3 ms·

Global warming isn’t going to go on hiatus for 50 years for new tech and power grids to be slowly foot draggedly adopted out of industry’s own volition. Califo

by mint2 4y ago

Global warming isn’t going to go on hiatus for 50 years for new tech and power grids to be slowly foot draggedly adopted out of industry’s own volition. California is being a climate leader and people are constantly naysaying and seem like almost like they hope CA fails. What should we do? sit back and let the world burn or make an effort to prevent it?

throwaway27727 4y ago
And the poor will be the first to be thrown out with the bath water.
rsj_hn 4y ago
The world is not going to burn if people use gas heaters. Not using gas heaters does not prevent anything bad from happening, or cause anything good to happen.
ars 4y ago
An electric water heater does NOT help the environment - quite the opposite, it makes things worse, since 38% of electricity is generated from natural gas, which is less efficient than just burning the gas at home. What should we do? We should build nuclear plants, at least a hundred of them. > almost like they hope CA fails. The California Air Resources Board (CARBS) is responsible for forcing everyone to use special gas nozzles that spill tons of gasoline, while pretending to prevent spills. See: https://fee.org/articles/the-epic-failure-of-the-government-gas-can/ https://fee.org/articles/the-epic-failure-of-the-government-... and https://fee.org/articles/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/ https://fee.org/articles/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/ The do not exactly have a reputation for intelligent decision making, rather they have a reputation for emotional decision making.
- Siddarth1977 4y ago
  Heat pump water heaters are drastically more energy efficient. Also, there are immediate air quality improvements from not burning fracked gas in your home. Also, recent research has shown that methane leaks happen far more than previously realized at every stage of the natural gas ecosystem, from initial extraction to pipelines to refining to residential usage, and every gram of methane is equivalent to something like 30 grams of CO2, so you need to consider the massive savings in warming from reducing that systemic leakage. Finally, it's important to get these processes started immediately. It's still going to take decades for this policy to result in the millions of houses updating their equipment, and we might be down to a far smaller percent of grid power coming from fossil fuels by then.
  - ars 4y ago
    > Heat pump water heaters are drastically more energy efficient. And also don't work in most of the United States. They are very slow, and only work in places with warm climates - in cold places they are dumping their cold into the living area, which then has to heat it. On top of that the incoming water is cold, and they don't do a good job heating it. I've looking into buying one, and they just don't work in cold climates. They could work in California, true, but are they mandating that? Nope. They are just eliminating gas.
- mint2 4y ago
  Libertarian anti regulation think takes are not a reliable source for opinions on new regulation. It’s like going to a peta or vegan website to see their opinion on whether more meat eating would be good.
  - ars 4y ago
    It was just the first result on Google. I have the same personal experience with those horrible CARB gas cans. You can google it if you need other experiences. I spilled so much gas using one of those CARB gas cans I couldn't believe it. I then went online and bought a normal spout and have not spilled anything since. Every since then I assume anything from CARB is going to be bad.
    - mint2 4y ago
      Quote from the starting paragraphs of an article on fee is like satire of libertarians “ I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice” Omg my toilet doesn’t use several gallons of water any more, it’s the horrible regs!!! I remember toilets from the 80s/90s. The ones I saw clogged easier than modern toilets and even better, they used so much water that when they clogged there was a significant chance they’d over flow. Yay poop water! There you go, one incident that shows the libertarian principle on regulations is terrible. If I use the logic from your comment that means all regulations are good, even although the example was niche. I’m not going to make that claim about all regs, there’s some bad ones but don’t get info from libertarians on what regs are good or not. Okay throw the baby out with the bath water if you will. Carb as a whole is terrible because of gas cans, one of a large number of things they’ve done?? And because of that all regs they are now proposing are bad? And for what it’s worth I used a new 5 gal gas can from CA recently and it was a little fiddly for sure but didn’t seem that bad … and I’ll admit it’s the first one I’ve used so I dunno. Maybe it is that bad and I had a good one but I’ll take a few missteps by Ronald Reagan’s regulatory agency since it means I can breath in LA. Where’s all that smog go?
- alamortsubite 4y ago
  Excellent advice, but in this case the libertarian anti-regulation think tanks are right: CARB compliant gasoline containers are a great example of how good intentions can have negative effects when decision makers are divorced from reality.
refurb 4y ago
As Europe is demonstrating right now, being green comes with significant consequences, which mostly fall on the poorest. Far better to provide incentives to switch to green sources and let people make their own decisions.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  As Europe is demonstrating right now, in their case using fossil fuels means being prone to blackmail by dictators, and worse: subsidizing some of those same dictators to wage war against Europe. Like so many people, the nations of the EU thought they still had time. Now, belatedly, European governments see it as a direct national security imperative to switch to non-fossil sources as quickly as possible. If as many people as possible switch, the price of fuel goes down (due to people not using it), and the cost of replacement systems also goes down (due to increased efficiencies of scale in production). This is thus also the best way to mitigate the consequences for the poor. It's still going to be an interesting winter.
- mint2 4y ago
  Walking freely into an alley with a mugger isn’t “being green”. Their foolhardy decision to become dependent on Russia is the cause of the current crisis, being green doesnt mean go buy Russian fissile fuels.
  - Kim_Bruning 4y ago
    As far as fissile fuels go, fortunately Russia isn't the only (or even the biggest/best) option. Many countries produce Uranium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...
    - mint2 4y ago
      That was a typo - meant to be fossil
      - 4y ago

by mint2 4y ago

throwaway27727 4y ago

And the poor will be the first to be thrown out with the bath water.

rsj_hn 4y ago

The world is not going to burn if people use gas heaters. Not using gas heaters does not prevent anything bad from happening, or cause anything good to happen.

ars 4y ago

An electric water heater does NOT help the environment - quite the opposite, it makes things worse, since 38% of electricity is generated from natural gas, which is less efficient than just burning the gas at home. What should we do? We should build nuclear plants, at least a hundred of them. > almost like they hope CA fails. The California Air Resources Board (CARBS) is responsible for forcing everyone to use special gas nozzles that spill tons of gasoline, while pretending to prevent spills. See: https://fee.org/articles/the-epic-failure-of-the-government-gas-can/ https://fee.org/articles/the-epic-failure-of-the-government-... and https://fee.org/articles/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/ https://fee.org/articles/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/ The do not exactly have a reputation for intelligent decision making, rather they have a reputation for emotional decision making.

Siddarth1977 4y ago
Heat pump water heaters are drastically more energy efficient. Also, there are immediate air quality improvements from not burning fracked gas in your home. Also, recent research has shown that methane leaks happen far more than previously realized at every stage of the natural gas ecosystem, from initial extraction to pipelines to refining to residential usage, and every gram of methane is equivalent to something like 30 grams of CO2, so you need to consider the massive savings in warming from reducing that systemic leakage. Finally, it's important to get these processes started immediately. It's still going to take decades for this policy to result in the millions of houses updating their equipment, and we might be down to a far smaller percent of grid power coming from fossil fuels by then.
- ars 4y ago
  > Heat pump water heaters are drastically more energy efficient. And also don't work in most of the United States. They are very slow, and only work in places with warm climates - in cold places they are dumping their cold into the living area, which then has to heat it. On top of that the incoming water is cold, and they don't do a good job heating it. I've looking into buying one, and they just don't work in cold climates. They could work in California, true, but are they mandating that? Nope. They are just eliminating gas.
mint2 4y ago
Libertarian anti regulation think takes are not a reliable source for opinions on new regulation. It’s like going to a peta or vegan website to see their opinion on whether more meat eating would be good.
- ars 4y ago
  It was just the first result on Google. I have the same personal experience with those horrible CARB gas cans. You can google it if you need other experiences. I spilled so much gas using one of those CARB gas cans I couldn't believe it. I then went online and bought a normal spout and have not spilled anything since. Every since then I assume anything from CARB is going to be bad.
  - mint2 4y ago
    Quote from the starting paragraphs of an article on fee is like satire of libertarians “ I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice” Omg my toilet doesn’t use several gallons of water any more, it’s the horrible regs!!! I remember toilets from the 80s/90s. The ones I saw clogged easier than modern toilets and even better, they used so much water that when they clogged there was a significant chance they’d over flow. Yay poop water! There you go, one incident that shows the libertarian principle on regulations is terrible. If I use the logic from your comment that means all regulations are good, even although the example was niche. I’m not going to make that claim about all regs, there’s some bad ones but don’t get info from libertarians on what regs are good or not. Okay throw the baby out with the bath water if you will. Carb as a whole is terrible because of gas cans, one of a large number of things they’ve done?? And because of that all regs they are now proposing are bad? And for what it’s worth I used a new 5 gal gas can from CA recently and it was a little fiddly for sure but didn’t seem that bad … and I’ll admit it’s the first one I’ve used so I dunno. Maybe it is that bad and I had a good one but I’ll take a few missteps by Ronald Reagan’s regulatory agency since it means I can breath in LA. Where’s all that smog go?
alamortsubite 4y ago
Excellent advice, but in this case the libertarian anti-regulation think tanks are right: CARB compliant gasoline containers are a great example of how good intentions can have negative effects when decision makers are divorced from reality.

refurb 4y ago

As Europe is demonstrating right now, being green comes with significant consequences, which mostly fall on the poorest. Far better to provide incentives to switch to green sources and let people make their own decisions.

Kim_Bruning 4y ago
As Europe is demonstrating right now, in their case using fossil fuels means being prone to blackmail by dictators, and worse: subsidizing some of those same dictators to wage war against Europe. Like so many people, the nations of the EU thought they still had time. Now, belatedly, European governments see it as a direct national security imperative to switch to non-fossil sources as quickly as possible. If as many people as possible switch, the price of fuel goes down (due to people not using it), and the cost of replacement systems also goes down (due to increased efficiencies of scale in production). This is thus also the best way to mitigate the consequences for the poor. It's still going to be an interesting winter.
mint2 4y ago
Walking freely into an alley with a mugger isn’t “being green”. Their foolhardy decision to become dependent on Russia is the cause of the current crisis, being green doesnt mean go buy Russian fissile fuels.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  As far as fissile fuels go, fortunately Russia isn't the only (or even the biggest/best) option. Many countries produce Uranium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...
  - mint2 4y ago
    That was a typo - meant to be fossil
    - 4y ago