4 ms·

Russia is flaring gas near the border, meanwhile across the border, countries are buying LNG and coal.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Russia is flaring gas near the border, meanwhile across the border, countries are buying LNG and coal. Isn't methane a much worse greenhouse has than CO2? If Russia could vent it safely without burning it, that might be another way to put pressure on the EU: undermine their climate change goals, which they surely care about far more than Russia does. It might nudge green/environmentalist parties towards opposing further support for Ukraine and a negotiated peace on Russia's terms.
- CameronNemo 4y ago
  So you think greens are going to want to make a deal with the guy purposefully leaking methane? Maybe some of the people in Stockholm will want that...
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > So you think greens are going to want to make a deal with the guy purposefully leaking methane? Maybe some of the people in Stockholm will want that... If they did make a deal, I don't think they'd do so happily. But if you think that climate change is an existential threat and and addressing it now is the highest priority, then you may have very little choice but to make a deal like that or suffer a major priority inversion error (like pausing an airplane's fly-by-wire application mid-flight to defrag its book disk).
    - CameronNemo 4y ago
      You can't make a deal in that situation without inviting literally everyone on the planet to threaten to leak methane or else. It sets a precedent. The only option is the Coasian threat.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > You can't make a deal in that situation without inviting literally everyone on the planet to threaten to leak methane or else. > It sets a precedent. Yeah, but so what? Is "not setting a precedent" a higher priority than failing to address the "existential threat" of climate change? > The only option is the Coasian threat. https://www.google.com/search?q="Coasian+threat" https://www.google.com/search?q="Coasian+threat": Your search - "Coasian threat" - did not match any documents.
        Supermancho 4y ago
        Co-asian. A coalition of asian countries.
        CameronNemo 4y ago
        The Coase "theorem" posits that independent actors can reach an economically optimal solution by bargaining with each other. For example, one radio station can pay another not to interfere with their broadcast. Or someone facing drought can pay someone to stop leaking methane. Implicitly, that bargaining includes the use or withholding of violence. That is where the Coasian threat comes in. If one party decides that the price needed to pay off the whole world to not leak methane is too high, they could just kill anyone who leaks methane. Or at least incapacitate the malicious actor's infrastructure enough to prevent them from acting maliciously. There is also a discussion to be had about credible commitments when bargaining with malicious and untrustworthy actors such as Putin. If Putin promises not to leak methane, bomb hydroelectric infrastructure, or invade Poland, how can we be sure he will stay true to his promise? Why wouldn't Putin just wake up tomorrow and demand more money or else he will start leaking methane again? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/democratic-states-and-commitment-in-international-relations/A59F5EA9ED7F327C12A3EB990C100B12 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organi...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pydry 4y ago
In the beltway they're telling themselves that war will be a boon for the environment: https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-ukraine-accelerates-eu-fossil-fuel-detox/ https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-ukraine-a... "By launching a bloody invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has done more than almost any other single human being to speed up the end of the fossil fuel era." The ebullience of that article actually kind of made me feel sick.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >In the beltway they're telling themselves that war will be a boon for the environment Yeah, maybe in ~20 years time in the future when renewables have reached massive scale and much investment were made by the EU to get us off fossil fuels, but their wording sounded like the EU had a leaver with which they could switch from fossil fuels to renewables overnight. Not the case at all. It just has led to a massive increase in fossil fuels imported form other places in the world that are not Russia, while causing a shortage in poorer countries, and a resurgence of coal burning in Europe. Not groovy, not groovy at all.
  - hedora 4y ago
    > their wording sounded like the EU had a leaver with which they could switch from fossil fuels to renewables overnight. They did have such a lever, and they finally pulled it this year: Heat pumps. Even if the power plant is burning fossil fuels, they greatly reduce emissions vs. the alternatives. Some governments are offering large subsidies to install them, but, more broadly, people are voting with their wallets. It is too little, too late, but it is a start. I think the whole planet should be in a WWII-style mobilization, with every factory we can spare converting to clean energy / energy-conserving appliances. I also think we should divert a significant fraction of our military budget to clean energy infrastructure (TVA- and CCC-style), and tax fossil fuels at 2x the cost of direct air carbon capture (~ $1-2/gallon). None of these things would be as disruptive as climate change has been for the last few years.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago

> Russia is flaring gas near the border, meanwhile across the border, countries are buying LNG and coal. Isn't methane a much worse greenhouse has than CO2? If Russia could vent it safely without burning it, that might be another way to put pressure on the EU: undermine their climate change goals, which they surely care about far more than Russia does. It might nudge green/environmentalist parties towards opposing further support for Ukraine and a negotiated peace on Russia's terms.

CameronNemo 4y ago
So you think greens are going to want to make a deal with the guy purposefully leaking methane? Maybe some of the people in Stockholm will want that...
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > So you think greens are going to want to make a deal with the guy purposefully leaking methane? Maybe some of the people in Stockholm will want that... If they did make a deal, I don't think they'd do so happily. But if you think that climate change is an existential threat and and addressing it now is the highest priority, then you may have very little choice but to make a deal like that or suffer a major priority inversion error (like pausing an airplane's fly-by-wire application mid-flight to defrag its book disk).
  - CameronNemo 4y ago
    You can't make a deal in that situation without inviting literally everyone on the planet to threaten to leak methane or else. It sets a precedent. The only option is the Coasian threat.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > You can't make a deal in that situation without inviting literally everyone on the planet to threaten to leak methane or else. > It sets a precedent. Yeah, but so what? Is "not setting a precedent" a higher priority than failing to address the "existential threat" of climate change? > The only option is the Coasian threat. https://www.google.com/search?q="Coasian+threat" https://www.google.com/search?q="Coasian+threat": Your search - "Coasian threat" - did not match any documents.
      - Supermancho 4y ago
        Co-asian. A coalition of asian countries.
      - CameronNemo 4y ago
        The Coase "theorem" posits that independent actors can reach an economically optimal solution by bargaining with each other. For example, one radio station can pay another not to interfere with their broadcast. Or someone facing drought can pay someone to stop leaking methane. Implicitly, that bargaining includes the use or withholding of violence. That is where the Coasian threat comes in. If one party decides that the price needed to pay off the whole world to not leak methane is too high, they could just kill anyone who leaks methane. Or at least incapacitate the malicious actor's infrastructure enough to prevent them from acting maliciously. There is also a discussion to be had about credible commitments when bargaining with malicious and untrustworthy actors such as Putin. If Putin promises not to leak methane, bomb hydroelectric infrastructure, or invade Poland, how can we be sure he will stay true to his promise? Why wouldn't Putin just wake up tomorrow and demand more money or else he will start leaking methane again? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/democratic-states-and-commitment-in-international-relations/A59F5EA9ED7F327C12A3EB990C100B12 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organi...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pydry 4y ago

In the beltway they're telling themselves that war will be a boon for the environment: https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-ukraine-accelerates-eu-fossil-fuel-detox/ https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-ukraine-a... "By launching a bloody invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has done more than almost any other single human being to speed up the end of the fossil fuel era." The ebullience of that article actually kind of made me feel sick.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>In the beltway they're telling themselves that war will be a boon for the environment Yeah, maybe in ~20 years time in the future when renewables have reached massive scale and much investment were made by the EU to get us off fossil fuels, but their wording sounded like the EU had a leaver with which they could switch from fossil fuels to renewables overnight. Not the case at all. It just has led to a massive increase in fossil fuels imported form other places in the world that are not Russia, while causing a shortage in poorer countries, and a resurgence of coal burning in Europe. Not groovy, not groovy at all.
- hedora 4y ago
  > their wording sounded like the EU had a leaver with which they could switch from fossil fuels to renewables overnight. They did have such a lever, and they finally pulled it this year: Heat pumps. Even if the power plant is burning fossil fuels, they greatly reduce emissions vs. the alternatives. Some governments are offering large subsidies to install them, but, more broadly, people are voting with their wallets. It is too little, too late, but it is a start. I think the whole planet should be in a WWII-style mobilization, with every factory we can spare converting to clean energy / energy-conserving appliances. I also think we should divert a significant fraction of our military budget to clean energy infrastructure (TVA- and CCC-style), and tax fossil fuels at 2x the cost of direct air carbon capture (~ $1-2/gallon). None of these things would be as disruptive as climate change has been for the last few years.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago