4 ms·

How did I know the first comment was going to be some variation of "Ignore the data because the US is doing bad things and making the problem worse." Not everyt

How did I know the first comment was going to be some variation of "Ignore the data because the US is doing bad things and making the problem worse." Not everything is bad data or a conspiracy, sometimes it actually is progress, so stop whinging and take the fucking win for once.

aalleavitch 7y ago
When there's a massive profit motive for someone to lie to you about something, you approach it as if it were a lie. If it's a win I'll take it as a win, but I'm going to scrutinize it in the extreme before I go about taking anything that amounts to good PR for a corporate entity's political aims for granted.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  The actual data comes from an independent research group which is also publishing articles like this[0] and this[1], so I think it's safe to say the true researchers aren't just acting as corporate mouthpieces. [0] https://rhg.com/research/an-eu-green-new-deal-requires-a-far-higher-price-on-carbon/ https://rhg.com/research/an-eu-green-new-deal-requires-a-far... [1]https://rhg.com/research/hotter-poorer-and-more-unequal/ https://rhg.com/research/hotter-poorer-and-more-unequal/
acidburnNSA 7y ago
I'm just pointing out that we're switching from a crazy-high carbon source to a super-high carbon source. This isn't a climate solution. It's not a win. It's a distraction. We need to switch to low-carbon sources like solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, nuclear, and wind. Not fracked gas. Fracked gas is a high-carbon climate-change-causing fuel and needs to be treated as one.
- oh-4-fucks-sake 7y ago
  Agree like 80% here. I'd add that: Hydro: when, especially when used on rivers near coasts with migrating fish--isn't the panacea it was historically thought to be--it ruins the flow of nutrient-rich silt that feeds carbon-capturing flora and cuts off nutrients to small fish which hurts big fish and apex predators. Tidal: though great in theory--can do a lot of harm when installed naively on the coast in the middle of sensitive ecosystems--though I think some of the experimental deeper, further-offshore installations might mitigate that. Nuclear: I think we biffed this one for decades--and though the technology is there to make it work. There sadly just isn't enough political and public support anymore. Not to mention to scale up 100s of billions or trillions of dollars of nuclear plants could easily take 20-30 years--time that I don't think we have. Geo: Works great but only in specific regions. That leaves solar and wind as the biggest options that we can scale up quickly and can likely get political and public support for. N. Europe is killing it with its MASSIVE offshore wind installations and thank goodness solar continues to fall in price. In the US, anyway, I think the right liberal leadership could budget big for this and tackle a big chunk of the problem in 10 years. But, King Cheeto Fucktard is going to have to be out before that will happen meaningfully with Federal mondy. C'est la vie...
  - manfredo 7y ago
    Solar and wind needs to be coupled with a miraculous improvement in energy storage to be feasible. Currently, solar energy would be better called "natural gas supplemented by solar".
jellicle 7y ago
But there isn't any win. The US is switching from coal - which emissions are known and reported - to fracked natural gas, where the emissions from directly burning the gas are better but the overall emissions from producing it are much worse. It's just that the fracking process has no tracking of emissions. All that has happened is that emissions have shifted from reported to not reported. There's no climate win here.
- Lendal 7y ago
  I remember when my sports team finally turned things around and instead of losing by double-digit score differentials we were losing by single-digit score differentials. These were celebrated like wins, but yes it was still losing.

aalleavitch 7y ago

When there's a massive profit motive for someone to lie to you about something, you approach it as if it were a lie. If it's a win I'll take it as a win, but I'm going to scrutinize it in the extreme before I go about taking anything that amounts to good PR for a corporate entity's political aims for granted.

tomatotomato37 7y ago
The actual data comes from an independent research group which is also publishing articles like this[0] and this[1], so I think it's safe to say the true researchers aren't just acting as corporate mouthpieces. [0] https://rhg.com/research/an-eu-green-new-deal-requires-a-far-higher-price-on-carbon/ https://rhg.com/research/an-eu-green-new-deal-requires-a-far... [1]https://rhg.com/research/hotter-poorer-and-more-unequal/ https://rhg.com/research/hotter-poorer-and-more-unequal/

acidburnNSA 7y ago

I'm just pointing out that we're switching from a crazy-high carbon source to a super-high carbon source. This isn't a climate solution. It's not a win. It's a distraction. We need to switch to low-carbon sources like solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, nuclear, and wind. Not fracked gas. Fracked gas is a high-carbon climate-change-causing fuel and needs to be treated as one.

oh-4-fucks-sake 7y ago
Agree like 80% here. I'd add that: Hydro: when, especially when used on rivers near coasts with migrating fish--isn't the panacea it was historically thought to be--it ruins the flow of nutrient-rich silt that feeds carbon-capturing flora and cuts off nutrients to small fish which hurts big fish and apex predators. Tidal: though great in theory--can do a lot of harm when installed naively on the coast in the middle of sensitive ecosystems--though I think some of the experimental deeper, further-offshore installations might mitigate that. Nuclear: I think we biffed this one for decades--and though the technology is there to make it work. There sadly just isn't enough political and public support anymore. Not to mention to scale up 100s of billions or trillions of dollars of nuclear plants could easily take 20-30 years--time that I don't think we have. Geo: Works great but only in specific regions. That leaves solar and wind as the biggest options that we can scale up quickly and can likely get political and public support for. N. Europe is killing it with its MASSIVE offshore wind installations and thank goodness solar continues to fall in price. In the US, anyway, I think the right liberal leadership could budget big for this and tackle a big chunk of the problem in 10 years. But, King Cheeto Fucktard is going to have to be out before that will happen meaningfully with Federal mondy. C'est la vie...
- manfredo 7y ago
  Solar and wind needs to be coupled with a miraculous improvement in energy storage to be feasible. Currently, solar energy would be better called "natural gas supplemented by solar".

jellicle 7y ago

But there isn't any win. The US is switching from coal - which emissions are known and reported - to fracked natural gas, where the emissions from directly burning the gas are better but the overall emissions from producing it are much worse. It's just that the fracking process has no tracking of emissions. All that has happened is that emissions have shifted from reported to not reported. There's no climate win here.

Lendal 7y ago
I remember when my sports team finally turned things around and instead of losing by double-digit score differentials we were losing by single-digit score differentials. These were celebrated like wins, but yes it was still losing.