8 ms·

Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5 °C target

60 points by 23throwaway23 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
shanxS 7y ago
Why is this news? Did anyone expect otherwise?
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Even if it's what's expected having it spelled out and published can still be useful. Things 'everyone' knows don't get talked about much but new papers do.
- CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
  I’m genuinely curious about the answer to this question. It’s confusing me that the impression from any scientific source is that 1.5 is long gone, 2.0 is a pipe dream and any likely scenario is far higher, and that is if we start to implement drastic measures right now. Yet even the most hardcore “green” politicians talk about the issue as if we can drag our feets another decade or two with minimal impact on current generations. Why the big gulf here?
  - bitwize 7y ago
    Even the most "green" politician must court the votes of people who've become comfortable in this modern lifestyle and are unwilling to see it changed. And most of those are on the take from big corporate donors. If AGW has a solution, it lies only in drastic population reduction and a complete rewilding of the human race -- what Daniel Quinn called "living in the hands of the gods". This lies well out of our culture's Overton window, but more environmentalists are taking a long hard look at it.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Mass death is something people are unwilling to contemplate, yes.
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Let alone advocate...
      - bitwize 7y ago
        Mass death isn't the only way to reduce population. But it's something we may already be too late to avoid.
  - vkou 7y ago
    > Yet even the most hardcore “green” politicians talk about the issue as if we can drag our frets another decade or two with minimal impact on current generations. Why the big gulf here? Green politicians demand action yesterday, 'Green new deal' politicians demand 30% reductions in the short term, left-wing politicians who are in power promise 30% reductions over the next 15 years[1], right-wing politicians who are in power promise 30% increases over the next 15 years. The problem is that: 1. In non-proportional-representation countries, a vote for green is a wasted vote. 2. In proportional-representation countries, greens get some votes and government seats, but whether that translates into political power is dependent on blind luck. Depending on how many seats other parties get, they may be included in a coalition (And thus, have some influence on policy), or completely shut out (And thus, have no influence on policy). 3. The United States is the biggest per first-world polluter, and thus has the most low-hanging fruit to be picked. But all else being equal, it tends to vote right-wing. [2] PS. Before anyone says 'China' - China's emission policies can be influenced by tariffs. We just need to get off our asses, and clean up our own house, first. [1] Of course, they won't do anything to curtail carbon-extraction industries - they expect the rest of us to sacrifice so that petro-firms can keep making money. [2] The only reason US emissions have been holding steady, despite 'coal now, coal tomorrow, and coal forever' rhetoric, is blind luck. The unit economics of natural gas became good, because of fracking, and it emits less CO2 per KWH than coal. If it weren't for fracking, the US would be right on the path the Republican party wants it to be.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Because most people have heard the scaremongering about global warming for decades already, and nothing that requires a total realignment of the economy and society hasn't happened yet (and no, some heatwaves and some extra hurricanes are not a big deal enough to make people care). Politicians understand that nothing serious will happen in their lifetimes either, and scientists, when asked, don't paint nearly as bleak picture of the warming as the activists suggest. Look at the most recent IPCC report: the predicted sea level rise by 2100 is below 1 meter with 95% confidence, and the economic cost of global warming is predicted to be at only a few percent of global GDP. Sure, we'll need to build a few sea walls here and there, rebuild a few more houses destroyed in hurricanes, shift cultivation from the newly-desertified areas to the areas where the climate change increases precipitation, but that's not a disastrous outcome that we need to avert by spending huge amounts of effort right now. Of course, if you support yourself by back-breaking subsistence farming, these things would in fact be a disaster for you, but this is a problem for poor people in poor places very far from developed countries. We (both society and the politicians) don't care much about their plight today, and we won't care about them in future either. That's why hardcore "green" politicians don't push the society for some serious change: because there's not much need to do so in developed countries. People wouldn't like the change, because it would make their lives clearly worse, while doing nothing won't make it significantly worse. Some people though like the mood affiliation brought by "green" people fighting for "climate", which is why the green politicians only need to hit those notes in their hearts to get the support. Making real change is optional.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
      This was my understanding until a few weeks ago. But reading up on the subject paints a different picture. With the non-linear changes likely to be hit soon. Things are going to get serious for us too, and likely noticeably so within the next decade.
      - xyzzyz 7y ago
        Where did you read about these non-linear changes? Do these represent the climate change consensus, like e.g. IPCC?
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    If you have two politicians, and one of them tells you everything is fine and we don't have to do anything, and the other says you're going to have to pay more today to prevent some hypothetical future badness tomorrow even though they can't demonstrate the badness until tomorrow, people are skeptical of the thing that costs them money. Even if it's true. Then politicians want to get elected, so the one side moderates their position and the other doesn't. It's one of the reasons carbon tax + dividend might actually have a chance. If the dividend only goes to humans but the tax is paid by both humans and corporations, and it's revenue neutral, then the average real person is getting back more than they're paying. That's the sort of thing people like.
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      It's one of the reasons carbon tax + dividend might actually have a chance. If the dividend only goes to humans but the tax is paid by both humans and corporations, and it's revenue neutral, then the average real person is getting back more than they're paying. That's the sort of thing people like. I don't think humans will get much back out of it. Most of what corporations are emitting is on behalf of the customers. All the cement factories that emit insane amounts of CO2 do it because that's what it takes to produce cement, which customers then buy. When carbon tax passes, the cement price will necessarily rise, which will offset some of the dividend gains. The exact amount of increase depends on the elasticity of the demand for concrete, but from what I can tell, there aren't really any substitutes for concrete that wouldn't also be hit by carbon tax (there's lumber, but most of what we currently build with concrete can already hardly be built with wood). This is not to say that carbon tax wouldn't have intended results: it would indeed shift the consumption towards less carbon-intensive products. However, I don't expect that average carbon dividend will be significant.
      - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
        Prices going up is less direct, and thus likely less on people's minds, than "I'm getting a check from the government every month".
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
- vladojsem 7y ago
  That is true, people (and especially politicians) nowadays seem indifferent to climate change. Think about it, it is partly because of the narrative of the story. If you imagine a hypothetical situation that there is big asteroid flying towards the Earth and there is a 95% chance of the impact in 2050. The governments would finance and do everything to stop this impact, to look like saviors of the planet Earth. The consequences / or better the probability would be the same. However, the asteroid story is different, much more tangible.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > The consequences / or better the probability would be the same. No, they wouldn't, because the astronomers who would be predicting the asteroid impact have a track record of decades of extremely accurate predictions of the future trajectories of asteroids, checked in detail against actual observations. So if they ever were to predict an asteroid impact at some time in the future, that prediction would have extremely high credibility and would indeed warrant drastic action. Climate science, by contrast, has no track record of accurate predictions. The climate model predictions are falsified by the data. Plus, the actual impact of climate change requires not only predicting the climate, but predicting the economic and other consequences of changes in the climate, and we have even less predictive ability in those disciplines than we have in climate science. So when climate scientists squawk about future catastrophes, their predictions have extremely low credibility, and combined with their obvious self-interest, this is more than sufficient reason to ignore them.
    - vladojsem 7y ago
      > Climate science, by contrast, has no track record of accurate predictions. Are you serious? Did you hear about drilling into the ice to get the samples? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/29/scientists-to-take-old-ice-samples-for-climate-research-east-antarctica https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/29/scientis...
      - pdonis 7y ago
        Ice core data is not predictions.
- vkou 7y ago
  Because there's a lot of 'progressive'[1] governments that have committed to stopping climate change that are currently: 1. Not committed to turning down existing fossil fuel extraction. 2. Are actively committed to expanding fossil fuel extraction. They need to be called out on their charade, as frequently, and as loudly as possible. [1] Federal Liberal party of Canada.
std_throwaway 7y ago
There's lots of faulty reasoning going around society: * There is no climate change. * The temperature charts are rigged. * Scientists conspire to get more funding. * Dissenting opinions are suppressed by the mainstream. * Taxing CO2 is a way to control the economy and stifle growth. * CO2 is actually good for plants. * CO2 does not cause climate change. * If there is climate change, CO2 is only a minor contributor. * Humans do not cause CO2, nature does that. * Climate change is not caused by humans. * Climate change is not bad. * If it is bad, there is nothing we can do. * It's only bad for other people. * It will only hit us hard in the far future. * We cannot make compromises in our lifestyle or risk our economy. * We have invested much too much in fossil fuel technology to give it up. * Renewable energy is not feasible. It's a joke. Don't even think about it. * Solar cells cost more energy than they produce. * Batteries produce lots of CO2 during production. * Windmills will never harvest the energy that was needed to produce them. * Our electric grid will fail if we add too much renewable energy. * We cannot store enough electric energy. * Renewables can never work because they cannot produce energy on demand. * Even if renewables were feasible they would be too expensive. * Why don't we just build more nuclear plants? * Thorium will save us in time, so no hurry. * Fusion is only 30 years away, so why invest in renewables? ... this is only what came into my mind spontaneously and some points are really hard to argue, especially with non-technical people who do not see scientific facts as something solid but something that can be negotiated.
- pojzon 7y ago
  You forgot about: "Oil industry is totally not lobbing against any movement that could bring us closer to the solution"
  - pdonis 7y ago
    What you call the "oil" industry is really the energy industry, and they really don't care which way things go as far as climate policy is concerned. They're set up to make money either way. Who do you think all those government grants for "renewable energy" research go to?
    - 7y ago
perfunctory 7y ago
I know that there are many climate depressed people on this forum, frustrated by the fact that nothing is being done and, at the same time, under the illusion that they themselves cannot do much about it. Yes you can. Eventually, the solution will have to come from the government. But the government won't act unless we demand it. - Change your lifestyle. Less flying, driving, meat. More non-electronically powered forms of play. - Divest fossil. Invest renewable. - Most importantly, get away from keyword and join other people. e.g. https://xrebellion.org https://xrebellion.org
- abootstrapper 7y ago
  I encourage everyone to check out Citizens Climate Lobby. Help us lobby for a carbon fee plus dividend. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
- shanxS 7y ago
  > Eventually, the solution will have to come from the government. I see your argument, but not sure if I agree with this part. If we/entrepreneur/engineers can figure 2 things: 1. Figure the engineering problem which would be something along the lines of: a. consume CO2 from air and use product something else b. bring alternative sources of energy at part with fossil fuels c. etc. 2. Figure a way to provide it as a service so that people can pay for it. We can fix it. Still doable without hoping for governments to come and bail us.
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    This could have been a valid argument 30 years ago. We simply don't have time for "Figure the engineering problem" any more. We are at the point where we need firefighters, not fire safety consultants.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

60 points by 23throwaway23 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

shanxS 7y ago

Why is this news? Did anyone expect otherwise?

rtkwe 7y ago
Even if it's what's expected having it spelled out and published can still be useful. Things 'everyone' knows don't get talked about much but new papers do.
CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
I’m genuinely curious about the answer to this question. It’s confusing me that the impression from any scientific source is that 1.5 is long gone, 2.0 is a pipe dream and any likely scenario is far higher, and that is if we start to implement drastic measures right now. Yet even the most hardcore “green” politicians talk about the issue as if we can drag our feets another decade or two with minimal impact on current generations. Why the big gulf here?
- bitwize 7y ago
  Even the most "green" politician must court the votes of people who've become comfortable in this modern lifestyle and are unwilling to see it changed. And most of those are on the take from big corporate donors. If AGW has a solution, it lies only in drastic population reduction and a complete rewilding of the human race -- what Daniel Quinn called "living in the hands of the gods". This lies well out of our culture's Overton window, but more environmentalists are taking a long hard look at it.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Mass death is something people are unwilling to contemplate, yes.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Let alone advocate...
    - bitwize 7y ago
      Mass death isn't the only way to reduce population. But it's something we may already be too late to avoid.
- vkou 7y ago
  > Yet even the most hardcore “green” politicians talk about the issue as if we can drag our frets another decade or two with minimal impact on current generations. Why the big gulf here? Green politicians demand action yesterday, 'Green new deal' politicians demand 30% reductions in the short term, left-wing politicians who are in power promise 30% reductions over the next 15 years[1], right-wing politicians who are in power promise 30% increases over the next 15 years. The problem is that: 1. In non-proportional-representation countries, a vote for green is a wasted vote. 2. In proportional-representation countries, greens get some votes and government seats, but whether that translates into political power is dependent on blind luck. Depending on how many seats other parties get, they may be included in a coalition (And thus, have some influence on policy), or completely shut out (And thus, have no influence on policy). 3. The United States is the biggest per first-world polluter, and thus has the most low-hanging fruit to be picked. But all else being equal, it tends to vote right-wing. [2] PS. Before anyone says 'China' - China's emission policies can be influenced by tariffs. We just need to get off our asses, and clean up our own house, first. [1] Of course, they won't do anything to curtail carbon-extraction industries - they expect the rest of us to sacrifice so that petro-firms can keep making money. [2] The only reason US emissions have been holding steady, despite 'coal now, coal tomorrow, and coal forever' rhetoric, is blind luck. The unit economics of natural gas became good, because of fracking, and it emits less CO2 per KWH than coal. If it weren't for fracking, the US would be right on the path the Republican party wants it to be.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Because most people have heard the scaremongering about global warming for decades already, and nothing that requires a total realignment of the economy and society hasn't happened yet (and no, some heatwaves and some extra hurricanes are not a big deal enough to make people care). Politicians understand that nothing serious will happen in their lifetimes either, and scientists, when asked, don't paint nearly as bleak picture of the warming as the activists suggest. Look at the most recent IPCC report: the predicted sea level rise by 2100 is below 1 meter with 95% confidence, and the economic cost of global warming is predicted to be at only a few percent of global GDP. Sure, we'll need to build a few sea walls here and there, rebuild a few more houses destroyed in hurricanes, shift cultivation from the newly-desertified areas to the areas where the climate change increases precipitation, but that's not a disastrous outcome that we need to avert by spending huge amounts of effort right now. Of course, if you support yourself by back-breaking subsistence farming, these things would in fact be a disaster for you, but this is a problem for poor people in poor places very far from developed countries. We (both society and the politicians) don't care much about their plight today, and we won't care about them in future either. That's why hardcore "green" politicians don't push the society for some serious change: because there's not much need to do so in developed countries. People wouldn't like the change, because it would make their lives clearly worse, while doing nothing won't make it significantly worse. Some people though like the mood affiliation brought by "green" people fighting for "climate", which is why the green politicians only need to hit those notes in their hearts to get the support. Making real change is optional.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
    This was my understanding until a few weeks ago. But reading up on the subject paints a different picture. With the non-linear changes likely to be hit soon. Things are going to get serious for us too, and likely noticeably so within the next decade.
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      Where did you read about these non-linear changes? Do these represent the climate change consensus, like e.g. IPCC?
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  If you have two politicians, and one of them tells you everything is fine and we don't have to do anything, and the other says you're going to have to pay more today to prevent some hypothetical future badness tomorrow even though they can't demonstrate the badness until tomorrow, people are skeptical of the thing that costs them money. Even if it's true. Then politicians want to get elected, so the one side moderates their position and the other doesn't. It's one of the reasons carbon tax + dividend might actually have a chance. If the dividend only goes to humans but the tax is paid by both humans and corporations, and it's revenue neutral, then the average real person is getting back more than they're paying. That's the sort of thing people like.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    It's one of the reasons carbon tax + dividend might actually have a chance. If the dividend only goes to humans but the tax is paid by both humans and corporations, and it's revenue neutral, then the average real person is getting back more than they're paying. That's the sort of thing people like. I don't think humans will get much back out of it. Most of what corporations are emitting is on behalf of the customers. All the cement factories that emit insane amounts of CO2 do it because that's what it takes to produce cement, which customers then buy. When carbon tax passes, the cement price will necessarily rise, which will offset some of the dividend gains. The exact amount of increase depends on the elasticity of the demand for concrete, but from what I can tell, there aren't really any substitutes for concrete that wouldn't also be hit by carbon tax (there's lumber, but most of what we currently build with concrete can already hardly be built with wood). This is not to say that carbon tax wouldn't have intended results: it would indeed shift the consumption towards less carbon-intensive products. However, I don't expect that average carbon dividend will be significant.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
      Prices going up is less direct, and thus likely less on people's minds, than "I'm getting a check from the government every month".
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
vladojsem 7y ago
That is true, people (and especially politicians) nowadays seem indifferent to climate change. Think about it, it is partly because of the narrative of the story. If you imagine a hypothetical situation that there is big asteroid flying towards the Earth and there is a 95% chance of the impact in 2050. The governments would finance and do everything to stop this impact, to look like saviors of the planet Earth. The consequences / or better the probability would be the same. However, the asteroid story is different, much more tangible.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > The consequences / or better the probability would be the same. No, they wouldn't, because the astronomers who would be predicting the asteroid impact have a track record of decades of extremely accurate predictions of the future trajectories of asteroids, checked in detail against actual observations. So if they ever were to predict an asteroid impact at some time in the future, that prediction would have extremely high credibility and would indeed warrant drastic action. Climate science, by contrast, has no track record of accurate predictions. The climate model predictions are falsified by the data. Plus, the actual impact of climate change requires not only predicting the climate, but predicting the economic and other consequences of changes in the climate, and we have even less predictive ability in those disciplines than we have in climate science. So when climate scientists squawk about future catastrophes, their predictions have extremely low credibility, and combined with their obvious self-interest, this is more than sufficient reason to ignore them.
  - vladojsem 7y ago
    > Climate science, by contrast, has no track record of accurate predictions. Are you serious? Did you hear about drilling into the ice to get the samples? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/29/scientists-to-take-old-ice-samples-for-climate-research-east-antarctica https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/29/scientis...
    - pdonis 7y ago
      Ice core data is not predictions.
vkou 7y ago
Because there's a lot of 'progressive'[1] governments that have committed to stopping climate change that are currently: 1. Not committed to turning down existing fossil fuel extraction. 2. Are actively committed to expanding fossil fuel extraction. They need to be called out on their charade, as frequently, and as loudly as possible. [1] Federal Liberal party of Canada.

std_throwaway 7y ago

There's lots of faulty reasoning going around society: * There is no climate change. * The temperature charts are rigged. * Scientists conspire to get more funding. * Dissenting opinions are suppressed by the mainstream. * Taxing CO2 is a way to control the economy and stifle growth. * CO2 is actually good for plants. * CO2 does not cause climate change. * If there is climate change, CO2 is only a minor contributor. * Humans do not cause CO2, nature does that. * Climate change is not caused by humans. * Climate change is not bad. * If it is bad, there is nothing we can do. * It's only bad for other people. * It will only hit us hard in the far future. * We cannot make compromises in our lifestyle or risk our economy. * We have invested much too much in fossil fuel technology to give it up. * Renewable energy is not feasible. It's a joke. Don't even think about it. * Solar cells cost more energy than they produce. * Batteries produce lots of CO2 during production. * Windmills will never harvest the energy that was needed to produce them. * Our electric grid will fail if we add too much renewable energy. * We cannot store enough electric energy. * Renewables can never work because they cannot produce energy on demand. * Even if renewables were feasible they would be too expensive. * Why don't we just build more nuclear plants? * Thorium will save us in time, so no hurry. * Fusion is only 30 years away, so why invest in renewables? ... this is only what came into my mind spontaneously and some points are really hard to argue, especially with non-technical people who do not see scientific facts as something solid but something that can be negotiated.

pojzon 7y ago
You forgot about: "Oil industry is totally not lobbing against any movement that could bring us closer to the solution"
- pdonis 7y ago
  What you call the "oil" industry is really the energy industry, and they really don't care which way things go as far as climate policy is concerned. They're set up to make money either way. Who do you think all those government grants for "renewable energy" research go to?
  - 7y ago

perfunctory 7y ago

I know that there are many climate depressed people on this forum, frustrated by the fact that nothing is being done and, at the same time, under the illusion that they themselves cannot do much about it. Yes you can. Eventually, the solution will have to come from the government. But the government won't act unless we demand it. - Change your lifestyle. Less flying, driving, meat. More non-electronically powered forms of play. - Divest fossil. Invest renewable. - Most importantly, get away from keyword and join other people. e.g. https://xrebellion.org https://xrebellion.org

abootstrapper 7y ago
I encourage everyone to check out Citizens Climate Lobby. Help us lobby for a carbon fee plus dividend. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
shanxS 7y ago
> Eventually, the solution will have to come from the government. I see your argument, but not sure if I agree with this part. If we/entrepreneur/engineers can figure 2 things: 1. Figure the engineering problem which would be something along the lines of: a. consume CO2 from air and use product something else b. bring alternative sources of energy at part with fossil fuels c. etc. 2. Figure a way to provide it as a service so that people can pay for it. We can fix it. Still doable without hoping for governments to come and bail us.
- perfunctory 7y ago
  This could have been a valid argument 30 years ago. We simply don't have time for "Figure the engineering problem" any more. We are at the point where we need firefighters, not fire safety consultants.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]