Climate change apathy Ragnarok thread - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

Page turn win.

Vela

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-21/talkaboutit-climate-change-sceptics-versus-the-scientists/6711084

July 2015 was the hottest month on record.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-21/global-warming-july-hottest-month-on-record-2015-hottest-year/6713686

Time to get some dynamite and get ready for underground habitats.

Yossarian

Peer review in action.

Vela

@DynamiteReady - proof that oil companies are using the same tactics as big tobacco. They've fucked the world, knowingly. Executions are in order.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/17/shell-accused-of-strategy-risking-catastrophic-climate-change

Royal Dutch Shell has been accused of pursuing a strategy that would lead to potentially catastrophic climate change after an internal document acknowledged a global temperature rise of 4C, twice the level considered safe for the planet.
A paper used for guiding future business planning at the Anglo-Dutch multinational assumes that carbon dioxide emissions will fail to limit temperature increases to 2C, the internationally agreed threshold to prevent widespread flooding, famine and desertification.
Instead, the New Lens Scenarios document refers to a forecast by the independent International Energy Agency (IEA) that points to a temperature rise of up to 4C in the short term, rising later to 6C.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/environment/investigation-finds-exxon-ignored-its-own-early-climate-change-warnings/

Despite its efforts for nearly two decades to raise doubts about the science of climate change, newly discovered company documents show that as early as 1977, Exxon research scientists warned company executives that carbon dioxide was increasing in the atmosphere and that the burning of fossil fuels was to blame.
The internal records are detailed in a new investigation published Wednesday by InsideClimate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning news organization covering energy and the environment.
The investigation found that long before global warming emerged as an issue on the national agenda, Exxon formed an internal brain trust that spent more than a decade trying to understand the impact of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere — even launching a supertanker with custom-made instruments to sample and understand whether the oceans could absorb the rising atmospheric CO2 levels. Today, Exxon says the study had nothing to do with CO2 emissions, but an Exxon researcher involved in the project remembered it differently in the below video, which was produced by FRONTLINE in association with the InsideClimate News report.

Vela

Apathy sums it up nicely.

Facewon

I read it.

Funkstain

I did too but it's not news is it? OK so they're somewhat exposed as the fuckers they are, but the people who run these companies are pretty clever sociopaths: of course they knew about this, of course they've been advised, and of course they are planning for it.

The only thing you'd hope for via exposure is the full fury of the plebiscite armed with pitchforks etc but since the plebiscite consists of easily led people who only believe what their own personal echo chamber tells them, I doubt a single pitchfork-containing cellar was unlocked.

dynamiteReady

@Vela - Don't worry... I'll make time for it. :]

Matt_82

Might be slightly off-topic and/or irrelevant, but Murdoch has just bought National Geographic and will undoubtedly push his climate change denying agenda through that.

[Deleted User]

VW made in-car software to deceive emission tests.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34311819

Could face US fines of £24,000 per car with a possible 482,000 cars affected. That's $18 billion.

Diluted Dante

Vela wrote:

Apathy sums it up nicely.

Can we actually do anything about it though?

Funkstain

SpaceGazelle wrote:

VW made in-car software to deceive emission tests. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34311819 Could face US fines of £24,000 per car with a possible 482,000 cars affected. That's $18 billion.

Yeah diesel eh, the environment saver. Utter fucking piss. Share prices dive almost 20%. Even £5B would fuck them up, more than 2 years' of after-tax profit wiped out.

GooberTheHat

I'm guessing they won't be buying the red bull f1 team now then.

Vela

Diluted Dante wrote:

Vela wrote:

Apathy sums it up nicely.

Can we actually do anything about it though?

Buy from renewable sources.

dynamiteReady

http://thebulletin.org/japan-should-restart-more-nuclear-power-plants8817

How would you categorise that?
Are the Japanese government currently doing the right thing?

Will they save/improve more lives in the long run?

Funkstain

The article says it all:

"Restarting Japan’s nuclear power plants is, however, the right decision, provided they can pass strict new safety checks instituted since Fukushima. The reason is simple: While nuclear power comes with risks, the primary alternative comes with bigger ones."

Vela

Nuclear is an awesome clean emission energy, but not so clean when it comes to mining, waste storage and accident cleanup. So it's never straight forward.

Same deal with future widespread implementation of lithium batteries. The mining of it will have consequences, but the impact of coal and fossil fuel mining and use is going to have a far longer tail. Even mores than nuclear waste if climate systems change modes.

Facewon

Call me emotional, but my anti-nuclear arguments are based on evidence
Opinion piece from Australian Greens Senator, who I have a lot of time for.

Posted without a solid personal take either way. have read a few of you around here arguing for though, and given above links, seems like a good counter.

Vela

Before reading that, I'd have to say I'm more interested in seeing whether ITER/Ignition or any other fusion project is viable.

In terms of conventional nuclear energy, I'm not up to speed on what the best engineering designs are at present to make a call on how safe they are (purely as an uninformed punter).

That said, wave, hydro, wind and solar, geothermal and battery tech are growing rapidly enough that we may not even need nuclear to begin with. And part of me thinks that if nuclear materials are so rare, it might make more sense to save them for scientific, medical and technological uses we haven't thought of yet. Just as how wasting helium on party balloons does untold damage to our reserves of a gas that is critical in science and medical projects.

Vela

And after reading that, not much has changed. I can see why there are financial concerns about ITER that was news to me, but if the tech is achievable I still believe it is worth pursuing.

And that said, once battery tech leads to people going off-grid, and as electronics manufacturers develop more efficient devices that draw far less power (graphene based boards) then there may well be a situation where renewable energy plus battery tech advancements plus efficiency increases leads us to an energy surplus.

And as energy is the fundamental currency of the global world, that will drive expansion.

Funkstain

Surely affordable and viable and widespread and sufficient renewable energy is decades away? Everything I've read suggests this to be the case.

Without even going into storage tech which remains elusive. Graphene has been in the scene a while now and it's still not powering my phone, car, house, toys...

Funkstain

Key word sufficient but I also forgot one: available, as in constantly and coping with surges etc.

Vela

Funkstain wrote:

Surely affordable and viable and widespread and sufficient renewable energy is decades away? Everything I've read suggests this to be the case. Without even going into storage tech which remains elusive. Graphene has been in the scene a while now and it's still not powering my phone, car, house, toys...

There are already a number of houses in Australia that can and have gone completely off-grid due to a simple combo of solar plus batteries.

Even in Melbourne, which is at a higher latitude than most of the country.

The issue is not about relying on a big solar or wind farm. Its about every single house having solar and battery. Then you can complement it with wind farms scattered all over the place, and thanks to a distributed network, if its calm one place then it will be windier elsewhere.

Add in tidal, geothermal, and hydro, and there's your base load.

Funkstain

You're absolutely right, by the way, when you espouse the benefits of renewable, and I believe very strongly that if similar amounts of cash were spent on renewables and battery tech relative to, say, nuclear or coal, we'd be very close.

But right now, and for the near (decade or two) future: what's the payback on a standard, or even deluxe, solar array on a single property these days?

What's the availability of a battery that will last me the UK winter?

Australia (even Melbourne!) is one thing. What about Norway? Or Russia? Or China? Or anywhere there isn't enough sun all year round and no affordable and advanced enough battery tech to store excess when sun is there?

I looked into this for our house. Payback was estimated at 15 years. Sorry planet.

Vela

Well it also depends on whether or not you're a home owner or renter too if you can even do it.

Wave energy trials are starting in WA soon. They reckon the WA coastline has enough tidal energy to easily supply energy for the majority of the towns along the coast inland to about 60km.

http://carnegiewave.com/what-is-ceto/

And you're right, not everywhere can or will be able to afford it. But in reality what we need is most of the biggest emitters to be able to afford it, and as uptake increases so as with any industry, price comes down.

Funkstain

I agree again. I just don't believe any of the necessary things will happen in time.

I also don't believe any decent nuclear options will be explored, and it's worth pointing out that the deal we've done with China will probably end up costing more per W than full on renewable expansion.

I mean, we're fucked - the thread title is a truism - the only question is quite how fucked we are before our better natures prevail.

Diluted Dante

I'd suggest that we don't have to convert the entire UK completely to renewable right now. There will be some places that we can do - there was that Scottish island posted earlier in the thread - and others that we can much reduce fossil fuel reliance.

And if we do look at putting renewables in place where they can provide a great proportion of the electricity supply that means not only are we reducing the carbon footprint, but the cost of them will come down, so when you look at putting them in your house, that 15 year payback will drop significantly.

cockbeard

Sounds like procrastination to me. I'm not going to start saving today because the interest rates are so low. If I wait five years to start saving the interest rates (might) go up so I save the save in less time

We all know that kind of logic is just to delay saving as we like buying things

[Deleted User]

Does anyone know if Britain's CO2 emissions have actually gone up or down in the last few years? Did the recent recession have a bigger effect on emissions than renewables?

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