I just mean if international standards are created and enforced. Kinda tying it into being able to buy 12 tube socks for 2 dollars. The only reason we can get them so cheap is because it's built with slave labour. Perhaps it's time for us to realize we don't have to have a new phone every 2 years or a new TV every 6, or eat so much meat or buy so many socks. Just take better care of the ones we have. We are in effect avoiding our responsibilities. So eventually the same thing might go for energy, the reason it is so cheap is because we are avoiding our environmental responsibilities right now.
International standards are a pipedream. China is adding coal power like crazy. They had to shut down numerous plants in Bejing to help with the smog problem, but in the long-run they are still going with MORE coal. Dirty coal. Not the coal we burn in NA. How exactly is any international standard going to force them to at LEAST do better with the freakin' plants they have?
We can make changes in NA. We SHOULD make changes. But each country will control their own 'fate'....and if you believe that GHGs affect the whole planet even if they are being pumped into the atmosphere 3,000 miles from where we live, well we might be screwed. Because I don't see China doing something better.
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As far as nuclear power goes, I think a lot of the realistic thinking environmentalists to believe this is a route that needs to be explored. It's mostly the alarmists and reactionary ones that want it completely gone. I do think there is a future for it. We need to build even better safe guards, and finally figure out what to do wit the waste, a problem that in the 50's they thought we'd have solved by now, but I think it should be part of the plan.
Well if you look at most nuclear disasters, there were some pretty obvious problems involved. Japan? Lack of a secondary power source. So we can do better.
It also helps if we put the plants in a safe and remote part of the country.
Canada is going for 7 nuclear plants in 2012 to 6 plants in 2020, so I'm not sure what we will have to do to get that to 10? 15? Because while NG is great, it is even more a stop-gap solution than nuclear is. We should focus on getting our power generation to emit 75% less GHGs by 2050. Nuclear will do that.
International standards are a pipedream. China is adding coal power like crazy. They had to shut down numerous plants in Bejing to help with the smog problem, but in the long-run they are still going with MORE coal. Dirty coal. Not the coal we burn in NA. How exactly is any international standard going to force them to at LEAST do better with the freakin' plants they have?
We can make changes in NA. We SHOULD make changes. But each country will control their own 'fate'....and if you believe that GHGs affect the whole planet even if they are being pumped into the atmosphere 3,000 miles from where we live, well we might be screwed. Because I don't see China doing something better.
Well if you look at most nuclear disasters, there were some pretty obvious problems involved. Japan? Lack of a secondary power source. So we can do better.
It also helps if we put the plants in a safe and remote part of the country.
Canada is going for 7 nuclear plants in 2012 to 6 plants in 2020, so I'm not sure what we will have to do to get that to 10? 15? Because while NG is great, it is even more a stop-gap solution than nuclear is. We should focus on getting our power generation to emit 75% less GHGs by 2050. Nuclear will do that.
Well I don't know what to tell you about China and other developing nations. While China is a heavy emitter, I have also heard that they have come up with some of the best technologies to combat the problem. Getting the industries to use them will be the hard part, as we all know how companies like to spend money on no return. But there was an article just a few weeks ago from the Associated Press on how China is already taking steps to combat it's air pollution, cause well, we've all seen what their cities look like.
At the end of the day they will get on board too because it will affect them at home.
As far as nuclear power goes, as I said, I already support expansion there.
Not that hard to understand. We can make a lot of changes in 20 years to reduce emissions while still being sensible about it.
Tinordi thinks we don't have that kind of time, and we need to implement a carbon tax immediately to solve all our problems.
Obviously I'm exaggerating, but there is absolutely NO scientific evidence to conclude with 100% certainty that we don't have at the minimum 20 years to start things flowing in the other direction from where they've been going the last 20.
Making drastic changes at the expense of the livelihood of many Canadians is not sensible at all.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - known by its critics as a "corporate bill mill" - has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing "models bills" mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems.
January hasn't even ended, yet ALEC has already planted its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" - which mandates a "balanced" teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms - in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona so far this year.
In the past five years since 2008, among the hottest years in U.S. history, ALEC has introduced its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" in 11 states, or over one-fifth of the statehouses nationwide. The bill has passed in four states, an undeniable form of "big government" this "free market" organization decries in its own literature.
This article addresses your claims that we have time and that everything is going to be alright. Highly recommend this article to anyone interested in the topic.
When we think about global warming at all, the arguments tend to be ideological, theological and economic. But to grasp the seriousness of our predicament, you just need to do a little math. For the past year, an easy and powerful bit of arithmetical analysis first published by financial analysts in the U.K. has been making the rounds of environmental conferences and journals, but it hasn't yet broken through to the larger public. This analysis upends most of the conventional political thinking about climate change. And it allows us to understand our precarious – our almost-but-not-quite-finally hopeless – position with three simple numbers.
This article addresses your claims that we have time and that everything is going to be alright. Highly recommend this article to anyone interested in the topic.
I guess we're screwed. Because there is no way in bloody hell that you're going to keep the emissions output to less than 500 gigatons over 20 years.
I also like how they completely blow over the fact that the US lowered emissions 20% based on a 'warm winter' and converting coal plants to NG plants. I mean the biggest economy in the world lowers their emissions by 20% and its not worth a whole paragraph?
Secondly, emissions output from China rose 9.3%, and Japan rose 2.4% simply from taking nuclear reactors offline.
If you actually run the numbers, China will more than likely emit over 100 gigatons of emissions over the next 20 years. That is 1/5 of the 500 gigaton number that is so concerning. How are we going to control China?
Nevermind that most people are saying that emissions in China will keep increasing from the 5.6 gigatons/year that it is at now.
The US is absolutely heading the right direction if you believe the numbers. Obviously a cold winter will be different, as well as a strong economy(more people drive), but unless you bring 20 new nuclear reactors online in the next 5 years, which will never happen, the US will keep emitting alot of CO2.
Interesting article, I've never seen it put in terms of reserves committed to by companies.
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Originally Posted by Azure
So where exactly will the change come from?
Good question, not having an answer (or even if there is no answer) doesn't invalidate the problem, that would be an appeal to consequences fallacy.
EDIT: We're basically expecting society, which has almost never demonstrated an ability to act in its own best interests, to transition from an oil based society to something else. Our whole society is founded on the premise of cheap energy and continued growth. That's why overall I'm pessimistic. I'll cheer for humanity, but we're not going to win the cup this season.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Not only that, but we're expecting the world to make those changes RIGHT at a time when the US is drilling like crazy and at this rate will soon become the biggest oil producer in the world, and on TOP of that, we're giving the world, and all its governments and the politics involved, a mere 16 years to change.
Based on the exact same amount of scientific research that he has found to say we don't have time to reverse the apparent trend.
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Originally Posted by Azure
Not only that, but we're expecting the world to make those changes RIGHT at a time when the US is drilling like crazy and at this rate will soon become the biggest oil producer in the world, and on TOP of that, we're giving the world, and all its governments and the politics involved, a mere 16 years to change.
It simply won't happen.
So I suppose we're screwed.
Great.
So then I guess yours and Tinordi's sources were, despite protests to the contrary, different
What discussion? You're not interested in having discussion. All you're doing is making driveby comments.
They are not 'drive-bys', they are direct challenges to your statements and information.
Azure: There is no time limit on dealing with climate change. Flash: Is that a guess or have you done research on that? Azure: I have done research and my information is from the same place Tinordi gets his. Tinordi: That is not true as exhibited by this source of information; there is a time limit. Azure: I am in agreement that there is a time limit on when we can do something about climate change. Flash: So the information you didn't get, from the research you didn't do doesn't come from the sources Tinordi uses? Azure: Driveby.
What saddens me most, is the stubbornness of people who deny the science. They play the game that they are just "questioning" or "being skeptical" of the climate science. While talking about non science related topics like, "how much will it cost us to change" and all kinds of economic discussions.
Ultimately, today there is beyond ample evidence provided that the rise in the last 100yrs is beyond anything we have seen since millions of years ago. Our planet has reached a balance, and we humans have now started to play with that balance.
So what will happen because of our fking with the biosphere:
1. Oceans will rise, millions will be forced to move inland.
2. Extreme weather. We will see serious droughts, massive tsunami's, hurricanes, and extreme weather all over the world.
These things would have happened with or without us, to a degree. However we have sprayed lighter fluid on the fire and we have pushed things beyond what is in the natural cycle of the planet, and we are not toying with extreme weather that would not have happened had we not sped things up.
All I keep seeing here is the same BS, talking about money, talking about Al Gore, and all kinds of irrelevant crap that has nothing to do with the science.
We will see some very severe results in the next 100-500 years, and the science is clear on this, yet if your a conservative, if your a white male, you are most likely to deny the facts.
There was only one viable alternative during the coal powered century. Nuclear. And you can thank a lot of hypocrites and NIMBY groups for pushing that out.
IIRC it takes at least 15 years to bring a nuclear power plant online from the day construction starts, so even if we start right now, the 16 years of 'time' we have left before we're screwed will come around before anything happens.
Wind is not consistent enough, solar not efficient enough, and hydro, while a good power source....tends to wreck havoc on the environment around it if you have morons that are in charge of it. Geothermal? Maybe, but not in 1950. Coal was cheap, abundant, and it worked.
Which is why I find it hilarious when people say they're sick and tired of all the BS and how we're screwed and then they publish what amounts to sensational articles how there is a limit of 565 gigatons worth of emissions to pump into the atmosphere before things really get bad, and not ONCE do they mentions solutions. Hell, they blatantly IGNORE the most important energy revolution of the last 75 years and the unprecedented 20% drop in emissions that came as a result of that.
On top of that, like I said before, China is completely out of control with their emissions, and there is NOTHING any of us can do about that. So when the average person in North America says 'screw you' when you say they should pay more for power otherwise the planet is going to hell in a hand basket, I tend to side with them, as on a personal level, the difference I COULD possibly make isn't worth it if China is going to increase their emissions 5% more every year, and will continue to do so at LEAST until 2030.
Canada and the US will continue bringing more natural gas plants online, and with the strict EPA laws in the US regarding coal, it won't surprise me if there are very few coal powered plants actually still running in 10 years. Emissions will keep dropping. But it won't mean much. At least not according to the Rolling Stone and their sources.
