Not going to lie, I'm skeptical. Very skeptical. But there is a chance CO2 emissions will have peaked in 2023.
"We find there is a 70% chance that emissions start falling in 2024 if current clean technology growth trends continue and some progress is made to cut non-CO2 emissions."
Regardless of if it actually happens, it is important to recognize the progress we are making, which are more rapid than most realize and many predicted. There is hope.
I agree we should acknowledge we’re making some progress. But more important, in my view, it’s that we accept failure, for example the utter failure to meet 1.5C. And then talk openly (officially) about the consequences of this failure and of failing more and more. Only then it will be clear to us that we’re not doing enough.
@rythur
I'm not sure what kind of shock that would be - we've shown that the current system is remarkably immune to the real world. Which is kind of why I think it's gotta be a lot of individual actions for now, until we can get the cultural acceptance of punitive actions for climate arson. As long as we continue to self justify our own bad behavior we're going to tolerate bad behavior at scale by elites. @_noelamac_@FantasticalEconomics
The current system is immune to the real world only in the form of delusion. Problems bigger than the system will devour it, like the growing cost of Climate Change.
I agree that all should do what they can. The problem is the constant and professional obfuscation of anything climate. Making it harder to know what right is.
Someday, when all is on fire everywhere,
We may be too hungry for the word Elite,
We may eat in spite of the label.
@rythur
I think the problem is much bigger than that - as long as a few people are both influential and able to insulate themselves we're not going to get change on climate policy.
That's why I don't think climate policy can be separated from inequality, individual empowerment/equality/rights/influence on government, accountability and corporate governance.
As long as people are buying gas, Exxon execs are going to be able to influence every election.
Fully agree that the interconnection of the issues makes it incredibly challenging and, likely, necessary to address all at once. The power of fossil fuel companies to impact elections is huge.
The challenge is I can't imagine a full overhaul changing everything all at once without opening up a huge power vacuum that, in all likelihood, will be filled with something worse.
It's a tough problem and it seems like the deck is stacked against us...
At this juncture, local communities are left to build resilience. Massive heat waves in Asia, just might disrupt manufacturing there, either directly or also by massive crop failures.
Disruptions to the world’s factory means wild swings in energy demand, disruptions to consumer products, manufacturing equipment production and the components for all of them.
The entire global economic beast could experience a grand-mal seizure.
This level of disruption could be like Corona lockdowns on steroids lasting weeks or months or longer. If hit hard enough, an economic crash that can disrupt even government ability to fucntion.
yup, but the manner it unfolds is immensely significant. World’s factory disruption will effectively shut down most co2 emissions. Net zero, the hard or easy way, depending on your outlook, perhaps playing out in the next few years.
It’s the most likely dynamic that will put an end to the hydrocarbon industry, and not let it continue for much longer.
On the other hand ocean ecology collapses and we have a far more dire version.
Here, we are going to some form of it. Coastal ecologies are suffering dramatically. Collapse here is a collapse in the protein food supply for a few billion people. If the ecology of the first few meters of ocean collapses globally. welp nice knowing ya
@GhostOnTheHalfShell
See, I think you're being overly optimistic here - some factories will shut down, but meanwhile others will be reopening and being built new as long as there's any one with any kind of currency capable of going back & forth. It's definitely possible the location of the factories will change, but as long as there are rich elites with money there will be factories... And those elites can helicopter away from any given disaster. They're insured. @rythur@FantasticalEconomics@_noelamac_
That breaks down when investment risks (extreme weather) renders large scale and long term investment economically inviable and disaster smashes existing productive capacity.
This point must be driven into the minds of public policy leaders. Modernity cannot function in a mercurial environment, of floods, heat waves, drought and other forms of drastic environmental calamity.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell
I think it will be less profitable, but it's going to be a return to the early corporations and treasure ships of the colonial days - lots of big investments, many of which will be unprofitable and fail, but a few of which will make people rich.
Yes, just in time economics isn't going to work any more, but it's not like we haven't had globalized unpredictable extractive economies before. Reading Vaclav Smil or conservative futurists you can see they have every intention of increasing GHG use and trying to insulate wealthy elites through a new version of colonial extractive policies.
If you're "good enough" you can get a visa into the protection of the US/EU, and we'll send military escorts to bring your tribute with you. Just expanding the Mediterranean refugee crisis to a global scale... And the products from Israel keep rolling in as the people of Gaza die.
That image relies on an existing stable industrial base. The capital wherewithal is the tip of an industrial iceberg floating in an increasingly hot ocean.
What I am talking about is financial insolvency. Without insurance (think housing) entire market economies (housings development) implode. No development, no salable property and with it no customer base for a city. The same disasters wreck industry and with it BigOil.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell
That's the image of before we had a stable industrial base. I absolutely think housing values & everything that rests on them are going to tank but I think there's still going to be people producing things and there's still going to be shipping, and there's still going to be insurers.
Whether it's more like the 1700s with elites/external capital controlling it or something new is yet to be determined.
There's a difference between now and the 1700s. Economies will still exist, but the conditions to support large global and national ones, that stable environment, is a thing of the past.
The modern industrial world is a godchild of a stable environment. It becomes financially insolvent under constant ecological disaster and short climate horizons.
An inherent part of the production of #SolarPanels is the use of #COAL (and other sources of Carbon, like woodchips) to reduce the source material (Silicon Oxide) into pure Silicon, thereby emitting, you guessed it right, huge amounts of #CO2 !
@crash_course@FantasticalEconomics Doesn’t have to be tho. The process does need heat, but that heat can be generated by solar energy. No such claims can be made about fossil fuels. Those are inherently dirty.
The BIG problem is that there’s no limit on “need”. Thus we merely add to the energy source matrix with solar, not replacing fossil fuel consumption. That doesn’t solve anything.
@crash_course@FantasticalEconomics OIC. I misread.
I get your point, but that reaction requires a LOT of heat too! We have graphite and silica together in igneous rocks that formed around 1000 degrees and the two are perfectly happy together. All this time I thought they just mined the silicon. Silica is rather stubborn with its oxygen. Sounds like we need a new way to separate them other than classic forging. Maybe use H2. (with caution!)
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