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JP Morgan economists warn of 'catastrophic' climate change
- vzidex 7y agoReminds me of the joke whose punchline is that if we transition to renewable energy and go carbon-neutral we'll have gotten ourselves off of oil and its related issues (spills, war, etc.) for nothing [1]. Even if you don't believe in climate change - which I do not think is a reasonable position at this point - I would hope we can all agree that not having to rely on oil any more is a good enough economic incentive for everyone. [1] https://solar-power-now.com/what-if-we-create-a-better-world-for-nothing/ https://solar-power-now.com/what-if-we-create-a-better-world...
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoJust a quick nit, but we make a lot of plastics and things out of oil, and iirc it’s still the most dense and stable form of energy we have. Far more so than any battery technology even on the horizon. Even if renewables were 100% perfect tomorrow, there will still be people / groups / applications for that oil. It’ll just last much longer before we run out.
- TOGoS 7y agoYep. Even more reason to conserve it for cases where we actually need it. Plastic is tremendously useful, though we could probably use a lot less of it, too. Particularly in the ocean.
- jacquesm 7y agoOne more reason to not burn it.
- zdragnar 7y agoCrude oil is distilled (refined), not generally burned. The result is several products, all of which are used for different purposes. Naptha is best suited for plastic production; gasoline is a different chemical makeup. Also, a good chunk of plastic can be produced from natural gas, using ethylene instead of the naptha from crude oil.
- wilg 7y agoOne more reason to not refine then burn it!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoYea, I agree. But what about the FACT that it's so much denser of an energy source than any battery we have? The straight up truth is that right now, unless there is so amazing innovation, we are going to use every drop. In the short term at least the world's militaries will burn as much oil as they can. Regardless of what you hear in press releases, major industry, military, aerospace will not move from oil until there is a performance reason, not ethical not cost reason to do so.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoBatteries aren’t an energy source, they’re an energy storage device.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoGuess what? We use oil as an energy storage device. So are you making the argument that fuel/oil is a battery or are you just being pedantic and don’t have a counter the truth that we’re going to use it all - the only question is over what time period.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoIf we introduce a carbon tax, militaries would have an economic incentive to reduce carbon, just like everyone else.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoYou believe that? You don’t know that the first exemption would be military and national security?
- leftyted 7y agoThat joke boils down to "just do what we say even if we're wrong". That message isn't going to fly with a lot of people, especially in the US, where many are deeply suspicious of the government. Reminds me of Steve Bannon telling some Republican congressman "look, you really have no choice, you have to support this proposal". To which the guy replied "last time someone told me I had to do something I was 18 and it was my daddy, and I didn't listen then either". "Do what we say or we all die" is also not a great message...even if it's true (which, personally, I doubt).
- tsimionescu 7y agoHow can you possibly doubt that? What have you seen to convince yourself that catastrophic climate change is not real? Or perhaps you're taking the other rational position - that even if we did what they say, we'll still die... Oh, and the joke boils down to no such thing. It is very explicitly 'even if we were somehow wrong about climate change, there are so many other huge advantages to getting rid of fossil fuels'.
- leftyted 7y agoMy understanding is that "we're all going to die" is not a widely accepted view among climate scientists. I am skeptical of "catastrophic climate change leading to the end of life as we know it or the extinction of humanity" e.g. Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth. Anyway, my point was simple. If you want to sell people on "huge advantages to getting rid of fossil fuels" then sell them on that. Don't use a stick when you could use a carrot. This stuff is political. It's about persuasion, personal relationships, talking to people like they're not idiots (even if they are), showing respect, and so on. It's not about being right.
- mlaretallack 7y ago"It's not about being right." This is the best advice to all sides. I have found in the past that the best way to convince people is not to try to "convince" them that my "view" is correct but to listen to their views. I call this being a "Cardboard engineer". It does not work for everyone.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoThis totally ignores nuclear energy. If we are really in for "catastropic" climate change, then one of the things you can do is quickly build crappy, unsafe nuclear power plants. Even if you have a Chernobyl somewhere in the world every 5 years, you are still probably better off than with catastrophic climate change. Basically, it is this thinking that makes a lot of people suspicious about climate change. If all things that you would do to combat climate change are things the progressives/environmentalists want to do anyway (increase taxes, more government regulation of industry, more urbanization, more public transportation, etc) and nothing that they would not want to do, people on the other side of the political spectrum have their bs detector go off.
- buzzkillington 7y agoThere are a lot of people, like myself, who would love nothing more than having 100% nuclear power and understand climate change. Unfortunately the left is as anti-science as the right when it comes to their sacred cows.
- cryptica 7y agoI support climate change and the extinction of the human species so I think the future is looking really good.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- avmich 7y agoWhen one tries to analyze pros and contras of nuclear energy, he can get conflicting data. Some say "overall modern nuclear beats handily anything", other say "nuclear is good only if you omit externalities like problem of spent fuel". Both sides provide data which supports their point of view, without explaining the data of the other side. So it's hard to make a reasonable judgement.
- animalnewbie 7y agoTo continue what you're saying, why not put these plants in deserts and other uninhabited regions? Russia is huge, China is 80% empty, America is sparse, Australia is 95% percent empty and India has a desert too. Power supply would be an issue but can be solved. (Numbers likely hyperbolic). Instant solution of middle East problem. Perhaps that's why? Maybe Mideast is what stops nuclear plants, just like saudis, via Citibank, decided Obama cabinet?
- Udik 7y ago> I would hope we can all agree that not having to rely on oil any more is a good enough economic incentive for everyone. It is an economic incentive, but whether it's "good enough" depends on the costs of the transition- which are certainly dependent on how quick it needs to be.
- TamDenholm 7y agoDespite this being an extremely serious statement and should be considered as such, I feel this is also like stating the obvious. Like isn't this something everyone is fully aware of, despite the human race as a whole not doing anywhere near enough to combat it? I'd like to hear less statements of "our house is on fire" and more "I'm getting a bucket of water". Let's concentrate on the doing...
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago> Like isn't this something everyone is fully aware of The only way someone could not - is if the messaging was so over the top and such doomsday that it turned people off of taking it seriously. I hope we don’t get there!
- busymom0 7y agoWe are already there. Look at the headline of this post. That's exactly what the doomsday fear mongering is.
- jacquesm 7y agoYou wish.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoI don't get it. Why would anyone wish that?
- TheRealSteel 7y agoNo, it's the truth, and if anything it's an understatement.
- polotics 7y agoAt any step of our descent from now on and for between one to two centuries, any fully accurate predictions on the state of the climate system twenty year hence will be seen as doomsday fear mongering by many. However doom is never evenly distributed, unless you were in a few select Australian, Californian or African places this year, you missed it. In order to confirm or deny the statements above you need to invest about ten hours of your time to get to the facts. The IPCC report's Working Group One output is a good start.
- busymom0 7y agoI shall wait until banks start offering deep discounts for properties at ocean sides. This type of fear mongering is bad.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoWell I don’t know about deep discounts but the housing market in Florida is already changing because of climate change concerns. Historically black neighborhoods on higher ground are gentrifying as developers see opportunity diminish at sea level. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-ground-is-becoming-hot-property-as-sea-level-rises/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-ground-is-be...
- david_draco 7y agoShouldn't they make recommendations how to invest to reduce the economic fall-out of climate change? Mitigating climate change (by replacing ACs, finding alternatives to concrete, adding a carbon tax) from the current +6° trajectory to +5° or +4° or +3° or +2° has benefits for human health, cooling, crops, political stability, energy production and many more, all associated with high costs in case of no mitigation. Why don't very large financial institutions that plan out for the next 20-40 years speak up?
- tomrod 7y agoLack of political will and discipline. I know this area well and this group somewhat (no current affiliation with them anymore). I think we are entering the adaption phase where forecasts lose viability. Not because the science is wrong, but because the human element is unpredictable without defined geography.
- lvs 7y agoDriving up fossil fuel prices would be a good way to kick the habit. Stop giving them easy capital in loans, investments, low interest rates, and cheap insurance to fund their growth. You know, a financial tourniquet.
- thinkingkong 7y agoHere's a fun thought experiment. Let's just say we shifted our demand for lots of the climate change contributors. From what I can gather the top contributors would be liquid fuels, solid fuels, and gaseous fuels. Right off the bat we know we can cut coal and shift to other technologies. But in the case where we want to shift our liquid fuel consumption, things get tricky. For example, we might be able to move our entire car fleet to electric, but we're still way far off from doing that for planes. So at some point in the future, we'll still need jet fuel, but we'll have reduced our demand for gasoline tremendously. They come from the same source and happen as part of the same process. So what happens when gasoline costs negative dollars?
- mosselman 7y agoTransportation is not the only thing that threatens the environment. In fact, the clothing industry and farming are harming the environment more than driving our cars is as far as I know.
- cagenut 7y agoSorry not so. Here's a graph that breaks emissions down by economic sector: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#co2-emissions-by-fuel https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... Here's the breakdown within the US by economic sector, and then the Transportation sector broken down by vehicle type: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-... Clothing and red-meat are particularly acute impact activities of wealthy western lifestyles, but its very hard to top cars. The very thing they do is oxidize hydrocarbons.
- mosselman 7y agoThanks, good to know when I am wrong. > but its very hard to top cars I haven't found cars specifically in your links and I doubt that private cars are one of the biggest pollutants. Also, stressing that I am not countering your point, CO2 is not the only factor of course. The clothing industry, as well as the chemical industry, is responsible for pumping lots of toxins into the water, which is also bad.
- taclim4647 7y agoNah, the parent poster is right. No matter how desperately you may want to think of yourself as a steely-eyed badass who fearlessly speaks hard realities, you aren’t.
- timwaagh 7y agoI think this should be old news by now. Yes, climate change will cause economic damage. And well, quite a big number, because it is well, rather global in scale and this is economics, where numbers tend to be big anyways. No, there is no solution to be bought off the rack. Even measures to migitate economic damage will cause economic damage (and different actors will pay it). The damage caused will be on a lot of levels, hard to measure and there is nothing to be done about it. How much damage we dont know. will your business be affected? probably. how much? we dont know. should you care? possibly, we dont know. It is impossible to make decisions based on such vague assertions.
- polotics 7y agoMaybe we could get some experts to quantify the costs and risks, then make a decision based on that?
- alfiedotwtf 7y agoJP Morgan is out to make money... either someone paid them to write the report, or they’ve gone heavily into renewables in the past few months and this report is part of the pump.
- refurb 7y agoYup! They smell money to be made, so they are jumping on board.
- alfiedotwtf 7y agoDownvotes. Really? Damn some of you are naïve
- polotics 7y agoYou are right that this being a bank it is about money, but I think that you miss the liabilities angle: JPM is also out to not lose money, and investors that come back to them with newly worthless triple-A rated coal-industry bonds need to have a retort ready: "you did not read our report!"
- m0zg 7y agoIn 20-30 years when we have fusion, and essentially unlimited energy that comes with it, all of the bickering here will look ridiculous. In the meanwhile, here's what I think about this story specifically: https://dilbert.com/strip/2017-05-14 https://dilbert.com/strip/2017-05-14