Ukraine is fucked Taiwan is probably fucked Europe is probably fucked Palestine is fucked The world climate is fucked
Did I miss anything?
this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
245 points (98.4% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5192 readers
739 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
10 dollars say that trump will die in office, soon, and his extremist successor will install himself as a theocratic dictator
Congratulations to climate change. You won buddy. Now get to work on Florida and Texas.
the environment. everything. roe vs wade was because of the judiciary but now they control all the levers.
I guess the world burning was worth sticking it to Kamala for Gaza.
may a better species rise from the ashes of our civilization
Well they'll try. Unfortunately for oil and coal companies, China exists.
But per capita, China is pumping way less greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than the USA. And much of China's industry only exists to sell cheap goods to Western countries.
China also built more high-speed rail in a decade than the US has in it's entirety. Not to mention how fast they're producing electric cars and solar panels.
That's what I mean, oil and coal companies can try regression, but China is already able to export the means for countries and communities to create their own power cheaper than those groups could buy power from fossil fuels companies.
That's what tarrifs are for.
Tariffs issued by the US will only harm the US, and so on. The anti China block represents an extreme minority of people in the planet and an ever shrinking percentage of total industry and energy use. More and more countries are choosing brics
Unfortunately, climate action is a collective effort globally. With him being in the pocket of Big Oil, expect no further investment into renewables and increased coal mining, fracking, and oil drilling.
Anyone who cared about climate and voted for him (or abstained/voted third party) basically fucked themselves and everybody else.
That's nice, but Americans and American companies can't afford non renewable energy. Trump needs to triple subsidies over the next 4 years to keep them competitive with renewable energy.
Just a reminder, Trump is not more corrupt or well bribed than Texas, and Texas is one of the largest producers of renewable energy in the Western hemisphere. Money wins over ideology, and there's a lot more money to be had with solar and wind given the now low upfront costs and nearly non-existent maintenance costs compared to all fossil fuels.
I hope you're right. I don't really see that in practice, as we slow walk that transition.
Counterpoint, Alberta exists and low costs benefit the consumer, not the company. I am fully confident that the profit made by oil and gas is significantly more than the tight profit margins in renewables, which means far less money to throw at politicians. Oil and gas can therefore throw much more money at Trump and still be in the black on their ‘investment’, even if you ignore that Trump has deep ideological and political opposition to renewables.
Renewables don't have tight profit margins, you're think of nuclear, maybe hydro.
Solar approaches a 100% profit margin after 20 years, wind only ever gets to 90ish but still has the same timeline. Without subsidies, neither oil or coal gets profitable.
No, i’m thinking of solar.
Over decades a solar system will pay back itself many times over, but that’s irrelevant to the question of how big of a money pile can business throw at politicians in the here and now.
That’s determined by the profit margin for companies manufacturing and installing them, which tend to be rather thin given the highly competitive nature of the market. No solar installer anywhere near the profit that oil companies are raking in, and the people owning the panels are usually paying off the loan to install them, using the profits to build more capacity, or saving, not buying off politicians.
Without subsidies there would be far less profit for oil companies, which is exactly why it is so important for them to ‘reinvest’ some of their recent massive profits into continuing and expanding said subsidies and slowing down the adoption of alternatives. Buying off the government with its own money is a benefit since it leaves more for them.
Individual solar is nice, but it's a fraction of a percent of solar capacity. No one is talking about that. Actual solar plants and installations are run by dedicated companies with huge profit margins that currently are all in expansion phases. They make up the majority of solar power installed and operated.
That market is competitive, but not hyper competitive and dirt has a decent lobbying budget, hence Dems including solar subsidies to appease Texas of all states.
I also wasn’t talking about individual solar. Utility solar is nearly always divided between manufacturing, installation, and the operator. The operator is the only one benefited by solar’s long term return on investment. Everyone else makes their money in construction, which is very much price competitive.
In my experience none of these groups however have even a fraction of the cash of a company like BP or Exxon Mobile, and what piles of cash they do have tends to be investment in rather than profit from. As it’s a lot harder to spend investors cash on buying regulators than it is to spend incoming profit on it this limits the amount that they can spend on such an endeavor.
There are also a lot more places banning utility scale solar and wind than are oil and gas, so delaying renewables rollout seems like an evidently effective strategy for limiting their lobbying power.
As well as changes to the EPA, NOAA, etc. Talking about climate change might become dangerous. Asking for help from FEMA may weigh heavily on how your state voted.
Anyone who cared about climate and voted for him
i think that intersection is very small.
Which is why I also included abstainers. Not large groups on their own, but enough to swing an election
Chinese policy doesn't give a shit about climate change. In fact, Xi is banking on a Northern passageway to Europe permanently unthawing to avoid the partly US-controlled South China Sea.
Xi cares about staying in power until he drops in the 2030s, for that he neess to keep the country stable and the people quiet. So what he really wants is industrial power and rising welfare. He's found that one of the best ways to gain an edge that is to spur useful innovation that wealthier nations will want to adopt.
What this means is that we'll see a lot of climate-friendly technology coming out of China, but the country may not care much about cleaning up its footprint.
Even if you are right I'll take doing the right thing for the wrong reasons over the fucking disappointment and self destruction coming from the United States.
Doesn't matter how you spin it, China is objectively better for the world right now.
You can feel morally superior all the way to societal collapse
Tbh, doesn't feel good pinning hopes on China, but I'll take what I can get at this point.
You're right in that the whole drill-baby-drill thing is utter self-destruction which may still work passably over the course of the next four years but not beyond. The IRA right now is solid industrial policy and I wish us Europeans were competing. (Wild guess though, the repeal of the IRA will go much like the repeal of the ACA last time around.)
However, my point is that China is in a phase where it's doing more with more, and its motivation is such that that will stay that way. The only reason Chinese emissions are stagnating right now is that their economy is faltering. At this point, the Jevons paradox is simply eating their renewable power/electric car/... gains. Granted, that is preferable to them continuing to buy ever more fossil-fueled cars.
The motivation for producing this technology will, to a degree, determine the outcome: Solar panels off Temu, delivered to your doorstep using a fossil-fueled plane are a thing that exists.
What happens when the importing blocs (US and EU) rethink their climate policy (because right-wing morons think that's a good idea)? Chinese products will adapt quickly.
China is objectively better for the world right now.
lol
ok educate me. On the topic of climate in which ways has (or will) the United States be better? I'd appreciate the optimistic perspective.
Does the argument extend beyond China bad?
When the people in China can go outside in public without wearing filtration masks I'll consider start taking their environmental approaches more seriously.
What you're bringing up, even if true, would be explained equally well by population density.
China's per capita emissions are lower than the US and Canada https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
They're also innovating and leading in solar technology and cheap EVs.
You're pointing at subjective and anecdotal "evidence" where are your hard stats?
load more comments
(1 replies)
ok educate me
here, educate yourself: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696000-the-hundred-year-marathon
Does the argument extend beyond China bad?
when your argument is "china good", then "china bad" absolutely is valid rebuttal.
China's per capita carbon emissions are lower than the United States and Canada https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
oh, cool. manipulation by carefully selecting statistisc that will support my theory 😂
first, there is a lot more to "being good/better for the world" than co2 emissions per capita.
with that out of hand, lets look at few others, shall we?
https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china
How is it appropriate to make comparisons between nations without normalizing for the population?
Frankly, accusing me of manipulation makes me no longer care what you have to say. You can fuck off.
How is it appropriate to make comparisons between nations without normalizing for the population?
when you have big part of country that is rural and don't participate in generating the emissions and profiting from them, then including them in the total count to artificially decrease final per capita number is just manipulation.
but my point here was you carefully selected one graph and presented it without context to support incorrect conclusion. but you know that, right?
Frankly, accusing me of manipulation makes me no longer care what you have to say. You can fuck off.
so you have no rebuttal to graphs i showed you, so you are suddenly not talking to me. that's understandable, whatever exit strategy works for you, clown...
You're here being an asshole with a chip on your shoulder so I'm giving you the same energy. Comparing the total output of a 2 billion pop nation with a nation 20% of that size is a pretty dumb way to compare statistics and the progress of a country's green transition.
I can't give you a stats curriculum on lemmy when you are also being a huge dick.
can you even read?
did you get lost? I'm done with you
i know. when facts are against you, all you can do is shout loudly while you are leaving. bon voyage.
dude you're such a huge asshole. USA! USA! USA! keep building multi-decade lifespan LNG shipping infrastructure for your "bridge fuel" and suppressing cheap green energy.
Keep electing leaders paid for by fossil fuel companies
USA! USA! #1
dude you’re such a huge asshole.
the other party is such an asshole! they presented facts! how dare they?!?!?!?
you should take deep breath, this mental breakdown can't be good for you.
True I should thank you for teaching me that per capita statistics are useless for comparing nations.
You should go public with this information
True I should thank you for teaching me that per capita statistics are useless for comparing nations.
any single piece of statistic presented without context can be used to manipulate, as you did in this case, knowingly or not.
when you have big part of country that is rural and don’t participate in generating the emissions and profiting from them, then including them in the total count to artificially decrease final per capita number is just manipulation.
these people living in rural areas will ultimately also want to participate in the booming economy, it is just a matter of time. so it is better to look at trends rather than some number fixed in time. and how does the trend look like?
You should go public with this information
oh don't worry, it is public information, they teach it in schools.
A big portion of every country is rural, you're not making the case you think you're making.
Let's look at other differences: China is still largely a manufacturing economy whereas the United States is a service economy.
They've built more rail transit in recent years than the United States has even attempted.
Their EV market share is significantly higher.
Seems the only thing you learned in school is blind nationalism
A big portion of every country is rural
no, big portion of every country is not rural.
also note we are not talking about rural in a sense of geography. we are talking about rural in a sense of what we in europe or us would call living in a medieval conditions.
for example, there is 231 registered cars in china compared to 850 in us.
in 2000, 57% of chinese had access to clean drinking water and toilet. by 2020 that number rose to respectable 92%.
now when these people finally have access to toilet, they will want a car and maybe a roof over their head that is made out of concrete instead of bamboo.
lets see how it will affect their emissions per capita.
China is still largely a manufacturing economy
and will be for some time, before their citizens will get to western living standard, by which time their emissions will be somewhere else than they are today.
They’ve built more rail transit in recent years than the United States has even attempted.
well, united states have 1 km of railways per 1522 people, compared to chinese 8865, so it is easy to see why one of them may be in bigger rush to build more.
here is kinda interesting and unfortunate that according to table historical peek for us was 400k km of tracks in 1917, which is about 100% more than they have now, so, probably thanks to the car culture, they let lot of them rot.
Their EV market share is significantly higher.
yes, they do better here. it is the nature of the beast, if country has almost no cars and is getting richer, it is only logical that some of the new cars will be electrical, compared to country where people already have a car and often not so much disposable income to buy new car when the old one is still working, plus there is of course some inertia.
it is 38% / 23% / 9.5% market share of newly bought cars for china/eu/us.
that also means that 62% of cars sold in china is not electric. and 72% of electricity for these ev cars comes from non-renewable sources.
they are missing about 900 million cars to get to same car penetration as us. so lets wait until they get there and see what it does with their emissions 😂
Seems the only thing you learned in school is blind nationalism
of course. because why else would someone disagree with your genius? i am not an american, as you probably think, you clown.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›