Climate Change

[WMD]

The internet gave every uniformed dumb ass a platform where other dumb asses could support their dumb ass view points. And here we are now. Science is scorned and likes are king.

Yes, and the first change was when cable allowed a ton of new tv stations and stations were no longer required to be impartial or present both sides of a topic. This allowed for highly partisan and dishonest "news" stations to spread ever wilder misinformation in order to get more viewers.

To any who haven't seen it, I highly recommend the documentary "The Social Dilemma." It shows how crazy it is that we do not get the same news or "facts," and this will lead to the downfall of civilization.

[k2skier112]

I was talking about this the other day at the pub. We were reminiscing about the ‘90s, post Reagan/Bush, and how it seemed there was more hope for the future in regards to the planet and society. What happened? I think in large part it was the tech revolution.


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If a Republican came up with the idea of taxing a colorless and odorless gas, taxing CO2 would already be a thing. But the oil industry and it'd lobbyists would put up a hudge fight

[The SnowShow]

Speaking of changing out things, are there any hybrid trucks or SUVs to look at?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Speaking of changing out things, are there any hybrid trucks or SUVs to look at?

The new hybrid Wrangler Rubicon


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[The SnowShow]

^^^has Jeep’s reliability improved? All I hear are complaints about poor hwy drivability and things breaking.

[Core Shot]

The internet gave every uniformed dumb ass a platform where other dumb asses could support their dumb ass view points. And here we are now. Science is scorned and likes are king.

I need a uniform.
Does it come with epaulettes?

[old goat]

Tahoe area towns at risk of future flooding
https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...ainstage_card4
Increasing winter rain instead of snow likely to result in frequent overtopping of the Lake Tahoe dam and flooding downstream, as has happened in the past.
In addition to the loss of water stored as snow which we all know about, and of course the end of skiing in the area.

I wasn't going to say more on the subject but since I was challenged to say what I would do about it I would say this--
1) organize get out the vote, ala Stacy Abrams. Convince people, especially young people, that it matters. (We've got a recall election in CA coming up, voters are apathetic, we could easily wind up with a right wing ideologue with 15% or less of the vote as governor, due to CA's stupid recall law. It will make a huge difference for the next couple of years and beyond if people don't vote.)

2) repeated, massive protests

3) based on success in 1) and 2), pass a stiff carbon tax, subsidies for carbon free energy,

4) emphasize reduction in consumption, change in lifestyle over tech solutions. We will still need solar, wind, batteries, etc. to eliminate carbon based electricity, but we need to limit the new infrastructure as much as possible to minimize the negatives. All this will take time--which we don't really have--but we need to make it increasingly unfashionable to jet to Europe or import food from abroad, and then from across the country. We need to make people reconsider migrating far from their families. We need to transform our lives to be simpler, less consumptive, and closer to home. The best tool to accomplish that is social pressure to change attitudes over time. We need to mandate dense, transit oriented communities and eventually enact policies which will eliminate development in energy intensive parts of the country. Phoenix should not exist. We need to emphasize building in ways that reduce the need for heating and cooling. We can't continue to live in single family houses on large lots long distances from work. All of this and more is what I mean by the need for changing people's lives in dramatic fashion. We cannot build enough green energy to allow us to keep living the way we live now. And we need to stop telling people we can.


That's enough for now.

[The SnowShow]

Tahoe area towns at risk of future flooding
https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...ainstage_card4
Increasing winter rain instead of snow likely to result in frequent overtopping of the Lake Tahoe dam and flooding downstream, as has happened in the past.
In addition to the loss of water stored as snow which we all know about, and of course the end of skiing in the area.

I wasn't going to say more on the subject but since I was challenged to say what I would do about it I would say this--
1) organize get out the vote, ala Stacy Abrams. Convince people, especially young people, that it matters. (We've got a recall election in CA coming up, voters are apathetic, we could easily wind up with a right wing ideologue with 15% or less of the vote as governor, due to CA's stupid recall law. It will make a huge difference for the next couple of years and beyond if people don't vote.)

2) repeated, massive protests

3) based on success in 1) and 2), pass a stiff carbon tax, subsidies for carbon free energy,

4) emphasize reduction in consumption, change in lifestyle over tech solutions. We will still need solar, wind, batteries, etc. to eliminate carbon based electricity, but we need to limit the new infrastructure as much as possible to minimize the negatives. All this will take time--which we don't really have--but we need to make it increasingly unfashionable to jet to Europe or import food from abroad, and then from across the country. We need to make people reconsider migrating far from their families. We need to transform our lives to be simpler, less consumptive, and closer to home. The best tool to accomplish that is social pressure to change attitudes over time. We need to mandate dense, transit oriented communities and eventually enact policies which will eliminate development in energy intensive parts of the country. Phoenix should not exist. We need to emphasize building in ways that reduce the need for heating and cooling. We can't continue to live in single family houses on large lots long distances from work. All of this and more is what I mean by the need for changing people's lives in dramatic fashion. We cannot build enough green energy to allow us to keep living the way we live now. And we need to stop telling people we can.


That's enough for now.

I’d love to think we could accomplish all this but I pessimistically just don’t see if happening, when we can’t even come together and wear a fucking mask during a pandemic.

This makes my head hurt.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^

Opinion by
Fareed Zakaria


To understand the tension in the United States’ energy policy, consider the events of this week. On Monday, the United Nations released a new report warning that climate change is coming faster than predicted and that the world is losing time to act. President Biden tweeted in response, “We can’t wait to tackle the climate crisis.” Two days later, his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, urged Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers to increase production of petroleum beyond the agreed-upon targets. Biden backed him up. The Financial Times wrote this headline: “Biden to OPEC: Drill, baby, drill.”

America’s energy policy reflects one of the oldest attitudes in human history. As Saint Augustine once prayed to God, “Make me chaste and celibate — but not yet.”

The White House this week illustrated the central reason U.S. energy policy is failing. It promises that we can get to a carbon-free future without imposing real costs on the American people, and without having to make some very difficult trade-offs.

Let’s start by recognizing some basic facts. In 1990, fossil fuels made up about 85 percent of U.S. energy consumption. That number today? Around 80 percent. And according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2050, under current policy, that percentage will have dropped to about 75 percent.

The reasons for this are not simply that oil companies are influential. Fossil fuels are amazingly abundant and versatile. They are powerful and portable, providing energy whenever and wherever it’s needed. That is why we use fossil fuels to run our cars, power our factories, cook our food and heat our homes. Plus, we use them to make everything from plastics to textiles to aspirin.

This is not an argument to do nothing. On the contrary, it’s an argument to do much more. The only rational way to lower the use of fossil fuels in all of these varied applications is to make them all more expensive. That means a carbon tax, so that everything that emits greenhouse gases becomes more expensive and everything that is clean becomes more affordable.

But that’s not enough. We keep proclaiming lofty climate goals and yet never meet them. In 2015, President Barack Obama announced targets for reducing U.S. emissions by 2025. Many regarded those goals as not nearly ambitious enough. Thanks to President Donald Trump, we are not on track to achieve them. Now Biden has set even more ambitious goals.

The biggest problem in U.S. energy policy is climate denialism from the right. But on the left, there is another potent danger: magical thinking. Too many believe we can lower emissions with no hard choices.

The University of California at Berkeley released a report last year that says we could feasibly get to a 90 percent clean electricity grid by 2035, reducing coal consumption to zero and natural gas by 70 percent. But note — that wildly optimistic scenario is based on the assumption that the United States would quickly and massively upgrade its power grid to become smart and responsive, build new transmission lines, expand storage dramatically, and change the way power systems operate across the 50 states. In reality, just building a single new transmission line has often proved an impossible task. One recent effort to build lines from renewable energy projects to population centers collapsed after 10 years of battles over permits. There is another continuing battle over a line to bring Canadian hydropower into New England.

We should continue to subsidize renewables. We should fund new technologies — from hydrogen fuel to electricity storage — that, in a decade or two, might prove extremely effective substitutes for fossil fuels. There are ways to expedite upgrading the grid. But meanwhile, we need to reduce emissions sharply, and now. Here’s what we could do right away.

First, stop retiring nuclear power plants and start building new ones. Nuclear power is a zero-emissions fuel that is always on.

Second, we need to get coal — the dirtiest fuel — from 20 percent of our electricity supply down to zero. Where possible, we should replace it with wind, solar or biomass. But the easiest, quickest way will often be to use natural gas, which still produces half the carbon emissions. We should also get the developing world to stop building coal-fired plants, many of them Chinese-sponsored, and instead help them build power plants to run on U.S. natural gas.

Third, electric cars have come of age and can replace internal combustion vehicles, and we should speed this transition by building out thousands of charging stations.

Fourth, industry releases about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and is hard to decarbonize. (Very high heat is often needed, and some chemical processes unavoidably release carbon dioxide.) So we should require the use of currently available carbon-capture technologies, including a massive expansion of the oldest one we know of: trees.

Yes, I know there are problems with all of these approaches, but there are problems with every solution. (Producing solar energy on an industrial scale requires massive use of plastics, i.e. petrochemicals, as well as the mining of many raw materials, including scarce minerals.) But the actions I describe here would all cut emissions tomorrow. Not 10 years from now, and not after development and research. Tomorrow.

Fucked is the word I was reaching for....

[old goat]

I’d love to think we could accomplish all this but I pessimistically just don’t see if happening, when we can’t even come together and wear a fucking mask during a pandemic.

This makes my head hurt.

No argument here.

[AirheadD8]

I need a uniform.
Does it come with epaulettes?

Yes but nothing else because only dumbasses recognize the king has no clothes . This thread is a train wreck LOL . People who drive hundreds of miles and using lots of energy to be pulled uphill to ski are whining about climate change . Driving to your psychologists office to vent about being stressed out then posting ( using energy ) about how other people don't get it . Trying to enlist politicians to help ....HAHA the energy companies own them LOL . Advocating buying solar panels ( made in china with coal ) then no lets use wind!
We can eat all the birds they kill...... But as long as your friends know you care you can feel good LOL
As the biggest environmentalist I know hit menopause ....."Fuck global warming I'm getting air conditioning" ...

Plant lots of trees and enjoy the shade and chill out .

[jonesy]

My golf course better be green when I drive there in my 14 mpg Sprinter van.

[ex-powderbroker]

there’s a lot of interesting stuff in this thread, i’m trying to work my way through it. thanks all.

[Garfield3d]

I’d love to think we could accomplish all this but I pessimistically just don’t see if happening, when we can’t even come together and wear a fucking mask during a pandemic.

This makes my head hurt.

For some reason, your pessimism reminds me of this blip from the Newsroom - https://youtu.be/6CXRaTnKDXA?t=231

[Core Shot]

Well old goat, according to your rules skiing is cancelled and your Tahoe ski house needs to be destroyed so you can live in the big cities.
Unless you ride your bicycle to Tahoe and hike to ski.
#agenda 2030

[PB]

OK, not Boomer.

[WMD]

Tahoe area towns at risk of future flooding
https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...ainstage_card4
Increasing winter rain instead of snow likely to result in frequent overtopping of the Lake Tahoe dam and flooding downstream, as has happened in the past.
In addition to the loss of water stored as snow which we all know about, and of course the end of skiing in the area.

I wasn't going to say more on the subject but since I was challenged to say what I would do about it I would say this--
1) organize get out the vote, ala Stacy Abrams. Convince people, especially young people, that it matters. (We've got a recall election in CA coming up, voters are apathetic, we could easily wind up with a right wing ideologue with 15% or less of the vote as governor, due to CA's stupid recall law. It will make a huge difference for the next couple of years and beyond if people don't vote.)

2) repeated, massive protests

3) based on success in 1) and 2), pass a stiff carbon tax, subsidies for carbon free energy,

4) emphasize reduction in consumption, change in lifestyle over tech solutions. We will still need solar, wind, batteries, etc. to eliminate carbon based electricity, but we need to limit the new infrastructure as much as possible to minimize the negatives. All this will take time--which we don't really have--but we need to make it increasingly unfashionable to jet to Europe or import food from abroad, and then from across the country. We need to make people reconsider migrating far from their families. We need to transform our lives to be simpler, less consumptive, and closer to home. The best tool to accomplish that is social pressure to change attitudes over time. We need to mandate dense, transit oriented communities and eventually enact policies which will eliminate development in energy intensive parts of the country. Phoenix should not exist. We need to emphasize building in ways that reduce the need for heating and cooling. We can't continue to live in single family houses on large lots long distances from work. All of this and more is what I mean by the need for changing people's lives in dramatic fashion. We cannot build enough green energy to allow us to keep living the way we live now. And we need to stop telling people we can.


That's enough for now.

Thanks! I generally agree with you. Way beyond the climate crisis we have the consumption and overuse of resources crises, and we are destroying our home. We are shitting where we eat.

1) yes!
2) I don't understand why this isn't happening today (and yes I have organized some things but most people aren't upset enough to protest)
3) carbon free energy requires the technology I have pushed for - wind, solar, storage, enhanced and interconnected grids, etc. I use a saying from Dr Jonathon Foley of Project Drawdown: Now, not New. We need to stop waiting for more innovation and use the technology we have today to get off of fossil fuels. A carbon tax has some other issues I won't go into now, but if the price could be set high enough to make it effective, I'm for it along with regulations too.

The Democratic plan for a clean energy standard in budget reconciliation right now is actually a clean energy payment plan, a bit like a tax. Power companies that meet greenhouse gas reduction targets will get paid for that, while those who don't will have to pay. If you support climate action, everyone should call their representatives and urge them to pass this.
4) yes, we need to change our ethos and our lifestyles to be much more sustainable. But that ain't happening overnight. What can happen quickly is that we can move from fossil fuel energy to clean energy in a big over a decade. On our current path we will surpass 1.5C of warming in the early 2030's, and 2C a decade later. Both of these will be catastrophic for us. So while we work to change lifestyles we also need to move rapidly to electrify everything that can be electrified, all powered by clean energy.

The one place I disagree is that I've read enough work by experts to believe that we can build enough clean energy to live how we do now. But I agree that would be an awful idea and would lead to other environmental issues. The part of that Rewiring America video I hate is when he says people won't have to give up their big houses and big cars. If we don't, we all will suffer from other environmental impacts besides climate change.

Check out this article:

Greenhouse gas emissions must peak within 4 years, says leaked UN report
Group of scientists release draft IPCC report as they fear it will be watered down by governments
Fiona Harvey and Giles Tremlett
Thu 12 Aug 2021 09.47 EDT


Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next four years, coal and gas-fired power plants must close in the next decade and lifestyle and behavioural changes will be needed to avoid climate breakdown, according to the leaked draft of a report from the world’s leading authority on climate science.
Rich people in every country are overwhelmingly more responsible for global heating than the poor, with SUVs and meat-eating singled out for blame, and the high-carbon basis for future economic growth is also questioned.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environm...aked-un-report

[kootenayskier]

Many of us have known what was coming, and what was theoretically necessary to avert it for at least the past 35 years. Unfortunately, the levels of restraint, sharing, coordination and discipline required proved well beyond our species capacity. Now, as we’re rapidly moving past various ecological tipping points, and our governance seems more dysfunctional than ever, all that realistically remains is to hunker down enjoy the ride. It’s going to be a wild one.

[WMD]

^^Yes, we can't stop climate change from occurring, but this is dead wrong. We can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Giving up is bullshit and ensures disaster.

We probably can't keep warming below 1.5C, but we have a chance to keep it to 2C. Would that be really really bad? Yes. But it is better than 2.5C, which is better then 3C, which is better than 4, etc.

We do not fall off a climate cliff at any point, and it is absolutely critical to act to save what we can.

Right now in the US call your Senators and Congresspeople and urge them to include a clean energy standard and renewable energy tax credits among other climate actions in the budget reconciliation bills.

[NWFlow]

^Yep, thanks for the perspective. It's easy to get fatalistic about it, but the only option at this point is to reduce the anthropogenic warming as much as we can.

[joeshek]

Been seeing a lot of echo recently regarding climate change activists/leaders having "inflexible views on climate change"

Is this a new talking point that's being tested? Who or what is it it implying that we're supposed to have give and take with? The atmosphere?

[F#*k you cat]

#earthinthebalance
#algore

We have known about this for decades.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[kootenayskier]

^^Yes, we can't stop climate change from occurring, but this is dead wrong. We can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Giving up is bullshit and ensures disaster.

We probably can't keep warming below 1.5C, but we have a chance to keep it to 2C. Would that be really really bad? Yes. But it is better than 2.5C, which is better then 3C, which is better than 4, etc.

We do not fall off a climate cliff at any point, and it is absolutely critical to act to save what we can.

Right now in the US call your Senators and Congresspeople and urge them to include a clean energy standard and renewable energy tax credits among other climate actions in the budget reconciliation bills.

I’m reasonably well read on the subject, am in local government, and am a strong advocate for the changes required to prevent complete ecosystem collapse. However it also seems pretty clear that our democratic governance, our capitalist economy, and the heuristic limitations of human nature don’t currently permit the magnitude of change required to address what the science tells us is necessary. The most ambitious measures currently being considered by our governments aren’t nearly enough, and even more critically they aren’t sophisticated enough to account for the the economic and social feedback loops that will quickly negate them. Here’s a primer:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...21800919304203

If you have ideas for how to get the majority of voters to support the fundamental economic restructuring required, I’m all ears.

[k2skier112]

Been seeing a lot of echo recently regarding climate change activists/leaders having "inflexible views on climate change"

Is this a new talking point that's being tested? Who or what is it it implying that we're supposed to have give and take with? The atmosphere?

the only inflexible views on the environment are those of the deniers
care to decipher the incoherent last sentence?

[WMD]

If you have ideas for how to get the majority of voters to support the fundamental economic restructuring required, I’m all ears.

I agree there are structural barriers to staying within climate and other environmental limits. But, did we give up when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor? It will be hard but nothing is impossible, and this is kinda important so we gotta try.

Currently most experts agree that enacted policies around the world put us on a path to 3C of warming by 2100, with continued warming into the next centuries. This would be catastrophic.

Proposed policies, if enacted, could keep that to 2.4C. Still awful, but way better. We need to make sure those policies are put in place and followed through. Then, we try to chip away at more and get the market to kick in to help us switch to EVs, etc, rapidly. Then get a few more aggressive policies enacted and maybe we stay to 2C.

Giving up leads to catastrophe. We have to do better than that and it
takes all of us working together to get anywhere. Failure is not an option, especially if you are young or have kids or grandkids or nephews/nieces. If you are old and don't have relatives who will experience this shitty future, I don't blame you for giving up. But please just shut up and enjoy your life and don't stop the rest of us from doing what is necessary.

Edit to add: Check out Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything" for ideas on how we make the necessary structural changes.