• Mikie
    6.2k


    Does daftness get tiresome?
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    Does daftness get tiresome?Mikie

    Yes, you are tiresome Mikie. :rofl:
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    Given that preaching, protesting, bullying, and insulting are not winning the war on climate-change/global-warming, is there a better way to get people's support?
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407

    Yes, that report does offer some hope.

    But I don't have faith that humans will achieve what they hope for.

    I would be happy to be proved wrong.
  • RogueAI
    2.5k


    I don't get your point about government spending to combat climate change. Are you saying there's a worldwide conspiracy by governments, scientists, and research institutes?
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407


    I am not saying that there is a worldwide conspiracy. I was just making the point that a very large amount of money is required to "go green" and fight climate-change/global-warming.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    How do you go from global numbers to US numbers?

    And it could be far less if people would be prepared to consume less. The problem is that people just assume sustainability is doing the same but greener. We really need a system change more than investments.
  • Tzeentch
    3.4k
    I expect there to be militant lobbying efforts against fusion once it starts posing an immediate threat to oil and gas.Mr Bee

    It should be noted that reluctance to swap over to nuclear doesn't just come from oil and gas producers, but also the fact that the nuclear energy market is largely dominated by the Russian company Rosatom.
  • Mr Bee
    510


    Countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia own a significant chunk of the oil and gas market, so why would Russia dominating the nuclear energy market be a deterrence? Unless I'm misunderstanding you here.
  • Tzeentch
    3.4k
    Because of energy dependency. In the case of nuclear energy it's more extreme than with oil and gas. I think Rosatom holds something in the range of 90% of the total market share, including all the related services (maintenance, waste disposal, etc.).

  • RogueAI
    2.5k
    Yes, it won't be easy. Fossil fuels are cheap. Countries can quickly increase their standards of living using them.
  • Mr Bee
    510
    Fair enough, though I have to say that Russia owning most of the nuclear energy stores may not have been as much of an issue prior to the Ukraine war. Germany in particular was widely criticized by many of it's allies for ditching nuclear energy in favor of Russian oil, creating a dependency that bit them later on.
  • Mikie
    6.2k
    But I don't have faith that humans will achieve what they hope for.Agree-to-Disagree

    Who gives a damn about how you feel about this. This isn’t about personal feelings of optimism or pessimism or “faith in humans.”
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    Who gives a damn about how you feel about this.Mikie

    I could say the same to YOU Mikie. Who gives a damn about how you feel about this.
  • Mikie
    6.2k


    You could, had I talked about my feelings. But I don’t. I assume no one is interested in my gut-feeling predictions.

    You, on the other hand, have contributed nothing except “I don’t feel it’ll happen.” Okay, cool. Thanks for announcing that.
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    You, on the other hand, have contributed nothing except “I don’t feel it’ll happen.”Mikie

    Okay Mikie, I will rephrase it for you. I don't think it will happen.
  • Merkwurdichliebe
    2.6k
    And it could be far less if people would be prepared to consume less.Benkei

    That is a complex issue. Consuming less implies a lower standard of living for many people, and a lower standard of living would be a hard sell to most everyone at anytime in history. However, less consumption does not necessarily correlate with a lower standard of living. There are ways that industries could be profitable without relying on endless compulsory consumption (in fact it has been done very successfully in the past, but abandoned for the more profitable model).

    One of the problems with the more profitable model of endless compulsory consumption is obsolescence.
    Nothing is made to last anymore, thus endless production and waste.

    Imagine if the car industry had evolved to produce cars that could be easily maintained with universal modular replaceable parts (like a pc), so that you could buy one car that could last you forever. Think about how the engine module could easily be replaced with a more efficient one. The auto industry could have still made a killing on producing modules without unecessary infinite waste by-product.

    Imagine if every asshole didn't need a new iphone every 2 seconds because they added a new pubic hair behind the camera. Apple is one of the most profitable industries ever because of the mythical upgrade - just another tragedy of brainless compulsory consumption.

    People do indeed consume too much, but I cannot blame them because they have no other choice than a soon-to-be obsolete product. It is the forces of industry and commerce that hold all the blame - due to their greed and lack of vision.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    Oh, plenty of vision but solely aimed at making profit. The fundamental problem is that "the economy" or "the market" has become the goal and measurement of all human endeavour and there's a small group of people and countries this benefits. Until we can turn this around, hexing economies work for the benefit of humanity we will not solve global warming.

    I sincerely believe we will have to retreat into regional communities again and trade in the iPhone upgrade for actual connection with neighbours and nature.
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    Imagine if every asshole didn't need a new iphone every 2 seconds because they added a new pubic hair behind the camera. Apple is one of the most profitable industries ever because of the mythical upgrade - just another tragedy of brainless compulsory consumption.Merkwurdichliebe

    As I have said before, the way to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used is for consumers to reduce their demand (individually or as a group). There is little point in blaming the oil companies for supplying a product that people want.

    Individuals need to look at their own carbon footprint, not blame others (e.g. oil companies) for their own use of fossil fuels.

    I can give you an example related to Merkwurdichliebe's comment. Apple have just released the iPhone 15. I am still using my iPhone 8. My iPhone 8 works as well as it did when I bought it, and it still does everything that I want it to do. I have avoided 7 new releases and have used the same iPhone for about 7 years.

    You don't have to be a slave to Apple's upgrades. Apple products are usually very high quality and will perform well for many years. I suggest that you look at this webpage to see what the carbon footprint of an iPhone is:
    https://www.compareandrecycle.co.uk/blog/iphone-lifecycle-what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-an-iphone

    Now I can feel sanctimonious because I have kept my carbon footprint down. :halo:

    In the same way, you don't have to be a slave to the oil companies. The oil companies are not holding a gun to your head to force you to use fossil fuels. Grow some balls (or ovaries if you are female) and reduce your own carbon footprint. Force the oil companies to reduce the supply of fossil fuels by reducing the demand for fossil fuels.
  • Mikie
    6.2k
    Individuals need to look at their own carbon footprintAgree-to-Disagree

    Straight from Big Oil’s boardrooms to your brain. What a shocker.

    Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    Straight from Big Oil’s boardrooms to your brain. What a shocker.Mikie

    I will use the abbreviation CC/GW to stand for Climate-Change/Global-Warming.

    Your comment Mikie (which is shared by many people who are concerned about CC/GW) is why I am so confident that CC/GW won't be "solved".

    If whining and complaining and blaming others could solve CC/GW then there wouldn't be a problem.

    The oil companies want to maximize profit. They don't want to over supply because that would mean less profit. They make maximum profit by matching demand. Reduce the demand and they will reduce the supply. Demand will be reduced if everybody reduces their carbon footprint. This is a simple and obvious fact which is not understood, or is ignored (possibly deliberately to avoid taking personal responsibility) by many/most people who are concerned about CC/GW.

    Mikie, the solution to CC/GW is in your hands, and the hands of people like you. Stop blaming others and start taking personal responsibility. Who knows, you might make a difference?
  • Mikie
    6.2k
    If whining and complaining and blaming others could solve CC/GW then there wouldn't be a problem.Agree-to-Disagree

    Yeah, except no one is advocating that. It’s just another mental block you can’t seem to overcome.

    This will not be solved individually. We need collective action and governmental action. You announcing that you’ve fallen for the BS oil propaganda isn’t surprising, but isn’t very interesting either.
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    This will not be solved individually. We need collective action and governmental action.Mikie

    I agree with this statement.

    Collective action = lots of people reducing their carbon footprint.
  • Mikie
    6.2k
    Collective action = lots of people reducing their carbon footprint.Agree-to-Disagree

    Yep, including Big Oil and corporate America.

    The very short counterargument is that individual acts of thrift and abstinence won’t get us the huge distance we need to go in this decade. We need to exit the age of fossil fuels, reinvent our energy landscape, rethink how we do almost everything. We need collective action at every scale from local to global – and the good people already at work on all those levels need help in getting a city to commit to clean power or a state to stop fracking or a nation to end fossil-fuel subsidies. The revolution won’t happen by people staying home and being good.

    But the oil companies would like you to think that’s how it works. It turns out that the concept of the “carbon footprint”, that popular measure of personal impact, was the brainchild of an advertising firm working for BP. As Mark Kaufman wrote this summer:

    British Petroleum, the second largest non-state owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals. It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint” in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life – going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling – is largely responsible for heating the globe.

    The main reason to defeat the fossil fuel corporations is that their product is destroying the planet, but their insidious propaganda, from spreading climate-change denial to pushing this climate footprint business, makes this goal even more worthwhile.

    From the article above.

    Again, nice to see even when you pretend to care about this issue you can't help but repeat stupid propaganda from BP. :up:
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/children-displaced-climate

    They did the maths, so you don't have to. 43 million children - and presumably quite a few adults too. We need more walls and higher walls. This is obviously a conspiracy.

    "It's only just begun."
  • Mikie
    6.2k


    20,000 children displaced per day.

    But it’s okay, because Bjorn Lomborg says it’s not a huge deal.
  • unenlightened
    8.8k
    I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest we may have crossed a tipping point. The September temperature anomaly is "unprecedented".

    https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-september-2023-unprecedented-temperature-anomalies#:~:text=September%202023%20global%20temperature%20was,1900%2C%20the%20preindustrial%20reference%20period.

    Scrolling down past the temperature graphs, we come to the Antarctic sea ice graph. It looks scary.

    Antarctic sea ice extent remained at a record low level for the time of year. 
    Both the daily and monthly extents reached their lowest annual maxima in the satellite record in September, with the monthly extent 9% below average. 

    That's 9% less reflective sea ice and 9% more dark absorbent open water as we head towards the Antarctic Summer.

    I might be wrong, I hope I'm wrong. But pull your boat well up the beach next year.
  • Agree-to-Disagree
    407
    Climate change: Study warns deadly humid heat could hit billions as wet-bulb temperatures soar

    Billions of people could struggle to survive in periods of deadly, humid heat within this century as temperatures rise, particularly in some of the world's largest cities, from Delhi to Shanghai, according to research published on Monday.

    The study built on past research by Huber, George Mason University climatologist Daniel Vecellio and other scientists on the point at which heat and humidity combine to push the human body beyond its limits without shade or help from technologies such as air conditioning.

    It found that around 750 million people could experience one week per year of potentially deadly humid heat if temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

    At 3C (5.4F) of warming, more than 1.5 billion people would face such a threat, according to the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

    The world is on track for 2.8C (5F) of warming by the year 2100 under current policies, according to the 2022 United Nations Emissions Gap report.
    Reuters

    sa5f2syie7stidik.png
  • Janus
    15.6k
    I think Rosatom holds something in the range of 90% of the total market share, including all the related services (maintenance, waste disposal, etc.).Tzeentch

    Rosatom has a 38% world market share and in 2019 led in global uranium enrichment services (36%) and covers 16% of the global nuclear fuel market.

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