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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.

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A New Website Backed By Al Gore Tracks Big Polluters By Name

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  • Gore (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hudson9 ( 10106782 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @08:36PM (#63051865)
    First the internet, and now climate change. What can't he invent?
    • Re:Gore (Score:5, Funny)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @08:56PM (#63051923)

      He also invented the Al-Gore-Rhythm, which is very important in computer technology.

    • Re:Gore (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @09:07PM (#63051943)

      First the internet, and now climate change. What can't he invent?

      A way to make people care enough to actually do something.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by haruchai ( 17472 )

        "A way to make people care enough to actually do something"
        A way to make enough Americans care enough to actually do something

        FTFY

        • 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

          • 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.

            • 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.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            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.

          • by haruchai ( 17472 )

            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.

      • 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.

        • 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".

          • If you consider that most people are poor and do not own a house, then the solution is rather more difficult. For those us who are relatively well off - I heat my well insulated home with wood and solar while reading sloshdat and sipping tea boiled with nuclear power electricity.
          • 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, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @09:07PM (#63051947)
      If by "now climate change" you mean 15+ years ago I guess...?

      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)

        by Dread_ed ( 260158 )

        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.

    • by cstacy ( 534252 )

      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!"

  • where is the manbearpig on that site?

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Mspangler ( 770054 )

      Al Gore's name had better be on the list.

      https://www.investors.com/poli... [investors.com]

    • 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".

      • 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)

    by Latent Heat ( 558884 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @08:55PM (#63051915)

    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?

    • 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

      • 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.

        • 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

          • We are talking about semi trucks you moron. All food during harvesting, proccessing, slaughtering and delivering needs diesel in one way or another
            • 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)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @04:19AM (#63052493)

      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)
      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 ... more natural gas).

      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.

      • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )
        I love that your entire post uses accurate numbers and units, then you say "A metric fuckton of heat" - I LOL'd.
    • 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.

    • by bidule ( 173941 )

      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.

  • If every cow is a polluter, that's a lot of bovine names.

  • "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.

    • Up next, fossil fuel companies split their operations up into a tree of companies with generic names and obscured connections...

  • by khchung ( 462899 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @10:04PM (#63052031) Journal

    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.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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

    • by Reziac ( 43301 ) *

      It's Al Gore, flitting from one climate conference to the next in his private jet.

  • by jimbrooking ( 1909170 ) on Monday November 14, 2022 @10:46PM (#63052097)

    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..

  • How fitting it would be if Mr. Gore himself was listed as one of the largest polluters.

    • 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.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 )

      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

  • Look, if we just get rid of power plants and farms, this is all settled. Why can't we just band together for the good of humanity and do this?
  • The emissions tool employs over 300 satellites; sensors on land, planes and ships

    do they track themselves in their app as well?

    • 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.)

  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @01:41AM (#63052289)
    "made pledges to become carbon-neutral by 2050"
  • 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

    • by mpercy ( 1085347 )

      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 climate hypocrite John Kerry on the list?
  • Just had a click around, and can see that DFW airport emits Megatons of CO2, while the Permian basin oil field emits over 200 Megatons. I don't deal with megatons in daily life, so it's hard to compare what a "lot" is. It would be interesting if you could somehow 'turn off' emitters, and the site could predict how much effect that would have. For example, folks in this thread are getting rankled up over private planes, whether Al Gore has ever used or owned one, etc., but is that what folks should actually
    • by mpercy ( 1085347 )

      "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

  • Thanks to globalization we have outsourced our pollution to Asia.

  • Because it will be completely subjective and will ignore the biggest polluters and just target political opponents.
  • Gore and his frineds should be on that list.
  • That's nice (Score:1, Insightful)

    by flaguy11 ( 8860375 )
    So, will they finally admit Red China and India are the big problems? Also, all that computing requires electricity, resources like oil to make the plastic, metal that was mined, etc.. It is just more virtual signaling from the warmists socialists.
  • 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'

  • ...is Al Gore's mansion, which uses 12 - 20 times the energy of a typical user. Do as I say, not as I do.
  • https://www.truthorfiction.com... [truthorfiction.com] Goreâ(TM)s home is a energy hog. Rules for thee but not for me.
  • He's super Serial.
  • "..., please switch to desktop." Um, I am using a desktop PC! It hates SeaMonkey web browser. :(

  • 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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