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The us is experiencing water shortages because they have built cities in the desert and other areas of extremely low water levels.
Plus the majority of that water is going to agriculture which they could reduce the need by not monocropping and growing sustainably.
I agree it will need a huge amount of work but most of the issues are structural and need unpicking but the knowledge and will is becoming more and more apparent.
Considering the majority of this country think that climate change is of massive importance you will see businesses actually make changes now as it is simple good business sense
will see businesses actually make changes now as it is simple good business sense
npe - not a chance of them doing the fundamental changes that are needed
again - one example please?
well, maybe some silver lining to the increasing consumption of electricity by data centres is that it might herald an increase in a move to cheaper, greener energy?
After all, how can our AI overlords hope to conquer the planet when they might be constrained by the amount of power they consume?
Though if the past (energy crisis) is anything to go by, folks will try and exploit cheaper fossil fuels before embarking on almost limitless free energy from the sun shining today rather than millions of years ago. I suppose there is the Matrix scenario…
again – one example please?
the all-electric-car companies Tesla & Rivian? Cutting combustion pollution at point of use. They predate the current government blah blah though.
@tjagain
From my industry
Astrazeneca sustainability
https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/responsibility/environment/
Healthcare is apparently the 2nd biggest emitter after oil and gas
the all-electric-car companies Tesla & Rivian? Cutting combustion pollution at point of use
Irrelevant to the issue. they still use similar amounts of energy to move people around the place in huge heavy boxes. Cutting combustion pollution at point of usevhelp air quality in cities. It does nothing to make the level of change required and of course mining the metals for the batteries is very carbon intensive and polluting
total lifetime CO2 production for an electric car is perhaps at best a little lower. It does half of nothing to actually address the problem of rising CO2
Pure greenwash because they pretend an electric car solves the issue when it does not - because they are looking at the wrong issue. the issue is the amount we move people and goods around and the energy that uses
Electric cars are not the best answer. They still need some sort of fuel and at the moment not all of it is green. They are also massively expensive, so only the wealthy can buy them compared to a cheap petrol/diesel car. They still require lots of raw materials, some of which are quite rare, to be mined.
But that mining is in a 3rd world country, so we don't have to see it. The electric cars replace working existing ones, so that wastes a vehicle. The electric car will be marketed by a business that wants short term profits, so soon marketing will cause you to buy a new one in a year or two, especially as no one actually buys them, they are all on a contract.
The solution has to come from lower population, lower demand and greater efficiency. None of these things are going to happen with the current economic and political systems we have.
Graham - fine words with no notion of how they will do it and too little too late.
Greenwash again. fiddling round the edges
The only answer is deep and fundamental changes in how we live our lives.
From the inside it is not green wash. Zero carbon emissions for all parts of the supply chain including suppliers by 2030 as greenwashing? What do you suggest then? We stop making medicines?
But if you are so intent on demanding population decrease then who are you suggesting we start with then?
I appreciate some cannot see any hope here and you are entitled to your opinion but i see a lot of positive coming and refuse to think that way. Yes i see the challenges but they can be overcome
tj, if your looking for an answer along the lines of "comapnies are all funding it, on their own out of the goodness of the hearts, for no return" then yes you wont get an example of that, not easily anyway.
However, there are plenty that are investing billions into to sustainable tech beacuse it secures their future which is being driven by social need as well as policy. Every large "big oil" company is doing something, there are many many startups that are setting up to use waste product all over the globe to help replace fossil. Im working with a number of the companies, oooking at what they are producing, seeing how they can be optimised and where we can use those products to replace their fossil equivelants. But tch like this is expensive, it needs investment, investment wants a return..
You see it as greenwashing, as the only solution for you is for man to die off, becasue lets face it man will always want to stride forward - hence why we don't live in caves anymore.. Simply put you cannot have progress without innovation. Innovation leads to trade, trade needs mobility, mobility needs energy - not all energy is easily utilised..
Every large “big oil” company is doing something,
Greenwashing you mean?
so you really do not have any examples of what you claim.
My solution is a complete reset of how we live our lives. If this does not happen then we will get a mass die off. I don't advocate a mass die ioff. Its just its the inevitable outcome unless we make major changes. We are IN a mass extinction event. It happening
What you really mean is that you do not want middle class folk to have to alter their unsustainable lifestyle
By ‘middle class’ do you mean anyone with a car?
I don’t think I said ‘do not put huge, regressive, taxes on fuel’. I said there was a problem with it. In much the same way that higher-paid folks pay less tax on most consumption than lower-paid folks. If you only increase regressive taxes this creates greater inequality problems.
taxing fuel, heavily, would indeed have a direct ‘polluter pays’ effect. And many indirect effects.
Selfishly, I’d say ‘go for it’ petrol and diesel at £10/L? That might cut a few trips. It would though greatly penalise folks who currently commute into high-cost areas for work: teachers, NHS staff, … .
improving public transport, pandemics aside, would be a boon. Done well, it could remove some part of the vicious cycle of individual transport that worker-displacement creates. As would increasing decentralisation of the workplace. This kind of joined-up plan, and several ideas TJ et al have commented on, is what a bold government might consider. And what bold leadership at G7 etc might be able to get movement on.
I agree that left to their own devices companies tend to carry on doing what they’re doing until legislation forces them to change. Unsure if it is true, but since the ‘increase shareholder value’ mindset came about, the incentives to do more of the right thing have been less intrinsic drivers to businesses.
. It would though greatly penalise folks who currently commute into high-cost areas for work: teachers, NHS staff,
completely missing the point Its the commute that is a large part of the issue and commuting in cars at that
Stopping commuting is a key first step.
Its a complete reset of how we live that is needed.
I guess TJ and Trimix have it sewn up. Anything other than complete and immediate overhaul of global economics and politics is greenwashing.
you folks win.
There’s no hope of progress unless everything changes now.
This is too complex to fix in one go.
Therefore we are doomed?
Does look that way to me.
If it doesn't involve a massed cull of the human population it is clearly greenwashing.
Am hoping tj doesn't have a car so it will take him some time to get down to where i live so i should be safe from the cull for a while
completely missing the point Its the commute that is a large part of the issue and commuting in cars at that
Get your head out of the sand dude. Commuting is not the root cause of the problem. It is displacement of workplaces from living places. The solution is not public transport. This only shifts the energy consumption from many vehicles to fewer, bigger vehicles. The solution is re-engineering of the built environment. People being able to afford to live within waking distance of where they work. And having such lovely surroundings that this is desirable.
edit. Ah, perhaps this reorganisation is what you’re getting at in your own way? What policies should government enact to bring about the changes you consider necessary?
Am hoping tj doesn’t have a car so it will take him some time to get down to where i live so i should be safe from the cull for a while
🤣🤣🤣 he does cycle an awful lot so unless you’re separated by a lot of water it won’t take long for him to get wherever you are.
Until governments start adding huge environmental taxes on imported electronics, I won't take any measures seriously. As has been pointed out, the environmental and energy cost of manufacturing electronic devices is absolutely enormous. It takes about 1.5MWh to maunfacture a laptop, and TVs and phones are not much different.
Buying a new EV, or not flying, will not fix the issue at all. Modern passenger planes are, per seat, much more efficient than a car with a single occupant. Encouraging car-sharing would do much more for the environment than taxing airlines, as would encouraging lifestyles that reduce the amount of expected travel.
Saying that, one very good way of reducing travel expectations would be to make buying a car very expensive, and re-fueling it annoying and time consuming. Mabye EVs are the answer!
tj, its not hard to find,
https://www.bp.com/en/global/air-bp/aviation-fuel/sustainable-aviation-fuel.html
https://fulcrum-bioenergy.com/
https://totalenergies.com/group/energy-expertise/exploration-production/committed-future-bioenergies
https://www.abengoa.com/web/en/negocio/energia/residuos/
they are a handful of examples. All of them expensive and being subsidised by "big oil" or invested by "sustainability funds" - but they will all eventually want a return.
TJ - you talk about a reset of the way we live our lives - the only example of man not pushing forward are the tribes in the amazon. since day dot man has an eagerness to do more -that is why we are where we are. EVERYTHING YOU do today has had a reliance on energy derived from fossil until recently. we all get that needs to change, and it is - but like you i disagree with some of the policy (electrification being the prime solver for one).. However you are being niave to think that your vision of a reset and then carrying on can change over night and will not lead to where we are again – does your reset include never travelling, only eating the food grown in your back garden, no internet, no beer – actually everything – everything you can think off needs mobility. As I pointed out in my last post
Innovation leads to trade, trade needs mobility, mobility needs energy
, you can reverse that!
Mleh, they'll be an hardening of the Ice age we're in currently in about 1500 years or so anyway...That'll do for most of the humans left (if there are any still left)
I can’t think of a disincentive-driven way to reduce vehicle use that doesn’t take us to a greater division of haves and have-nots.
We could pay people to cycle
Encouraging car-sharing would do much more for the environment than taxing airlines, as would encouraging lifestyles that reduce the amount of expected travel.
This is another dead cat that gets brought up routinely in pro road building circles.
Oh, everyone will be in Electric / Hydrogen vehicles
Oh, people will car-share.
People hate car-sharing. It's shit, unreliable, you have to make small talk with the work colleague you'd rather not see much of at all, the driver's choice of music is invariably not the same as yours and if you're doing it on an informal basis (like through a community scheme or something) its even worse as you have little say in who you get paired up with.
It's not the same as 3 mates piling into a car for a weekend camping trip and at absolute best, it leads to a reduction in traffic of fractions of a percentage. Better off just getting on a bus!
What policies should government enact to bring about the changes you consider necessary?
All private landlords should have their assets seized and run by housing associations. Price caps on housing sales based on multiple of rent value.
Anyone who is retired gets relocated so that those who are required to live and work in the cities can do so.
Non working travel pass holders restricted to travel outside of rush hour and to the local area only to ease over crowding for commuters.
Leisure travel is restricted or taxed to reflect the carbon emissions produced.
Luxury goods such as non basic bicycles are taxed on their carbon miles before purchase.
All sound fair to me.
Plus have safe and convenient routes to get to public transport hubs. If i want to bike to a station so i can get the train to work it would be 8 miles on dodgy back roads. 8 miles on a nice route would be fine but not those roads in rush hour.
Thankfully i will be reducing my commuting time by 70% simply by not having to go into work. If i wanted to move to be able to walk i would be taking about an extra 3-400k on a mortgage so until they fix that structural issue the options are reduce reliance on ice, improve transport links and reduce travel
People hate car-sharing. It’s shit, unreliable, you have to make small talk with the work colleague you’d rather not see much of at all, the driver’s choice of music is invariably not the same as yours and if you’re doing it on an informal basis (like through a community scheme or something) its even worse as you have little say in who you get paired up with.
It’s not the same as 3 mates piling into a car for a weekend camping trip and at absolute best, it leads to a reduction in traffic of fractions of a percentage. Better off just getting on a bus!
Sounds like a small sacrifice to save the planet!
If I'm being asked to invest in an EV, stop flying, and live vegan, we can all put up with some different music during a commute.
This is another dead cat that gets brought up routinely in pro road building circles.
I'm not sure why it's a "dead cat", but I'm not pro road-building. I'm anti-pointless, expensive, and mandated consumerism that does not achieve what it says it will.
Sounds like a small sacrifice to save the planet!
You know, it might even work as an incentive: Take steps to reduce your carbon emissions, or we'll make you car share...
From my early forum years of arguing the toss with TJ about climate and whatnot I seem to have undergone some sort of Damascene conversion over the years and I tend to agree with him on this issue - we're in deep trouble and nothing less than a wholesale reduction in our combined energy usage and a change to working remotely could be considered a positive first step. Ten years on from arguing with TJ about the future of energy production and we're still burning fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate, various geopolitical decisions taken over the years mean that we're going to be reliant upon food imports sourced from the other side of the world and shipped here with grim implications for climate change. Viable alternative energy sources are still "25-50 years away" and we don't have the luxury of time to leisurely implement change.
This all makes rather depressing reading for someone with teenage children. But then I remember that when I was a teenager (in the ‘80s) we were definitely all going to die in a nuclear war. It was just a matter of when.
Maybe this disaster will come to pass, but I’m not sure it’s as certain as some people make out. Yes, the way we live in 100 years will look very different to now, but that would be the case whether it was caused the climate change or some sci-fi future of jet packs and spaceships.
Zero carbon emissions for all parts of the supply chain including suppliers by 2030 as greenwashing?
thats an aim not what is happening and the piece you posted I could find nothing but nice words about haw to do it - and its virtually impossible anyway
Sui - none of those things are actually addressing the real issue - we use too much energy
there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel - we need that land to grow food not to grow plants to make fuel
all of those are classic greenwash - totally missing the point that is not less polluting fuels we need - its using massivly less energy by radically altering our lifestyles not by pretending that growing food crops to make fuel is any sort of a solution
You make my case with such weak examples
Have a look at the report then to see what has been done to date then. It is listed in the link i provided for az
All private landlords should have their assets seized and run by housing associations. Price caps on housing sales based on multiple of rent value.
I am certainly in favour of rent caps and state provided housing. Does nowt about the polution tho and I will have you know my rental has been fully insulated to a very high standard out of my own pocket with money I will never recoup
Anyone who is retired gets relocated so that those who are required to live and work in the cities can do so.
Oooh - can you relocated me to somewhere warm please - and anyway yo don't want to live in my flat. too many stairs for you and too many neighbours
Non working travel pass holders restricted to travel outside of rush hour and to the local area only to ease over crowding for commuters.
Already restricted to outside of rush hours I think - and I don't have one
Leisure travel is restricted or taxed to reflect the carbon emissions produced.
Quite agree. Most of my leisure travel is by bike. Most of the rest by train. I would be quids in compared to most folk. I have been in a car / van for a few hundred miles in the last 2 years
Luxury goods such as non basic bicycles are taxed on their carbon miles before purchase.
Quite agree. transport miles figured as a large criteria for my new bike. It has no components from outside europe and much from the UK. But yes - luxuries should be highly taxed and I favour punative carbon taxes. this will be the 2nd new bike I have had since i was 14. Every other bike has been second hand
Reduce, reuse , recycle
I did graham - its a good step but its a tiny first step and they are missing some basic easy steps and not counting things that they should
Ooh this is fun but i am off to walk to a local cafe where i will be consuming locally produced food prepared by people who live locally and that uses reusable cutlery and crockery and that composts / recycles all their waste
various geopolitical decisions taken over the years mean that we’re going to be reliant upon food imports
Yeah, this kind of shit has to stop, pears grown in China, shipped to South America to be packaged and shipped to the UK for sale, when pears will grow in this country...madness
Yup, agree with TJ and Trimix. Anyone choosing to have kids now really need to consider what you’re going to cause them to live through
This is one of the reasons that I don't want kids. Don't want that responsibility and thought hanging on my shoulders.
We could pay people to cycle
This pisses me off.
Being self employed, if I jump in my van I can give the fuel and other receipts to the taxman and can "save" money. Even employees here in Germany can deduct their travel from their yearly tax return. The further away from work you live, the more affordable commuting by car becomes.
However, if I cycle to work there is no financial benefit.
Backwards thinking.
This sort of shit needs to change to encourage folks to use their cars less and/or live closer to their places of work.
Also, why do I pay 500€/year tax for my work van, that I essentially cannot do without given the nature of my job (carpenter), yet the guy with his 450bhp hybrid BMW pays zilch? Who the hell needs that much power?
Isn't it Portugal where they have no road tax. Instead you pay tax on the fuel used by your car. Drive more, pay more. Big, powerful gas guzzler, pay more. Small efficient car, pay less.
That all makes me sound like a crazed petrol head, but I'm not. I would love to see car usage killed off and have at least 50% of the roads turned over to bike lanes, with the only motors on the road being lorries, trades people and others that do not have an alternative to using an oil burner.
Yeah, this kind of shit has to stop, pears grown in China, shipped to South America to be packaged and shipped to the UK for sale, when pears will grow in this country…madness
And that is exactly the kind of thing that will not be stopped by all the newest environmental legislation. We will all be driving EVs and not going on holiday abroad, and instead watching Netflix on our 70" TVs or smartphones to "save the planet", all while importing everything from 1000's of miles away, and forgetting just how much energy was expended in the process.
There's a finite amount of oil. We will certainly use it all - why not encourage everyone to get 1mpg gas guzzlers, then we can all move on quicker??
There’s a finite amount of oil. We will certainly use it all – why not encourage everyone to get 1mpg gas guzzlers, then we can all move on quicker??
Because that doesn't make money for shareholders and Big Oil. Back in the 80's, oil companies were doing research into global warming, they knew pretty well what was happening and the argument was that the melting ice in the Arctic would open up vast new drilling areas.
The thing is, you don't really need much technology to fix the issues. Mandatory solar panels on all new builds. Car parks to have green/solar roofs to them, not just a vast open expanse of tarmac. Proper segregated cycle infrastructure and progressive measures to reduce and then remove car usage. Increased investment in public transport, especially electric/hybrid/hydrogen buses and trains. Progressive electrification of the rail network.
The answer is fewer vehicles, not newer vehicles.
Because that doesn’t make money for shareholders and Big Oil.
How does it not? It would be a profit bonanza, in the short term, and that's all people care about.
Mandatory solar panels on all new builds.
But where would we get them from??
I'm also very unconvinced by the total lifecycle benefits of solar panels. They use a lot of scarce resources and energy to manufacture (the energy currently being provided by brown coal), and produce a lot of complext waste. The simple solution - use less electricity!
there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel – we need that land to grow food not to grow plants to make fuel
And here in is a lack of education. It's not your fualt, the industry hasn't done enough to educate everyone as its a complex issue. So to answer this point - Bio -does not always = land crop! The term bio is being inter-woven with waste feedstocks like the left overs from farming, leftovers from paper and timber industries, left over from food and it's processing - i.e. the stuff that currenly gets buried and causes methane (which is 10x as bad as co2). It's also being used alongside Carbon Capture, either direct or indirect. So no TJ you are wrong and it's not a greenwashing exercise.
You do make a valid point around energy usage as whole, but by reducing our reliance on energy, from whatever source that is, you push back progress. I can here you say killing the planet isn't progress - i agree it's not, anyone would be foolish to think that - but by remaining stationary in our evolution you are saying that today (or maybe a few yars ago) was the point in time when we should no longer have been pushing forward/ advancing as a human race technologically..
– Bio -does not always = land crop! The term bio is being inter-woven with waste feedstocks like the left overs from farming, leftovers from paper and timber industries, left over from food and it’s processing
Just how much energy is available from those sources? I have no idea, but I strongly suspect it's a drop in the ocean compared to the demand. Also, will there be any left over, after the "bio-mass" electricty plants have been fed? (although, that's less of an issue, as we currently import virgin timber from the US to burn at Drax, because the CO2 maths apparently checks out).
It's still greenwashing. The vast majority of "bio-" fuels come from virgin sources, including clear-cut rainforest and virgin old-growth forests in the US. It's not an "education" issue.
TJ is right - the issue is energy consumption.
We have arrived at this point because selfishness for our clan, tribe, family, country, way of life, religion, politics, has enabled us to out compete our rivals for limited recourses.
Its how we have evolved to our current point, its what has forced evolution. Bit like the arms race or the space race or any sporting race - it forced / demands change in one direction.
This direction is at the expense of the environment.
The industrial revolution came about largely because the price of labour went up as it became short due to disease and previous pandemics.
There are some great ideas on this thread, but sadly we are the rich minority who can afford to think about them. Most of the population doesn't have clean water or proper food, we are moaning about importing the bloody stuff. Soon, most of them will be walking north to avoid the heat.
I see no government being bold enough to force the changes needed - they know what's needed, what they don't know is how to get elected if they promise them.
I see no business being able to do more than react to current demand and legislation while making a profit. Most businesses are essentially driven to make short term profits - banks / investors demand a short term return. We all demand a pay rise.
We have no hope of changing politics short of a revolution, but look where the Middle East is following their spring of doing that, or Hong Kong for example.
We may be able to alter some businesses by altering demand, but we wont be able to alter the short term requirement for profit. That has to come from legislation - which is very unlikely to happen.
Even our own lives are short term - most of us are just thinking about our summer holidays and how inconvenient it is that we cant fly somewhere. Faced with the reality of being powerless and the problems requiring global solutions which are quite complex and interconnected, the natural reaction is to say "Sod it, I'm just going to ignore it" or place your hope on technology or government or business. That natural but a foolish cop-out. Might as well pray to the bloke who lives in the sky.
We can lower the burden going forwards by having less offspring though. Oh, and ride our bikes more (provided they are not carbon frames flown over from the Far East 🙂
Just how much energy is available from those sources?
A significant amount, though you have to consider what is the best outlet for it. For land based Transport there is enough, even if you do remove land crop where it is sensitive. We're ging to continue to eat, manufacture and waste so there will always be feedstocks - yes we do need efficencies as we've grown up knowing we had an almost unlimited source of fuel in the ground.
The vast majority of “bio-” fuels come from virgin sources, including clear-cut rainforest
this is cetianly not the case in every country, but appreciateive that it does have it's issues in some. Jowever , suggesting that you don't want to use land mass to produce any fuels is ironic, as that's what we've done since man discovered fire and we would need someway of producing energy otherwsie we would not be able to argue on STW!
For avaiation and Marine, no there isn't enough, but there can be - but this needs other technologies that are predominatly being championed like "eFuels" from Co2 capture - some Marine is also looking at rubber and plastic waste as there is a lot of this, and will continue to be so for many years.
there always seems to be this notion that it's all or nothing, and if i can't have all now then i don't want it - except electric - why is that what has lead us to believe this is the only route to fix all of our problems?
twrch - i didn't disagree with TJ on a reduction on reliance on energy - but you havent said whether you would be happy for tus all to stop what we do today - do you still want to ride your bike, use your phone etc etc..??? if the answer is no to any of those, then you have to accept that energy demand will continue to rise, so you then have to accept that multiple technologies are needed in order to meet the demand without putting further pressure on the environment.
A significant amount,
How much is that?? We need numbers, not platitudes.
For land based Transport there is enough
You're telling me that the UK produces enough waste biomass to fuel its transport needs?
A hectare of arable land can produce 200 litres of biodiesel per year. The UK has 6 million hectares of arable land. It also uses 40 BILLION liters of fuel per year. So, if we give up all of our arable land to fuel production, AND cut our motorised transport usage to 1/50th of what it is now, as well as not eat or heat our homes, then that would be sustainable.
That's the problem with the numbers, they immediately expose greenwashing.
do you still want to ride your bike, use your phone etc etc..???
I don't have a smartphone, and my cycling is powered by porridge.
but you havent said whether you would be happy for tus all to stop what we do today – if the answer is no to any of those, then you have to accept that energy demand will continue to rise
The idea that it is remotely feasible to manufacture smartphones (and every other gadget, for that matter) for the world from sustainable energy sources is just ludicrous. If you want to be "sustainable", you have to accept that our energy demands have to decrease.
The idea that it is remotely feasible to manufacture smartphones (and every other gadget, for that matter) for the world from sustainable energy sources is just ludicrous. If you want to be “sustainable”, you have to accept that our energy demands have to decrease
that is my point -you cant do everything sustainable if you go to the nth degree and look at other environmental imapcts.
do you still want to ride your bike, use your phone etc etc..???
I don’t have a smartphone, and my cycling is powered by porridge.
that was more aimed at what your bike is made from!
I appreciate you want absolute numbers, i don;t have them to hand, but the 40billion litres covers a lot of applciations, and my point ive made is you need to target certain applications with what is availble.