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And yet we'll continue to treat climate change as an inconvenience that can be addressed in 20 years, when - to quote Alex Steffen - we're not yet ready for wha

• curiousgal 5y ago
  Meanwhile some EU nations are opposing the classification of nuclear energy as green for ESG purposes.. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-four-others-oppose-classing-nuclear-green-eu-2021-07-02/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-four-others-...
  • hhfxxdfg 5y ago
    Without more nuclear power the hope of having a modern world without fossil fuels is futile https://reason.com/2021/07/02/to-stop-climate-change-americans-must-cut-energy-use-by-90-percent-live-in-640-square-feet-and-fly-only-once-every-3-years-says-study/ https://reason.com/2021/07/02/to-stop-climate-change-america...
  • xroche 5y ago
    This is even more hilarious: Germany oppose nuclear, which is the greenest energy source in terme of emissions, but managed to get funding to use "green" gas: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2042 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_...
    • whoknowswhat11 5y ago
      that is comical - funny to see how climate change doesn't really drive direct action even with environmentalists - looking into this they appear to be against nuclear while claiming carbon emissions are biggest issue?
      • Syonyk 5y ago
        That's about the shape of it, yes. They grew out of movements opposing nuclear power in the 60s, for various reasons (some of the weapons proliferation concerns were valid enough then, though a detailed understanding of fuel cycles and what does/doesn't generate usable weapons material seldom factors into the objections). As the concerns shifted, the environmental groups seem to have simply added on various new concerns without re-evaluating old points. So you end up with a lot of the groups now being in a weird state where they're against nuclear, opposed to carbon emissions, and don't actually seem to care much about the actual environment beyond "We have to find a way to keep industrial civilization powered without carbon, and without nuclear." Blowing off mountain tops to extract materials to do this doesn't seem to be a huge concern anymore, and that certainly seems it should fall somewhere under the banner of "environmentalism" - but you mostly hear crickets these days. If you're looking for something resembling a self consistent environmental group, you can read some of the stuff by the Deep Green Resistance people - their latest, Bright Green Lies, is a decent enough read on their position. That position, simply, is that industrial civilization is incompatible with the planet, and they do a decent job of arguing their position, which is that it doesn't matter how you power an industrial civilization, it does massive and irreparable damage to the planet as a result of the focus on energy and exponential growth. They look at the resource requirements to implement some of the forecast green futures ("We need 3M windmills? Ok, what does that look like in terms of steel, copper, rare earths, and how does that compare with the global production during the timeframe required to build them?") and come to some depressing conclusions. But even if you disagree with them, they show their work decently enough throughout and it's an interesting set of problems to think through. But in general, you'll find an awful lot of "Climate change is a huge problem; someone else really ought to do something about it!" style thinking in the environmental groups, and I'm pretty comfortable saying that if the last decade hasn't done much useful on this front, continuing the same thing for years to come will accomplish roughly the same "almost nothing." I'm also not at all sold with the "You can buy your way to green!" solutions that are peddled constantly by those who are interested in ensuring that, no matter what happens, the core of the modern consumerist economy won't be bothered. I'll gesture in the direction of the standard "worried about the climate" somewhat senior tech worker who has a million dollar home, a six figure car, absurdly expensive solar that offsets at least a bit of their power use on their roof, and who feels that they've consumed their way to green, without having really considered any of the resources that actually go into the vehicle, or lower energy/material alternatives to meet their needs. You can directly reduce emissions by simply using less, but this isn't really discussed these days. I don't see a good path out, sadly. It's very possible we've accelerated growth in a direction that is simply a dead end canyon with no valid paths out that maintain a lot of what we've developed.
    • jcfrei 5y ago
      A big part of the problem are the green parties themselves. They were in many cases started as a youth movement against nuclear power in the 60s. The basis of these green parties consists of people who are ideologically opposed to nuclear energy and their youth rebellion against it is now part of their identity. This is why the leadership of green parties cannot support nuclear energy even though opposing it is completely nonsensical at this point.
      • nicklecompte 5y ago
        European nuclear advocates really don’t have a satisfactory political response to Chernobyl and Fukushima. Truthfully, the best argument for nuclear power is an extremely unpleasant one: a bit of radioactive contamination (an immediate and visceral threat) is a small price to pay for the emissions offset (still a somewhat abstract and distant threat). The numbers check out but it is undeniably ghoulish. But pretending people are motivated by sheer hippie-foolishness is just an ignorant ad hominem. It is not “completely nonsensical” to oppose nuclear power, even if the argument is badly flawed. Chernobyl was a traumatic event for many Europeans and they are correct to be suspicious of claims that a proposed nuclear technology is actually safe. Being so condescending and dismissive doesn’t help anyone.
        • jcfrei 5y ago
          Calling my explanation condescending seems exaggerated. The opposition against nuclear energy makes sense if Chernobyl is your reference in terms of safety. But modern reactor designs are a lot safer than Chernobyl and Fukushima. That's why I'm calling it nonsensical - the skepticism was warranted at the time but it's outdated now.
          • akarma 5y ago
            I agree with you that your comment wasn't condescending like the above commenter suggested, but disagree about modern reactor designs. They'll always carry this risk. Sure, reactor design has changed since Chernobyl in various ways that help mitigate it, but what about Fukushima? Fukushima was devastating, and the result was the NRC asking US reactors to reconfirm their flooding and earthquake preparedness. I don't know of any measures taken in European countries. As climate change progresses, there could be some disastrous consequences, and it's unfair to say that the skepticism is outdated. This isn't to say that nuclear is worse than coal (it's not), but that it isn't just handwaving.
    • kergonath 5y ago
      It’s fine. They are going to get vegan gas from Greenpeace. I wish I were joking.
      • LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
        You mean like this? [1] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/discovery-racing-extinction-methane-bags-timelapse/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/discovery-ra...
    • elric 5y ago
      This issue is a tad more complex than the silly tropes of "greens oppose nuclear" and "greens claim gas is green". That's not quite what this is about. Nuclear is very slow to (up|down)cycle. It's very good at putting out a constant rate of power. Pretty cheap power, once it's operational and when conviently ignoring all externalities. However, having boatloads of cheap nuclear on the grid, means that there isn't much room for renewables at the same time. Which means they're often seen as a poor investment. Which means not much capacity gets added. You get the idea. What the greens want, is as much renewables on the grid as possible, as quickly as possible. You can't use nuclear as backup for intermittent renewables (clouds, lack of wind, etc) because it's too slow. That's why the gas peaker plants are a thing. Is this an ideal situation? No, of course not. Everything about the energy mix on the grid is a compromise. But it's slowly moving towards a situation where renewables become an attractive investment, which will hopefully lead to more green power.
      • xroche 5y ago
        So the idea is that: (1) Nuclear is cheap and makes renewable like solar and wind useless (2) Solar and wind require fossile fuels My take is that intermittent renewable are a scam and will never help us fighting climate change. More of them is actually bad.
  • sandworm101 5y ago
    Nuclear isn't truly green. It still involved mining, and industry that as of today does burn lots of hydrocarbons. Nuclear is certainly better, but it isn't 100% green. It could become green if we can manage to electrify mining and/or get uranium from alternative sources such as water. While I am a fan of nuclear power I don't think it is perfect nor totally carbon free. True renewables, when they are working, are still better than nuclear. Nuclear's niche is that 24/7 reliability that we need to gap-fill wind and solar.
    • curiousgal 5y ago
      I mean obviously it's not green but this particular classification is about financial investment. The bar for what is considered green could be lowered to encourage investment into those sectors.
  • LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Spain, Denmark, Austria, Luxemburg. Spain/Germany: https://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int https://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int Denmark: Much Wind and other 'greenery' Austria: Water, never did nukes, has one complete NPP without the hot-stuff as museeum now. Luxemburg: yawn?
• ipaddr 5y ago
  There is an inconvenient truth we all avoid when we throw out climate change. There is nothing you can do to stop climate change. If you stopped all Canadians from producing any greenhouse gases the wildfires will continue and no one will have noticed. When two countries are producing the vast majority you are at their mercy. If Canada wants to bully, bribe or shame a country into submission it has to get bigger and have a much bigger army. On the other hand you can't produce all of your products in China and try to shame when they have higher co2 levels. In the end anyone who has a cellphone supports climate change.
  • goodcanadian 5y ago
    There is such a thing as leading by example. It is imperfect, to be sure, but it does have an effect. At the moment, Canada is one of the worst countries in per capita greenhouse gas emissions, so perhaps, we can try to do a bit better before blaming other countries. Someone has to go first.
    • poutine 5y ago
      Lead by example? If you think China gives a crap about your example you’re horrendously naive.
      • jhgfddjn 5y ago
        Especially when you consider the economic impacts of "going first" it puts the CCP in a position where they're likely to gain the economic output you've banned, and then use that to gain even more of an upper hand against you
        • 0xB31B1B 5y ago
          What are you talking about. China has already “gone first” they drove solar costs down below fossil fuel energy production cost. The change to green energy and decarbonization is a huge Keynesian economic stimulus. Decarbonizing is not about impoverishing yourself it’s about modernizing everything with tools that are demonstrably better in almost every way using government backed debt. It’s going to be a huge driver of GDP growth for the next 25-50 years. The political blocker here is that a lot of members of the capital class are very invested in the current fossil fuel energy production paradigm and will have relatively less wealth on the other side of this transition. The reality here is we can and should use a nearly infinite amount of debt to finance decarbonization. Debt is “borrowing money from the future” and do you think anyone 50 years from now will be saying “I think we should have spent less money on decarbonzing?”, absolutely not. There is no world in which we can muscle the political will to spend that much money today, so for all intents and purposes consider it an unlimited credit line.
• fouc 5y ago
  Nice read. Covid-19 is another example of discontinuity, I'm surprised the author didn't mention that. Perhaps covid-19 prepared us for dealing with the larger discontinuity of climate change.
  • dukeofdoom 5y ago
    covid-19 was a test run for communist shortages. If you like waiting in lines, because the shelves are going to be empty. Then I suppose its good prep. Nobody except ideologues want that. Regular people want prosperity and abundance. Shortages tend to make life harder and kill people. When you need to jerry rig solutions to simple problems due to lack/restrictions of availability of products. Ontario locked down the dollar store during covid, so you couldn't buy even things like a flashlight. I can't imagine how many poor people ended up hurting themselves as a result. Also the terrible erosion of civil liberties, and empowering of authoritarian mandates.
    • Woberto 5y ago
      If anything, I saw shortages as a failure of the capitalist system by which shortages are caused by greed, particularly by those with more money. From my understanding with a more socialist system in place, people would be limited to purchase only what they need to make sure that there could be enough for everybody (which there definitely was)
      • dukeofdoom 5y ago
        A free market will take care of shortages, the higher price of a particular commodity will mean higher profits and incentives the production of that good. So it's actually opposite. Look for videos from the communist block countries, people were waiting in line to purchase things like bread and toilet paper daily. Its not the Utopia you have in your mind. Take air travel, right now there are extra costs of tests, and quarantine hotels in Canada, can add thousands to a potential trip. Making it financially impossible for many people to afford it. The rich and connected are not nearly as affected, they can still afford it. Or the government will leave loop holes for them to get around the laws. Litteraly
• Black101 5y ago
  Do you think that it's bad enough that it will do some major population control?
• macinjosh 5y ago
  It is difficult to care when we’ve been told since the 90s that the brink is only x years away and then nothing happens. Canada is huge 180 wildfires is nothing. The fact is that there is no peer reviewed scientific study that proves there are increased wildfires due to climate change. Assuming it is makes you the same as the folks who just assumed the pandemic was fake. It is anti-science.
• xwolfi 5y ago
  But this is not climate, it's weather. Like you look like a fool on a cold winter mocking global warning, maybe wait a bit to call summer fires in Canada hottest summer in recent memory a direct climate change effect, or it'll just be invalidated next coldest summer in recent memory... I remember forest fires in my country decades ago and they reduced a lot recently, so what, positive result of global warming and climate change, or good application of forest management ? Temperatures changing or ... anyway you get the point :D
  • alkonaut 5y ago
    There is no meaningful distinction between "average weather" and "climate". Enough weather observations is a climate observation.
  • bckr 5y ago
    > it'll just be invalidated next coldest summer in recent memory that's why scientists are using terms like global climate disruption or global heating. Hotter hots and colder colds fit the model.
• firestarter223 5y ago
  Neither heat waves nor forest fires are a new thing.
• itsoktocry 5y ago
  >And yet we'll continue to treat climate change as an inconvenience that can be addressed in 20 years According to the EPA, wildfires over the past 40 years are slightly down. Can you point to different data that ties these wildfires to climate change? https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-wildfires https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica...
  • cbsks 5y ago
    Are you just looking at the total number of fires in Figure 1? Figure 2 shows that annual wildfire-burned area has been increasing in the last 40 years. Figures 3, 6 and 7 also back that up.
    • tokai 5y ago
      I guess the larger the wildfires are the lower the number of individual fires are. When everything is burning there will be only one fire.
  • garyrichardson 5y ago
    Anec-data: I’m in my 40s and live in the Vancouver area. The first time in my life that I ever experienced a smoked in summer was about 5 years ago. Actual data: the link you posted shows a decrease in fires overall, but the size and damage of them increasing. I guess when the fires are so big and start merging your overall count goes down.
    • itsoktocry 5y ago
      >but the size and damage of them increasing Is your assertion that climate change is causing bigger fires, or could there be other contributing factors ie controlled burning, development etc?
      • jbay808 5y ago
        The #1 contributing factor in this case is the western pine beetle, which exploded in range when winters stopped being cold enough to kill them off, and left stands of dead forests in its wake. Climate change is a direct culprit.
• canadianfella 5y ago
  What does climate change have to do with wild fires?