Basically what Bunk said. I think Alberta should get in front of this as a global leader. When the economy tides shift back in our favor, and the world gets wise to carbon capture technologies, I think we can be well positioned to be a leader in R&D, logistics, manufacturing, and responsible resource extraction.
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It's no coincidence I think that things have accelerated on the climate front in step with the population growth. Millions of things factor into that.
And technology advances are a massive part of the problem. There's no clean way to make the sheer amount of cell phones they do. Teslas aren't easy on the carbon footprint while being made. Same with most greener tech.
A massive shift needs to occur and it has to come from those that make the laws and mandates.
Unfortunately, the important decision makers are bought and paid for by the people who stand to lose the most from such a shift.
Basically what Bunk said. I think Alberta should get in front of this as a global leader. When the economy tides shift back in our favor, and the world gets wise to carbon capture technologies, I think we can be well positioned to be a leader in R&D, logistics, manufacturing, and responsible resource extraction.
What will Alberta use to heat ourselves in -40? Serious question.
How will we manufacture anything without combustion? Another serious question.
How can Alberta lead the charge when we require a higher consumption of resources than many other jurisdictions, just to live?
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Basically what Bunk said. I think Alberta should get in front of this as a global leader. When the economy tides shift back in our favor, and the world gets wise to carbon capture technologies, I think we can be well positioned to be a leader in R&D, logistics, manufacturing, and responsible resource extraction.
Not sure how you can think we can be any of those things without any money.
Calgary is far more likely to become the next Detroit than it is to become some climate change tech leader.
The responsible thing would be to develop as much of our resources as we can while trying our best to diversify. But unfortunately that’s not what the feds and to a smaller degree a lot of the population here wants.
It's an issue for all and an issue that has million of factors and billions of competing interests. I do think that we as population of a planet are causing a lot of damage, damage in the form of climate change or a whole host of other environmental destruction in one way or another. Some of it has to do with industrialization and other has to do with lifestyles and a general lack of care. People who deny or don't think that a population growth of 300-400% in the last 100 years doesn't have any sort of meaningful effect on the environment in one way or another are out to lunch.
How do we deal with this issue on a global scale is where the battle lies and I don't know if we will ever get to where we may or need to be. People in rich countries like Canada and the USA can talk and spew all the BS they want about plastic straws, electric cars, turning off the lights at earth hour once a year and recycling their stuff via the blue bin, a huge chunk of which ends up in poor countries as straight up garbage.
It's a fair assumption that nobody on this forum who's from North America has a carbon, environmental or energy use footprint that can come anywhere near where billions, I repeat, billions of people already are. It's not hard to see why that would be, a lot of these people earn very little to no money by our standards and they generally speaking
Don't really own anything or a lot of anything
Don't really travel or go anywhere of significance in distances, probably never been on a flight, almost for sure don't own a car.
Don't really consume a lot of consumer luxuries, especially things we spend trillions on.
Don't eat anywhere near,what, when, where, how often and what quality of food.
Don't have adequate housing, plumbing, shower facilitates etc
Take all of the above and just imagine these people trying to achieve a fraction of even 5% what we in North America consider a middle class lifestyle. They should be able to at least attempt to achieve that level by using abundant, affordable fossil fuels and energy. Why should Canada and the US have 152 & 243 years of sky rocketing economic expansion and industrialization and than have us tell some poor nation, they can't use coal? Them drilling for oil, gas and mining minerals is bad for the environment? How many of these countries are just trying to get stable electricity, have tiny bit of meat in their diet regularly, have a proper toilet to sh** in and have a hot shower?
People always talk about fairness, equality, the "rich" helping the poor. Well I can assure you that if the world got really fair, really equal and the "rich" really started to help the poor, than the entire world would be turned upside down in ways a LOT of people don't want.
I put "not sure". I think we definitely contribute, the degree to which we do us uncertain, I just don't know.
I do know it's a huge problem and 99% of the world has no desire to make the significant life altering changes it takes to stop it, including most true believers.
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The world has to use less, of everything. As I understand it, this would cripple the economy. But as long as we expect anything we may desire to come from anywhere in the world, from any raw material sourced from anywhere else, and expect it to be delivered in a package to our door or the local Walmart...our grandkids are going to lead pretty lame lives I fear.
Personal transportation is a valiant effort, but meaningful reduction doesn't come from electric cars. And damming projects are not environmentally friendly, so I really wish it would stop being presented as such.
You have to be naive and ignorant to think the total cost of everything we use and consume is nothing more than the dollars we spend to get it. That cost is just being deferred to those who didn't make the budget.
We definitely contribute, problem is countries Such as US, China and Russia don't give a dang so the small adjustments we make don't mean squat.
You forgot India. That contributes to almost 40% of the worlds emissions. Should we do more? Yes. Should we bankrupt our country to do so? No
Ideological-type people are great at identifying problems but lack in providing execution. Show us how to get there if you have a better answer.
The greatest solution for canada is to become energy independent. From there we can start putting more money into r&d and investing into green. Unfortunately Canada isn’t interested in solutions they are interested in finger pointing and stopping pipelines.
Energy east is the best thing to happen to Canada. It won’t happen because of lots of reasons we all know but I won’t get in to.
Last edited by guzzy; 04-10-2019 at 01:33 AM.
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This is such a frustrating topic for me. I've got evangelicals on one side and total idiots on the other. I just got this email today from my redneck friends...
Spoiler!
Up to you to believe or not believe global warming.
I still firmly believe human overpopulation is the greatest threat to the planet. Global warming is sexy while overpopulation is arguably the least sexy political platform today for any politician to tackle. Exchanging gasoline powered automobiles for electric and reducing individual carbon footprints isn't going to matter a lot as long as increasing world population results in increased energy consumption, more pollution, deforestation, destruction of ecosystems, etc. Go watch Our Planet on Netflix if you want a sobering reminder of what overpopulation is contributing to the worlds forests, bodies of waters, extinction of animal and plant life, etc.
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What will Alberta use to heat ourselves in -40? Serious question.
How will we manufacture anything without combustion? Another serious question.
How can Alberta lead the charge when we require a higher consumption of resources than many other jurisdictions, just to live?
Natural Gas with carbon capture from air technology to offset the carbon emmissions. By leading the charge its creating the tech to solve the emmissions problem not the consumption problem.
I still firmly believe human overpopulation is the greatest threat to the planet. Global warming is sexy while overpopulation is arguably the least sexy political platform today for any politician to tackle. Exchanging gasoline powered automobiles for electric and reducing individual carbon footprints isn't going to matter a lot as long as increasing world population results in increased energy consumption, more pollution, deforestation, destruction of ecosystems, etc. Go watch Our Planet on Netflix if you want a sobering reminder of what overpopulation is contributing to the worlds forests, bodies of waters, extinction of animal and plant life, etc.
I'm sure there's a reason that wouldn't solve the problem. But I agree with you. And with the 500 million plan. And also with these kooks...
People will die if we don’t deal with climate change.
People will die if we deal with climate change.
They are both true, and that truth combined with multi jurisdictional control of emissions and differing interests between developed and developing nations is why this issue is incredibly complex and difficult to solve. Tehcnicologically morally and ethically. A lot of people would rather pretend those complexities don't exist and that if people just submit to the will of their party or politics instead of being "heretics" climate change could be solved instantaneously.
Ya, to many people is definitely a problem. To much other pollution is also a big issue. I sometimes wonder if all the death at places like the Great Barrier Reef is due more to fertilizer runoff and water pollution than warming waters.
Our economy being build on the idea that growth is success and required is a big issue. You can't stagnate, which is really what we would need to start improving things. I don't know how you fix that. So every year we get more people, more economic output, production, and ultimately pollution.
I still firmly believe human overpopulation is the greatest threat to the planet. Global warming is sexy while overpopulation is arguably the least sexy political platform today for any politician to tackle. Exchanging gasoline powered automobiles for electric and reducing individual carbon footprints isn't going to matter a lot as long as increasing world population results in increased energy consumption, more pollution, deforestation, destruction of ecosystems, etc. Go watch Our Planet on Netflix if you want a sobering reminder of what overpopulation is contributing to the worlds forests, bodies of waters, extinction of animal and plant life, etc.
This is the root of the problem.
So Thanos had the right idea? I hope there are other solutions.
An honest question I've had for a while is how do you respond to someone who thinks it's a hoax, or thinks the stuff like, it's all volcanoes or it's all the sun activity or co2 is plant food is valid? Or is it all valid in some way?