6 ms·

U.S. has entered unprecedented climate territory

45 points by makerofspoons 5y ago

yasp 5y ago
https://archive.is/Xiz2p https://archive.is/Xiz2p
engineer_22 5y ago
-> President Biden has identified cutting greenhouse gas emissions linked to rising global temperatures as one of his top priorities, insisting that a shift away from fossil fuels and to cleaner forms of energy also could create needed U.S. jobs. This argument that green energy creates new jobs... is this not a version of the broken-window fallacy?
- graeme 5y ago
  Not quite. It’s more of a political salve. “Look those jobs are going away, but we’ll also have other jobs with this new green energy”. Cutting carbon jobs can hurt specific areas quite a bit. A broken window fallacy would be more like “Let’s adopt this new green energy because it is currently less efficient on a cost basis and so will create new jobs” Or saying “green energy won’t cost anything because it will create new jobs”. Some people may be saying that one, but I think most people spouting the jobs line are trying to build political goodwill on places currently dependent on carbon jobs.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  If you replace a "perfectly good" coal plant with alternative energy, yes that's broken window fallacy. However, the coal plant is not perfectly good -- it has a massive amount of externalities that outweigh its benefits.
  - engineer_22 5y ago
    -> it has a massive amount of externalities that outweigh its benefits. Can you support this claim?
    - adrianN 5y ago
      You realize that coal plants produce CO2, right?
      - engineer_22 5y ago
        As well as poor people... So which is better, Hydrocarbon Power or Poor People? Forgive me for being facetious, but to make my position more clear: I think electrifying the country has had demonstrable benefits to our society. To claim the costs outweigh the benefits is dubious and requires support.
        adrianN 5y ago
        Electrifying the country happened a long time ago and had clear benefits. Continuing to emit GHGs happens today and has clear negatives. Alternatives are available, and switching does not increase the number of poor people. The cost of CO2 today outweighs the benefit of having to invest less into new infrastructure. Poor people, by the way, are those who are most affected by climate change.
        bryanlarsen 5y ago
        You make a really good point. There's a very clear link between electrification and well-being. 1) Coal pollution kills 10,000 people a year, most of them poor because no rich person would live close to a coal plant. So that's a massive cost weighing heavily on the benefits of coal electrification. 2) Wind & Solar power are cheaper than coal, and not just by a little bit. So much so that in some places the capital and operating costs of wind and solar are cheaper than just the operating costs of coal. In those places abandoning the coal capital is still a win. 3) Much of the capital costs of a coal plant are in it's steam plant and in its grid interconnects. That makes them superb places to turn other heat sources into electricity and great places to inject non-heat sourced green electricity into the grid. So we don't lose all the capital investment into our coal plants. 4) mitigation costs of a tonne of CO2 at $50-$300/tonne make it a no brainer. adaptation costs for climate change would be even higher. Bill Gates argues your point very strongly in his book. Before he was a climate change activist he was an activist for the health and welfare of the global poor. He understands the importance of electricity to the global poor and firmly rejects any solution that stops the progress of getting it to them.
- kbutler 5y ago
  Similar. It's more an example of the apocryphal economist anecdote - "if it's jobs you want, you should have them dig with spoons instead of shovels." https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ "More jobs" for the same production of goods/energy is less efficient and produces less total prosperity. You're better off using the most efficient means of production, and letting the other people produce something else of value.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - engineer_22 5y ago
    Well put. Nicely articulated. Perhaps... The moneyed participants in the Renewable Energy industry are economic frontrunners - preparing for what they see is an inevitable future of expensive hydrocarbons. While the Green Jobs are less efficient today, they speculate they will become more efficient tomorrow, and make them all rich. But this is hardly a marketable proposition to the millions of taxpayers who are being asked to stabilize their less-efficient market offerings, and so baser arguments are made.
- Glench 5y ago
  "Based on an extensive industrial and engineering analysis, our new report demonstrates that an aggressive national commitment to electrify all aspects of our economy would create up to 25 million good-paying American jobs over the next 15 years and 5 million sustained jobs by mid-century. This is the first analysis of the job opportunities that would result from a rapid and total decarbonization of the economy as a whole. Unlike other approaches, which tend to see climate change policy as primarily environmental in nature, the study also imagines the electrification of America as fundamentally infrastructure designed to power America and its economy in the 21st century." https://www.rewiringamerica.org/jobs-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/jobs-report
  - engineer_22 5y ago
    Thank you for providing this detailed and thoughtful analysis. "Job creation on this scale and at this pace is not without precedent. The U.S. followed avery similar path in mobilizing for WWII. Winning the war for the Allies had a total cost ofaround 1.5 1939 GDPs. Transitioning to a completely decarbonized energy system probablyhas a cost closer to just 1 2019 GDP of $22 Trillion. Recognizing the terrifying realities on the front lines of battle, and the deprivations at home, is this a fair comparison? "In the most simplistic analysis, only considering jobs in the energy industry, we cansee that decarbonization will produce at steady state a few millions more direct jobs thanwhat we are doing today with fossil fuels. In a more complete economic analysis based onthe typical methodologies for modeling economy-wide job creation we see the net creationof around 23 million jobs at the peak settling at around 4-6 million more jobs at steadystate (2040 and beyond)" 4 million net jobs represents an increased cost of $200 billion per year for the same level of service ($600/yr per US citizen). The article estimates the capital costs of decarbonization to be approximately $3 trillion ($9,000 per US citizen). Very good. We have a baseline understanding of the real costs of the project. Now what is the cost of the null alternative? Could we realized a decarbonized society without government intervention? Is this the most efficient use of capital?
newsclues 5y ago
If you mention Trump in the first sentence in an article about climate change, I assume it’s political drivel and stop reading.
- graeme 5y ago
  If you read the entire paragraph it says the normally annual report was delayed for three years, by Trump. We now get to see it for the first time. How could you explain why the report is novel without explaining the delay?
- eggsmediumrare 5y ago
  Why?
- amcoastal 5y ago
  Ironically your comment is closer to political drivel than the article.
  - whipaway 5y ago
    Isn't this precisely the type of comment that goes against site guidelines? Curiously, because of the ideological bent of many in the SV crowd, a comment like this evades the downvoting that the OP gets. It seems to me that there's a de facto ideological standard around flagging and downvoting, where certain people are allowed to pearl-clutch and pose opposing viewpoint as plainly absurd and lacking the dignity of intellectual consideration.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      Yes and OP started it with his comment which shows perfectly why the rules are as they are. That the later comment was also against the guidelines could easily be predicted.
      - whipaway 5y ago
        > and OP started it So really you're implying both comments should be downvoted and flagged?
spazrunaway 5y ago
What can the United States really do? They produce 15% of global CO2 emissions. China produces 30%, and is building new coal plants every year. Its coal consumption has tripled since 2000. Aside from Japan, Russia, and India, no other single nation produces more than 5% of the total. The entire EU produces 9%. Even if the U.S. and the EU immediately stopped emitting 100% of their CO2, would it have any real effect on climate change? China would make up the difference within a decade or two. The entire continent of Africa is ready to industrialize, and its population is projected to decuple to 10 billion by 2050. I don't blame people for being skeptical of the idea that America investing in green energy will save the world. It's a drop in the bucket.
- adrianN 5y ago
  The US and the EU are some of the biggest consumer markets. If they for example implement a carbon price and levy import tariffs for imports from countries who don't this will have a big effect.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    That would be more us versus them. China isn't worse than we (Europe and US) when we were "growing up". The fair choice would be giving benefits to wares made with green energy, not taxing wares. China didn't get the planets pollution where it is now. We did.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      During the industrial revolution in the west there were no alternatives. The story is different today. I don't see a difference between taxing CO2 and giving benefits to CO2 free products.
      - Dah00n 5y ago
        Yes but the alternatives are much easier for a country to afford, understand and build when at a lower tech level (like China compared to the US when old powerplants were build in China for example). The difference is that taxing something means less people are likely to buy it and when they do we make money, while giving a tax break make the product more competitive while costing us the income we might have had. One is a carrot, the other is a stick. It might not matter on income in the end but it will help push for greener products while taking the high road.
mfer 5y ago
The article offers a window into subtle antagonism. This is one of the elements causing division and lack of movement. For example, I know some people who love and want to preserve the great outdoors. They don't like litter and they want to treat the land well. A bunch of them happen to have supported Trump and Republicans. So, against their normal flow they argue against climate change. It's easy to get them to want to see change in fishing (over fishing and dragging nets is damaging coral reefs). It's hard to get them to get them to close on climate change. How we treat people makes a difference. It's helped fuel the people fighting against discussing or dealing with climate change.
latchkey 5y ago
Just a small data point. I just drove my campervan from Seattle to Bay Area. I took a lot of back roads (the tiny white lines on Google maps that are mostly dirt roads). ALL the rivers are dry. ALL the lakes are low. There is tons of fire scars from last summer. It is clearly going to be another terrible fire season.
darkhorse22 5y ago
Territory doesn't have "precedent." Perhaps the US has entered new, or uncharted territory.

45 points by makerofspoons 5y ago

yasp 5y ago

https://archive.is/Xiz2p https://archive.is/Xiz2p

-> President Biden has identified cutting greenhouse gas emissions linked to rising global temperatures as one of his top priorities, insisting that a shift away from fossil fuels and to cleaner forms of energy also could create needed U.S. jobs. This argument that green energy creates new jobs... is this not a version of the broken-window fallacy?

graeme 5y ago
Not quite. It’s more of a political salve. “Look those jobs are going away, but we’ll also have other jobs with this new green energy”. Cutting carbon jobs can hurt specific areas quite a bit. A broken window fallacy would be more like “Let’s adopt this new green energy because it is currently less efficient on a cost basis and so will create new jobs” Or saying “green energy won’t cost anything because it will create new jobs”. Some people may be saying that one, but I think most people spouting the jobs line are trying to build political goodwill on places currently dependent on carbon jobs.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
If you replace a "perfectly good" coal plant with alternative energy, yes that's broken window fallacy. However, the coal plant is not perfectly good -- it has a massive amount of externalities that outweigh its benefits.
- engineer_22 5y ago
  -> it has a massive amount of externalities that outweigh its benefits. Can you support this claim?
  - adrianN 5y ago
    You realize that coal plants produce CO2, right?
    - engineer_22 5y ago
      As well as poor people... So which is better, Hydrocarbon Power or Poor People? Forgive me for being facetious, but to make my position more clear: I think electrifying the country has had demonstrable benefits to our society. To claim the costs outweigh the benefits is dubious and requires support.
      - adrianN 5y ago
        Electrifying the country happened a long time ago and had clear benefits. Continuing to emit GHGs happens today and has clear negatives. Alternatives are available, and switching does not increase the number of poor people. The cost of CO2 today outweighs the benefit of having to invest less into new infrastructure. Poor people, by the way, are those who are most affected by climate change.
      - bryanlarsen 5y ago
        You make a really good point. There's a very clear link between electrification and well-being. 1) Coal pollution kills 10,000 people a year, most of them poor because no rich person would live close to a coal plant. So that's a massive cost weighing heavily on the benefits of coal electrification. 2) Wind & Solar power are cheaper than coal, and not just by a little bit. So much so that in some places the capital and operating costs of wind and solar are cheaper than just the operating costs of coal. In those places abandoning the coal capital is still a win. 3) Much of the capital costs of a coal plant are in it's steam plant and in its grid interconnects. That makes them superb places to turn other heat sources into electricity and great places to inject non-heat sourced green electricity into the grid. So we don't lose all the capital investment into our coal plants. 4) mitigation costs of a tonne of CO2 at $50-$300/tonne make it a no brainer. adaptation costs for climate change would be even higher. Bill Gates argues your point very strongly in his book. Before he was a climate change activist he was an activist for the health and welfare of the global poor. He understands the importance of electricity to the global poor and firmly rejects any solution that stops the progress of getting it to them.
kbutler 5y ago
Similar. It's more an example of the apocryphal economist anecdote - "if it's jobs you want, you should have them dig with spoons instead of shovels." https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ "More jobs" for the same production of goods/energy is less efficient and produces less total prosperity. You're better off using the most efficient means of production, and letting the other people produce something else of value.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- engineer_22 5y ago
  Well put. Nicely articulated. Perhaps... The moneyed participants in the Renewable Energy industry are economic frontrunners - preparing for what they see is an inevitable future of expensive hydrocarbons. While the Green Jobs are less efficient today, they speculate they will become more efficient tomorrow, and make them all rich. But this is hardly a marketable proposition to the millions of taxpayers who are being asked to stabilize their less-efficient market offerings, and so baser arguments are made.
Glench 5y ago
"Based on an extensive industrial and engineering analysis, our new report demonstrates that an aggressive national commitment to electrify all aspects of our economy would create up to 25 million good-paying American jobs over the next 15 years and 5 million sustained jobs by mid-century. This is the first analysis of the job opportunities that would result from a rapid and total decarbonization of the economy as a whole. Unlike other approaches, which tend to see climate change policy as primarily environmental in nature, the study also imagines the electrification of America as fundamentally infrastructure designed to power America and its economy in the 21st century." https://www.rewiringamerica.org/jobs-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/jobs-report
- engineer_22 5y ago
  Thank you for providing this detailed and thoughtful analysis. "Job creation on this scale and at this pace is not without precedent. The U.S. followed avery similar path in mobilizing for WWII. Winning the war for the Allies had a total cost ofaround 1.5 1939 GDPs. Transitioning to a completely decarbonized energy system probablyhas a cost closer to just 1 2019 GDP of $22 Trillion. Recognizing the terrifying realities on the front lines of battle, and the deprivations at home, is this a fair comparison? "In the most simplistic analysis, only considering jobs in the energy industry, we cansee that decarbonization will produce at steady state a few millions more direct jobs thanwhat we are doing today with fossil fuels. In a more complete economic analysis based onthe typical methodologies for modeling economy-wide job creation we see the net creationof around 23 million jobs at the peak settling at around 4-6 million more jobs at steadystate (2040 and beyond)" 4 million net jobs represents an increased cost of $200 billion per year for the same level of service ($600/yr per US citizen). The article estimates the capital costs of decarbonization to be approximately $3 trillion ($9,000 per US citizen). Very good. We have a baseline understanding of the real costs of the project. Now what is the cost of the null alternative? Could we realized a decarbonized society without government intervention? Is this the most efficient use of capital?

newsclues 5y ago

If you mention Trump in the first sentence in an article about climate change, I assume it’s political drivel and stop reading.

graeme 5y ago
If you read the entire paragraph it says the normally annual report was delayed for three years, by Trump. We now get to see it for the first time. How could you explain why the report is novel without explaining the delay?
eggsmediumrare 5y ago
Why?
amcoastal 5y ago
Ironically your comment is closer to political drivel than the article.
- whipaway 5y ago
  Isn't this precisely the type of comment that goes against site guidelines? Curiously, because of the ideological bent of many in the SV crowd, a comment like this evades the downvoting that the OP gets. It seems to me that there's a de facto ideological standard around flagging and downvoting, where certain people are allowed to pearl-clutch and pose opposing viewpoint as plainly absurd and lacking the dignity of intellectual consideration.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    Yes and OP started it with his comment which shows perfectly why the rules are as they are. That the later comment was also against the guidelines could easily be predicted.
    - whipaway 5y ago
      > and OP started it So really you're implying both comments should be downvoted and flagged?

spazrunaway 5y ago

What can the United States really do? They produce 15% of global CO2 emissions. China produces 30%, and is building new coal plants every year. Its coal consumption has tripled since 2000. Aside from Japan, Russia, and India, no other single nation produces more than 5% of the total. The entire EU produces 9%. Even if the U.S. and the EU immediately stopped emitting 100% of their CO2, would it have any real effect on climate change? China would make up the difference within a decade or two. The entire continent of Africa is ready to industrialize, and its population is projected to decuple to 10 billion by 2050. I don't blame people for being skeptical of the idea that America investing in green energy will save the world. It's a drop in the bucket.

adrianN 5y ago
The US and the EU are some of the biggest consumer markets. If they for example implement a carbon price and levy import tariffs for imports from countries who don't this will have a big effect.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  That would be more us versus them. China isn't worse than we (Europe and US) when we were "growing up". The fair choice would be giving benefits to wares made with green energy, not taxing wares. China didn't get the planets pollution where it is now. We did.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    During the industrial revolution in the west there were no alternatives. The story is different today. I don't see a difference between taxing CO2 and giving benefits to CO2 free products.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      Yes but the alternatives are much easier for a country to afford, understand and build when at a lower tech level (like China compared to the US when old powerplants were build in China for example). The difference is that taxing something means less people are likely to buy it and when they do we make money, while giving a tax break make the product more competitive while costing us the income we might have had. One is a carrot, the other is a stick. It might not matter on income in the end but it will help push for greener products while taking the high road.

mfer 5y ago

The article offers a window into subtle antagonism. This is one of the elements causing division and lack of movement. For example, I know some people who love and want to preserve the great outdoors. They don't like litter and they want to treat the land well. A bunch of them happen to have supported Trump and Republicans. So, against their normal flow they argue against climate change. It's easy to get them to want to see change in fishing (over fishing and dragging nets is damaging coral reefs). It's hard to get them to get them to close on climate change. How we treat people makes a difference. It's helped fuel the people fighting against discussing or dealing with climate change.

latchkey 5y ago

Just a small data point. I just drove my campervan from Seattle to Bay Area. I took a lot of back roads (the tiny white lines on Google maps that are mostly dirt roads). ALL the rivers are dry. ALL the lakes are low. There is tons of fire scars from last summer. It is clearly going to be another terrible fire season.

darkhorse22 5y ago

Territory doesn't have "precedent." Perhaps the US has entered new, or uncharted territory.