A New Website Backed By Al Gore Tracks Big Polluters By Name (npr.org) 150
A new global tracker created by the nonprofit Climate Trace is helping to make clear exactly where major greenhouse gas emissions are originating. According to NPR, the interactive map "uses a combination of satellites, sensors and machine learning to measure the top polluters worldwide." From the report: It observes how much greenhouse gases -- carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- are being emitted at specific locations, such as power plants and oil refineries. Former Vice President Al Gore, who is a founding member of the initiative, said it is meant to serve as a more reliable and accurate alternative to companies self-reporting their emissions estimates. "Cheating is impossible with this artificial intelligence method, because they would have to somehow falsify multiple sets of data," he told NPR's Michel Martin on All Things Considered.
The emissions tool employs over 300 satellites; sensors on land, planes and ships; as well as artificial intelligence to build models of emission estimates. Right now, it tracks about 72,000 of the highest emitting greenhouse gas sources. That includes every power plant, large ship and large plane in the entire world, Gore said. And that's just the beginning. By next year, Gore hopes to be tracking millions of major emitting sites. "We will have essentially all of them," he said. Gore said 75% of the world's greenhouse emissions come from countries that have made pledges to become carbon-neutral by 2050. "Now that they know exactly where it's coming from, they have tools that will enable them to reduce their emissions," he told NPR.
He added that the database, which is free and accessible online, can help inform countries about how much pollution is being emitted by the companies they are working with or considering working with. It is not enough for companies to self-report, he said. For instance, Climate Trace found that the oil and gas industry has been significantly underreporting its emissions. That doesn't mean companies were intentionally cheating, Gore added. However, he said underreporting prevents governments and the public from staying on track with their net-zero pledge. Six regional governments in Mexico, Europe and Africa have already entered into working agreements for using the tool, Gore said.
The emissions tool employs over 300 satellites; sensors on land, planes and ships; as well as artificial intelligence to build models of emission estimates. Right now, it tracks about 72,000 of the highest emitting greenhouse gas sources. That includes every power plant, large ship and large plane in the entire world, Gore said. And that's just the beginning. By next year, Gore hopes to be tracking millions of major emitting sites. "We will have essentially all of them," he said. Gore said 75% of the world's greenhouse emissions come from countries that have made pledges to become carbon-neutral by 2050. "Now that they know exactly where it's coming from, they have tools that will enable them to reduce their emissions," he told NPR.
He added that the database, which is free and accessible online, can help inform countries about how much pollution is being emitted by the companies they are working with or considering working with. It is not enough for companies to self-report, he said. For instance, Climate Trace found that the oil and gas industry has been significantly underreporting its emissions. That doesn't mean companies were intentionally cheating, Gore added. However, he said underreporting prevents governments and the public from staying on track with their net-zero pledge. Six regional governments in Mexico, Europe and Africa have already entered into working agreements for using the tool, Gore said.
Gore (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gore (Score:5, Funny)
He also invented the Al-Gore-Rhythm, which is very important in computer technology.
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Re:Gore (Score:5, Insightful)
First the internet, and now climate change. What can't he invent?
A way to make people care enough to actually do something.
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"A way to make people care enough to actually do something"
A way to make enough Americans care enough to actually do something
FTFY
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A way to make people care enough to actually do something
A way to make enough Americans care enough to actually do something
I have to ask: What could an American do that would make a difference?
Americans do not get to choose how their power is generated.
Americans do not get to choose how to get work.
Americans do not get to choose how their stuff is manufactured.
Americans do not get to choose how the items they need are transported.
That cover 90% (random number) of the climate causing activities.
Are you asking Americans to starve themselves so they can have a minuscule impact on Climate?
Are you asking Americans to walk/bike to wo
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What could an American do that would make a difference?
Vote for policies and politicians that will make a difference. Volunteer for those campaigns. Contribute funds. Heck, run for election yourself.
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We do not get to vote for policies, we get to vote for politicians who promise things and do not deliver on those things. Voting makes a difference, but not the difference that we hope for.
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Also, keep in mind that Al Gore lives an extravagant lifestyle and *chooses* to contribute far more CO2 than the normal person. When he lived here in Nashville, his mansion was three times the size of my house but with ten times the energy usage. That's a *choice* that he made. He has a private jet, now has another mansion in the Hollywood Hills, and lives a very high-carbon lifestyle. But he wants everybody else to do something that he's not willing to do himself.
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How long ago did you decide to throw in the towel?
There are plenty of disadvantaged people in shithole countries who are less defeatist than you.
An individual can't do very much but you'll be amazed by what can be accomplished when you get off your ass, take action & participate in activism.
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A way to make people care enough to actually do something.
In the context of caring about climate change, it usually boils down to either making major compromises to one's standard of living, or being wealthy enough to throw money at the problem. In my neck of the woods, it seems like people who do have the means to install PV systems on their houses or buy a BEV are actually doing so. The rest of us just get to laugh at the suggestion that we should somehow bicycle ride to work with a van load of tools and equipment needed for our jobs.
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making major compromises to one's standard of living
How? Would increasing the amount of insulation in your home devastate you? Would getting a more energy efficient refigerator force you to declare bankruptcy? Would planting a few trees around your house cause you to hang yourself because of the new found shade keeping things cooler?
Explain how doing any of the above is "making major compromises to one's standard of living".
Re: Gore (Score:2)
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The problem is that it doesn't stop there. What you've listed isn't enough, not NEARLY enough. You can't even say "every little bit helps" because it doesn't. We are constantly being told to do things that mean more expense and less fun when the amount of co2 it saves is trivial. And when you're poor nobody seems to credit you anything for taking public transport when the rich can offset their mcmansions with tree planting exercises in the deforested areas (that possibly were deforested in creating the guy'
Re:Gore (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe if he wasn't a fat, hypocritical, corrupt piece of fuck with his private jet about, he might have more traction, you poncey cunt...
So, I'm going to pull this comment out of obscurity. At least, since it's AC it won't be giving karma to a liar. Al Gore doesn't have a private jet. [axios.com]. The entire basis of this comment is a lie and when you realise that the liars are out trying to manipulate you in one direction the only way to deal with it is to go the opposite way. Why is it unsurprising that so much of this stuff turns out to just be simple slander? The real question, I guess, is why do people fall for tactics of attacking the messenger and fail to check the actual message? 90% of the discussion here is about lies about Al Gore when what we should be discussing is details of errors that might be caused by the AI modelling.
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>and when you realise that the liars are out trying to manipulate you in one direction the only way to deal with it is to go the opposite way.
So when you realise that Putin spent millions funding so-called "environmentalists" who successfully convinced the entire western world to give up energy independence, to the point the most powerful countries in the west are saying they may not be able to avoid blackouts during the winter, and become wholly dependent on petrodictatorships... what should you do?
What
Re:Gore (Score:5, Interesting)
So when you realise that Putin spent millions funding so-called "environmentalists" who successfully convinced the entire western world to give up energy independence, to the point the most powerful countries in the west are saying they may not be able to avoid blackouts during the winter, and become wholly dependent on petrodictatorships... what should you do?
The key realisation here is that Putin funded advertising for both Black Lives Matter events and for racist counter protests. He's funding conflict, not positions. In this case, there's a bit more because he was funding anything which would support Nord Stream I and II. You should do what I have been doing consistently and support large amounts of wind power and interconnection in Europe and North America so that you can achieve full energy independence whilst eliminating the oil and gas dependency which funds Russia.
What about when you realise that every single rich and famous left wing climate change activist out there attacks middle class and poor people for owning cars and eating meat, but never says anything about the fact that just 10-15 corporate cargo ships pollute more than every car on earth combined?
You'll be talking about particulate/sulphur pollution here. That's a matter of lack of regulation, but funnily enough actually reduces global warming. If we talk about CO2 pollution then you'll find that cargo ships are incredibly efficient. Rice grown in Asia and shipped to the US will have a far lower carbon footprint than rice grown in the US.
And how about when you notice that all of those same rich and famous left wing climate change activists constantly attack western countries, the US in particular, even though the US actually met or exceeded the standards of the Paris Accords WITHOUT the catastrophic downsides of its self-destructive policy requirements?
"lets collapse our economy due to a disease" is hardly the economic policy that most people would like to celebrate. I think the idea of Paris is to achieve pollution reduction without killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Or that they universally attack only western countries and never once bring up that India and China are by far the worst polluters in the world overall?
If you had used the word "biggest" then I might accept that, but "worst" implies a judgement and then you really have to look at a fair comparison. They pollute far less, per person, than plenty of other countries. China also had the "one child" policy which stabilised their population much faster than other countries, so it makes sense to judge them on a population basis rather than saying (as you could argue for India) that they have been profligate in population increase. Sure, because they are bigger it makes sense to concentrate on population based approaches that work in these places but actually apportioning blame I'd go much more for Quatar and Kuwait (at 32.5 and 22 metric tons per capita [worldbank.org]) or even Australia (15 metric tons per capita, rich and big) than China and India.
The fact is that the biggest problem is that we can't really be 100% sure about these numbers since they are mostly based on the declarations of the countries. The big problem is that authoritarian countries like China and Russia lie all the time and there's little way to be sure by how much. Systems like the one we are discussing which Gore has set up is really important because it would allow those numbers to be checked and compared.
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If you had used the word "biggest" then I might accept that, but "worst" implies a judgement and then you really have to look at a fair comparison. They pollute far less, per person, than plenty of other countries.
The whole question of what is whose fault is complicated, and you can't ignore the effects of colonialism on India. On the other hand, these nations have massive populations, and that's inherently a problem. One of the reasons I haven't bred is that I am concerned about resource availability. I don't think it's responsible to add to the world population. Frankly, it hasn't been since it's been obvious that AGW was a thing, so any nation whose population has been increasing in the last handful of decades is
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I don't really feel a need to assign labels like "worst" to problems like this, but they still need to be addressed.
There's a strong suggestion that some nations should pay for the damage that they have caused. That gets to be deeply complicated and what should be the criteria. It's pretty clear that some countries (Gulf states / USA / Australia) are completely out of order profligate in their generation of CO2. Others have generated almost none but are suffering (Bangladesh). China made a huge effort to curb it's population before that was fully understood as important whilst India didn't. I guess that perhaps this shou
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Your adoration of one of their single greatest human rights atrocities, second only to their ongoing literal Nazi level genocide of the Uighur people through mass murder of men and boys and mass rape of the entire female population (those that aren't sterilized at least), is a pretty big clue here that you know perfectly well you aren't acting in good faith and are just mendaciously defending China out of ideological loyalty.
Fucking funny you should claim that. If you look at my comment history to any depth you will find it pretty clear what I think of the Uighur genocide. Perhaps I'm capable of holding somewhat contrasting, but in the end consistent views about the same body, which has been mostly, but not all, bad. Perhaps you are the one who is blinded by ideology?
The way that Putin works is to take an existing real concern and amplify and twist it. Environmentalism existed long before he came to power. Environmentalists wan
Re:Gore (Score:5, Insightful)
So when you realise that Putin spent millions funding so-called "environmentalists" who successfully convinced the entire western world to give up energy independence
Gonna need a citation on that. Russian fakers work because they are believable, but environmentalists suggesting that the entire Western world should give up energy independence, particularly in a way that makes them dependent on Russian gas, is stretching credibility.
Besides, the decision to use Russian gas was not done on environmental grounds. In fact environmental groups opposed it. It was done to try to make Russia's economy dependent on Europe, so that if they tried to start a war there it would be devastating for them.
In any case, surely AleRunner was right. If you notice Russia doing that, you should probably avoid giving up energy independence or becoming dependent on them.
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Man, it's so difficult to find information about this. I mean, what if we had Google where we could....
Hey, wait a minute! We do have Google!
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
You just made the above posters point for them (Score:1)
An long list of "attack the messenger" rather than the message? You're literally making the above poster's point for them.
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. Al Gore doesn't have a private jet. [axios.com].
Yeah, sure, it was full of attack the messenger.
They then to go on to explore why the poster above them might be believing ideologically based lies like the ones about Al Gore they stated which also is not attacking the messenger as a means of discrediting the message as you were doing. Notice they had already pointed out how the message itself was incorrect, complete with citation!
Meanwhile, talking about the lifestyle of specific climate activists has absolutely zero to do with whether climate change is r
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Hahaha, look at you go. You're seizing on poor wording in one small part of my post and ignoring all the rest. I cant figure out if you're really this dense or if you're trolling me so I'll say this loudly in the hopes that it sinks in.
NAMING THINGS CLIMATE ACTIVISTS HAVE DONE THAT ISNT CLIMATE FRIENDLY DOES NOT DISPROVE GLOBAL WARMING. Literally the only possible thing it could prove is an individual's hypocrisy. I've seen your posts before and you do this shit all the time, "Al Gore flies a plane everywhe
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Or that they universally attack only western countries and never once bring up that India and China are by far the worst polluters in the world overall?
When you put a big group of people together of course their pollution will be the *biggest* overall. But if you want to talk about the "worst" then you're very much looking back to countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, a bunch of middle eastern oil producers, and a few that end up as a statistical anomaly due to tiny populations.
Now if you want to look over all of history you're going to have to live with the fact that even on current trends for China they won't ever emit as much CO2 through their rise
Re:Gore (Score:5, Insightful)
Look you can say whatever you want, but he's going to go down in history as having been way ahead of the politics on that issue. That chance of that not happening is 0%.
Re: Gore (Score:1, Troll)
Knowing it was coming and devising a way to get rich off of it was genius.
Making sure no one ever takes it serious enough because your greed is so transparent, diabolical, and repulsive? Absolutely disgusting.
Re:Gore (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly he will be remembered as the politician who destroyed the trust of Americans in science. That was the beginning, when much of the country turned anti-science. I watched this in horror.
So, a single politician saying a few stupid things destroyed the belief in science whilst a deliberate massive advertising and misinformation campaign since the 1950s [nih.gov] started first to stop people believing the science showing tobacco causes cancer and then later moved over to confuse people about fossil fuels and other pollution had nothing to do with it?
If Al Gore is remembered for that it's likely not because it's true but because truth matters less than a South Park episode to some people [vox.com].
Re:Gore (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly he will be remembered as the politician who destroyed the trust of Americans in science.
If Americans deny science off the back of a single incorrect prediction which none the less trended in the right direction then they had no trust in science in the first place.
If anything Al Gore will be remembered as the politician who exposed the stupidity of the public in general, with a fixation on a single source of information ignoring overwhelming and diverse evidence in general.
Al Gore did nothing to Americans. Stupid people were always stupid.
Re: Gore (Score:2)
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First the internet, and now climate change. What can't he invent?
During his Presidential campaign, he appeared at a college campus rally and introduced himself this way: "Hi! I'm Al Gore. You may know me: I invented the environment!"
Re:Gore (Score:5, Funny)
Don: "I and I alone invented Al Gore and the internet with one golf club tied behind my back while grabbing p___ on 5th Ave., believe me. I also built the Great Fire Wall and made Jiiihhna pay for it! I helped Albert Epstein with his relativity problems, including his mean ugly aunt, who I made run off faster than light. Speaking of horse-faces, I even invented Mr. Ed, making me a stable genius."
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China did not pay those import tariffs, American consumers paid those import tariffs.
This is a misunderstanding of how tariffs works. Tariffs force Americans to pay the normal, global rate. The Chinese have to subsidize their industrial exports to counteract the tariffs. So, while yes, Americans technically sent the dollars to the US Government for those goods, the goods were necessarily cheeper by that much because the Chinese either had to lower their prices further to counteract the tariffs, or the Chinese government had to subsidize the costs. Either way, it is more dollars remaining in
Re: Gore (Score:5, Informative)
Al Gore is criticizing huge companies for burning fossil fuels. Those companies have hundreds of millions of consumers, who benefit from the product those fossil fuels helped to create. So per capita, the companies he criticizes burn relatively low fossil fuels,
If, per capita, it's relatively little then it really won't be a problem to measure it and spread that across those products and compare it to the value they produce. Of course, if they are producing stupid plastic toys that break after 2 minutes then probably that calculation looks pretty bad, but maybe we could just do without. If they are producing great value solar panels then the
especially when you consider how much he flies around on a private jet. He is among the 0.01% highest carbon emissions persons on Earth, since most people fly commercial.
I've pointed out elsewhere that he doesn't actually have a private jet but lots of people have been spreading that lie in this discussion, so I can see why you would believe it. Surely, though, the whole point here is that, if he did have a jet, it would be possible to measure those emissions and e.g. create a carbon tax on the jet so that enough money was put into actual atmospheric carbon removal projects like re-wilding to counteract any effect the jet travel has. As long as he's fully paying his way by removing as much carbon as he releases (which is what he claims - there should be a way to prove or disprove this) then I don't see the problem.
Re: Gore (Score:4, Insightful)
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If they are producing great value solar panels then the
Usually progressives are against dumping product at below market rate to gain competitive advantage. Or does that only count against American companies like WalMart and Amazon?
I've pointed out elsewhere that he doesn't actually have a private jet but lots of people have been spreading that lie in this discussion
Private jet and chartered flights are functionally equivalent. Bernard Arnault seems to understand this. [observer.com]
Re: Gore (Score:4, Insightful)
If they are producing great value solar panels then the
Usually progressives are against dumping product at below market rate to gain competitive advantage. Or does that only count against American companies like WalMart and Amazon?
I'm not sure that I'm comfortable answering for "progressives" since I wouldn't use that label and disagree with most Americans that would. Having said that, I specifically supported the US in setting up and protecting a solar panel industry at the time the Chinese were dumping panels and warned that this is a strategic industry. The US needs to get it's act together with renewable energy and see it as being as important as something like the Manhattan project.
I've pointed out elsewhere that he doesn't actually have a private jet but lots of people have been spreading that lie in this discussion
Private jet and chartered flights are functionally equivalent. Bernard Arnault seems to understand this. [observer.com]
I haven't seen a clear statement that Gore regularly uses charter planes, let alone equivalent to the usage he'd get from a private jet. I would have to see a whole load of data to believe the equivalence you claim. The same argument as ever applies, however, they should fully offset their emissions and Gore claims to. In answer to comments that offsetting is bullshit, I do think there needs to be a clear definition of "offset" and the one Microsoft uses is a good example of one I would accept if I could clearly see that it is being implemented. Until there is a standard definition and he's breaking it, I have a suspicion that a bunch of people with huge jets using them all the time [businessinsider.com] are paying for criticism of a small group of people that are trying to fix things and the reason they criticise so strongly is because it's partly working.
where is the manbearpig on that site? (Score:2)
where is the manbearpig on that site?
Tracks Polluters by Name (Score:1, Troll)
so tracking by site and mapping to owner's name. I doubt it would be allowed to get smart enough to track people by individual name as they jet around. Would be interesting to compare CEOs versus activists private jet usage. I mean, would be interesting to know who flies around more in private jets, the big oil company CEOs or Gore himself.
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Al Gore's name had better be on the list.
https://www.investors.com/poli... [investors.com]
Re:Tracks Polluters by Name (Score:4, Insightful)
You think his mansion emits more CO2 than a refinery, or an industrial scale crop field, or an airport, or a coal power plant?
Those are the things on the list. Your whataboutism is lame and so are you.
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Would be interesting to compare CEOs versus activists private jet usage.
No it won't. Whataboutism is quite pointless and CEOs are in the list. They are represented by the red dots otherwise called "airports".
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It's not whataboutism to think that Gore should practice and be an example of what he literally preaches. Considering he flies around in private jets everywhere (irregardless of not personally owning any of them) and can't be inconvenienced to fly around first class on commercial flights, as an example of dumb and hypocritical choices, I'd say if the web site could actually track *people* by name, not places, I think Gore would appear very very high on the of personal carbon polluters. Someone said he's in
The Big Polluters (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the Big Polluter a specific oil refinery?
Or is the Big Polluter the many motorists who use the product produced by the refinery.
One of the odd effects of the current economic situation is that #2 Diesel has gotten a lot more expensive than 87 octane gasoline. We experience less pain at the pump, but we continue to experience it at the grocery store, which is dependent on #2 Diesel for truck deliveries.
Is your grocery store a Big Polluter?
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Is the Big Polluter a specific oil refinery?
Or is the Big Polluter the many motorists who use the product produced by the refinery.
One of the odd effects of the current economic situation is that #2 Diesel has gotten a lot more expensive than 87 octane gasoline. We experience less pain at the pump, but we continue to experience it at the grocery store, which is dependent on #2 Diesel for truck deliveries.
Is your grocery store a Big Polluter?
Moving groceries around with a diesel burning truck is relatively efficient since the added cost of increases in the price of diesel fuel is spread over a large quantity of products delivered to the supermarket in one big shipment. Moving the average suburban lardass around in his SUV on the other hand is extremely inefficient, so out of your two options the latter is more likely to kill you at the pump than the former is at the cash register at Walmart. Not that I care, I drive an extremely fuel efficient
My point exactly (Score:2)
By focusing environmental shame on the refinery, Mr. Gore is not distinguishing between the #2 Diesel that puts food on your table and the 87-octane gasoline your lardassed-neighbor burns in his personal truck.
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By focusing environmental shame on the refinery, Mr. Gore is not distinguishing between the #2 Diesel that puts food on your table and the 87-octane gasoline your lardassed-neighbor burns in his personal truck.
I don't really care who is the #victim here. The way that technology is evolving, anybody who uses diesel trucks to put food on the table is going to go out of business for the same reason the last buggy whip manufacturer went belly up. Betting on obsolete technology is a dumb idea. If Al Gore shining the spotlight on pollution caused by refineries and oil wells hastened that process I'm fine with that. I'm not mourning the obsoletion of fossil fuel technology anymore than I did when fax machines and film c
Re: My point exactly (Score:2)
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All food during harvesting, proccessing, slaughtering and delivering needs diesel in one way or another
Freischutz already mentioned a solution. All of that can be done with Electric. There are electric tractors coming online even from the big manufacturers. Plants in fixed locations are better run from electricity and transport can work fine.
Re:The Big Polluters (Score:5, Informative)
Or is the Big Polluter the many motorists who use the product produced by the refinery.
Both. Cities are also listed which includes their people doing things people do such as driving. But let's not pretend a refinery is green. Just for fun let me check one for you. Based on the figures I'm reading right now currently from a refinery:
Electricity consumption: 33.3MW (this is low, refineries are often over 100MW but this site is actually quite "green" in that they are running quite a few heat-recovery power generation systems, I used to work at one 1/5th of the size that consumed 55MW) ... more natural gas).
Natural gas consumption: 42000 Nm3/h - not out of the ordinary.
Hydrogen consumption: 5500Nm3/h (this is generated by an external site in steam methane reforming, so
To put these numbers in to perspective the average house in the Netherlands consumes 1200Nm3/yr which with a bit of division shows that a typical refinery burns as much natural gas as 300000 houses, not counting the 3rd party operated SMR generating hydrogen.
It stands to reason. Refineries work with heat. A metric fuckton of heat. Basically ever process is started first by heating what you put in. Crude distillation? Heat it till it separates. Vacuum distillation? Heat it under vacuum till it separates. Catalytic Cracking? Heat it in the presence of a catalyst until it cracks. Visbreaking? Heat it till it cracks. Coking? Heat it until it cracks and goes hard. Got some stuff in a tank? Don't forget to heat the tank, especially bitumen tanks.
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Is the Big Polluter a specific oil refinery?
Oil refineries tend to be big polluters, right on their face, but also...
Or is the Big Polluter the many motorists who use the product produced by the refinery.
Sure, as long as when we parcel out the culpability we make sure to take into account the various efforts of the fossil fuel industry to suppress public transportation and EVs. The poor fuckers just trying to get to work deserve only a very small share of the blame.
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Or is the Big Polluter the many motorists who use the product produced by the refinery.
If my car has a catalytic converter, so should Big Polluter.
If your friends want to hide their shame, knowing the truth will be a problem.
But I'm sure some are experts at building scubbers.
Tracking every polluter by name? (Score:1)
If every cow is a polluter, that's a lot of bovine names.
Re: Tracking every polluter by name? (Score:2)
Optimism springs eternal (Score:2)
"Cheating is impossible with this artificial intelligence method, because they would have to somehow falsify multiple sets of data,"
"Now that they know exactly where it's coming from, they have tools that will enable them to reduce their emissions,"
Oh, Al, just as adorable as ever.
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Up next, fossil fuel companies split their operations up into a tree of companies with generic names and obscured connections...
Tracking the producer or the consumer? (Score:5, Interesting)
This question has been pointed out ages ago.
A produced X which is sold to B who consumed X. The production of X created some pollution. Now who is the "polluter", A or B?
Obviously, by tracking pollution using satellites, only the producer can be tracked, and then named (and shamed).
The only effect of naming and shaming the producer is to push them to move production somewhere else, somewhere which probably have more lax pollution laws and hence factories with less pollution reduction equipments. The end result is MORE pollution in the world.
Causing more harm in the name of doing good, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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The only effect of naming and shaming the producer is to push them to move production somewhere else, somewhere which probably have more lax pollution laws and hence factories with less pollution reduction equipments.
Is that really the only effect?
Moving has its cost as well. And moving won't be helpful if your pollution can be noticed by satellite.
May be some polluters will move, but others may end up adding scrubbers to their stacks, assuming it's cost effective enough for them.
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The only effect of naming and shaming the producer is to push them to move production somewhere else, somewhere which probably have more lax pollution laws and hence factories with less pollution reduction equipments.
That's specifically what this solves. Carbon taxes need to primarily apply to other countries. By taxing China and India for their pollution you reduce the benefits of cheating by offshoring. China, which has been seriously investing in renewable energy will get it's fair reward if it continues to use that to decarbonize. India, which is investing in more and more fossil fuel infrastructure will find it's economy getting worse and worse.
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Now who is the "polluter", A or B?
Why not both? Cities are listed as polluters too and they are the consumers.
The thread above yours criticises the inclusion of refineries while it's their customers who burn the oil. But these are emissions from refineries, not the emissions from the product, and our industry stands to do a *LOT* to improve its CO2 footprint.
Refineries burn a shitton of natural gas to generate hydrogen (which can be done in a greener way). They also burn a shitton of nat gas in furnaces (which could be hydrogen centrally ge
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It's Al Gore, flitting from one climate conference to the next in his private jet.
Toxic Release Inventory (Score:3, Interesting)
The EPA tracks the use (manufacture, storage, emission, etc. ) of specified quantities of listed compounds under the EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act https://www.epa.gov/epcra [epa.gov]), which supports the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) - https://www.epa.gov/toxics-rel... [epa.gov] - for anyone to check what that plant down the road with the funny smoke might be doing. I was privileged to manage the EPCRA Reporting Center in the 1990s as a contractor to the EPA..
I hope it can track at least 400 objects... (Score:2)
Four O'Clock episode of Twilight Zone (Score:1)
How fitting it would be if Mr. Gore himself was listed as one of the largest polluters.
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How fitting it would be if Mr. Gore himself was listed as one of the largest polluters.
You tell us. How fitting would it be? Show your work.
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Al gore owns three houses with over 20,000 sqft of space. He also owns a private jet. Good enough?
No. But nobody expects better out of you, the proud multi-account troll.
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Removing CO2 from the air is the only solution that will solve all problems at once. Governments should be heavily investing in those technologies.
Just by basic thermodynamics this won't really work. In order to remove CO2 from the air you need energy. The more dissipated the CO2 is (when it's diluted in the atmosphere) the more difficult that is. If we can afford to remove CO2 from the atmosphere then we can afford to capture it as it's being released and store it immediately because that's easier and cheaper. If we can afford to capture it and store it then we can afford to not release it in the first place because that's easier and cheaper.
The chea
Get rid of power plants and farms (Score:1)
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Off topic, and a bit of a troll, but the non-polluting areas on their map are producing more children than can be supported. The polluting areas have declining populations, excluding immigration.
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Look, if we just get rid of power plants and farms, this is all settled.
You should go into politics and campaign on this platform. I'm sure the electorate will absolutely love the idea of sitting in the dark and starving. You'll win by a landslide, I'm sure.
Re: Get rid of power plants and farms (Score:2)
hmmm (Score:2)
The emissions tool employs over 300 satellites; sensors on land, planes and ships
do they track themselves in their app as well?
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You can get a pretty good idea of the emissions of the ships based on public records of where they've been, because you know about how much fuel they're burning, and the carbon emissions are basically proportional to that (variations are in PPM.)
Boy 2049 will be a busy year! (Score:5, Insightful)
Imported emissions tracking ? (Score:2)
Whatever improves the global awareness of the problem is a good thing, even Greta with all her misguided rants made more good than bad.
However, it would make more impact if it could allow anyone to explore his own impact based on his consumerist behavior.
For instance, does it matter if an electric plant that burns coal is located in China, if it powers a plant that produces goods that I use ?
If I wasn't there to purchase them, there would be less CO2 emissions in China therefore, ultimately, I am causing th
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At least Greta seems to walk the walk, even going so far as to sail on "carbon-free" boats to cross the ocean instead of flying.
Is John Kerry on there? (Score:1, Informative)
It's nice being able to compare things (Score:2)
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"For example, folks in this thread are getting rankled up over private planes, whether Al Gore has ever used or owned one, etc."
No. People are not getting all riled up over Al Gore flying in private planes. People are calling Al Gore out on his hypocrisy, all his claims about the dangers of climate change, his efforts to identify and shame big polluters while he himself is a bigger polluter than any 25 random US families (or thereabouts). And he does absolutely nothing to inconvenience himself--it doesn't p
Outsourced (Score:2)
Thanks to globalization we have outsourced our pollution to Asia.
Better have scary lawyers (Score:2)
Are private jets included? (Score:2)
That's nice (Score:1, Insightful)
Dark Matter (Score:2)
You know what, until you can assign EVERYONE a score and everyone can CHECK their score and how it's computed, it's hard to believe anything.
I wait, with bated breath, to find out exactly what I and all of my family members 'cost' and a real way to offset/bring that cost down. Then I'll double it. Then I'll bug my neighbors. Then I'll help my neighbors.
I see people idling their cars at gas pumps and I saw a big 3x diesel towing a trailer just sitting there running with no one in it at Lowes today. That'
#1 on the list.... (Score:2)
Gore tracks himself? (Score:2)
This time (Score:2)
"This tool is not available in mobile version..." (Score:2)
"..., please switch to desktop." Um, I am using a desktop PC! It hates SeaMonkey web browser. :(
People (Score:2)
Unless this website is going to name the individual persons who own and operate those companies, it's not going to hold anyone to account. The information is public and if you have access to something like a LexisNexis account, you can easily find most of it. But most people don't have a LexisNexis account. Corporations are a human system. And like all human systems, it's fundamentally composed of a collection of individual humans. If you want to make a corporation change, you have to target the humans that
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he should instead work on re-inventing* the internet, like the good ol' days. We really need that state-ful GUI markup standard I keep ranting about so that we don't have to use buggy bloated JavaScript+DOM UI frameworks from bloody Hell's basement.
* He never directly claimed to invent it, although I agree the wording was ambiguous. He helped direct funding toward its early R&D, though.
No he did not. The Internet was already invented, technical-wise (TCP/IP, all the higher and lower level protocols, the DNS, routers, etc.), and was in full operation. Had been for years. What Al Gore did was direct funding to get more places (i.e. more networks such as the NSFnet project) connected to the existing backbone.
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> Trump would have claimed sole credit for inventing the Internet just like he claimed credit for developing the
Like this? [slashdot.org]
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VR Goatse, OMG, they went and did it. Kill me now!
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Don't forget Occidental Petroleum:
https://publicintegrity.org/po... [publicintegrity.org]
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Lol modded off-topic when on-topic. Classic Slashdot.
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Carbon footprint of his mansion is that of 21 American families, and that's before he hops on private jets to go places.
Rich lying hypocrites pushing for we peons to live in poverty and austerity to save the planet. Just like Pelosi. Fuck 'em.