Climate change and human responsibility

[dre]

Originally Posted by zamler

On another note I'd like to see battery electric buses (including school buses) they are much cheaper to maintain, way cleaner, and cheaper to fuel.

I think what I'm trying to say is the way forward for energy use is we should utilize a variety of sources not blindly throw taxes at certain industries and hope for the best.

I'm with with you on that. I think it would work with city buses. One issue with commercial vehicles is the weight of the batteries.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

The problem with climate change is that if we deal with it properly people will die and if we don’t people will die. So, the way I see it, people are going to die. And that is obviously horrible, but I don’t see how we get around it.

How exactly are people going to die from us taking on the challenge of climate change and shifting to an economy that uses our resources in a more responsible manner?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by New Era

How exactly are people going to die from us taking on the challenge of climate change and shifting to an economy that uses our resources in a more responsible manner?

Well the Carbon free killing booths needed for population reduction.


In the last little while I've seen people on line actually advocating for merciful population reduction.



Some people watch too many freaking movies.

[Ice_Weasel]

Originally Posted by New Era

How exactly are people going to die from us taking on the challenge of climate change and shifting to an economy that uses our resources in a more responsible manner?

If only the conversation was "how can we shift our economy to use our resources in a more responsible manner". This would be an actual conversation, and one that the oil and gas industry and its supporters would love to have. Instead, we are faced with the entrenched position that fossil fuels are evil, and the world is going to end in 11 years unless they are banned.

[delayedreflex]

Originally Posted by New Era

How exactly are people going to die from us taking on the challenge of climate change and shifting to an economy that uses our resources in a more responsible manner?

I assume this is referring to indirect deaths that could occur, primarily in the developing world, if they have to forego their use of fossil fuels, which could lead to various poverty-related deaths. For the most part, though, there are likely to be limited deaths that would occur due to GHG reductions in the first world - maybe a rise in suicides if the economy crashes hard, but I think that would be a relatively small scale compared to the poverty-related deaths (or climate-related deaths if we don't take action).

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Azure

I'm a big fan of Tesla and the idea of the electric car, but anyone who thinks it is the way forward to curb emissions is delusional.

We need to transition from coal -> clean glas -> nuclear - > renewables, pronto.

For some reason people think we can skip some of those steps but I think its pretty clear we can't.

Could look to Ontario if that is the goal



Hard to do without spending globs of money on Nuclear power though which seems like a tough sell in lot of the world.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by delayedreflex

For the most part, though, there are likely to be limited deaths that would occur due to GHG reductions in the first world - maybe a rise in suicides if the economy crashes hard,

It would mostly come from deaths in winter from fuel poverty. There are already claims that tens of thousands of old and vulnerable Brits are dying from not being able to keep their homes warm enough:






https://www.e3g.org/news/media-room/...o-cold-housing

[delayedreflex]

Originally Posted by accord1999

It would mostly come from deaths in winter from fuel poverty. There are already claims that tens of thousands of old and vulnerable Brits are dying from not being able to keep their homes warm enough:






https://www.e3g.org/news/media-room/...o-cold-housing

That's really interesting, and thanks for opening my eyes to this issue - it definitely goes to show that policies designed to reduce fossil fuel usage should take things like this into account. On the plus side, it seems like improving the energy efficiency of homes (insulating, etc) should have the effect of both improving this metric as well as enabling reduced fossil fuel consumption.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Ice_Weasel

If only the conversation was "how can we shift our economy to use our resources in a more responsible manner". This would be an actual conversation, and one that the oil and gas industry and its supporters would love to have. Instead, we are faced with the entrenched position that fossil fuels are evil, and the world is going to end in 11 years unless they are banned.

Except that portion (and it's larger than a lot of people think) that believe climate change is a hoax/exaggerated/not a big deal.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by accord1999

It would mostly come from deaths in winter from fuel poverty. There are already claims that tens of thousands of old and vulnerable Brits are dying from not being able to keep their homes warm enough:






https://www.e3g.org/news/media-room/...o-cold-housing

this is true, but its more an issue of how the homes were built - lack of insulation and draftiness rather than lack of heat. New Zealand has similar issues where for whatever reason they just don't build homes to deal with cold.

[tripin_billie]

Originally Posted by zamler

The heating element itself is essentially 100% efficient, the energy put into it turns almost completely into heat. The problem is the amount of energy needed, natural gas, coal, oil and the like are energy dense. Like I said a 1000 pound Tesla battery has the same energy as 17 pounds of petrol.

In a petrol car most of the energy is turned into heat not propulsion the electric car opposite. The thing is for a cold climate the inefficiency of the gas engine is an advantage the waste heat warms the cabin in a BEV you have to use way more energy than normal to warm up the cabin. I haven't done the math but the total amount of energy is going to be almost the same BEV versus petrol which means on a cold day in Calgary your BEV is potentially going to be about as efficient as the average 4-cylinder gas car.

On another note I'd like to see battery electric buses (including school buses) they are much cheaper to maintain, way cleaner, and cheaper to fuel.

I think what I'm trying to say is the way forward for energy use is we should utilize a variety of sources not blindly throw taxes at certain industries and hope for the best.

Battery electric school buses are also quite useful in stabilizing the grid as they are only operated typically twice per day and during off periods can be used as back up batteries discharging when needed: https://news.bloombergenvironment.co...eed-power-grid

[MoneyGuy]

Greta Thunberg could make a more meaningful statement to further her cause by taking that ferry to Victoria that runs on fossil fuel and using it as a platform, instead of flatly refusing.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by moneyguy

greta thunberg could make a more meaningful statement to further her cause by taking that ferry to victoria that runs on fossil fuel and using it as a platform, instead of flatly refusing.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1186849377874149376

[MoneyGuy]

The story I read said she wasn’t going to Victoria because the ferry uses fossil fuels. No, I don’t have a link.

[DownInFlames]

I saw an article saying the same thing. Who knows where they got their info.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Huh? It would make a pretty big difference. In Canada, about 1/3 of GHG emissions are from transportation and electricity generation.

I was talking from a world perspective. Should have been clearer.

Greta and her fellow dummies are calling for the world to try harder. They aren't picking on Alberta or Canada for their electricity generation. Strange statement to make.

Fact of the matter is that Canada has been ahead of the game for years on many fronts. The reason we get picked on is because of our oil production.

People seem to think we can waive a magic wand and the demand for oil will be gone, or worse yet they think Canada should just stop producing oil to cut our emissions.

Both are completely ridiculous ideas. Oil demand will grow, and Canada should be TASKED with increasing oil production since we can do it cleaner and better than most other nations. Most of the technology behind carbon capture, shale drilling, etc started in Alberta first. We would be stupid to not let those minds keep working at solving those problems.

This is a strange plan, as it takes 5 to 10 years to build a single nuclear plant and there's not near enough money around to do many as it's the most expensive to build by a fairly wide margin. Most future nuclear projects are being cancelled due to cost.

As for natural gas, it cuts ghg emissions by a little less 50% vs coal, but isn't cheaper or better in most places in the world than adding lots wind and solar and keeping coal or gas for peaks.

Price wise, countries are already going towards renewables simply due to cost. India cancelled 14GW of coal powered electricity projects in favour of solar project just this month. I don't think we ever see 100% renewables, and that shouldn't be the goal. The reductions we need are achievable at far lower than 100%. But we need to get higher quickly

It is expensive to build a nuclear plant because of the absolutely ridiculous regulations that pretty much make it impossible to accomplish anything.

Most nuclear tech is 50 years old. The US was able to get to the moon in a short time frame. I'm confident if they had 10 years to solve the nuclear problem they could do so. As for the cost? Are you really going to bring that up? Most of the idiots going around pushing green deals are fully committed to spending a few trillion on this 'problem.'

You do bring up a real big problem with ghg emissions (especially in Canada) that is little discussed and has very few solutions: home heating. Both boilers and home heating are reliant on fossil fuels and I'm not sure we can eliminate that work any current technology. We can houses more efficient and use heat pumps, but natural gas has no real competitor for heating. I use an electric hot water tank and it's crazy expensive even at cheap electricity prices (it uses more electricity than my electric vehicle!). I don't know what the answer is here honestly.

True. But not everyone is on gas and more people are going electric with the supposed idea of high efficiency electric boilers. Fact of the matter is that gas is the best way to heat your home & hot water tank.

I'm sure there are other methods, but not a lot of research is being done. Our best bet is probably going with better gas boilers & recovery systems. Some of the newer stuff I've seen is insanely efficient and doesn't use much gas at all.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Could look to Ontario if that is the goal



Hard to do without spending globs of money on Nuclear power though which seems like a tough sell in lot of the world.

Interesting how coal went away completely, gas fell and nuclear grew. Have to imagine electrical needs grew as well.

Great example. Why can't we do this all over the country?

Someone should ask Greta.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by delayedreflex

I assume this is referring to indirect deaths that could occur, primarily in the developing world, if they have to forego their use of fossil fuels, which could lead to various poverty-related deaths. For the most part, though, there are likely to be limited deaths that would occur due to GHG reductions in the first world - maybe a rise in suicides if the economy crashes hard, but I think that would be a relatively small scale compared to the poverty-related deaths (or climate-related deaths if we don't take action).

The scare mongering about an economic collapse is insane. Look at the economic collapse predicted by the reduction in coal use. Turns out the adoption of the solar panels and the new economy created here greatly surpassed the jobs lost and created better paying jobs.

Originally Posted by accord1999

It would mostly come from deaths in winter from fuel poverty. There are already claims that tens of thousands of old and vulnerable Brits are dying from not being able to keep their homes warm enough:






https://www.e3g.org/news/media-room/...o-cold-housing

Wait, these are current stats with available fossil fuels to heat homes. So the numbers of people who don't insulate or heat their homes with fossil fuels now are going to rise because they won't use fossil fuels in the future? Does not compute.

I think it is more likely that in the future a big part of changing economy will be changing building standards. I mean, here in Arizona we have seen improved building and insulation standards to help cool homes and make them more efficient to save energy. The state even put together programs to provide rebates and pay for such energy saving improvements like adding energy efficient air conditioning units and insulation to make older homes more efficient. I find it hard to believe that communities and governments are not going to take concerns like this into consideration and help people make transitions. The thought of massive deaths because people don't have access to fossil fuels is kind of silly, especially when they happen WITH these same fuels available.

Originally Posted by Ice_Weasel

If only the conversation was "how can we shift our economy to use our resources in a more responsible manner". This would be an actual conversation, and one that the oil and gas industry and its supporters would love to have. Instead, we are faced with the entrenched position that fossil fuels are evil, and the world is going to end in 11 years unless they are banned.

Yes, because the oil industry and their supporters have such well balanced beliefs and are open to discussions on the subject. I mean, we're going to experience massive die-offs each winter because people don't have oil. People are going to go live in caves, because of no oil. The civilized world is going to completely crumble and its going to be The Purge on a daily basis because of - you guessed it - no oil. Well balanced view. How did humans survive for a couple hundred thousand years prior to the discovery of oil?

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by New Era

How exactly are people going to die from us taking on the challenge of climate change and shifting to an economy that uses our resources in a more responsible manner?

Well, it depends doesn’t it? If we tackle climate change the way energy illiterate idiots want to tackle it, absolutely and unequivocally people will die and that’s actually not debatable. I’m sure you can piece together what I’m getting at.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Well, it depends doesn’t it? If we tackle climate change the way energy illiterate idiots want to tackle it, absolutely and unequivocally people will die and that’s actually not debatable. I’m sure you can piece together what I’m getting at.

I'm curious who the energy illiterate idiots are in your opinion?