We might be closer to changing course on climate change than we realized
We might be closer to changing course on climate change than we realized
Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked. Now they need to fall — fast.
Last year, more solar panels were installed in China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — than the US has installed in its entire history.
This is fucking awesome news.
There aren't enough rare earth minerals on the earth to create the necessary equipment for solar, wind, etc to meet our current energy needs. The answer isn't just green energy, we need to actively contract the size of the economy and make less shit that we then throw away.
Buy used. Compost organics. Upgrade when and only when needed.
Yeah, and stop having sex and listening to rock and role.
That's a solution that just isn't going to work. We as a society need to plan for using more and more energy. Therefore, we need to create cleaner and cleaner ways to generate that energy. If solar can be implemented until we scale up fission, that's great. We can then rely on fission for a few hundred years until we get to fusion.
People will complain about the dangers of fission only while they ignore the dangers of fossil fuels and aren't required to use them. As soon as fossil fuels start running out, then fission isn't going to sound so bad. Frankly, it shouldn't sound bad now.
We do need to cut down on overproduction, but nuclear energy is the real solution. We need to be building a bunch of state of the ark nuclear fission plants. They are super safe now, and barely put off waste anymore. They just take so long to build and are so expensive. Plus because of miss information hard to find a place people will let you build one.
100%
Nope not falling for it. Anything less than an anticapitalist revolution isn't going to do jack shit.
Still overexploiting, overproducing and then sending it straight to the landfill. There's no reforming that cosmic level of waste.
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Relevant username
As a middle class kind of person. My boss still wants me to drive my gasoline powered vehicle an hour each way to get to an office so I can work on systems remotely.
.... Or at least, that's what my old boss wanted me to do. I left that job, but there's a lot of people in a situation where they can and should work from home and never even need a vehicle, yet, because of reasons, they have to get dressed and emit greenhouses gasses to satisfy some capitalists need to control and oversee everything you do to earn a living.
Ridiculous and harmful. Not just to the environment, but to workers, financially and mentally. It's completely unnecessary.
If we want to get serious about this stuff, how about we reduce how much we need to rely on vehicles as a first fucking step. We're pushing electric vehicles on everyone, and a large portion of the population doesn't even really need a car, except to satisfy their bosses need to be in control.
better late than never
In other news, 2023 broke 2022 record for most carbon emissions ever. 2024 will break that record again. Renewable energy is just added to the energy we consume. No displacement on a global level (if some country uses less, the oil companies just sell it to the next eager market). We won't see meaningful declines in emissions until the population begins to fall instead of grow, crops fail from climate chaos (starving us), and most importantly we begin to run out of carbon to burn. I fully expect to see solar-powered oil wells extracting oil that would otherwise have a negative EROI.
The other bad news is that completely displacing oil would require more of various non-renewable resources than exist on Earth. To get where we need to go, we will need a decline in lifestyle, and covid already demonstrated how unwilling many are to that concept (staying home and wearing masks to save lives was too much of a burden for many).
You don't know that emissions will only start to fall when the "population begins to fall". That's just a wild guess on your part.
To get where we need to go, we will need a decline in lifestyle
This only makes sense if you're a millionaire. You're completely missing sight of whose "lifestyles" are fucking us over. The Pentagon is one of the biggest polluters in the world. Oil companies have coated the earth in micro plastics. But you think a "decline in lifestyle" is needed to improve the environment?
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displacing oil would require more of various non-renewable resources than exist on Earth.
If you mean then exists on earth now. Sure but that is sorta the point.
If you mean that is available to be used. Your talking out your rear.
All energy hitting earth from the sun (and all energy we ever had comes from the sun in some form ) is 173000 terabytes. That is 10000 times our current use. So even with low efficency the energy is there if we wish to fund development.
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This should give corporations hope that they can still turn things around.
To the negative - that is. They only care about money now. Not what comes later. :(
