Climate change/oblivion: breaking point or slow death spiral?

Might be quite useful it did, as it would effectively cool the UK off a bit.

A bit? Apparently the reduction in rainfall it could reduce our useable arable land by three-quarters…

Good for winter climbers, I guess.

what’s our success rate at getting people to alter their lifestyles?

Holland did it very successfully when it came to transport.

The problem is that although there’s a silent majority that’s in favor of these things, it’s a noisy minority who resist them. Ignore the noisy minority and you end up in a better place. My understanding is that politicians who ignore this minority also tend to do well.

heck people couldn’t even behave properly during the Pandemic

I’m pretty sure that the data suggest that the vast majority of people did behave properly during the Pandemic. And that was despite crap leadership and very mixed messaging from those in charge.

only massive reductions in energy usage and in population can

The implication being that we need a cull of people in the developing world? I’m surprised at you TJ, didn’t think I’d hear this eugenical nonsense coming from you. We don’t need fewer people, we need economies and political structures which enable everyone to live sustainably rather than supporting the lifestyles of rich people.

Nah, we need to be doing less with less.

Yep, agreed.

As a species we have to reduce our impact. Some of that will be done on our behalf by nature, but we have to change how society organises itself, and that right there is why it won’t.

The people most empowered to change how society is organised are unfortunately those least incentivised to do so.

I can feel myself drifting into Dim Lizzies “anti-growth coalition” it really does increasingly feel like a major ideological change is needed across pretty much all nations before we can collectively get our shit in a sock and deal with our wild over-consumption to address climate change.

And of course when faced with that realisation most people, myself included, feel utterly powerless to do anything useful.
Why would anyone bother buying a Tesla or covering their house in solar panels, stop taking flights and start minimising food miles when it’s just pissing into an ocean of global excess…

Daffy – the problem you face is these supposed technological fixes that will appear are too late and too little.  Much more radical solutions are needed.  Its pure fantasy to think that technology will do this without massive lifestyle change.

You’re not reading – this isn’t technology.  “technology is simply a word for something that doesn’t work yet” Douglas Adams.

This is industrial machinery.  It’s not the most efficient,  it requires a lot of power, it is expansive, but it is viable and it IS GREEN if powered by excess renewable energy.  Improvements can be made iteratively as more investment and research is made.  The most important thing is that it’s available now – it can be started.  SAF, Fission are all greenwashing, H2 and fusion just aren’t viable at current technology and infrastructure levels.

And your plan for vast lifestyle changes – How?  Just tell me how it works?  Worldwide?  For everyone? Right now?

I’ve repeatedly said this but until large companies work out how to monetise Climate Change it’s not in their interest to address it as it’s all about keeping the shareholders happy.

There’s something nobody has said so far which is that Govts are impotent when compared to the power that the large firms have especially the tech giants. They have the global reach and the ability to control the messaging

The implication being that we need a cull of people in the developing world? I’m surprised at you TJ,

How you take that from what I said shows your unwillingness to listen to understand both the true scale of the issues and the radical steps needed – .  Population worldwide.  Humans need to stop breeding – all of them.  1st 2nd and 3rd world.  There are too many people on the planet.  I knew this 25+ years ago and its why I have no kids.  That and the eco collapse was visible coming then

You continue to refuse to answer any questions either.  Like ” whats your timescale for this tech fix of yet to be established tech?

cookeaa

I feel very much like we’ve been gaslit (no pun intended) over climate change, constantly told about individual responsibility and how we can make “personal choices” that affect our contributions to the problems, while at the same time the presented choices are often made expensive and inconvenient.

Very much so and the supposed environmental groups and lobbies have played a large part in that.
Most of this is quite obvious but people want to believe .. for example Just Stop Oil UK, yeah so how is JSO Saudi or JSO Russia doing? Why is the German green party opening new coal mines but France isn’t – Oh yeah because France has a stable base load from clean nuclear not dirty coal?

(I’m sure someone will be along trying to pretend people died from radiation at Fukishima but non did… deaths were either 100% down to Tsunami or needless evacuation and dying of cold etc with radiation levels below natural background in many places in Europe)

Sorry to bring SUVs into it, but to my mind they’re the perfect reminder of inane conspicious consumption and sheer ludicrousy against the loudening background hum of societial and environmental collapse.

.. and again you want to believe yet it makes sod all difference if the alternative is coal powered Tesla’s

SUV’s are a convenient thing to hate… we can all hate the almost insignificant difference it makes and say “well, I don’t have a SUV”

At production sites it used to be flared to CO2 but that was banned so many wells just release it.

More thanks to the environmental pressure groups again … (and the common multiplier for greenhouse effect is 12x) but of course most Opec countries never stopped flaring until they effectively got the green light to just let the methane into the atmosphere because “Western licensing” so if they can do it so can we. (All that before the safety issues of allowing leaking methane and associated H2S.)

And the people who keep voting for incompetent populist governments who fail to invest in sustainable travel and green energy schemes.

Sustainable is just a mis-direction… it’s completely irrelevant for the time we have left to mitigate climate change but hey it makes people feel like they are doing something whilst ignoring their own and collective major sources of greenhouse pollution.

The thing with populist government is .. erm they are populist. They don’t need to even make the stuff up themselves because they can chuck in some greenwashing buzzwords and make most people feel good whilst increasing their own carbon footprint.

The same goes through all levels .. I asked my local council how many tons of concrete and steel were used making tower blocks AFTER they put in a small green wall claiming it was now carbon negative. Either they are lying or they don’t know… I’m not sure which is worse? Neither do they have an answer to how those poor sods trapped in these slum towerblocks are going to charge an EV… etc.

Now you might think that’s just a council defending it’s own poor choices but it isn’t as the control has changed and there are no councillors even left that were on the exec at the time the towers were being built and indeed only 4/30 of the previous majority party (Tory).

The sad reality is given the choice of doing something positive and jumping on the bandwagon they just jumped on the bandwagon. Rather than highlight the poor choices of the last regime they have continued to use their PR agency….

So going back to SUV’s and all the other stuff… it’s about carrying on as if nothing happened except targeting some people to blame and we can all feel good then we drive our air conditioned Tesla to the recycling centres before getting home and putting our feet up in front of a woodburning stove.

This is industrial machinery. It’s not the most efficient, it requires a lot of power, it is expansive, but it is viable and it IS GREEN if powered by excess renewable energy.

Pure fantasy then as a potential solution.  no one one worldwide is near having an excess of renewables, energy consumption is increasing and you want to use more energy?  Renewable energy is not co2 free

And your plan for vast lifestyle changes – How? Just tell me how it works? Worldwide? For everyone? Right now?

It won’t.  there is no solution and pretending there is a technological solution will not help.  Gaia will heal once its killed off most if not all of the humans 🙂

See – if the folks who are “committed green” cannot decide amongst themselves becasue the offered solutions is not the “perfect ideal solution that I want” then they become just as intransigent to the point it becomes pointless bickering. We can hardly be surprised then if govts aren’t doing anything.

I’ve no idea about the answer. I’m not even sure of the question. My wife works in Data, AI and stuff like that at a government scale. They work out the carbon footprint of their work and it’s terrifying. I know bitcoin has a decent footprint but never really thought about Google searches and particularly chatgpt and other AI things.

Then there is the arguement about planes and things above. What is the biggest problem to tackle and do the easy things even have an effect?

I “know” we need to do something. I make an effort. Never that sure if it is pissing in the wind or not.

I don’t have kids but that wouldn’t stop me thinking wide spread suffering and death is a bad thing for future generations. Not sure how I see it playing out. My guess would be that it isn’t the climate that ends up being the problem but the knock-on effect. If there are global issues we aren’t going to all work together to find a solution. There will be wars over resources. Power will shift as countries and people struggle to adapt.

I still find it mad as a chemist that so much of our physical tech is based on oil which is finite and we burn the stuff.

That or we’ll be wiped out by a flu pandemic, antibiotic resistant disease, AI revolution, astroid…

Thats not the point I am making Nickc – the point is there is no solution.  all efforts possible together are a tiny fraction of what is needed

Pure fantasy then as a potential solution.  no one one worldwide is near having an excess of renewables, energy consumption is increasing and you want to use more energy?  Renewable energy is not co2 free

Do you have some condition that only allows you to read half of what I write?

I SAID in an earlier post “We need to invest in MORE renewable power AND CO2 Capture” – and we do have excess renewables – even now.  There are periods in the day where we have more power than we need from even current sources.  That energy can be put to use.  Both of these are viable RIGHT NOW.

I have also said repeatedly that this is available NOW and could be up and running in 5 years.  Your plan for population reduction and energy scaling – what’s your timeframe?   Even IF you outlawed childbirth RIGHT NOW, you’d reduce the global population by ~1bn in 10 years.  Not exactly quick, now, is it?  It’s also nice to suggest policies that don’t affect you.  This has always been your tack.  You lack empathy and understanding and If you do that, you’ll never get the societal change at the rate you want.

Anyway – I’m going to go back to trying to actually fix the problem rather than trying to convince folks with astounding myopia.

As per @legometeorology

Somewhere like the UK, people may be more fearful of climate migrants than actual warming, thus voting for the hard-border, climate-sceptical nationalists rather than politicians than may actually commit to proper mitigation

Agree with this. As we have seen in 2016, a significant proportion of UK voters are easily seduced by obviously fallace arguments, which do not require any compromise or change on the part of the voter.

It is not personally challenging, and is much easier to understand to many people, to just blame all the forriners.

I think we’re ****, TBH.

the point is there is no solution.

There is a solution (or rather solutions), it’s being implemented right now across the world. See that article about China’s expansion of renewables. Yes there is much, much more to be done, but denial of the potential of the solutions is as bad (or worse) as denial of the problem. TJ you’re wrong on this one I’m afraid.

The best thing people can do themselves is when something or someone comes along and does something that moves us in the direction of reducing carbon emissions, whether that’s someone building a wind turbine on a hill, a LTN or traffic reducing schemes, or protesters disrupting events or our lives, instead of complaining and getting angry, just quietly accept it, and be thankful that someone is doing something.

Daffy – I am reading what you write.  I have been reading similar fantasy for decades.  What you suggest will help yes but its a tiny % of what is needed.  If thats the best we can do as a species then we are doomed.

I’m not suggesting any solutions.  I’m stating the magnitude of the issue and pointing out that these supposed technological solutions that will appear ( link me to viable carbon capture on a commercial scale?) are merely fiddling around the edges.

Whats the average energy consumption in the developing nations compared to us?  Now how are they going to develop to a similar lifestyle to ours without a lot of extra energy?

We in the west need to reduce our total energy consumption massively because sure as anything even with massive investment in green tech development will increase energy usage and greenhouse gas production.  We in the west have to give up our easy travel, our endless consumerism etc etc etc and no where in the world is there the political will to do so.

Edit – crossed posts

 – the point is there is no solution.

I’m still going with the folks that are trying at least.

Dazh – the first step is to understand the magnitude of the issues.  I applaud and support all those little things,.  I live a green lifestyle for a european.  I vote green.

I also understand the magnitude of the issue and that these things will make no real difference.

Now room temperature fusion or some other new clean energy source – that would be a game changer:-)

But even if we as a species stop pumping greenhouse gases now out major climate change is baked in.  Continue as we are even with these measures in place to alleviate climate change catastrophic climate change is coming.  Thats the reality

Nickc – I have done my best my entire life.  Never owned a car, no kids, no pets

Now room temperature fusion or some other new clean energy source

We already have the clean energy technology we need to abandon fossil fuel burning. What is missing is the political will and action to double down on investment and most importantly start decommissioning the fossil fuel industry.

But even if we as a species stop pumping greenhouse gases now out major climate change is baked in.

The IPCC have been quite clear that limiting warming to 1.5c is necessary and achievable with current technology. That amount of warming may be baked in, but it’s 4-6c we need to avoid. And that’s without thinking about warming mitigation technologies in the future. But there’s no point putting in place mitigations until we tackle the source. I think in future we’ll see significant geo-engineering efforts to reduce warming, but only after the emission of carbon has been addressed.

We already have the clean energy technology we need to abandon fossil fuel burning. What is missing is the political will and action to double down on investment and most importantly start decommissioning the fossil fuel industry.

Even if the UK went all out for wind and nuclear today, it would be 20+ years till we had enough nuclear on tap to be able to unplug all the gas and coal plants and make it through a cold winter anticyclone on renewables alone…

Obvs, what will actually happen is we just prevaricate for another 20 years on whether or not we want the Chinese to fund / build our nuclear plants and make bugger all actual progress.

We’re doomed the planet will adapt.

Friends a pilot based in Dubai fly’s his employer to New York to go on shopping trips for 2 new shirts, employer flies home with a new crew who already flew to NY ahead of them. Last week flew family to Rome for lunch. His employer has huge influence and wealth and doesn’t care. There’s thousands of people like this whose carbon footprint is off the charts, humans are horrible and will wreck the planet.

I’m still quite happy though and do what I think I can though I do drive a 20 year old diesel van so I am probably horribly evil.

You might be an idustry specialist, Daffy but your numbers don’t stack up

“Business class is 12-14% of the seats but almost 1/3>1/2 of the aircraft volume.”

So you can’t cut emmisions by half by eliminating business class as you claim Daffy.

Buisness class is typically 12% of seats (aviation industry site and you agree), and business class produces three time the CO2 according to the same source. 1/2 the plane volume you have to link for me, 1/3 I’ll accept.

So in a jet of 100 places the emmisions are 67%  from 88 of passengers and 33% are from 12 of passengers. Replace the business seats with normal seat and you can fly 24 or 32 extra passengers (depending on site consulted). Neither 24or 32/124  nor 24 or 32/100 are 50% All your claims can be dismissed by sililarly simple analysis, Daffy.

Just stop flying.

eventually there will be no human race – the end

We already have the clean energy technology we need to abandon fossil fuel burning.

What?

Even if the UK went all out for wind and nuclear today, it would be 20+ years till we had enough nuclear on tap to be able to unplug all the gas and coal plants and make it through a cold winter anticyclone on renewables alone…

This

The thing about population is that even if there was not a single baby born between now and 2050, the 2050 population would still be 5 billion (there is a demographic tool somewhere in which you can modify the global fertility rate to 0)

So if we are overpopuated, so to speak, we have to deal with it, because emissions need sorting out within the next decade(s)

We don’t actually need that much energy to provide decent living conditions to everyone though, in theory (emphasis on the word theory). Inequality is one of the biggest problems however

https://theconversation.com/global-inequality-must-fall-to-maintain-a-safe-climate-and-achieve-a-decent-standard-of-living-for-all-its-a-huge-challenge-199529

Friends a pilot based in Dubai fly’s his employer to New York to go on shopping trips for 2 new shirts

Another example of simple individual action that people can take. Refuse to work for fossil fuel burning industries and companies/individuals which drive carbon emissions. Is your friend comfortable with his job? Have you said anything to him about what he does and why it might be morally questionable?

Where would all these people work if we stop flying? The tourist industry would be a fraction of what it is.

Just put everyone on a UBI and watch the world burn I guess.

Where would all these people work if we stop flying?

Somewhere else. It really is that simple.

 it would be 20+ years till we had enough nuclear on tap

We can build amazing things in a really short time when we put our minds to it. But we do need a different mindset

footflaps

None of the G20 are making any meaningful changes.

We’ve all got our foot on the accelerator…

It’s basically a massive car crash in slow motion.

But don’t worry, just stop oil caused a 5 minute delay to a Tennis match, so we’re all going to be fine….

One of the frustrating things is that the UK has reduced CO2/pp by over 40% in the last 30 years. The USA? 6%. That number again: 6%.

They are chucking out nearly 3 times as much per person as we are. I appreciate we import food and goods, and yes, some of the difference is due to that. But there are so many easy wins they don’t even bother with. For example, our top three selling cars are:

Ford Puma
Vauxhall Corsa
Nissan Qashqai

The top 3 selling cars in the USA:
Ford F-Series
Chevy Silverado
Ram Pickup

Go and look those up if you don’t know what they are. It’s ridiculous!

“One of the frustrating things is that the UK has reduced CO2/pp by over 40% in the last 30 years.” I don’t know what “pp” is but a sentence with the UK reducing CO2 over any period  is false unless you ignore the CO2 associated with imports. The UK now emits more CO2 abroad than ever with its food and goods imports.

Where would all these people work if we stop flying?

Somewhere else. It really is that simple.

It really isn’t. There are places where huge amounts of the current population are solely supported by others visiting them. In the long term there is undoubtedly a smaller sustainable population that could live from subsistence in those places, but what’s your solution to get from now to then? If you simply shut the world down right now you would potentially be committing a humanitarian crime that is off the charts.

I skipped page 2 since these threads can get pretty cyclical, but another geologist here (environmental geologist at that).

Slow, then off a cliff. We’re slowly burning at the moment but much if the carbon we emit is drawn down by microscopic calcium carbonate shelled creatures in the oceans called foraminifera.

Unfortunately, there’s more carbon than they can handle and the leftover goes into our atmosphere or acidifies the ocean. Once the ocean acidity reaches a certain level, all those foraminifera die, so no more carbon is drawn down. This will increase atmospheric carbon enormously but on top of that the foraminifera that died will degrade in the acidic water and release all the carbon they stored. So, a double whammy.

There are solutions that will let us maintain our lifestyle (huge solar farms in the deserts being the main one) but it requires an international political effort and there’s no bloody way that’ll happen. I doubt Aaron Bastani fits the zeitgeist on here but his book Fully Automated Luxury Communism is a great summary of what we could easily achieve if we gave a toss and had politicians who were remotely interested.

Naturally, having studied the environment and understanding more than one iota about it, I live a very low carbon lifestyle. FunkyDunc’s post justifying not using his 2 tonne SUV (why do you own that?) that he probably owns because he has two children (why not one? Or even none?) and a dog (why do you own a carnivorous pet when there’s a climate crisis?) to go and get his Amazon purchases (why do you need that stuff?) from twenty miles away (why do you live there?) is the perfect example of how poor people who haven’t educated themselves’ lifestyle is so inconsiderate and inflexible that we’re all probably doomed.

This is great thread. Depressing but necessary. Thank you to everyone who’s posted very throughful comments.

You might be an idustry specialist, Daffy but your numbers don’t stack up

“Business class is 12-14% of the seats but almost 1/3>1/2 of the aircraft volume.”

https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Boeing_787-900.php

I am an industry specialist – I’m also a scientist.

So you can’t cut emmisions by half by eliminating business class as you claim Daffy.

A business class seat/bed/setup weighs almost 20 times what an economy seat does.  It’s not just about volume.  every kg of weight is 22-29tonnes of CO2 over the life of the average aircraft.  Below is an unrefined assessment, but it’s valid enough.

https://industryinsider.eu/aerospace-industry/reduction-of-the-weight-of-the-aircraft/

Buisness class is typically 12% of seats (aviation industry site and you agree), and business class produces three time the CO2 according to the same source. 1/2 the plane volume you have to link for me, 1/3 I’ll accept.

See above.  For some aircraft its MUCH higher.  You need to focus on long range.  Long range accounts for over 70% of emission despite only accounting for 24-30% of flights.  Long range tends to have a higher business class percentage.  Fist class is MUCH worse than business.  I’m not talking about business jets here.

So in a jet of 100 places the emmisions are 67%  from 88 of passengers and 33% are from 12 of passengers. Replace the business seats with normal seat and you can fly 24 or 32 extra passengers (depending on site consulted). Neither 24or 32/124  nor 24 or 32/100 are 50% All your claims can be dismissed by sililarly simple analysis, Daffy.

A typical 3 class layout is 40% business 60% premium and economy.  A 2 class is closer to 50/50.  An A350 can carry 480 passengers in economy class only.  in 2 class, that’s 300 of which 60+ are business.

The average airline economy seat is less than 10kg/per pax (that includes the OHB, climate, infotainment, safety, etc) so the total (480) economy seating is ~5tonnes.  The typical business layout is in the order of 200-400kg/pax.  As such, the cabin interior (2 class) can be 20-25t in a two class layout, so even though in full economy class you’re carrying 180 more people, the total cabin and Pax weight is actually less, so the aircraft needs less fuel to  move almost 200 more people to a destination.

Just stop flying.

Is the totally wrong message.  Reduce flying.  Consider not flying, but try to put your attention into things which have substantially higher impacts at lower costs.   Aviation supports trade, innovation, (where do you think carbon capture, solar panels, fuel cells and high power batteries actually comes from?), massive economic power and your return for stopping all that?  2%, but in reality MUCH less.

your numbers don’t stack up

My numbers really do stack up. I have a mountain of internal, H2020 and Clean Skies data data which supports it.

Edukator
Free Member

“One of the frustrating things is that the UK has reduced CO2/pp by over 40% in the last 30 years.” I don’t know what “pp” is but a sentence with the UK reducing CO2 over any period is false unless you ignore the CO2 associated with imports. The UK now emits more CO2 abroad than ever with its food and goods imports.

Come on, don’t be silly. PP = per person as you could easily have inferred, and your point regarding imports was already mentioned in the post.

It’s not just cars either, look at how much meat they consume per person (50% more), how many flights per person (50% more), how much energy used per household (over double).

Like I said they aren’t even bothering with the easy wins. Very frustrating indeed.

Somewhere else. It really is that simple.

Because there are thousands of jobs out there just waiting for fleet of out of work pilots to come begging… 🙄

Fist class is MUCH worse than business.

I dunno, some folk might like it.