No Big North Sea Fossil Fuel Country Has Plan To Stop Drilling in Time For 1.5C Goal (theguardian.com) 151
None of the big oil and gas producers surrounding the North Sea plan to stop drilling soon enough to meet the 1.5C (2.7F) global heating target, a report has found. From a report: The five countries -- the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark -- have failed to align their oil and gas policies with their climate promises under the Paris agreement, according to the campaign group Oil Change International.
North Sea governments must act urgently, said Silje Ask Lundberg from Oil Change International, who co-wrote the report. "Failure to address these issues not only undermines international climate goals, but also jeopardises the liveability of our planet." The report found that policies in Norway and the UK were furthest from the Paris climate agreement because the countries were "aggressively" exploring and licensing new oil and gas fields. In 2021, the International Energy Agency found there was no room for new oil exploration in its pathway to net zero emissions.
North Sea governments must act urgently, said Silje Ask Lundberg from Oil Change International, who co-wrote the report. "Failure to address these issues not only undermines international climate goals, but also jeopardises the liveability of our planet." The report found that policies in Norway and the UK were furthest from the Paris climate agreement because the countries were "aggressively" exploring and licensing new oil and gas fields. In 2021, the International Energy Agency found there was no room for new oil exploration in its pathway to net zero emissions.
The end is near (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The end is near (Score:5, Insightful)
We've known since the Keeling Curve was widely publicized in 1980 that something was amiss with our climate. There are hundreds of plausible models that predict different timelines and probabilities. They mostly come to similar conclusions even if the timeframes differ. The models are accurate in predicting that something will happen, just not necessarily when. We could wait around for better models before making any decisions, but that's going to lead to a much more expensive problem to fix.
I propose that we not fart around for decades arguing about exactly when the bad thing will happen. And take actual steps to avoid the bad thing entirely. Wild idea, I know.
Re:The end is near (Score:5, Insightful)
What, planning ahead? Being _careful_? Naa, cannot do that. That would impact _profits_!
Re: The end is near (Score:2)
You mean the standard of living the ultra wealthy want to maintain, right?
Right?
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You mean the standard of living the ultra wealthy want to maintain, right?
I don't consider myself ultra wealthy, just middle class, though I suppose I am wealthy by global standards. In any case I want to maintain my standard of living as well and am hardly surprised that pretty much everyone feels that way.
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YOU do not have to compromise your standard of living in order for us to save the biosphere.
Some things will have to change in your life, but nothing that will compromise your standard unless you are exceptionally wasteful now. And if you are, I'm shedding no tears for you.
The things that need to change are at whole other levels, like where and how we source things, who gets the bulk of the profit, etc. We have packaging alternatives. We have superior transportation options. We have the technology already!
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treehuggers fallacy. there is no way for a biosphere to be "broken"
That's true, if you don't have a human point of view, and don't care about humanity. Otherwise, it's bullshit designed for enablers by those they bow to.
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Want to try that in English, sport?
Wait, were you trying to appeal to religion there? That's pretty hilarious given what's happening in the alleged holy land right now.
Re:The end is near (Score:4)
"the models predict that something will happen"
That's sort of like noticing that the bus left the station and theorizing that it will go somewhere - which is exactly what happened.
Of course they predict -something-. They predict a lot of somethings, most of which has not happened, or happened differently than the models predicted. (For instance, the models did not predict the greening of Africa due to increased CO2, which is happening.)
We don't know that they are 'bad things'. There is a very limited understanding of cause and effect, and the models assume a closed system (without all parts of said system participating). It's always assumed that there will be disaster - global flooding and/or draught, famine - and not re-greening of deserts, increasing areas of temperate farming, and so on. We're seeing both to one degree or another, but no significant increase in the amount of "bad things". Are they more visible, and given more attention? Yes. That doesn't mean the sky is falling.
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Rapid change is bad for us. It will trigger mass migrations and wars. It is changing ecosystems faster than many species can evolve or migrate, driving them to extinction and making those ecosystems more fragile with each additional extinction. And rising CO2 will actually make us dumber as it impairs cognitive functions above the levels we evolved in.
We don't need precise, 100% accurate models to know this is something to avoid. The world isn't ending, but it is getting worse for us.
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The plastic problem is a bigger concern then the climate problem. We should strive to do better on both but one is likely beyond our ability to stop in time (climate) where as the plastic issue is likely something we could stop though the micro-plastics aren't going anywhere any time soon.
So really, we've done screwed out selves pretty darn good at this point.
Re: The end is near (Score:2)
We have more of the ability to fix the climate problem, frankly, but it would take a massive pivot in profitability which will not be tolerated.
And so it goes.
Plastic is absolutely necessary for practically everything we are used to now. And we have been dragging our heels on eco friendly replacements. We have some, but we could not get production up in time to solve the problem.
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And we have been dragging our heels on eco friendly replacements.
It appears that individuals such as yourself, based on your posting history, have not only been slow to adopt but have actively hindered the progress of low-CO2 emitting power sources that have been available for the past 50 years and have a demonstrated track record of effectively decarbonizing electric grids. To clarify, I'm referring to a combination of nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and storage (primarily pumped hydroelectric energy storage). I'm not referring to the unsuccessful approach undertaken in Ge
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The only one of those things I've ever opposed was nuclear. I still do, since we don't need it.
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True we don't need nuclear. Unless it's night time or cloudy. And that'll never happen!
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We don't know that they are 'bad things'. There is a very limited understanding of cause and effect, and the models assume a closed system (without all parts of said system participating). It's always assumed that there will be disaster - global flooding and/or draught, famine - and not re-greening of deserts, increasing areas of temperate farming, and so on. We're seeing both to one degree or another, but no significant increase in the amount of "bad things".
I would call all of those a significant increase in bad things.
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And yet stupid fucking people keep moving to Phoenix for some reason. It boggles the mind. We keep growing crops in the middle of the desert. Heck, we keep letting foreigners (Hi Saudis) buy land with water rights to produce animal feed they ship back to their country.
I'll start REALLY caring when you can get out dipshit leaders to care about anything beyond themselves. Until then, I'll keep doing the best I can with what I got but I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over it. We're screwed anyway.
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California just had some huge storms that raised the reservoir levels up to depths they haven't been for years.
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California just had some huge storms that raised the reservoir levels up to depths they haven't been for years.
Groundwater level is still below normal in many parts of the state last I checked. And remember that the drought was almost continuous from 2007 to 2022, with only three normal years during that 16-year period. Having a year of normal rainfall here and there is nice and all, but it doesn't change the fact that things were really bad almost every year for a very long time, and will probably be bad again in a year or two.
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This is completely false. The predictions from the 1980s were very specific, and most of them have been right on. The major predictions included
- Average global temperature increasing
- Glaciers shrinking around the world
- Artic sea ice shrinking
- Sea level rising
- Ocean becoming more acidic
- Extreme weather events becoming more common and more severe
Every one of those has happened exactly as predicted. They didn't just predict "something" would happen. And there's no question at all that the effects wil
Re:The end is near (Score:4, Interesting)
The predictions from the 1980s were very specific, and most of them have been right on.
Being an interglacial those are pretty safe predictions. You could have made them 10,000 years ago and been right all along.
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Which of those were true 10,000 years ago?
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Prediction is a word that means something you think will happen in the future, not at the moment the prediction is made.
You're welcome.
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What refugees? It makes no sense at all for people to migrate around if the whole planet is unlivable.
Where are they going to?
So if you're a baby boomer (Score:2)
Meanwhile older people without a future make it very hard for younger people with the future to vote. There's a laundry list of voter suppression tactics used against younger voters with the most obvious one just having elections on a Tuesday.
And if that wasn't enough the favorite poli
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Voting Tuesday bad. I assume because you think all those young people have jobs? lol... ok!
Voting M,W,Th bad for same reason.
Friday bad because there's a party tonight.
Saturday bad because hung over.
Sunday bad because hung over from Saturday night party we made it to after mostly sobering up from Friday night party.
Yes, the voter suppression is real!!! The evil boomers left GenZ with no way to both vote and party! We should kill and eat the boomers! Rawwwwr! Class warfare! Failed Marxist philisophy!
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I propose that we not deny the problem exists for decades arguing about exactly when the bad thing will happen because it will hurt fossil fuel companies' obscene profits . And not avoid taking actual steps to avoid the bad thing entirely because the profiteers will be dead before the bad thing happens.
FTFY
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I stated it the way I intended. I did not ask for your help "fixing' it. Write and share your own opinions instead of trying to hijack mine.
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Re:"Amiss" (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, the world has no food problem. It hasn't for decades. It has a food distribution problem.
Finally, good luck getting all that imported shit you buy when the ports it moves through are all underwater.
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If the mid west runs dry it'll be because they abuse the shit out of the aquifers.
Re: "Amiss" (Score:2)
Excellent troll. Pretended that hundreds of millions of people losing their homes, and societies forced to abandon their cities is just a normal, easy thing to deal with. Worth it to drive the new Ford F-Ferd-Fifty.
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Historically speaking, it is. There are countless times and places throughout human history where nature taught us who the boss is and wiped out anything from a village to entire wide spread civilizations.
That sort of thing is unfortunately quite normal.
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That happens when you arbitrarily set the end well within what's expected.
Climate change? Who cares! (Score:2, Interesting)
There is money to be made! Let future generations pay the price, no matter how high.
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There are vague poorly understand threats to fear, let current people live in poverty!
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You're not wrong. But fundamentally you can't restrict supply, you have to somehow quench demand for a product and do so without placing burden on the population.
But who will do that? The Russians turned the gas off, and COVID knocked the fuel industry about causing a sudden 25-30% increase in the cost of petrol / diesel in Europe, and a 150% increase in the cost of gas. What's the first thing that the countries affected did? Price controls to shield the consumers from the change in costs. Subsidies and red
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Of what value the lives of peasants when there is money to be made?
Drilling for oil doesn't cause climate change (Score:2)
It's burning oil that causes the CO2 emissions. Given that countries plan to keep burning oil, if they stop drilling it will just change whose oil is getting bought and burned.
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It's cool knowing you don't use petrochemical based products. Just curious, what did you use to replace plastic in all areas of your life?
Asking for a friend!
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Petrochemicals won't see a 90% reduction in usage because enough people won't force the changes required. Most people either can't envision the planet will be much warmer and with much less predictable weather. Those that can just can't envision how their neighbor can possibly figure out how to change their lifestyle to get them there.
Stop externalizing the costs of petrochemicals and you'll find lots of alternatives, chemical or otherwise, without your depopulation agenda.
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How about you start by capping all the methane spewing wells that were capped and no longer produce oil. They are the single largest contributor at this point and quite within our technological means to deal with right now. That means holding oil companies accountable for cleaning up their messes however and that costs investors money so it doesn't happen.
When even basic steps like this are glossed over, more drastic lifestyle altering steps are of course not going to stand a chance.
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Go wide-scale nuclear fission (and/or fusion!) for power generation. Continue using petroleum for lubricants and other industrial products. Replace petro ICE and battery powered vehicles with sustainable hydrogen ICE.
Why would you do that when you can get about twice the range per kWh by using batteries instead of using that power to convert water to hydrogen and back, and can charge at home instead of having to drive somewhere to fill up?
Hydrogen is mostly a failed concept by the oil companies, in an attempt to perpetuate people's dependence on them. Most of it will end up getting made by steam reforming of natural gas anyway, which releases a significant amount of CO2, so you're not really saving much.
Re: Climate change? Who cares! (Score:3)
There is no such thing as sustainable hydrogen.
We already know how to make plant based crankcase lube.
Your ramblings are not evidence-based.
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We already know how to make plant based crankcase lube.
And how much land would that consume to meet demand?
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There is no such thing as sustainable hydrogen.
Not yet, and certainly not by the petro-scum. Eventually, one way to deal with solar and wind overproduction will probably be electrolysis, which apparently can get up tp 90% efficiency or more, just not now. This will take at the very least 10 years to work well on lab-scale and then another 10...20 years for large-scale deployment.
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Now, the preferable way t
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If that 1/4th does not reduce its CO2 emissions, the time frame changes to 4 * X.
It doesn't anyway. Fewer people will expand their lifestyles to still consume all available resources if we proceed with the same dominionist, extractive mindset.
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Your math is fundamentally broken. The problem with CO2 emissions is that they are larger than what nature can absorb. Funny how all the deniers and assholes cannot do math and do not understand how things actually work.
Tragedy of the Commons (Score:3)
Do you think OPEC nations won't sell to the last drop? If the North Sea countries don't drill, the same amount of oil gets burned but the economic benefit goes to the Middle East.
Unless we're willing to go to war to stop that (good luck, the military still runs on oil), it's not really practical to tell one region of oil producers to hold back when the only real effect is that it benefits another region.
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Europe is moving away from oil as a fuel, with bans on fossil fuel vehicles due to come in around 2030-2035.
We just need to make sure that the technology becomes available and affordable for developing nations, so OPEC can't rely on supplying them either.
I don't know what we do about the US refusenicks.
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Deal? Yep. I'd be fine with nationalising oil. Government takes back the resources rights, contracts out the extraction and processing, and dumps profits into a 'green fund's that the politicians can't easily redirect elsewhere.
But I'm a Canadian living in Ontario. You'd get a more Texas-like response from an Albertan, and a 'no oil at all' from the First Nations. And a lot of resistance to building refineries because we mostly export raw materials to the US so we can pay American companies to ship us
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OK, here's alternative: drill on, but 100% of profits go into green transformation projects. No more oil-funded Norwegian Sovereign Fund propping up socialist uhhhh... "economy" by destroying the planet, instead leftists put their money where their mouth is, and finance the change they scream we're supposedly all going to die without. Deal?
This is basically what they think they are doing. How do you think the share of electric vehicles in Norway is so high? Subsidies. Where do you think those subsidies come from?
Oh wait. You mean you want them to sell their oil and finance YOUR green transformation? Tough luck. But here is an alternative: use less oil yourself (drive less, eat less meat, dont take the plane, be poor). Don't like that? No worries, it will happen anyway.
It's already too late for 1.5C (Score:3)
It's too late to avoid passing 1.5C: we're already there [slashdot.org]. I know, every article about it says we've only had one year that warm, and we haven't officially passed the line until it's stayed above it for multiple years. But realistically we know that temperatures go up, and they don't come back down. As long as we keep emitting greenhouse gases, they'll just keep going up. And we haven't even started cutting emissions yet. Global emissions are still increasing [slashdot.org]. This last year was one of the coolest years you'll ever experience for the rest of your life.
Here's a bit of trivia. What was the last time a year didn't set a record for being one of the 10 warmest years ever recorded?
Answer: 1985
It's been almost 40 years since we had a year that wasn't one of the 10 warmest recorded up to that time.
money (Score:2)
Money talks, nobody walks.
Netherlands (Score:2)
Netherlands has reduced its natural gas 'drilling' with over 30 percent in recent years. Not sure what more people want from us. Gas use went down massively too - largely because of Russia.
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No one wants anything except a few climate crazies. People do not seem to fundamentally understand that we can't stop global warming by not drilling for oil and gas. All that will do is drive up prices and the first thing that governments do when that happens is enact policies to drive the price down again.
This simply can't be fixed on a supply side unless we all agree to fuck the poor, and reduce our buying power. And shit half of Europe started striking over a little inflation, so good luck letting the co
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Well the Netherlands will be badly hit by climate change. The rising sea levels will mean they will have to build more dikes.
Still there will be a lot of them emigrating from the USA, along with the rest of the GBTQNetc once the (R)s take total control.
(and cis-women too if they don't want to be giving birth)
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Re: Netherlands (Score:2)
Has the Netherlands reduced gas consumption by that much, or just replaced the gas source with that from other countries?
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And that's just the battery.
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In other news, fast food corporations won't do anything to fight obesity. Gambling casinos won't do anything to reduce or treat gambling addiction. The gun industry (in America) won't do anything to prevent mass shootings or even accidental shootings. The tobacco industry...
You are talking about corporations, TFA is about nations.
The five countries -- the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark -- have failed to align their oil and gas policies
See the difference?
Petrochemistry (Score:2)
Petroleum is good for more than fuel. As long as there are buyers, drillers gonna drill. Yes eventually we'll need more and better sources of energy if we want to continue economic expansion. The "peak oil" fearmongering from years ago is a byproduct of a latent understanding that our society is limited by its energy sources. That being said, even if/when we all go "green" on some combination of non-fossil energy, we'll still want petroleum for a lot of things.
Of course not (Score:2)
Because the leaders are politicians, and (at least as of today) they're all still democracies.
Abandoning fossil fuels without ACTUAL REPLACEMENTS for everything that needs it would be stupid. And you can't just 'handwave' that the gubbermint buys all the expensive stuff that are putative replacements because eventually you run out of other people's money.
Impossible goal (Score:2)
They've been pushing the 'global warming' scam for 40 years or more. We've blown past every single prediction and none of them have been true.
Maybe we should stop listening to these grifters?
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Maybe you should get your information from somewhere other than 'Truth' Social.
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The main problem 'misinformation' has is with all the factual evidence that disagrees - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Its been a mild winter (Score:2)
It was 61f here today, thats very warm for early March in MN
The South is going to suffer before we do, but they are all deniers...
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I can't tell if you "git it right" because what you said makes no sense. Would you like to rephrase?
=Smidge=
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
An economy that runs on fossil fuels is ultimately not sustainable, in the same way you can't quit your job and live off your credit cards for the rest of your life (unless you're planning on dying very soon). The problem is that the transition away from fossil fuels should've began sooner.
What's that conservatives are always saying about student loan debts? You knew what you were getting into and have a responsibility to keep your commitments even if it is financially burdensome? Funny how that same sort of mentality doesn't seem to apply when the debt to be repaid is owed to mother earth.
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"Funny how that same sort of mentality doesn't seem to apply when the debt to be repaid is owed to mother earth"
How would that debt be repaid, exactly?
What exactly do you see that debt being?
Who is this 'mother earth' you speak of - are we promoting some sort of religious thought now to justify our alarmism?
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How would that debt be repaid, exactly?
To continue the student loan analogy, probably something analogous to the income based repayment scheme, where we accept the fact that right now the entirety of our clean/renewable energy budget has to go towards meeting humanity's energy needs rather than cleaning up our previous mess. While it certainly is possible to do atmospheric CO2 scrubbing, at our present technology level it represents an inefficient use of renewable energy resources.
What exactly do you see that debt being?
The "debt" is the externalized costs of dumping all that CO2 int
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I "accept the fact that right now the entirety of our clean/renewable energy budget has to go towards meeting humanity's energy needs rather than cleaning up our previous mess".
Is it all ok now? Cool.
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Yes! Save democracy! Kill and eat an old person today! Soylent Green is people!
Did I hit all your main points?
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Those are the same option, just phrased differently.
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I don't see them offering any #3's....
3. Nukes.
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The part you're missing is generally people who are for solving environmental issues also feel we should address the economic issues which lead to people burning tires and starving in a world with more than enough resources to go around.
You can't truly believe that we couldn't produce enough energy without fossil fuels. 40% of the electrical generation in the USA already is carbon-free (about half of that is from nuclear fission).
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How would you solve any kind of issue in countries where anything that's not protected by armed guard is immediately pillaged and carted off in the middle of the night? Like Kenya (which isn't even remotely one of the worst places on earth in this department) has issues with electrical transformers being looted for the coolant, which is then used in fryers for cooking (if you visit kenya, don't order anything fried from a roadside stall.)
Throwing money at these places is beyond counterproductive. Subsidies
Re: So... (Score:2)
The problem is, the people who scream the loudest about climate change hate nuclear fission & hydroelectric power even *more*.
Nuclear fission is far from perfect, but the cold, hard fact is... it's the best thing we *have,* and the only realistic option for simultaneously reducing carbon emissions and sustaining ever-increasing demand. Period.
On top of that, people forget that the US's population isn'a exploding, but it's still steadily grinding along towards 400 and 500 million over the next century or
Re: So... (Score:2)
No, a century from now Florida will have nobody living there, because it will be completely underwater.
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Florida will not be underwater in a century. In 500 years, maybe. The ice sheets just don't melt that fast, regardless of how much future melting we have already committed to.
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Miami will be underwater in less than a century, and a lot of the other coastal cities. And Ddn't forget the storm surge from the hurricanes.
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Re: So... (Score:2)
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
You know *nothing* about either South Florida *or* sea level rise.
Let's start with the fact that Miami's as-built ground level is quite a bit higher than USGS "base flood elevation". In most parts of the country, BFE isn't much different than present-day "ground level". In Florida, it IS different. Usually, by several feet.
Florida doesn't hide behind levees and dikes. We can't. Water would just spray up like a geyser. Instead, we raise the terrain itself. We dig big holes that become spa
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The unspoken part of #1 is, of course, they want to kill off a huge number of people in the process
That's a small price to pay [quoracdn.net].
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Given first world birth rates, we are heading in the lower population direction. Of course, all our social programs and the wider economy demand perpetual growth, which we haven't and won't be solving for any time soon. Basically, we can't all live the Western lifestyle and most in the West are going to have to reduce their quality of life.
We'll need to stop flying. Eat significantly less meat. Mostly stop driving places. Stop buying shit from China. Also, a lot of our industrial methods need to change beca
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I'll wager that your concern has much less to do with "people starving" and more to do with "I might be inconvenienced slightly".
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Re:We're already past 1.5. (Score:4, Informative)
It was downvoted because it wasn't a "FACT". It was a measurement in a couple of months. The very first line of TFA says precisely that we didn't pass 1.5degC because the agreements that reference 1.5C consider that measurement across a yearly average.
Now there's a very good chance we will breach that this year, but the reality is your "FACT" is based on an incorrect assumption.
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There's no precise formula or baseline. But it is at least a decadal average, so we won't officially pass it for five years, more if temperatures decrease from El Nino. But we're certainly on the way thereâ"you can only pass it by having periods above 1.5.
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Whoa, hit em with the your-definition-technicality and say hes wrong wrong wrong.
It's not my definition. That's the whole thing about when you want to use someone else's metrics. You're bound by *their* definition.
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It wasn't down voted, AC start at zero. You can click on the zero to see the history, it says "no comment history available."
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The world needs energy, and the foolish pursuit of green fantasy has only driven global fossil fuel consumption to record levels. From 1997 to 2022, the relative share of fossil energy decreased by 4%, while the absolute consumption increased by 55%. Great work; the developing world can't afford virtue signalling, and will gladly burn the coal in your place.
It's not the developing world. That's mostly lost in the noise. For example, between 2000 and 2022, Africa and South America's total increase in fossil-fuel consumption was only about 4300 TWh, or about 3.3% of world fossil fuel consumption. This is almost precisely counterbalanced by the ~4200 TWh reduction in fossil fuel use in Europe over that same time period.
The problem, to be blunt, are the industrialized countries that make products for everyone else. We passed laws that limit industrial pollutio