Fossil Fuel Drilling Plans Undermine Climate Pledges, UN Report Warns (nytimes.com) 97
Even as world leaders vow to take stronger action on climate change, many countries are still planning to dramatically increase their production of oil, gas and coal in the decades ahead, potentially undermining those lofty pledges, according to a United Nations-backed report released Tuesday. From a report: The report looked at future mining and drilling plans in 15 major fossil fuel producing countries, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, China, India and Norway. Taken together, those countries are currently planning to produce more than twice as much oil, gas and coal through 2030 as would be needed if governments want to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Scientists and world leaders increasingly say that holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is crucial if humanity wants to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, such as ever-deadlier heat waves, large scale flooding and widespread extinctions. The world has already heated up roughly 1.1 degrees since the Industrial Revolution.
But the planned global expansion of fossil fuel extraction clashes sharply with those climate goals, the report found. If the world remains awash in oil, gas and coal for decades to come, then many countries could find it more difficult to shift to cleaner sources of energy. At the same time, many of the oil wells and coal mines now being approved and developed could prove deeply unprofitable if demand for fossil fuels shrinks, creating economic disruption. By 2030, the report found, the world's nations are planning to produce 240 percent more coal, 57 percent more oil and 71 percent more natural gas than would be needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
But the planned global expansion of fossil fuel extraction clashes sharply with those climate goals, the report found. If the world remains awash in oil, gas and coal for decades to come, then many countries could find it more difficult to shift to cleaner sources of energy. At the same time, many of the oil wells and coal mines now being approved and developed could prove deeply unprofitable if demand for fossil fuels shrinks, creating economic disruption. By 2030, the report found, the world's nations are planning to produce 240 percent more coal, 57 percent more oil and 71 percent more natural gas than would be needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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Thank you for the anti-US stuff. The US has its own problems, but China is far worse. They are the only ones still spewing ozone layer eating gases.
Plus, there is a reason for the suburbs. Urban America is a hellhole. The only way out is urban flight, and urban city councils encourage that, because they get their money when businesses buy out the land and slap down low-quality rabbit-warren apartments. Some cities like Austin don't even have a police presence (there is a vote to fix that, but Soros has
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Many mid-tier cities are indeed hellholes, e.g. Hartford CT, Albuquerque NM, Syracuse NY. But perhaps you have not spent time recently in real cities or mid-tier cities that are experiencing a resurgence. They are really interesting places to raise self reliant and independent children (rather than children who are desperate to buy an "escape vehicle" and do exactly the same thing as their helicopter chauffeur parents).
Mid tier hellholes were shelled out by interstate highway development and poor zoning. Th
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I do not wish to live urban.
I like having a YARD. I have a nice big backyard where I need my grills and my wood burning smoker.
I enjoy having a space back there to bring friends over for all grain beer brewing parties, or throwing crawfish boil parties.
And with no back yard/driveway...where would people keep their boats to go fishing on weekends, etc?
I also enjoy planting a garden for my own fresh veggies.
I also enjoy NOT sharing a wall where I don't have to worry about my stereo (yes, so
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The US has its own problems, but China is far worse. They are the only ones still spewing ozone layer eating gases.
Americans are worse for CO2, worse for methane, and because of their suburbs, use the most oil, own the most cars, drive those cars the most.
But but, my ozone layer !!
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I'm not American, and agree that Americans are a massive part of the problem, whether China is worse or not doesn't matter, America is "supposed" to be better than everyone else, American exceptionalism and all that, so if it's acting in a way that puts it right at the back of the pack with countries like China, then, well, it's entirely fair to call that out because it highlights either the fact that Americans are either grossly hypocritical removing their global influence, or, their exceptionalism is long
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I dunno about you, but most everyone I know lives their lives to maximize comfort and enjoyment, not "efficiency".
That one is WAY down the list of priorities.
Re:sustain the suburbs (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, there is a reason for the suburbs. Urban America is a hellhole.
No. The Suburbs are the reason Urban America is a hellhole, not the other way around. You do well to remember your history. America wasn't built for cars, it was bulldozed for cars. Post war Urban America was incredibly pleasant but off the back of the idea that the automobile should be worshiped the concept of the suburbs and the American dream to own a free standing house and use an automobile to drive to work was invented and sold to you. Urban America was destroyed to make way for this dream.
It isn't "addiction". It is survival.
You seem entirely resigned to your fate which is the truly sad thing. I encourage you to look to cities like Amsterdam in the 1960s-1970s. You'll find pictures that would not look out of place in America. Cars everywhere. Bitumen roads everywhere. Absolute automobile addiction. All new development into the suburbs. Best of all an American town planner (and expert in automobile mobility) nearly destroyed the city with a design now dubbed the Jokinen Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] that would do the most American of things: bulldoze poor neighborhoods to make way for 10 lane highways and parking lots through the middle of the city.
The difference is while America embraced the destruction of their cities, the Dutch fought them, and the highway proposal was the final straw that saw mass protests against cars and suburbs destroying cities. Over the next 50 years Amsterdam systematically improved public transport, improved walking and cycling infrastructure (no those cycling lanes it is now famous for were not always there), and now thrives as one of the most livable cites in the world.
You can too. You just need to turn around and say "No, I won't be dominated by the automobile".
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Sorry, but if your idea of paradise is being crammed into little shoebox apartments in massive high-rise developments, you're nuts.
It exacerbates crime problems, and exacerbates public health issues, imagine if the population of the Chicagoland area was crammed into Chicago-proper...
Now factor in COVID.
Sorry, but society evolves.
And most people do not prefer to picture themselves as sardines.
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There's no reason the apartments need to be shoeboxes and there's no reason they need to be high-rises. You seem to have an Americanised view of the world that you either have a McMansion or a shoebox in a glass tower. I would invite you to look beyond what's immediately around you and take inspiration from the rest of the world.
Additionally you could learn a bit more about urban planning. There's no reason the design of suburb can't be boosted from ideas of the urban world. Even in suburban Netherlands the
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There's no reason the apartments need to be shoeboxes and there's no reason they need to be high-rises.
What part of cramming 9 million people [macrotrends.net] in a space that currently holds 2.7 million people [census.gov] did you miss, if you're not going to do high-rises and shoebox condos? I get it. Country and suburban living is not for everybody. By the same measure, city living is not for everybody. You're the one trying to shove your stupid idea down everyone's throat and chanting "kill the burbs". Obviously you understand the toll living in a place someone doesn't like takes on a person, because you wrote:
I've had a domicile in America (I won't use the word "lived"), I won't again.
Stop trying to make
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What part of cramming 9 million people [macrotrends.net] in a space that currently holds 2.7 million people [census.gov] did you miss,
The part where you think it's somehow "cramming" simply because your house no longer has a double lockup garage.
Break out of your shell. There are more than two options available to you.
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This is the US.
There are LOTS of options.
And the freedom for each to choose what best fits their lifestyle.
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Sorry. I forgot, you're American. Everything is either black or white and you're always one of two extremes. One day it will blow your mind to find that there's a whole lot of shades of grey in between.
Stop trying to make everyone fit into the model you think is best for everyone.
The fact you wrote that means you fundamentally missed my point or didn't understand my post. Go back and try again.
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How's it feel to be racist toward Americans?
You keep spewing these broad (and therefore totally false) comments.
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Correct. There's no reason apartments need to be shoeboxes or high rise.
1: Horizontal and lateral space efficiency.
2: Vertical space efficiency
3: Economic efficiency.
With apartment structures, there's only so much space to build "out". And, eventually, you have to build "up".
Downtown Chicago.
2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 850 square feet.
$2000/month.
SHOEBOX
Another, 955 square feet.
$2100
1200 square feet.
$2700
3 bedroom units start around $3300-3500 and immediately shoot north of 5 digits.
Why would anyone in their righ
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
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Sorry, but if your idea of paradise is being crammed into little shoebox apartments in massive high-rise developments, you're nuts.
People like different things. Some are happy with living in denser locations.
It exacerbates crime problems
There are plenty of dense developments with low crime per person (if you compare per square mile and ignore density it's a dishonest comparison as people commit crime, and with more people in a square mile, it can be higher per square mile even with lower rates of offences per person). There are also some with high crime. The issue is deprivation more than density. However, I would suggest that high density but with green space bet
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I used Chicago as my example, as I'm familiar with it.
Chicago has MASSIVE crime problems.
I don't think it's possible to understand how "clown shoes" it is out here without actually living out here.
And that's at current population density.
Now stack 7 million more people into that same space.
Ugly doesn't BEGIN to describe the outcome of something like that.
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I used Chicago as my example, as I'm familiar with it.
Chicago has MASSIVE crime problems. I don't think it's possible to understand how "clown shoes" it is out here without actually living out here.
And that's at current population density. Now stack 7 million more people into that same space.
Ugly doesn't BEGIN to describe the outcome of something like that.
Density is a particular factor in crimes per square mile, but another metric is crimes per person. But an important contributory factor in crime is deprivation rather than density as there are places with high density and lower crime than other places, but those tend to be areas with higher income. However, if crime is high and density is a contributory factor on a per capita crime basis then perhaps a solution isn't so much suburbs in which people still have to travel long distances for work but something
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You do well to remember your history.
I do well indeed.
Post WWII, the rest of the world's industry was destroyed. So US industry (and cities) prospered. Nice work if you can get it, but not, hopefully, a repeatable method.
When started to change - 1970s, rise of Japan, all that - gee, things started to change. Well, that and going soft on crime, going nuts on race, etc. Pay people not to work, go soft on crime, etc. etc. and guess what? Bad stuff happens. Cities = hellholes.
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Plus, there is a reason for the suburbs. Urban America is a hellhole.
Plenty of Americans would prefer to live in urban areas, but can't because zoning and building restrictions prevent the construction of high-density urban housing. So they are forced further and further into the suburbs and exurbs.
This is foolish climatewise, because people living in apartments have half the carbon footprint of people living in single-family homes.
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You know, I"m MUCH more worried about having my own yard where I can plant a nice sized veggie garden, and have room to store and use my charcoal grills and wood burning smokers (I like real BBQ).
I also like having a yard with room to have friends over for crawfish boils, or my all grain home brew set up.
I give all those things much more thought, and I don't think I've e
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So, I should give up my happy life, my lifestyle I've worked all my life to achieve....sell everything I own so I can downsize into an urban apt. somewhere?
What exactly will I be getting in return for this?
An earth that is possibly not 1 degree warmer so far in the future that if it happens, no one will even be around that would remember me to curse my name?
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
Yes, I do like not having to listen to rowdy assholes shouting their lungs out on the street beneath my apartment every single Friday night and I very much prefer living on a quiet street 200 feet away from the neighbors.
I similarly prefer not to have to hear construction noise every day as someone somewhere in my 200 unit apartment building is drilling or sawing or hammering on something.
And having my own washer, dryer, dishwasher, and ample indoor and outdoor storage is quite nice.
Not having to go through
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Saying that you "prefer" to live in a single-family home and the massive subsidies for suburbia [strongtowns.org] have nothing to do with it makes you just as believable as the politician who says the bribes he accepted didn't influence him in any way! LOL!
So let's stop transferring wealth from poor neighborhoods to affluent ones and then we'll learn the truth about where people actually prefer to live.
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:1)
Strongtowns is full of shit.
Cities don't subsidize suburbs. It's often the other way around.
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Who fed you that one? Please post a link.
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
No...let's start by looking at *your* link and asking how it's possible for the "poor" part of town to generate more tax revenue than the "rich" part of town.
There are two possibilities:
1. The "poor" part of town hosts more commercial and industrial properties where people don't live but where people (from all over town) shop and work, generating more sales taxes, property taxes (usually taxed at a higher rate than residential properties, at least in Massachusetts), and income taxes (some municipalities col
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That's all speculation. If it were true, then it should be easy to find a study that agrees with you. I'm waiting!
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
Easy to find a study that proves what? That cities and suburbs are separate municipal entitites in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania?
Here's a link or two, have fun: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki... [wikipedia.org]
Pay close attention to the median household income part, under 40k in city limits vs 60k for the metro area and Montgomery County.
Philadelphia also levies an incomr tax and sales tax while Montgomery county does not.
Would you like a "study" showing property tax differentials for comm
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That proves your claim that "Cities don't subsidize suburbs. It's often the other way around." [slashdot.org] Can you find a study that agrees with you?
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
Did you look at my links that show examples of cities and suburbs being distinct entities which do not exchange funds across municipal boundaries?
Did you also see the part where per capita state-collected income taxes must be higher in the suburbs since the per-capita income in the suburbs is higher?
Did you miss the part about taxes levied on residents in cities being a smaller portion of at least one major city's revenues than taxes levied on businesses owned and operated by residents and nonresidents?
You
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No, I want you to provide a real study that proves your claim.
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
Right back at ya dude.
Or we can pretend we're both adults who can evaluate arguments on merits based on primary sources without outsourcing our thinking to third parties.
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That sounds like what RightwingNutjob is trying to say. Could you help them provide a link [slashdot.org] to a study that supports their claim?
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A person who makes a claim for which they cannot provide supporting evidence is a troll, and there's no point in arguing with them.
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:2)
You did not support your claim, fella. You posted a link to an opinion blog and made unfounded generalizations based on it. I refuted your claims with primary sources (Boston tax revenue information). Wiki isn't a primary source for the *existence* of municipalities or their demographics, but let's just pretend I linked to the census bureau, post office, and local government websites instead of the summary of those sources on wikipedia.
And now you're calling me a troll for pointing out your sloppy work.
Bloo
This just in - breaking news (Score:1)
Film at 11.
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It's a good thing you're here to remind us that we've consistently been doing it all wrong. It's truly sad that you didn't care to enlighten us all with your ideas of how we could be doing things better though. Obviously we could have really used that sort of guidance. A few other commenters have already pointed out how city centers don't make great environments for raising children, and also that stopping oil production without cratering society isn't exactly analogous to flipping a light switch, but your
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Americans in particular are addicted to sustaining life in the suburbs and driving everywhere
Are you fucking serious? You've got to be the dumbest Slashdotter I've seen in the past year. Criticizing people for living in the suburbs? Last I heard, all the yuppies in cities got fed up during Covid while living in small concrete condos, longing to get some space and fresh air. WTF are we supposed to do with all the space between NY, Chicago, and LA?
Re: sustain the suburbs (Score:1)
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This is pretty solid proof that despite all words to the contrary, Americans in particular are addicted to sustaining life in the suburbs and driving everywhere. And no, your electric car won't help you get a free pass.
So lots of countries are ramping up oil production, and all you've got is "it's all the fault of Americans". It can't possibly have anything to do with the fact that in 2020 during the pandemic the oil market collapsed, and now with the recovery it's rebounding? Nah, that can't be it.
Try reading an analysis of the oil market outlook: https://www.iea.org/reports/oi... [iea.org]
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Err...where in the world did you get the idea to the contrary?
Are you expecting us to all go "urban", and give up independent transportation?
Certainly no one here has been thinking along those lines.
I think the idea is to eventually move to electric vehicles, but not the urban thing.
If anything, covid has shown major problems living stacked on
Meanwhile in the real world (Score:3, Insightful)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine... [www.cbc.ca]
They made their bed... they can lie in it... (Score:2, Interesting)
With all the virtue signaling about tossing nuclear aside, even though wind and solar are nice, there are not many energy sources that can handle the power density, or be counted as base load sources. Had Europe actually kept up with nuclear power generation and ignored the propagandists, Europe might not be in a state where they have to worry about freezing.
It is ironic, because the EU is considered the height of world civilization and freedom, and they can't figure out that 2020 energy usage needs 2020 s
Re: They made their bed... they can lie in it... (Score:2)
Dream on. Brussels just answered the concerns of high gas prices with 'we need more green energy'. No nuclear of course.
In other words they advise my countrymen who find it difficult to pay for fuel to buy Teslas.
In yet other words: If there's no bread, eat cake. Hmmm, I wonder how did that went last time...
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Looks like the environmentalists got their wish. Why is everyone complaining?
Who's buying it? (Score:3)
If one Oil producing nation cuts back production the others will just pick up the slack. That's not a very promising incentive for them to hurt their economies.
Rather than blaming the producers focus on lowering the demand.
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Unfortunately, it looks like focusing on demand isn't working. We've been doing it for decades, with all kinds of convoluted cap-and-trade schemes, efficiency improvements, etc. The result is well known.
I think we need to focus on production *and* consumption.
Lawmakers and courts are slowly waking up: https://www.ft.com/content/340... [ft.com]
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Unfortunately, it looks like focusing on demand isn't working. We've been doing it for decades, with all kinds of convoluted cap-and-trade schemes, efficiency improvements, etc. The result is well known.
Politicians have done everything to effect demand *except* cancel subsidies and raise taxes, thus increasing the price. Increase price, demand goes down. It's *hugely* unpopular, and hurts the poor *far* more than it hurts the rich. But, it's the simplest, most effective way to do it.
Remember when oil prices spiked in the late 2000's? Demand for gas plummeted. The most popular used car was the 1990's Geo Metro, that got the same fuel economy as a new Prius.
BS statistics (Score:2)
Dramatically increase production (Score:2)
Or just replace depleting reserves at a rate sufficient to ramp the consumption down smoothly without creating shortages and shocks to the world economies?
Wells run dry and to keep production at a steady rate, you've got to keep drilling. How fast existing wells deplete and how much new production has to be brought on line is a) usually proprietary information and b) not something that I'd expect the NYT to wrap its tiny mind around.
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Silicon? Nobody's running out of silicon.
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Silicon? Nobody's running out of silicon.
Si may be one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust but you can't just use common beach sand to make solar cells. It needs to by 100% pure Si, and that is something that doesn't occur in nature or cheaply in industry.
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-... [madehow.com]
Interesting reading if you want to sound like you actually know something about solar cells.
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Duh. You have to manufacture the stuff.
They're still not running out of it. They may not be making enough but it's not like there's a shortage of raw materials.
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We are running out of river sand which is what you need for silicon and construction materials. Saudi-Arabia has a big problem right now importing sand, even though they live in the middle of a desert. It's not like you can just 'manufacture' river sand, nature takes thousands of years to do that with the most aggressive forces on earth (water and wind).
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI) is predicting an “acute” shortage of lithium and cobalt from 2022 onwards.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
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I know exactly why you need river sand for construction, but since when did you need it specifically for silicon manufacture? I think you're making that part up. They can use pretty much any source of SiO they can get their hands on since it all winds up in an electric arc furnace.
And you don't use lithium or cobalt in the production of crystallize silicon. You use phosphorous and boron.
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I don't think you've noticed the recent chip shortage, we're definitely running out of production facilities for silicon.
But even 'sand' we are running out because the sand you think of is not the sand we need.
https://www.bbc.com/future/art... [bbc.com]
When will people figure out (Score:3)
that oil isn't going away overnight. We have spent trillions of dollars and over 100 years to build infastructure to mine, pump and refine oil since all of our cars run on it. There isn't another good way to store energy and run our economy yet, it will take many decades to build electrical infrastructure and transition important industrial sectors away from oil and gas.
I'm all for not using oil, but I also don't want to pay 5$ at the pump and I want to be able to purchase an affordable car that can go more than 500 miles (preferably 600 or more) before I get an electric. I also want the cost of batteries to go down to an affordable level (like 2000 or 3000$) before I purchase an EV.
Re:When will people figure out (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money."
--Somebody
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You might not want to pay $5 at the pump, but maybe that's the fair, unsubsidized and zero-externalized cost price of petroleum.
As for wanting a car that can go 600 miles on a single charge, it's probably a waste of your money. At 70 MPH average speed that's 8.5 hours on the road, well in excess of the safe limit before taking a break, and chances are the time you save won't be worth the money you pay for the battery or to lug the extra weight around the rest of the year when you aren't doing extreme road t
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Let me start by saying there is a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick first, but what we really need in the USA for 100% replacement of the fossil fuel fleet is pickup trucks with obscene range so they can reasonably be used for towing. Even a big-battery F150 lightning is only going to get maybe 150 miles towing, and in order to charge for the foreseeable future you're going to have to find a parking place big enough for your trailer and unhitch it so you can get into a charging stall. A lot of people say use
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There will be large spaces for charging so that bigger vehicles can use them, just like they already have at petrol stations.
In fact Bjorn Nyland used to regularly tow his trailer and charge with it attached, before he stopped doing deliveries and became a full time YouTuber. Of course chargers are much faster these days.
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You forgot something... If you want to run the cooler or heater during that trip you'll be eating into that range. I also go 80 to 85
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Let me ask you something. Is there any point at which the climate crisis is bad enough for your to accept a minor inconvenience now and then to help alleviate it?
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I'm more in favor of switching over to new fuels in an economically sustainable way. I'm also in favor of technologies that cut CO2 emissions like nuclear.
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That sounds like a no.
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Yeah, it's a kind of 'no'
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What is electricity in kwh?
Carbon Takeback Obligations (Score:4, Interesting)
We need them. Now.
"Dutch researchers have proposed a new instrument: the Carbon Take Back Obligation (CTBO).
This will make fossil fuel producers co-responsible for cleaning up their CO2 emissions.
[...]
This mechanism is comparable to producer responsibility already in place for, for instance, packaging, car tyres and white goods. " (white goods = major home appliances)
https://www.biobasedpress.eu/2... [biobasedpress.eu]
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This is one of the best ideas anyone has come up with. It will force producers to invest some of that oil profit into capturing CO2, and the technology will rapidly develop if they are forced to use it.
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This is one of the best ideas anyone has come up with.
It's also not very different from teaching children to clean up after themselves.
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The end result is the same, but cap-and-trade focuses on the consumers. You have billions of them in 200 countries and countless exception.
Producers: You're dealing with only a couple of thousands worldwide, in a largely reduced number of countries.
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Need to wake up, people. No-one believes it. (Score:2)
The important point that comes out of this is that after 30+ years of expressions of alarm, both in the media and in the peer-reviewed literature, and by scientists in a personal capacity and by the UN as an official body - and by lots of politicians and opinion formers - the leading emitting countries do not believe it.
Russia and China are not even coming to COP26. China is of course building more coal fired power stations domestically, and financing and building them all over the world. Russia has no in