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The "...but they fly" comment comes up a lot. Flying results in 2% of global CO2 emissions a year. That's hundreds of thousands of flights a day over an entir

The "...but they fly" comment comes up a lot. Flying results in 2% of global CO2 emissions a year. That's hundreds of thousands of flights a day over an entire year. Coal powered electricity results in an incredible amount of green house emissions, and it's just plain bad for the environment. How about we stop complaining about flying and stop using coal? Please, note I didn't say fossil fuels, I said coal: https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-climate-change/ https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-... We might actually buy ourselves some real time on climate change.

goatinaboat 7y ago
“We” could stop using coal tomorrow and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. China’s out-of-control coal mine fires alone amount to more CO2 emissions than most countries and that is still a tiny fraction of their total. Flying is relevant because nothing undermines the message more than “you must curtail your lifestyle but I won’t mine”. Exactly how many climate summits have been held over videoconferencing? My employer has massively cut back on flying to meetings, we have a big screen in every meeting room instead, it works pretty well. Meanwhile politicians and celebrities refuse to cut back on private jets. There’s no truer form of climate denial than that!
- melling 7y ago
  "We" ... that's why I wrote the blog so I can stop repeating myself: "Buy from companies, and countries, that don’t use electricity from coal. Certify with either “Made with Coal Free Electric” or a nice little logo." US and European consumer buying choices can make a difference.
- kolinko 7y ago
  China's CO2 production per capita is half of that of US https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:CHN:RUS:IRN&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHN:RUS:IRN:POL:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    China's CO2 production per capita is half of that of US ... and their total emission is already double that of the US. Are you saying China take no action until they achieve parity per capita? I can think of no other reason you would mention “per capita”.
    - tzs 7y ago
      This has been explained to you before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596722
      - goatinaboat 7y ago
        Nice condescension, but the "per capita" argument is still complete nonsense. When China achieves parity "per capita" with the US - which it is on track to do within the next decade - but with 4x the population, will you finally understand?
        tzs 7y ago
        Unless you can make the case that the average person in the US is entitled to put more CO2 into the globally shared atmosphere than the average person in China, per capita is the only way to fairly access whether a country is contributing more or less than its fair share. Yes, it would be bad if Chinese per capita use rose to match US per capita use, because US per capita use is already way over what is sustainable globally.
        goatinaboat 7y ago
        The environment doesn’t care what anyone is “entitled” to and the West knows this and is a case study about how hard it is to reduce. I find it bizarre that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there and only then start to reduce, because they are “entitled to”. Of course, the West is already on that downward trend and China is soaring upwards with no signs of even plateauing. Within 10 years China will be technologically independent of the West and the West will have even less influence over its environmental policy than we do now.
belorn 7y ago
> Please, note I didn't say fossil fuels, I said coal: (link to an article arguing in favor of natural gas). Sadly, the science is not that simple. When calculating the green house emissions from natural gas we also have to include methane leaks during production. Depending on what numbers you use, around 30% of all methane emissions in the US come from fracking, and methane is 28 times worse than carbon. Combined the methane and carbon dioxide from natural gas is a bigger contributor to green house effect than coal. Of course coal is still very bad. If fracking contribute about 30% of the methane emissions, coal mining also contribute by around 9% and coal energy plants release about twice the amount of carbon in the air compared to natural gas. The numbers also get a bit more complex if one consider short term vs long term climate change. Methane residence time in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide, so after the current crisis of climate change the pollution that burning coal causes is harder to remove than natural gas. The damage however from climate change can be harder or impossible to fix, so its not a clear cut which of natural gas or coal is worse for our current situation. Best is just to keep both in the ground and use hydro, geothermal, and nuclear as base load and supplemental wind/solar for industries that can take advantage of variable energy production.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Methane's contribution to Global Warming is just not that large. Unless you change something that multiplies emissions by 5 or more, it's just not worth focusing on. The problem is almost entirely caused by CO2, and changing the focus from it is detrimental. Besides, the low residence time makes its contribution proportional to the rate of emission, instead of the total emitted (like CO2). That makes human-emitted methane a much easier problem to solve: if you start fighting it, the problem reduces. So, again, unless it's a large problem, it's not worth ignoring other sources to focus on it. So, yes, coal is most of the short term problem, and nearly all of the long term problem. Coal is also the only one available on enough quantity to become a catastrophic problem. It's also a hugely disproportionate problem at the local level. It is also the one with worst economic ramping-down possibilities. Coal is the problem to solve, and if it requires increasing our methane emission by some less than 100%, it is still a non-brainier. (Of course, on the next decades we will have to replace oil and gas by renewables anyway, or go without. And the sooner we do that, the better. But if it takes the focus away from coal, it better wait.)

goatinaboat 7y ago

“We” could stop using coal tomorrow and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. China’s out-of-control coal mine fires alone amount to more CO2 emissions than most countries and that is still a tiny fraction of their total. Flying is relevant because nothing undermines the message more than “you must curtail your lifestyle but I won’t mine”. Exactly how many climate summits have been held over videoconferencing? My employer has massively cut back on flying to meetings, we have a big screen in every meeting room instead, it works pretty well. Meanwhile politicians and celebrities refuse to cut back on private jets. There’s no truer form of climate denial than that!

melling 7y ago
"We" ... that's why I wrote the blog so I can stop repeating myself: "Buy from companies, and countries, that don’t use electricity from coal. Certify with either “Made with Coal Free Electric” or a nice little logo." US and European consumer buying choices can make a difference.
kolinko 7y ago
China's CO2 production per capita is half of that of US https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:CHN:RUS:IRN&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHN:RUS:IRN:POL:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  China's CO2 production per capita is half of that of US ... and their total emission is already double that of the US. Are you saying China take no action until they achieve parity per capita? I can think of no other reason you would mention “per capita”.
  - tzs 7y ago
    This has been explained to you before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596722
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      Nice condescension, but the "per capita" argument is still complete nonsense. When China achieves parity "per capita" with the US - which it is on track to do within the next decade - but with 4x the population, will you finally understand?
      - tzs 7y ago
        Unless you can make the case that the average person in the US is entitled to put more CO2 into the globally shared atmosphere than the average person in China, per capita is the only way to fairly access whether a country is contributing more or less than its fair share. Yes, it would be bad if Chinese per capita use rose to match US per capita use, because US per capita use is already way over what is sustainable globally.
        goatinaboat 7y ago
        The environment doesn’t care what anyone is “entitled” to and the West knows this and is a case study about how hard it is to reduce. I find it bizarre that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there and only then start to reduce, because they are “entitled to”. Of course, the West is already on that downward trend and China is soaring upwards with no signs of even plateauing. Within 10 years China will be technologically independent of the West and the West will have even less influence over its environmental policy than we do now.

belorn 7y ago

> Please, note I didn't say fossil fuels, I said coal: (link to an article arguing in favor of natural gas). Sadly, the science is not that simple. When calculating the green house emissions from natural gas we also have to include methane leaks during production. Depending on what numbers you use, around 30% of all methane emissions in the US come from fracking, and methane is 28 times worse than carbon. Combined the methane and carbon dioxide from natural gas is a bigger contributor to green house effect than coal. Of course coal is still very bad. If fracking contribute about 30% of the methane emissions, coal mining also contribute by around 9% and coal energy plants release about twice the amount of carbon in the air compared to natural gas. The numbers also get a bit more complex if one consider short term vs long term climate change. Methane residence time in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide, so after the current crisis of climate change the pollution that burning coal causes is harder to remove than natural gas. The damage however from climate change can be harder or impossible to fix, so its not a clear cut which of natural gas or coal is worse for our current situation. Best is just to keep both in the ground and use hydro, geothermal, and nuclear as base load and supplemental wind/solar for industries that can take advantage of variable energy production.

marcosdumay 7y ago
Methane's contribution to Global Warming is just not that large. Unless you change something that multiplies emissions by 5 or more, it's just not worth focusing on. The problem is almost entirely caused by CO2, and changing the focus from it is detrimental. Besides, the low residence time makes its contribution proportional to the rate of emission, instead of the total emitted (like CO2). That makes human-emitted methane a much easier problem to solve: if you start fighting it, the problem reduces. So, again, unless it's a large problem, it's not worth ignoring other sources to focus on it. So, yes, coal is most of the short term problem, and nearly all of the long term problem. Coal is also the only one available on enough quantity to become a catastrophic problem. It's also a hugely disproportionate problem at the local level. It is also the one with worst economic ramping-down possibilities. Coal is the problem to solve, and if it requires increasing our methane emission by some less than 100%, it is still a non-brainier. (Of course, on the next decades we will have to replace oil and gas by renewables anyway, or go without. And the sooner we do that, the better. But if it takes the focus away from coal, it better wait.)