5 ms·

Not hard to do if you outsource your energy production to Russia and others.

by abraxas 6y ago

kaesar14 6y ago
Why is this downvoted? Even if it’s wrong, can we please post sources as to why it’s wrong?
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Why don't you post sources as to why it's right first?
- firebaze 6y ago
  I didn’t downvote, but that’s quite a strong claim which would definitively benefit from at least one supporting source.
- esperent 6y ago
  Because it doesn't add anything except negativity to the discussion. There's no nuance, no sources, no reason why I should believe it. It's just a short, purely negative retort in the face of positive news.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    Alright, these calculations aren't done at the point of consumption but instead the point of production. The national based calculations hide the global chain of events and the interconnectedness of their economies through marketplaces. It's a much harder calculation to figure out who's to "blame" for say, the cost of an electronics device that uses a dozen countries to manufacture or say even a food that is sourced in one country, processed in another, packaged in yet another, and then consumed in a fourth... Do we assign everything to the point of consumption? That's not fair either. Distribute it over each? That's what we currently do but it problematically hides the relationship. The British are still consuming textiles, they just aren't domestically manufacturing them. They may even still own the plants, they're just in, likely, Bangladesh which is seeing a ~5% annual CO2 increase. That should matter if those things were made by the demand of British consumers but in our traditional models it doesn't go into Britain's bucket. That makes it an accounting trick with no clear way to resolve it. It would be like graphing the number of backyard burials for a culture that moved from the practice of backyard burials to cemeteries and mistaking it as if they somehow vanquished death and are now eternal except in a few very deadly places. We've moved towards globally centralized manufacturing. There's lots of citations that can be made but the way things work are way different now then say in 1960.
- p1necone 6y ago
  Verifying every claim you read on the internet is an impossible endeavor. It's much healthier for discourse if strong claims that aren't "general knowledge" for lack of a better term are ignored unless supplied alongside reliable sources or some sort of justification/explanation (and even then, making ridiculous claims and backing them up with heavily biased sources is a common tactic too). This is mostly necessary in politically charged topics (energy generation (because that relates to climate change) and mentioning Russia specifically were both red flags to me) because spurious emotive bullshit and deliberate misinformation are very common. This particular comment also didn't have enough information to be very useful - How much energy does the UK import from Russia? In what form? Has that amount changed recently? Why do you believe this is a bad thing? are all interesting questions the commenter could answer that would add to the conversation in a useful way.
  - ultramundane8 6y ago
    Sadly, "burden of proof" has never gained traction despite its essential nature. I really wish I were intelligent enough to systematize it, but billions of dollars have so far failed to establish procedures for sound reasoning. Or maybe just make those procedures commonplace.
  - Polylactic_acid 6y ago
    This is a really interesting take I have not really thought about. Almost all internet discussions are littered with these one liner bold claims. Are they true? I have no idea but people upvote them anyway because they sound possible and important. Often they are partially true but reducing the topic to one line removes the important details.
- Zenst 6y ago
  For many reasons - primary would be the confusions of production of electricity and source of fuel to produce aforementioned electricity. Then the actually source of that Gas. "However, in the UK, most of the natural gas imported comes by pipeline from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. There are no pipelines that allow Russian gas to flow to the UK from Norway (the biggest source of imports)." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- tobylane 6y ago
  I interpreted it as we (UK) are piped gas from Russia. We aren't, our gas is primarily from the North Sea. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431#:~:text=However%2C%20in%20the%20UK%2C%20most,the%20biggest%20source%20of%20imports https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431#:~:text=However...). (link jumps to the chart)
pippy 6y ago
The large outsourcing of pollution would also be heavy industry.
- Zenst 6y ago
  Are you saying the UK outsourced all it's heavy industry off-shore to cut-down upon emission locally?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    I doubt they're saying that the UK outsourced heavy-industry specifically to reduce on local emissions, but rather that one of the secondary effects of outsourcing heavy industry was to outsource pollution.
    - Zenst 6y ago
      I shared those doubts, hence asked for some clarity to avoid any subtext. Manufacturing is and always has been a complicated one. Until there is some global emissions tax upon products that factor in full material to consumer aspects from production and shipping emission - things will never change and the ability to have a local product cost 2x more than some imported one that has 10x the emission, is still going to play out until there is a true emission tax (not just carbon). Hence the whole emission/environment and humanity impacts of industry has no true global standard and the variance of those standards is a difference that we all end up paying the difference, albeit indirectly.
      - C1sc0cat 6y ago
        Could be abused as a non tariff barrier see the chicken tax on light trucks and other ways the us protects its local car industry.
        Zenst 6y ago
        Yet if the whole environmental factor of shipping/transportation and production emission standards are factored in - those cheap imports would become less cheap and negate the need to allow some local production to almost die before noticing that it's unfairly suffering due to it having to comply with a higher level of environmental and worker standards compared to some import. Hence you get workarounds happening like the example you mention about chicken tax - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax workaround that can play both ways, yet if there was a base-level standard and measure to balance things out, then such loopholes become less harder to happen, or needed. Alas the only common standards are weights/measures and currency, everything else does vary. As an aside, I dare say that the history of importing chickens into Europe is more fascinating than most imagined, and one that still plays on even to this day.
cel1ne 6y ago
"Where earlier reductions were largely negated by rising imports, the past decade has seen genuine cuts in the amount of CO2 for which the UK is responsible." - https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-the-uks-co2-emissions-have-fallen-38-since-1990 https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-the-uks-co2-emissio...
Camas 6y ago
UK carbon consumption (includes imports) peaked in 2007. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/882939/Consumption_emissions_March_20_v9.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
ascorbic 6y ago
This has been achieved not by buying energy from elsewhere (certainly not Russia), but from a reduction in the use of coal-fired power stations to effectively zero. They've been replaced by combined cycle gas turbine (which has far less emissions), biomass (the largest coal-fired power station now burns woodpellets), and a massive increase in offshore wind turbines. Here's the obligatory link to the UK's live electricity sources: https://gridwatch.co.uk/ https://gridwatch.co.uk/

Not hard to do if you outsource your energy production to Russia and others.

kaesar14 6y ago

Why is this downvoted? Even if it’s wrong, can we please post sources as to why it’s wrong?

renewiltord 6y ago
Why don't you post sources as to why it's right first?
firebaze 6y ago
I didn’t downvote, but that’s quite a strong claim which would definitively benefit from at least one supporting source.
esperent 6y ago
Because it doesn't add anything except negativity to the discussion. There's no nuance, no sources, no reason why I should believe it. It's just a short, purely negative retort in the face of positive news.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  Alright, these calculations aren't done at the point of consumption but instead the point of production. The national based calculations hide the global chain of events and the interconnectedness of their economies through marketplaces. It's a much harder calculation to figure out who's to "blame" for say, the cost of an electronics device that uses a dozen countries to manufacture or say even a food that is sourced in one country, processed in another, packaged in yet another, and then consumed in a fourth... Do we assign everything to the point of consumption? That's not fair either. Distribute it over each? That's what we currently do but it problematically hides the relationship. The British are still consuming textiles, they just aren't domestically manufacturing them. They may even still own the plants, they're just in, likely, Bangladesh which is seeing a ~5% annual CO2 increase. That should matter if those things were made by the demand of British consumers but in our traditional models it doesn't go into Britain's bucket. That makes it an accounting trick with no clear way to resolve it. It would be like graphing the number of backyard burials for a culture that moved from the practice of backyard burials to cemeteries and mistaking it as if they somehow vanquished death and are now eternal except in a few very deadly places. We've moved towards globally centralized manufacturing. There's lots of citations that can be made but the way things work are way different now then say in 1960.
p1necone 6y ago
Verifying every claim you read on the internet is an impossible endeavor. It's much healthier for discourse if strong claims that aren't "general knowledge" for lack of a better term are ignored unless supplied alongside reliable sources or some sort of justification/explanation (and even then, making ridiculous claims and backing them up with heavily biased sources is a common tactic too). This is mostly necessary in politically charged topics (energy generation (because that relates to climate change) and mentioning Russia specifically were both red flags to me) because spurious emotive bullshit and deliberate misinformation are very common. This particular comment also didn't have enough information to be very useful - How much energy does the UK import from Russia? In what form? Has that amount changed recently? Why do you believe this is a bad thing? are all interesting questions the commenter could answer that would add to the conversation in a useful way.
- ultramundane8 6y ago
  Sadly, "burden of proof" has never gained traction despite its essential nature. I really wish I were intelligent enough to systematize it, but billions of dollars have so far failed to establish procedures for sound reasoning. Or maybe just make those procedures commonplace.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  This is a really interesting take I have not really thought about. Almost all internet discussions are littered with these one liner bold claims. Are they true? I have no idea but people upvote them anyway because they sound possible and important. Often they are partially true but reducing the topic to one line removes the important details.
Zenst 6y ago
For many reasons - primary would be the confusions of production of electricity and source of fuel to produce aforementioned electricity. Then the actually source of that Gas. "However, in the UK, most of the natural gas imported comes by pipeline from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. There are no pipelines that allow Russian gas to flow to the UK from Norway (the biggest source of imports)." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tobylane 6y ago
I interpreted it as we (UK) are piped gas from Russia. We aren't, our gas is primarily from the North Sea. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431#:~:text=However%2C%20in%20the%20UK%2C%20most,the%20biggest%20source%20of%20imports https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43421431#:~:text=However...). (link jumps to the chart)

pippy 6y ago

The large outsourcing of pollution would also be heavy industry.

Zenst 6y ago
Are you saying the UK outsourced all it's heavy industry off-shore to cut-down upon emission locally?
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I doubt they're saying that the UK outsourced heavy-industry specifically to reduce on local emissions, but rather that one of the secondary effects of outsourcing heavy industry was to outsource pollution.
  - Zenst 6y ago
    I shared those doubts, hence asked for some clarity to avoid any subtext. Manufacturing is and always has been a complicated one. Until there is some global emissions tax upon products that factor in full material to consumer aspects from production and shipping emission - things will never change and the ability to have a local product cost 2x more than some imported one that has 10x the emission, is still going to play out until there is a true emission tax (not just carbon). Hence the whole emission/environment and humanity impacts of industry has no true global standard and the variance of those standards is a difference that we all end up paying the difference, albeit indirectly.
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Could be abused as a non tariff barrier see the chicken tax on light trucks and other ways the us protects its local car industry.
      - Zenst 6y ago
        Yet if the whole environmental factor of shipping/transportation and production emission standards are factored in - those cheap imports would become less cheap and negate the need to allow some local production to almost die before noticing that it's unfairly suffering due to it having to comply with a higher level of environmental and worker standards compared to some import. Hence you get workarounds happening like the example you mention about chicken tax - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax workaround that can play both ways, yet if there was a base-level standard and measure to balance things out, then such loopholes become less harder to happen, or needed. Alas the only common standards are weights/measures and currency, everything else does vary. As an aside, I dare say that the history of importing chickens into Europe is more fascinating than most imagined, and one that still plays on even to this day.

cel1ne 6y ago

"Where earlier reductions were largely negated by rising imports, the past decade has seen genuine cuts in the amount of CO2 for which the UK is responsible." - https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-the-uks-co2-emissions-have-fallen-38-since-1990 https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-the-uks-co2-emissio...

Camas 6y ago

UK carbon consumption (includes imports) peaked in 2007. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/882939/Consumption_emissions_March_20_v9.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

ascorbic 6y ago

This has been achieved not by buying energy from elsewhere (certainly not Russia), but from a reduction in the use of coal-fired power stations to effectively zero. They've been replaced by combined cycle gas turbine (which has far less emissions), biomass (the largest coal-fired power station now burns woodpellets), and a massive increase in offshore wind turbines. Here's the obligatory link to the UK's live electricity sources: https://gridwatch.co.uk/ https://gridwatch.co.uk/