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Global warming will cause suffering, but extreme poverty was worse for billions than any projections from 2.0C above baseline. The global population grow by 3

by Retric 2y ago

Global warming will cause suffering, but extreme poverty was worse for billions than any projections from 2.0C above baseline. The global population grow by 3 billion people since 1988 yet extreme poverty is way down. What nobody talks about is there’s not enough oil and natural gas left to miss 2C by much. At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years. Coal isn’t competitive with renewables and as soon as we stop pumping hydrocarbons the associated influx of Methane also stops. So we’re almost guaranteed to miss 2.5C of global warming, and stopping at 2C is likely. So congratulations humanity, all that money spent on R&D instead of directly cutting emissions without any solid alternatives actually worked!

jordanthoms 2y ago
Humans can be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.
- Retric 2y ago
  Except we actually did do the right thing. US CO2 emissions in 2007 peaked at 6,016 million metric tons before consistently falling since down to 4,807 in 2023. Per capita numbers are even better, but everyone assumes its from imports seemingly ignoring the massive reduction in coal use and vastly improved efficiency of just about everything. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...
  - jordanthoms 2y ago
    Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming. I just got back from a off-grid island here in New Zealand - 20 years ago, generators were everywhere and as soon as it got dark you'd hear nothing but the buzzing of running them all around you. Now there is solar everywhere and it's completely silent.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      You mean batteries, right? Because Hawaii is off grid and has a ton of solar but at night has to switch to fossil generators.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming. It's not working, so it's fairy tale. Is there evidence that it's really an effective plan to save lives and money caused by climate change? > People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. The first is just a claim - people accept hardship all the time for one purpose or another (such as wars). Also, what is so sacrosanct about their living standards? Also, the liability of climate change is already on the balance sheet - and the massive reduction is coming, due to climate change. Just think of all the dead people, all the people who lose their property, all the poverty. It's like saying, 'I won't suffer a massive reduction in my spending in order to pay my mortgage.' You already have the liability; that sentence doesn't mean anything. The question is, given that reality, what will you do? Make up fairy tales about fairy godparents giving you magic wands to solve you problem?
    - matteoraso 2y ago
      >Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. I don't even think a massive reduction is necessary, though. Just stop driving, and your carbon footprint shrinks massively. I bike everywhere, and I don't consider it a sacrifice at all. Obviously, there still needs to be commensurate increases in funding for public transit to match the decrease in driving, but most people would still save money by not having to buy gas anymore. Really, I think that living an eco-friendly life would mean improving life, not worsening it.
      - Retric 2y ago
        You not driving requires other people to move everything you need very close to yourself. It doesn’t work for people farming corn/rice etc because that inherently requires lots of land which means everything can’t be close to them.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    Did we or did we shift manufacturing abroad and that made our numbers better?
    - Retric 2y ago
      Imports as a share of US GDP is basically identical between 2007 and 2023 at ~16%, it’s really not foreign manufacturing that’s relevant. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/imports https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...
vlovich123 2y ago
> At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years At current prices. As prices go up new sources of fuel become economical and the cycle continues. Not to mention that methane emissions from agriculture are a significant contributor as well (30% from cows) so just removing hydrocarbons doesn’t solve that problem. It seems like an unrealistic bet that hydrocarbon-based emissions drop to 0 just because you think we’ll run out of fuel in 50 years. Does that mean airplanes stop flying in 50 years? No one is making these bets in the marketplace alongside you for good reason. And remember, consumption grows quite a bit year over year so you’re looking at a much shorter time frame if your prediction were to be true.
- osigurdson 2y ago
  Isn't there a reasonable chance aircraft will be electric in 50 years?
  - dalyons 2y ago
    Or running on synthetic fuel made with renewable energy
    - worik 2y ago
      ...or flying with fairy wings We can make anything up. Why not stick to the facts, as we know them, and reasonable projections? There is no reasonable projection for any fuel other than fossil fuel to maintain the sort of flying we do now.
      - osigurdson 2y ago
        We weren't talking about warp drives here. Certain types of aircraft are seem to be not that far off. 50 years is a ling time. Unless you are deeply involved in battery technology, your prediction seems overly pessimistic. Not suggesting the article below is in any way conclusive but just one of many that turn up on a basic google search. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/passenger-electric-planes-become-reality-decade/story?id=106223258 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/passenger-electric-planes-be...
pyrale 2y ago
> At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years. 2050 is only 26 years away, though.
jdietrich 2y ago
>What nobody talks about is there’s not enough oil and natural gas left to miss 2C by much. That was true before recent developments in exploitation and conversion. Canada had proven oil reserves of 5 billion barrels in 2002, but by 2005 it had proven reserves of 180 billion barrels because the Alberta oil sands became viable. South America now has far more oil than the Middle East - it's oil that wasn't considered economically recoverable until about a decade ago. Over recent years, we have discovered far more oil and gas than we've burned. Coal doesn't have much of a future as an energy source for electricity generation, but it might have a future as a feedstock for synthetic liquid fuels. We're probably going to leave most of those hydrocarbons in the ground, but only because of the huge progress that has been made in renewable energy technologies. If that progress stalls or there are big breakthroughs in hydrocarbon technology, then there's still a real risk of substantially exceeding 2C. We have reason to be optimistic, but not complacent.
- Retric 2y ago
  That estimate included 170 billion barrels from Canada and 380 billion from Venezuela. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oi... Oil in place comes to a much larger number, but we’re past the point where this oil is a net positive from an energy perspective. It’s a carbon intensive battery not a fuel source.
philipov 2y ago
Global warming will do more than cause suffering - it will cause resource starvation, especially water - and that will cause war and mass migration, which will destabilize the world on a scale much greater than poverty has.
- Prbeek 2y ago
  It will make much of Siberia habitable and the northern sea route viable. Russia is probably the only country that will benefit from global warming
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    no civilization existing today will "benefit" .. permafrost melt is a fuse to a bomb, among many too numerous to mention.
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  How do you know?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

by Retric 2y ago

jordanthoms 2y ago

Humans can be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.

Retric 2y ago
Except we actually did do the right thing. US CO2 emissions in 2007 peaked at 6,016 million metric tons before consistently falling since down to 4,807 in 2023. Per capita numbers are even better, but everyone assumes its from imports seemingly ignoring the massive reduction in coal use and vastly improved efficiency of just about everything. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...
- jordanthoms 2y ago
  Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming. I just got back from a off-grid island here in New Zealand - 20 years ago, generators were everywhere and as soon as it got dark you'd hear nothing but the buzzing of running them all around you. Now there is solar everywhere and it's completely silent.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    You mean batteries, right? Because Hawaii is off grid and has a ton of solar but at night has to switch to fossil generators.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming. It's not working, so it's fairy tale. Is there evidence that it's really an effective plan to save lives and money caused by climate change? > People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. The first is just a claim - people accept hardship all the time for one purpose or another (such as wars). Also, what is so sacrosanct about their living standards? Also, the liability of climate change is already on the balance sheet - and the massive reduction is coming, due to climate change. Just think of all the dead people, all the people who lose their property, all the poverty. It's like saying, 'I won't suffer a massive reduction in my spending in order to pay my mortgage.' You already have the liability; that sentence doesn't mean anything. The question is, given that reality, what will you do? Make up fairy tales about fairy godparents giving you magic wands to solve you problem?
  - matteoraso 2y ago
    >Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. I don't even think a massive reduction is necessary, though. Just stop driving, and your carbon footprint shrinks massively. I bike everywhere, and I don't consider it a sacrifice at all. Obviously, there still needs to be commensurate increases in funding for public transit to match the decrease in driving, but most people would still save money by not having to buy gas anymore. Really, I think that living an eco-friendly life would mean improving life, not worsening it.
    - Retric 2y ago
      You not driving requires other people to move everything you need very close to yourself. It doesn’t work for people farming corn/rice etc because that inherently requires lots of land which means everything can’t be close to them.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  Did we or did we shift manufacturing abroad and that made our numbers better?
  - Retric 2y ago
    Imports as a share of US GDP is basically identical between 2007 and 2023 at ~16%, it’s really not foreign manufacturing that’s relevant. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/imports https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...

vlovich123 2y ago

> At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years At current prices. As prices go up new sources of fuel become economical and the cycle continues. Not to mention that methane emissions from agriculture are a significant contributor as well (30% from cows) so just removing hydrocarbons doesn’t solve that problem. It seems like an unrealistic bet that hydrocarbon-based emissions drop to 0 just because you think we’ll run out of fuel in 50 years. Does that mean airplanes stop flying in 50 years? No one is making these bets in the marketplace alongside you for good reason. And remember, consumption grows quite a bit year over year so you’re looking at a much shorter time frame if your prediction were to be true.

osigurdson 2y ago
Isn't there a reasonable chance aircraft will be electric in 50 years?
- dalyons 2y ago
  Or running on synthetic fuel made with renewable energy
  - worik 2y ago
    ...or flying with fairy wings We can make anything up. Why not stick to the facts, as we know them, and reasonable projections? There is no reasonable projection for any fuel other than fossil fuel to maintain the sort of flying we do now.
    - osigurdson 2y ago
      We weren't talking about warp drives here. Certain types of aircraft are seem to be not that far off. 50 years is a ling time. Unless you are deeply involved in battery technology, your prediction seems overly pessimistic. Not suggesting the article below is in any way conclusive but just one of many that turn up on a basic google search. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/passenger-electric-planes-become-reality-decade/story?id=106223258 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/passenger-electric-planes-be...

pyrale 2y ago

> At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years. 2050 is only 26 years away, though.

jdietrich 2y ago

>What nobody talks about is there’s not enough oil and natural gas left to miss 2C by much. That was true before recent developments in exploitation and conversion. Canada had proven oil reserves of 5 billion barrels in 2002, but by 2005 it had proven reserves of 180 billion barrels because the Alberta oil sands became viable. South America now has far more oil than the Middle East - it's oil that wasn't considered economically recoverable until about a decade ago. Over recent years, we have discovered far more oil and gas than we've burned. Coal doesn't have much of a future as an energy source for electricity generation, but it might have a future as a feedstock for synthetic liquid fuels. We're probably going to leave most of those hydrocarbons in the ground, but only because of the huge progress that has been made in renewable energy technologies. If that progress stalls or there are big breakthroughs in hydrocarbon technology, then there's still a real risk of substantially exceeding 2C. We have reason to be optimistic, but not complacent.

Retric 2y ago
That estimate included 170 billion barrels from Canada and 380 billion from Venezuela. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oi... Oil in place comes to a much larger number, but we’re past the point where this oil is a net positive from an energy perspective. It’s a carbon intensive battery not a fuel source.

philipov 2y ago

Global warming will do more than cause suffering - it will cause resource starvation, especially water - and that will cause war and mass migration, which will destabilize the world on a scale much greater than poverty has.

Prbeek 2y ago
It will make much of Siberia habitable and the northern sea route viable. Russia is probably the only country that will benefit from global warming
- mistrial9 2y ago
  no civilization existing today will "benefit" .. permafrost melt is a fuse to a bomb, among many too numerous to mention.
t0bia_s 2y ago
How do you know?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]