Climate Change In A Nutshell

[Taylor Martin]

I know this borders Oppolitics, so bump it if you must, but I feel it’s too important a topic to jam into a thread not everyone will at least lay eyes on. After all, these aren’t political opinions, they’re facts.

This is an excellent video about how personal responsibility helps, but will never be enough. Everything has to change.

Certainly an interesting, gloomy way to start the day, hearing about how we’ve kinda dug our own grave. But these videos are incredible and if you want to go down a learnings rabbit hole these guys are the best.

I leave you all to discuss. I’m hitting the road.

[pip bip]

@taylor-martin @5:10 "Froop Poop" - i giggled

[MybirdIStheword]

@taylor-martin we will never get compliance out of china or other third world countries. China has concentration camps, you think they give a damn about the environment? It's literally a first world problem. Everyone else won't care because they are so poor that anything that threatens their bottom line is unacceptable.

[RallyDarkstrike]

@taylor-martin Safe travels friend! I'll have to try and check this out when I get home!

[facw]

@mybirdistheword China, for all its problems, appears willing to take action. It's us who are constantly trying to get out of doing anything.

Now obviously compliance is an issue, but again we would freak out more about submitting to any sort of international enforcement than they would.

Chinese companies would certainly try to cheat, but there's a pretty simple solution which is to have compliant countries raise tariffs on non-compliant ones, to essentially cover the cost of carbon capture (quite expensive today) and enforcement operations. That won't stop North Korea from burning coal, but it should create the needed incentives to keep China at least mostly honest.

It is of course harder for developing countries to decarbonize, but the consensus thinking right now is that we should try to get advanced economies to net-zero by 2050 and developing countries there by 2060. Going allowing an extra 10 years is a reasonable thing (though of course both goals should have intermediate targets).

Regardless, the bottom line is that China and India have at least consistently said they are willing to act on climate change, while the US repeatedly claims it is a hoax, and uses imagined (though possible) non-compliance from other countries as an excuse to do nothing. We are the biggest obstacle to a deal.

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@mybirdistheword
They do actually.... compliance and complicity with their government ideology depends on it. And they even have the perfect fall guys lined up if that doesn't work. #youandme

[DipodomysDeserti]

@silentbutnotreallydeadly said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

@mybirdistheword
They do actually.... compliance and complicity with their government ideology depends on it. And they even have the perfect fall guys lined up if that doesn't work. #youandme

Right…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/%3Famp%3Dtrue

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@dipodomysdeserti said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

@silentbutnotreallydeadly said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

@mybirdistheword
They do actually.... compliance and complicity with their government ideology depends on it. And they even have the perfect fall guys lined up if that doesn't work. #youandme

Right…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/%3Famp%3Dtrue

You clearly are not an ideologically driven government. Never let truth underline a good fiction. Have the last few years taught you anything?

[DipodomysDeserti]

@silentbutnotreallydeadly said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

@dipodomysdeserti said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

@silentbutnotreallydeadly said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

@mybirdistheword
They do actually.... compliance and complicity with their government ideology depends on it. And they even have the perfect fall guys lined up if that doesn't work. #youandme

Right…

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/%3Famp%3Dtrue

You clearly are not an ideologically driven government. Never let truth underline a good fiction. Have the last few years taught you anything?

Are you saying China is not planning on building 43 new coal fired power plants? This has been widely reported. We were just discussing it the other day in an atmospheric pollutants course I’m taking.

That’s not to say the US is pulling its weight, but we’ve been knocking down coal burning plants here and reducing coal production (just demolished one a few months ago in Arizona). China and India are the two largest coal producers in the world , so I take anything they say on climate change mitigation with a grain of salt. China produces more coal than anyone by a very large margin. Australia is the fourth largest producer behind the US.

https://www.power-technology.com/features/top-five-coal-producing-countries-world/

*Edit, I think I completely misunderstood what you were saying. Never post before drinking your coffee, kids!

[MasterMario]

@mybirdistheword so we should do nothing then? Is that how you act in your own life?

That guy is speeding, so I'll speed.

He stole some candy, what does it matter if I do?

My neighbor blasts music at 3am, so why shouldn't I?

I hate this argument...let's not make any progress because someone else isn't.

[MybirdIStheword]

@mastermario I never said that. I would say trying to focus on industrial regulations is meaningless when the place that makes all our stuff won't comply. Still hoping that Lockheed Martin's compact fusion reactor gets us out of this mess.

[MybirdIStheword]

@facw china is always my first thought when it comes to reducing pollution. The CCP is also known for being very honest.

[MasterMario]

@mybirdistheword said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

I never said that.

It's implied though...and that's pretty much what you follow up with here

I would say trying to focus on industrial regulations is meaningless when the place that makes all our stuff won't comply.

If money is the reason we can't go green, then a simple carbon tax is really all that is needed. Unfortunately it's a somewhat regressive tax as it would increase the cost of goods, but at this point it's the only real way to drive change it seems.

I hope we get a legit fusion reactor soon too, but we still need to transition economies away from carbon fuels.

[facw]

@mybirdistheword We don't have to trust them. Any deal worth anything is going to include verification and enforcement provisions.

We shouldn't trust China, and frankly, they shouldn't trust us.

But in a collective action framework, it's absolutely possible to take action regardless of whether you trust every player.

Opponents of doing anything about climate change have long claimed it is pointless because of the rapid and dirty industrialization of China and India and weak rule of law there. But again and again, it has been the US that hasn't been willing to take action, which China and India at least claim to be willing make a deal. So make a deal, and make sure it has mechanisms to detect and punish cheating. If they reject that, then go after them. But we shouldn't give up just because they exist.

[MybirdIStheword]

@mastermario transition to what though? Solar and wind didn't work for germany. What exactly are we transitioning to? Nuclear fission?

[MybirdIStheword]

@facw said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

So make a deal, and make sure it has mechanisms to detect and punish cheating. If they reject that, then go after them. But we shouldn't give up just because they exist.

How exactly are we going to hold them accountable for dirty air if we can't hold them accountable for human rights? I'd love to know. Economic sanctions? That's worked so well. I thought those were racist or something.

[DipodomysDeserti]

@facw I’d argue that the US has taken actions, it’s just on a much more local scale, and that there is a lot more we could be doing. I’d like to see us shift the focus towards preserving biodiversity, which is arguably the reason rapid climate change is so destructive. It also gives the public a much more tangible repercussion of our actions since ecosystem destruction is happening at an alarming rate, and is much better understood at this point than our global climate. Atmospheric and oceanic sciences is not something that can be dumbed down enough for everyone to grasp.

[facw]

@mybirdistheword We could hold them accountable, but we don't.

As to why climate would be different, it's because it would be under a framework that they agree to. And it would be simple, don't meet your targets, and your goods are now taxed at a rate that makes them uneconomical to export to the rest of the world.

And yeah, we should be doing that now as they commit genocide and break their promises with regards to Hong Kong, and instead we are doing nothing. That is our weakness, and inability to stand up to corporate interests, and it is why we need clear verification and enforcement terms in any deal. We would be fools to agree otherwise. But China has indicated they would accept such a deal.

[MasterMario]

@mybirdistheword said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

transition to what though?

Everything should be on the table. Solar, wind, nuclear fission, geothermal, etc. The transition needs to start happening, whether we can do it 100% yet or not is up for debate, but we need to start.

[john norris]

@taylor-martin

Scary video.

They elected not to share that the satellite measured temps and the balloon measured temps are not rising as fast as the models predicted. The surface temps pretty much are, but they have some urban heat island issues that put their reliability in question. They don't like to discuss any of that because it sounds less scary, and flies in the face of the story that the science is settled, and we have an existential crisis so you better do what I tell you.

The reality is there are enough variables in the climate system that it is very hard to model. Thus the current models are insufficient and we can't be sure it's really that scary. But we don't need to know that. We just need to give up our comfort and lifestyle in case 5 parts C02 per 10,000 instead of 2.5 parts in 10,000 really warms us up several degrees instead of a few degrees. Nevermind that overnight we swing 30 degrees pretty regularly, and annually we swing 80, at least where I live.

[MybirdIStheword]

@facw so we arent going to hold them accountable, but we should. But we aren't, and we won't just like they didn't back in 1938. You get my point? I'm just trying to be realistic about our priorities here.

[flatisflat]

@taylor-martin said in Climate Change In A Nutshell:

they’re facts.

Oh sweet, sweet Taylor. Didn't you know these don't exist anymore...?

[facw]

@mybirdistheword You seem to be arguing that we should let them do nothing, because if we do make a global climate deal, they might do less than they promised and we might not react as strongly as we should.

That is still much better than nothing, and the second part is something that is entirely within the developed world's control.

[MybirdIStheword]

@facw I'm saying that getting china to cooperate on climate change should naturally be our absolute lowest priority due to the absolute ridiculousness of the thought that they even care.

[facw]

@mybirdistheword I don't know why you think think they don't care? We are the ones who look like we don't care. Chinese companies being likely to try to cheat is not the same as the government not caring.

And not getting them to cooperate is basically the same as doing nothing, we can't make the impact we need without them. So if we aren't going to engage China on this, we may as well start building flood barriers and figuring out what to do as the southwest becomes too dry for agriculture.