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> US emissions are declining per capita Because we have continually outsourced our emissions to China while still reaping the financial benefits of expoiting r

> US emissions are declining per capita Because we have continually outsourced our emissions to China while still reaping the financial benefits of expoiting resources in those countries. I know there are studies that try to account for this but they still fail to look at the bigger picture of resources we have outsourced. Cheap and large scale manufacturing in China has meant enormous benefits for the US economy. We see a decoupling of GDP and energy because we are playing tricks with accounting. > We really do have the opportunity to change our behavior and keep a planet that is as welcoming to us as it is today. First we are absolutely locked into increasing global warming from emissions, so we have without question given up on a planet as welcoming as today. We do have an opportunity to change our behavior, I have repeatedly said that, but that means actually reducing fossil fuel usage, globally and immediately. As I have said, the US can reduce global emissions because we have seen the US do this twice: April 2020 and 2008. > a lot of hope and a lot of reason to take action now There's reason to take action now, but since you won't even accept the notion that you might have to reduce your standard of living, at least until renewables catch up again, means we are not going to change our path. I had these exact conversations in 2006, and very similar ones in the 1990s (though people were less sure of the extreme risks then). The IPCC reports have been for years considered by many to be far too optimistic, and again those people have been proven correct over and over again (until recently they didn't consider positive feed backs and also assume scalable CCS). At what point would you admit you are wrong? I'll admit I'm wrong if we see three years of decreasing global emissions starting this year and reduced global emissions by 20% in the next 5 years. These aren't enough to get us to our required goals, but if I see this I'll still be shocked and admit I've been too skeptical. Currently I believe this would only happen with a catastrophic financial crisis (which may be the only way we can avoid climate catastrophe).

epistasis 5y ago
> Because we have continually outsourced our emissions to China while still reaping the financial benefits of expoiting resources in those countries. That's simply not true. The chart I linked is CO2 accounting based on consumption, not US production, it takes into account Chinese emissions for US consumption. > There's reason to take action now, but since you won't even accept the notion that you might have to reduce your standard of living, Sorry, what? What do you know about what I want to do? My preferred life would be considered a "reduced standard of living" to many Americans, because I want to live car-free in a walkable neighborhood. > At what point will you admit you are wrong? When there's evidence that a position I have taken is wrong. Start sending me data!! Will you admit that emissions have decreased, even accounting for moving production to China? Will you admit that we have cleaner energy sources ready to deploy that will replace fossil fuels, if we choose to do so? Will you admit that we can develop alternatives to industrial processes that generate non-fossil-fuel emissions? Will you admit that we can switch disastrous land use policies that reduce the ability of the ecosystem to sequester CO2? These are all possible without a drastic reduction in the quality of life. The question is how quickly we can make that transition. At this stage in the game, nihilism is as bad as denialism. We need to make drastic drastic change, and I am doing so in my personal life, but personal action is no substitute for changing the system.
baron_harkonnen 5y ago
@epistasis In response to this point, which is frequently brought up: > The chart I linked is CO2 accounting based on consumption, not US production, it takes into account Chinese emissions for US consumption. While it is certainly the case that measuring consumption is much better than measuring production, it fails to account for a lot emissions. For example in the manufacture of solar PV, the solar panels themselves are counted, but since the companies manufacturing and processing the silicon need for these are in China selling to other Chinese companies, that is not counted even though all those fossil fuels used are used exclusively for the benefit of American companies. That doesn't even address the issue of US companies bringing in capital for various foreign investments. If VCs make money in a Chinese company and then reinvest in your startup that money in our economy was generated with fossil fuels. The best proxy to GHG emissions is still dollars, both on individual and nation state levels. > Will you admit that we have cleaner energy sources ready to deploy that will replace fossil fuels, if we choose to do so? This is not an issue of willing. "Green" energy has only been used to supplement fossil fuel usage. Year over year global usage of every fossil fuel, of every source of energy for that matter has continue to increase: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio... Renewables are feeding a greater part of our electrical grid in the US but are still a tiny part of our energy budget: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2020_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... We are building renewables as fast as we can and it's not enough because so far it's not replacing anything. The only way to reduced GHG emission is to reduce fossil fuel usage, immediately. We've made tremendous expansion of renewable energy and it has not touched fossil fuel usage. If we stop fossil fuel usage today, or drastically reduce it, we will experience incredible global economic pangs. > nihilism is as bad as denialism There is an important form of Nihilism that many existentialists talk about which is the nihilism of pretending your action had meaning. Putting on a tie and going to work, pretending that work is real and meaningful when you know that ultimately your life is meaningless. There's a great irony that if everyone collectively agreed we are doomed, our economic activity and emissions would likely also cool down. Our frenzied consumer activity is driven by an ideology that says tomorrow will always be better. If we let go of that we likely would live more relaxed lives in the developed world. And, again, all I am saying is the only way to reduce GHG is to globally reduce emissions and we are not doing that at all. You can claim that the US is somehow separate from China's emissions, but you can see a global dip in emissions in 2008. I can think of no better experiment on the interconnected nature of emissions than to see how a housing crisis in the US becomes a global economic down turn which sees the most promising drop in emissions we have ever seen. Arguably the only other solution is accelerationism, where we push economic systems to collapse faster... which is maybe what you're really going for.

epistasis 5y ago

> Because we have continually outsourced our emissions to China while still reaping the financial benefits of expoiting resources in those countries. That's simply not true. The chart I linked is CO2 accounting based on consumption, not US production, it takes into account Chinese emissions for US consumption. > There's reason to take action now, but since you won't even accept the notion that you might have to reduce your standard of living, Sorry, what? What do you know about what I want to do? My preferred life would be considered a "reduced standard of living" to many Americans, because I want to live car-free in a walkable neighborhood. > At what point will you admit you are wrong? When there's evidence that a position I have taken is wrong. Start sending me data!! Will you admit that emissions have decreased, even accounting for moving production to China? Will you admit that we have cleaner energy sources ready to deploy that will replace fossil fuels, if we choose to do so? Will you admit that we can develop alternatives to industrial processes that generate non-fossil-fuel emissions? Will you admit that we can switch disastrous land use policies that reduce the ability of the ecosystem to sequester CO2? These are all possible without a drastic reduction in the quality of life. The question is how quickly we can make that transition. At this stage in the game, nihilism is as bad as denialism. We need to make drastic drastic change, and I am doing so in my personal life, but personal action is no substitute for changing the system.

baron_harkonnen 5y ago

@epistasis In response to this point, which is frequently brought up: > The chart I linked is CO2 accounting based on consumption, not US production, it takes into account Chinese emissions for US consumption. While it is certainly the case that measuring consumption is much better than measuring production, it fails to account for a lot emissions. For example in the manufacture of solar PV, the solar panels themselves are counted, but since the companies manufacturing and processing the silicon need for these are in China selling to other Chinese companies, that is not counted even though all those fossil fuels used are used exclusively for the benefit of American companies. That doesn't even address the issue of US companies bringing in capital for various foreign investments. If VCs make money in a Chinese company and then reinvest in your startup that money in our economy was generated with fossil fuels. The best proxy to GHG emissions is still dollars, both on individual and nation state levels. > Will you admit that we have cleaner energy sources ready to deploy that will replace fossil fuels, if we choose to do so? This is not an issue of willing. "Green" energy has only been used to supplement fossil fuel usage. Year over year global usage of every fossil fuel, of every source of energy for that matter has continue to increase: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution?country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio... Renewables are feeding a greater part of our electrical grid in the US but are still a tiny part of our energy budget: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2020_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... We are building renewables as fast as we can and it's not enough because so far it's not replacing anything. The only way to reduced GHG emission is to reduce fossil fuel usage, immediately. We've made tremendous expansion of renewable energy and it has not touched fossil fuel usage. If we stop fossil fuel usage today, or drastically reduce it, we will experience incredible global economic pangs. > nihilism is as bad as denialism There is an important form of Nihilism that many existentialists talk about which is the nihilism of pretending your action had meaning. Putting on a tie and going to work, pretending that work is real and meaningful when you know that ultimately your life is meaningless. There's a great irony that if everyone collectively agreed we are doomed, our economic activity and emissions would likely also cool down. Our frenzied consumer activity is driven by an ideology that says tomorrow will always be better. If we let go of that we likely would live more relaxed lives in the developed world. And, again, all I am saying is the only way to reduce GHG is to globally reduce emissions and we are not doing that at all. You can claim that the US is somehow separate from China's emissions, but you can see a global dip in emissions in 2008. I can think of no better experiment on the interconnected nature of emissions than to see how a housing crisis in the US becomes a global economic down turn which sees the most promising drop in emissions we have ever seen. Arguably the only other solution is accelerationism, where we push economic systems to collapse faster... which is maybe what you're really going for.