It’s not always up to us, but also countries like China that open a new coal plant every week.
i don’t think china is the example you want to point to on that…
Ah yes I also forgot India.
But yes, China:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/27/energy/china-new-coal-plants-climate-report-intl-hnk/index.html/
https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-coal-power-construction-in-2023-report-says/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/climate/coal-plants-china.html
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-fin
Renewable energy means nothing if you’re also poisoning the planet now does it?
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
The Eastern Block states simply aren’t to blame here. They have low per capita emissions and large populations.
China, in particular, is right on target thanks to its all-options energy growth strategy.
China is one of the world’s largest producers of nuclear power. The country ranks third in the world both in total nuclear power capacity installed and electricity generated, accounting for around one tenth of global nuclear power generated.
Per capita energy use in China is under the threshold for sustainable usage, and they’re hitting their climate goals a decade early.
Meanwhile, Europe remains a dumpster fire of emissions, while heavily consuming from China’s surplus manufacturing.
Pointing to the other side of the ocean and saying “You guys need to fix it” has been an American remedy for too long. Now we’re eating hurricane after hurricane as recompense.
Defeatists are just lazy. Call them out for being unwilling to actually do something about the climate.
Is it defeatist to face the facts that we have released more carbon in 2023 than any other year? Is it defeatist to realize not only are we polluting non-stop, we are also destroying the oceans, we are destroying ecosystems and we are destroying ourselves at a rate that we can’t control? That a majority of people are content living their lives this way if it means they don’t have to make the hard choice of having and using less? We’re already well past 1°C and are not going to slowdown it seems until its too late.
Whoa, whoa, street-preacher.
No, it’s not defeatist to state facts. It’s what you do or say immediately after that makes the difference.
Now, we’re all feeling the same kinds of stress that would make any of us rattle on like that, and you must know you’re not alone or even in the minority with your concern. The majority of people - polls show - want to avoid or to blunt that fate we worry is coming. And with the world swinging a little conservative for a while, it’ll be even harder to make the changes now we had to make 20 years ago.
But trust in your fellow person instead of cursing them for indolents when you don’t know their situation. If you go off like this at people on the edge of moving from subsistence to again having the opportunity to join you at the protests, you may risk losing them as an ally.
Softly, softly.
I am cursing myself for being too weak to do the necessary, to give up on the unnecessary plastic junk, to give up on driving and all the industrial products that are slowly killing us in one way or another. If I can’t do it how can I preach doing what is necessary to others? I feel like a hypocrit, caught between a fossil fuel filled life of comfort and a future of hardship that I feel fully unprepared to even talk about, never mind living through
CO2 emissions of the world excluding China have declined. Chinas emissions did fall in Q2 of this year.
Seriously China has economic trouble, which slows down energy demand growth. The US has run the massive inflation reduction act, which seems to be working somewhat well and Europe was hit hard by the energy crisis reducing emissions in the EU through lower consumption and faster green roll out and Russia as its fossil fuel exports fall. On top of that green technologies like solar panels, wind trubines, electric vehicles, heat pumps and so forth become cheaper all the time. It is certainly possible that we can achieve peak emissions soon.
I think it won’t matter. We have enough heat in the pipeline to wipe the surface of the Earth. Here’s a crisis report from Richard Crim saying, in essense, we done fucked up
Interest in solar panels has skyrocketed, and yet at least 50% of the world population won’t stop driving ICE cars to work every day any time soon. While the ocean surface temperatures are on an exponential trajectory.
A climate catastrophy with mass deaths is inevitable. I’d be preparing instead of sugar-coating.
And after a few billion humans die, we can deploy solar panels and start living sustainably.
Solar isn’t scalable, clean, or sustainable. The only real option is nuclear. Most of the benefits to solar come from countries involved in multiple genocides, territorial expansion, and diplomatic saber-rattling. It’s a neat toy for youtubers, but it’s no real solution.
I’d be real curious if you can back those statements up with peer-reviewed sources.
For one thing, it’s not exactly like Uranium is mined in democratic nations with strong labor protections.
Also, “it’s a neat toy” they say, meanwhile Germany produces up to 15% of it’s total energy by solar: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/agorameter/chart/today/power_generation/01.10.2023/30.09.2024/monthly
The issue with nuclear is the extremely high initial cost, and it’s not as set and forget it as the propaganda wants you to think. In short, because of nuclear decay chains the power can’t be just ramped up and down willy nilly, some of the byproducts poison the chain reaction and power needs to be managed. Having nuclear as the bearer of the minimal load with solar/wind/battery power for the variable load is the way I think works the best, but I’m not an expert.
Solar is cheaper than ever? I mean sure, but you still have to pay for it upfront, and by the time you got your money back you need some new panels. Also i like solar power and everything, but i’m not at home during the day, so i would produce energy for no one. Or i’d get a big ass battery, which is super expensive and doesn’t last as long as the panels. And no, where i live, you don’t get any money anymore for the extra power you produce.
It’s also cool that the ocean is being cleaned, but we’ll just produce more garbage in shorter time. So far we did plastic straws, which was a big thing that a lot of people are still mad about. And it was just basically a marketing campaign because a turtle had a straw in it’s nose. The garbage that is being fished out of the ocean doesn’t just disappear. It’s better than chilling in the ocean i guess, but it’s still garbage twice the size of texas that has to be delt with.
For your first point, sure let’s consider that the case, then the old panels can be recycled and you get more efficient ones, not a bad trade.
Also, share with your neighbour the extra energy? Or contact your municipal office to pass a tax cut/payback? There’s so much opportunity there! (Just imagine if your city passes such an initiative and others adopt too! Less reliance on fossil fuels!)
On your second point, yeah, we need more innovation in recycling technology. Hopefully we get there too 😊
As to solar, payback is usually 7-15 years depending on overhead costs, while most panels are still at 80% output in 20 to 25 years. Batteries don’t last as long as panels when being used to near capacity, but they’ll still do about half the lifespan of the panels. Batteries prices are also falling about as quickly as panel prices, with us now being in the neighborhood of 100 dollars per kwh of storage.
I also think it’s a bit of a misnomer, especially on this instance, to consider these things completely dead and worthless at 80% effectiveness, especially when that is still far more effective than a brand new top of the line one a decade ago. I think that there are a lot of people in the world who wouldn’t mind the system taking up 25% more space if they could get them much cheaper, it’s just that much like EV battery range, a lot of people are finding that they don’t really need to replace the thing away at 80% capacity in the first place.
