes on the amount of CO2 that humans are emitting through industrial activities is increasing, this means the amount of CO2 that the oceans are absorbing is also increasing, if this continues at the rate that it is going, there are going to be extreme impacts on the oceans and ocean life. Coral reefs will suffer affecting all the animals that rely on them, and many humans who rely on the ocean will suffer as well.
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Sun at 15:13 PM on 4 April 2022There is no consensus
Dr. David Evans made the statement: "Yes, it's important to get our response right. If the alarmist is correct, then we should cut down our carbon emissions of the planet from overheating. If the alarmist is wrong, it's important not to cut back our carbon emissions or we'll create widespread poverty unnecessary.
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hmmyes at 15:04 PM on 4 April 2022It's not bad
While it is true that climate change can cause these things to happen or have already caused it to happen. In my opinion, I still think some of these that you provided are just speculations which I'm not denying in any way. I also noticed that there are way more negative effects than positives which is why I support the effort of mitigating climate change and global warming.
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Sun at 14:51 PM on 4 April 2022It's cooling
if you want to measure trends in temperature there is no reason to weigh land temperatures differently from sea surface temperatures. There was also no reason for you to exclude a third of the Earth's surface from your "logical and mathematical approach". There was also no reason to exclude 21% of the data in time. Including the data from 1871 to 1899 shows that the pattern you claim only have detected in a single cycle does not mean the same go for other periods.
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hmmyes at 14:34 PM on 4 April 2022Climate's changed before
I agree with the statement. CO2 and global warming are definitely correlated, the more CO2 we have will indeed warmup the Earth. And your rebuttal to the myth is excellent in my opinion, what happened in the past surely doesn't mean that what's happening now is the same. Us humans are changing the climate. Lastly, I do have a question regarding the CO2 level, until how much would think that the climate can handle?
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:30 AM on 3 April 2022The Climate Shell Game
A follow up to Eclectic's points @92,
Tesla may be the furthest along the path of development of maximized recycling of lithium-ion batteries.
An internet search on "Tesla lithium battery recycling" will bring up Tesla's claim and recommendations regarding battery recycling. It will also bring up many reports regarding what Tesla's arrangement for recycling looks like. The following quote is from Tesla's Support page regarding Battery Recycling:
"Extending the life of a battery pack is a superior option to recycling for both environmental and business reasons. For those reasons, before decommissioning a consumer battery pack and sending it for recycling, Tesla does everything it can to extend the useful life of each battery pack. Any battery that is no longer meeting a customer’s needs can be serviced by Tesla at one of our service centers around the world. None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfilling, and 100% are recycled."
That makes an important point that is not part of the evaluations like the "Determining the environmental impacts of conventional and alternatively fuelled vehicles through LCA" report prepared for the European Commission (linked to by Philippe @91). It is important to maximize the length of use of EVs before ending their life with 'hopes for recycling'.
And that maximum use of things, not just the use of less harmful things, connects to the need for something like 'degrowth of consumer materialism'. J.B. MacKinnon's book "The Day the World Stops Shopping" is one of the more recent presentations about the importance of changing the developed consumer pursuit of More Conspicuous (and incorrectly perceived to be rewarding) Consumption.
For people who already live in ways that are above the level of basic living (having adequate safe air, water, food, ...), pursuing a Better Life means less consumption with the pursuit of all of that reduced consumption being less harmful. That means buying fewer, but longer lasting, things and re-using or re-selling (second-handing) things rather than the hope for full end-of-use recycling of "More Stuff Bought, Used Briefly, and Tossed".
That leads to understanding that it is foolish to believe 'Shell Game types of claims' that the 'solution to harmful over-development is the expectation of future development, by other people in the future, of new things that will be believed to solve the problem'. It is also foolish to expect less fortunate people to just accept that they 'deserve their circumstances' and cannot develop to live more like higher-status people because that would be 'harmful'.
Less harmful consumption and less consumption, and no Shell Games creating harmful misunderstandings, are key parts of the development of lasting improvements for humanity.
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Eclectic at 20:47 PM on 1 April 2022The Climate Shell Game
Philippe @91 , your link is a rather large chunk to chew on. But it shows the EV's being better than I expected, for their life-cycle. Ones hopes that the growth in renewable-sourced electricity will outpace the EV growth.
There may be further improvement, if the lithium batteries (or the next generation - after lithium technology) have some form of economic recycling. The EV studies did not account for any recycling benefits (but admittedly such recycling has not received much development yet).
Jan ~ you have given many figures of emissions growth, and of "imaginable" percentage reductions that would be needed to reach closer to Nett-Zero-Carbon. These figures are not surprising, and not new. But with or without Pareto Principles, it would be useful if you could contribute an actual physical plan of how to improve the present situation. ~Other than technological advances, I suspect we would be wasting our time if we try to achieve a socio-political revolution in how the rich (us Westerners & similar) can be reducing total energy usage.
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Philippe Chantreau at 14:08 PM on 1 April 2022The Climate Shell Game
Well this thread has grown ar an amazing rate. To go back to Jan's response at #70:
I see that we agree on pretty much all the important stuff. I certainly wouldn't disagree that an "uncontrolled" transition to EVs could be detrimental. Considering how entranched ICEs are, I see it unlikely that a detrimental transition pace could develop. The full life cycle analysis of EVs impact has been done ans can be found in the most thorough work I have seen so far on the issues it touches. This highly detailed report is worth studying for all who have participated here so far. It concludes that electric vehicles "have significantly lower environmental impacts across all vehicle types."
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:46 AM on 1 April 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan @88,
I agree with nigelj's comments and questions.
I will be as succinct as possible while proving a fuller framing for understanding my comment which is admittedly 'not the norm developed perspective'. The focus of my perspective is 'how people create impressions of wealth'. And it is aligned with some, but not all, of what you present.
Anyone who obtains wealth or other impressions of superiority relative to Others in ways that are harmful does not deserve their perceptions of superiority (Law and Order developed to deal with that ... but harmful powerful people can and do pervert Law and Order for their benefit).
The utilitarian 'benefits outweigh the harm' type of evaluation is only valid in cases where the harm (or potential harm) is only experienced by the person/people benefiting. When groups (like nations) are evaluated to benefit from harm done no harm is to be done to anyone outside the group. And the harm to the members of the group needs to be proportional to the benefit obtained. No one in the group should benefit at the expense of harm done to Others. No members of the group should benefit a lot without being harmed a lot.
A related understanding is that anyone who has advantageous circumstances due to past harmful actions does not 'deserve their advantage relative to Others'.
Having that fundamental ethical understanding as the basis for policy development is essential for the policy being developed to produce lasting improvements and corrections of harmful developments.
Kyoto was an example of a presentation of what was required regarding climate change impacts. The backlash to Kyoto exposed the harmfulness of what has developed (socially, politically, economically, and technologically). And the most harmful thing is the power of undeserving people to protect their developed perceptions of superiority. And a powerful way they do that is with misleading marketing that promotes and prolongs harmful misunderstandings and the resulting Shell Games that delayed helpful corrections that would have limited the harm done and would have resulted in a less challenging correction being required today.
A solution, perhaps the only viable one, is for the powerful to collectively penalize the harmful powerful people (actions like imposing costs on developed harmful activities or people no longer investing in fossil fuel ventures and consuming less energy, particularly less fossil fuel, to help speed up the end of harmful unsustainable fossil fuel use). And the less powerful need to learn to support the restriction and penalizing of harmful undeserving powerful people. That can apply to many harmful developments that have made undeserving people powerful and wealthy, not just the climate change impact problem.
People pursuing improvements of their lives need to aspire to be like the people who are perceived to be more valuable members of humanity. And those higher-status people need to providing the better examples of how to live better lives (less harmful, more helpful). And that means all of the wealthiest should be required to be living carbon free life-styles far sooner than any Others. And they should also help others live improved lives less harmfully. And the supposedly superior (wealthier) people who are not interested in competing to set the better examples need to be bumped down to a level of status (and influence and wealth) that is more appropriate for their attitude (the less fortunate can be excused for being more harmful).
Everyone can learn to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. The problem is the people who are tempted to be more harmful and less helpful. They prefer to believe harmful misunderstandings rather than learn that what they developed a liking for is harmful misunderstanding.
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nigelj at 15:36 PM on 31 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan @88
"Gents, whether you like it or not - you will not change the fact that Emissions or GDP per capita is only an imaginary value ........"
Per capita emissions and gdp are not imaginary value. Such a thing is calculated and forms part of my countries statistics database.
However I agree that country by country data is really important, and I did say that. In hindsight I would say per capita emissions are an equally important consideration, not more important. But its obviously an issue for a countries internal affairs.
"The global community's strategy must include tools to measure emission reductions and sanctions for non-compliance. The mandate should also be at the UN level. However, there is no such thing."
Agreed.
"Gents, you really only deal with your feelings here. No hard data. You bend the data into absurd indicators that this world will not cure. "
Not clear what you mean. However I dont think that suggesting high income people should reduce their emissions more than low income people is a "feelings" issue. Its actually simple commonsense. I admit that it would be very difficult to get high income people to reduce their emissions dramatically more than low income people. However it's probably no more challenging than your suggestion "The global community's strategy must include tools to measure emission reductions and sanctions for non-compliance. "
"And praise each other for buying EV.Rename yourself to the EVs and RES fan club."
I don't recall prasing anyone for buying an EV. I did say I was contemplating buying an EV or PHEV. But I recall you said you owned a PHEV and had solar panels on your house. So aren't you a fan PHEV's and RES? Jan, your comments appear contradictory.
If you are not a fan of EVs and RES, what are your preferences please? And why?
"But I haven't found a single reasonable opinion on feasible emission reductions based on IPCC reports. If you do not understand, there is no time for games."
I have promoted EV's, so I conclude you appear to oppose EVs as "feasible emissions reductions". Yes or no? Care to elaborate? Please give simple, clear, unambiguous answers.
If you cant answer the simple questions I have put above and on my previous post, I will not be bothering further discussing anything with you, or reading any of your links. Right now I'm inclined to think you are some sort of troll. This is your last chance to prove me wrong.
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jan21405 at 13:08 PM on 31 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@ OPOF and Nigelj
Gents, whether you like it or not - you will not change the fact that Emissions or GDP per capita is only an imaginary value and another inaccurate and unnecessary indicator, which has nothing to do with the division of the country's emissions / economic output.
The global community's strategy must include tools to measure emission reductions and sanctions for non-compliance. The mandate should also be at the UN level. However, there is no such thing.
The UN does not need to consider the existence of one person in Canada who behaves wisely and his neighbour across the street who does not act responsibly. This is what Canada should address as a low-level entity responsible for reducing emissions as a country. But the country must take responsibility, which creates "wealth" associated with emissions through its activities.
Another factor in your inaccurate consideration is that GDP in relation to emissions is a misleading figure. GDP generally does not include issues of companies that have HQ (registration) in a given country, but do business globally and thus generate emissions in other countries as well. Therefore, the responsibility for such emissions should lie with the HQ of the company and thus the country in which the HQ is registered. After all, there is GNP for this purpose. And this is how emissions should be recalculated as well. This would add to the reality that may not be felt again by the G7 / G20 countries.
Because many western countries have moved production over the last 22 years, not only to China (mainly), but also to other Asian and African countries.
The last mistake is to divide countries into developed and developing countries. By which metric:
- UN / DESA WESP? (there is also third level - transition)
or
- IMF?Gents, you really only deal with your feelings here. No hard data. You bend the data into absurd indicators that this world will not cure. And praise each other for buying EV. Rename yourself to the EVs and RES fan club. But I haven't found a single reasonable opinion on feasible emission reductions based on IPCC reports. If you do not understand, there is no time for games.
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nigelj at 07:40 AM on 31 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
Jan @79
I don't have a problem with the body of your text as such. I realise it needs to be technical and detailed to some extent. I'm just suggesting that you summarise your views briefly and in simple terms at the top of all that text so we know where you are going. Like an introduction. Your single page China summary helped in that respect.
Putting it another way, I dont want to have to read through a lot of pages to figure out what the main points are. You may think they are obvious and they may be to engineering experts but not the rest of us.
You also didn't answer my questions and points @74 . Not going to read the hundreds of pages in your links hoping the answers are in there.
Regarding your views on China. We all know their trends in coal use are continuing to some extent, and this is not looking good and makes it hard to see how they will achieve their ambitious climate plans. I don't find your graphs a revelation. To meet their gloals they will have to stop this pretty soon and engage in massive replacement of coal fired plant. Time will tell I guess.Rapid transformation of energy grids looks plausible to me in theory. Just look at what America did in five years of WW2 to change its economy. Whether such a thing happens with the climate problem is basically a motivational and political issue. I admit I'm not too optimistic. And the window for even a massive and rapid transformation is getting smaller all the time because some things are just impossible.
I accept your point that a small number of developed or largely developed countries are the main emitters and will have to make most of the changes, but again its not some new revelation. I had to read a lot of numbers to see that this was the basic point you were making.
However while we do talk about countries emissions it's a matter of resolving the Paris Accord issues. OPOF is quite right that what really matters most is per capita emissions and social groups issues.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:20 AM on 31 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan,
Another important consideration is 'history of per capita impacts'. Current day people in a nation often benefit from the harmful ghg impacts of the past by 'the nation or region they were born in or live in'. And that past harm should be attributable to them as something they should make amends for.
Our World in Data Per Capita CO2 Emissions Table presentation provides an excellent way to explore the per capita by nation. Of course, that evaluation misses the identification of harmful high impact regional populations like Alberta inside Canada. And, as mentioned @85, that method of seeking to identify the problem can miss the fact that the real target needs to be the highest impacting people benefiting from fossil fuel use. That can include a very small number of people in a very poor nation with very low per capita impacts. It can also be investors in harmful pursuit of profit activity in a region who do not live in the region.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:49 AM on 31 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
jan,
I think I see the problem.
You appear to have fallen for the Shell Game claims that Top Total Impacting Nations is the way to identify the major part of the problem.
The problem is undeniably the top 20% impacting people. Comparing 'national totals' is a very incorrect way to look at this issue (And comparing the regional totals within a nation can also miss the key point of the need to target the highest impacting portion of the population - I am very sensitive to this point as I am a low impacting person living in Alberta, Canada, disliking being unfairly identified as a problem because of Alberta's 64 tonne per person annual impacts which are higher than many oil producing nations).
Looking at the TOP20 per capita impacting nations would be the proper way to seek the highest impacting people. But even that misses the problem of the high impacting portion of a lower per capita impacting nation.
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jan21405 at 00:03 AM on 31 March 2022The Climate Shell Game
@Eclectic #80
This was the base of my hypothesis in early 2021 - copy/paste from document No. 2 mentioned in my last post.
All the emissions defined here are Emissions from Fossil fuels only.
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2010 Global CO2 fossil fuels emissions: 33 971 Mt CO2 (EDGAR-AR5 model)
In model pathways with no or limited overshoot of 1.5C, global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 (40 60% interquartile range), reaching net zero around 2050 (2045 2055 interquartile range). .... based on IPCC AR5.
2030 goal = 33 971- 45% (15 287) = 18 684 Mt CO2 in 2030
the value: 15 287 Mt CO2 is slightly over of equivalent of the entire: China + US + India emissions (TOP3 emission providers in the world in 2019)
or
179% of 2019 Total emissions from the rest of the TOP20 countries in the world are responsible for 81% of CO2 emissions. Remember the TOP20 label for all the later considerations in this document.
So looking for solutions in the rest of the 188 countries, which generate only 19% of CO2 emissions, is nice, but it has a very small impact on achieving the goals defined in the IPCC AR5.
2019 Global CO2 emissions: 38 017 Mt CO2, then till 2030 we need to decline the emissions by about 50% from 2019 til 2030 (reach the 2010 target), and reaching net zero around 2050.The annual (linear) declination step must be 1 567 MT CO2 = entire Japan+Turkey. Each year. It's supposed to go down, but on the contrary, it's going up. Every year.
With the existing approach to emissions-reducing, we will achieve only 50% reduction from 2020 to 2050.
This means that we will be outside any safe borders as early as 2037, defined by the IPCC as Pathways with higher overshoot. At the end of 2025, this scenario will either be confirmed or refuted.
In global numbers, we should reach less than 30GTin 2025 if we are to adhere to the IPCC predictions to keep warming up to 1.5C.
(Note from 2022: just thanks to the pandemic we get 35.96Gt in 2020, but in 2021 we were back in increase).
However, this means that the TOP20 countries in the world must reduce their emissions by at least 8GT = 27% of their cumulative value from 2019.
Because the rest of the 188 countries have total CO2 emissions of about 7Gt – so there isn’t a doable plan to ask them for a 100% reduction by 2030 (even for 50%).
Just for your imagination, the 27% decrease from the TOP20 countries:
- it is 71% equivalent of their cumulative Power production emissions
- it is 119% equivalent of their cumulative Industry emissions
- it is 151% equivalent of their cumulative Transport emissions ........................ (Note: as you can see no way for EVs to reach it)
- it is 98% equivalent of their cumulative Transport and Buildings emissions
- it is 125% equivalent of their cumulative Buildings and Others (Agricultural, ...) emissions
Till the end of 2025, we only have 4 years and 7 months remaining. (Note: the document is from 2021)The first bad sign of discomfort will be 34.5Gt at the end of 2025. According to the AR5 report, we need less than 30Gt in 2025 and less than 20Gt in 2030.
I'll be really happy if someone refutes this plan.
Otherwise, it won't be good at all.Pareto principle:
20 (10%) countries are responsible for 81% of CO2 emissions. ...... here we need to try to find major reduction scenarios.
