This is a very outdated view. China has been going balls to the wall creating a huge shift in their pollution and carbon output. They are one of the few countries that are meeting their carbon output obligations in 2020 and they did it three years ahead of schedule.
Out of curiosity, which obligations are you referring to? If it is what they agreed to in the Paris Climate Agreement, then I am not sure that's really all that impressive.
China suffers the same challenges as everyone else. They can decrease some measures, but growth always overwhelms it.
Quote:
The result came as China’s total energy consumption rose by 3.3 percent year-on-year in 2018, the data showed. Electricity usage rose 8.5 percent last year, according to the National Energy Administration.
“The good news is that renewable energy continued to grow rapidly in 2018, and new aggressive air pollution policies were introduced,” Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at environmental group Greenpeace, said in a note.
However, a rapid rise in energy consumption, including increased residential electricity usage, still resulted in the biggest gain in CO2 emissions since at least 2013, Myllyvirta said.
“The increase in coal consumption since late 2016 has resulted from growth in electricity demand and expansion of the highly-polluting coal-to-chemical industry,” he said.
Well, yeah. They have a billion people. Everything they do is the largest. They also make most of the world's shoes. So what?
I said entire rest of the developed world ~1.03 billion. They have a slightly more than billion, we have about a billion, why are the results so different, and why have so many other developed nations not met or exceeded their targets?
I was pointing to the notion that China is not doing anything as being outdated and being used as a justification that we should do nothing about global warming. China is meeting their commitments, the US, India and many other western nations have not. Not to say they still don't have challenges.
I said entire rest of the developed world ~1.03 billion. They have a slightly more than billion, we have about a billion, why are the results so different, and why have so many other developed nations not met or exceeded their targets?
I was pointing to the notion that China is not doing anything as being outdated and being used as a justification that we should do nothing about global warming. China is meeting their commitments, the US, India and many other western nations have not. Not to say they still don't have challenges.
If you watch the video that I posted, it sounds like the obligations that China agreed to have so much slack that their inclusion in the Paris Climate Agreement is really nothing more than symbolic. Meanwhile, the US is vilified for backing out of the climate agreement, despite the fact that they have reduced their carbon emissions more than any other country. I am certainly no expert on this, so please correct me if I have gotten any of this wrong, but it sounds like posts praising China and chastising America are completely backwards.
I went to an interesting conference last fall about the implications of climate change to farming. One of the speakers was Dr. David Sauchyn. Historically, droughts would occur over a long period, and precipitation would gradually increase until there were a few consecutive years of "Wet years" Dr. Sauchyn posited that what is occurring today very dry years followed immediately by very wet years. So there is very little time in between these changes, it will be droughts followed by floods. The potential outcome of this is that shallow roots caused by dry years will be easily eroded by water the following year. If this trend continues ( and it will). Mismanaged lands will likely have the majority of their top soil stripped, causing an agricultural disaster.
I know that it is easy to pin this as a China problem, or what ever else, but the reality is that there is a great potential for this to be an economic, and environmental catastrophe in our own back yard.
The Following User Says Thank You to TheIronMaiden For This Useful Post:
Reddit, can we please get real about global warming? "Thinking Green", not having kids, and going vegan are not enough to fix this problem. You need to start covering your ass, and begin preparing your property, your business, and your families for the inevitable climate change that is to come.
Before I begin, however, I must emphasize the following: keep voting.
Eventhough the world will be significantly hotter, we still need clean air. We still need clean drinking water. We still need environmental protection. We still need parks, and forests, and preserves. We still need laws and protections to prevent further warming.
But make no mistake: global warming is here, and nothing short of eliminating all emissions from every single country across the world within a very, very short time-frame will effectively slow it down at this point.
....
The Following User Says Thank You to Ozy_Flame For This Useful Post:
I went to an interesting conference last fall about the implications of climate change to farming. One of the speakers was Dr. David Sauchyn. Historically, droughts would occur over a long period, and precipitation would gradually increase until there were a few consecutive years of "Wet years" Dr. Sauchyn posited that what is occurring today very dry years followed immediately by very wet years. So there is very little time in between these changes, it will be droughts followed by floods. The potential outcome of this is that shallow roots caused by dry years will be easily eroded by water the following year. If this trend continues ( and it will). Mismanaged lands will likely have the majority of their top soil stripped, causing an agricultural disaster.
I know that it is easy to pin this as a China problem, or what ever else, but the reality is that there is a great potential for this to be an economic, and environmental catastrophe in our own back yard.
A couple nights ago I watched PBS program on the fall of the Egyptian empire. The conclusion was that is was caused by a drying of northern Africa, a rapid drought that turned it from a savanna into the desert we have now. Basically wiped out the entire empire in a generation. I'm actually curious if they have identified a cause of the drought, as it looked to be more global, which would be weird. Obviously not human caused, so something must have happened, though they didn't mention volcanoes or meteorites.
A couple nights ago I watched PBS program on the fall of the Egyptian empire. The conclusion was that is was caused by a drying of northern Africa, a rapid drought that turned it from a savanna into the desert we have now. Basically wiped out the entire empire in a generation. I'm actually curious if they have identified a cause of the drought, as it looked to be more global, which would be weird. Obviously not human caused, so something must have happened, though they didn't mention volcanoes or meteorites.
It wasn't the Romans?
__________________
If you don't pass this sig to ten of your friends, you will become an Oilers fan.
Humans are changing the climate at a faster rate than natural (non-human) processes.
Human energy consumption will increase in perpetuity as we have a continuously growing population and we are continuously trying to do more and more.
Assuming the two points above that makes this a complex technological problem. Complex problems are best solved by free markets. There has never been more demand for non-carbon based energy, and its only increasing.
Taxation inhibits innovation. While in theory tax revenue directed towards projects could lead innovation however that is based on the assumption that the politicians deciding what projects are and what are not worthy of redirected tax revenue are competent in the field of which they are directing tax revenue and are not privy to political pressure, this is extremely rare. Unfortunately a politician deciding on how to spend OTHER peoples money does not have the same risk associated with individuals risking their own capital, this causes money to be allocated improperly risk adjusted to project results.
I'm all for transitioning to a non-carbon based energy system, but any government solution is the wrong approach.
Capitalism will solve this. Book it.
Government solution has proven to work in the past. When I was growing up, acid rain was seen as the most pressing environmental issue. Legislation like the Clean Air Act, cap and trade programs, and imposing stronger emission standards on the industrial and transportation sectors have made the problem so much more manageable that acid rain is hardly a topic people talk about anymore. Government has to lead the way and provide the appropriate market incentives for this problem to be solved.
The Following User Says Thank You to snootchiebootchies For This Useful Post:
Some of the recently decommissioned coal plants date from the end of the 1800s. I'll be more precise next time. I heard Edison developed the solar panel right after he invented the lightbulb but Big Coal assassinated him soon after.
__________________
If you don't pass this sig to ten of your friends, you will become an Oilers fan.
Government solution has proven to work in the past. When I was growing up, acid rain was seen as the most pressing environmental issue. Legislation like the Clean Air Act, cap and trade programs, and imposing stronger emission standards on the industrial and transportation sectors have made the problem so much more manageable that acid rain is hardly a topic people talk about anymore. Government has to lead the way and provide the appropriate market incentives for this problem to be solved.
It was not capitalism, but inter-governmental action informed by science that is resolving the ozone layer problem:
Quote:
In 1978, the United States, Canada and Norway enacted bans on CFC-containing aerosol sprays that damage the ozone layer. The European Community rejected an analogous proposal to do the same. In the U.S., chlorofluorocarbons continued to be used in other applications, such as refrigeration and industrial cleaning, until after the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. After negotiation of an international treaty (the Montreal Protocol), CFC production was capped at 1986 levels with commitments to long-term reductions.[16] This allowed for a ten-year phase-in for developing countries[17] (identified in Article 5 of the protocol). Since that time, the treaty was amended to ban CFC production after 1995 in the developed countries, and later in developing countries.[18] Today, all of the world's 197 countries have signed the treaty. Beginning January 1, 1996, only recycled and stockpiled CFCs were available for use in developed countries like the US. This production phaseout was possible because of efforts to ensure that there would be substitute chemicals and technologies for all ODS uses.[19]
On August 2, 2003, scientists announced that the global depletion of the ozone layer may be slowing down because of the international regulation of ozone-depleting substances. In a study organized by the American Geophysical Union, three satellites and three ground stations confirmed that the upper-atmosphere ozone-depletion rate slowed down significantly during the previous decade. Some breakdown can be expected to continue because of ODSs used by nations which have not banned them, and because of gases which are already in the stratosphere. Some ODSs, including CFCs, have very long atmospheric lifetimes, ranging from 50 to over 100 years. It has been estimated that the ozone layer will recover to 1980 levels near the middle of the 21st century.[12] A gradual trend toward "healing" was reported in 2016.[20]
