The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[MolsonExport]

Having kids has made me care more about my ecological footprint, and to crystalize a long-term perspective on the issue of ACC. I was very proenvironmental before having kids, but I am even more so now. It factors into my daily decision making for many consumption contexts.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Floppa

Ask people in Quebec/Texas about electric heating

Texas' grid failure was because the anti Climate Change / pro oil governors did nothing to winterize their isolated grid. Without any backup from outside the state they were screwed. What is your point?

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

To be a bit morbid, the two best things people can do for the planet are:

1. Don't have kids;
2. Die early

We're really hitting it out of the park with #1, and Obesity and Covid (mostly from unknown long-term effects from people who were infected, not direct deaths) is doing its part for #2, particularly south of the border.

On that subject, can we expect average life expectancy to plateau and actually begin decreasing over the next few decades?

I don't subscribe to Malthusian theory. The problem is not over population. We let food rot in monumental amounts due to Capitalism and profit driven agriculture. Climate Change shouldn't be a call to kill off population, rather to redistribute hoarded wealth and reduce consumption.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

To be a bit morbid, the two best things people can do for the planet are:

1. Don't have kids;
2. Die early

We're really hitting it out of the park with #1, and Obesity and Covid (mostly from unknown long-term effects from people who were infected, not direct deaths) is doing its part for #2, particularly south of the border.

On that subject, can we expect average life expectancy to plateau and actually begin decreasing over the next few decades?

And also 3. Consume less.

(For which Covid also did its part, at least for a while : )

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Having kids has made me care more about my ecological footprint, and to crystalize a long-term perspective on the issue of ACC. I was very proenvironmental before having kids, but I am even more so now. It factors into my daily decision making for many consumption contexts.

Same. There are limiting factors for me though due to the expense of having a young child in a city with stagnant wages. I have a feeling of perpetual dread though for my son seeing the future he is in store for. It feels hopeless at times. Particularly when the electorate of our country is primed to vote in a Climate foot dragger as PM with a pro oil party.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by lio45

And also 3. Consume less.

(For which Covid also did its part, at least for a while : )

The only silver lining of this pandemic has been the systemic real world shutdowns that it has caused which have forced us to come face to face with this reality. Unfortunately we don't appear to be learning the lesson. Things such as continuing to work from home and reevaluating consumer habits could help long term though. Unfortunately unless international cooperation is bolstered we're in for a difficult and possibly failed global response to Climate Change.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jamincan

Electric heating is possibly the most efficient form of heating possible.

Not on price. BC is a mix, and anybody with electric heating (baseboards) has much higher energy bills. BC has cheap electricity too.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Having kids has made me care more about my ecological footprint, and to crystalize a long-term perspective on the issue of ACC. I was very proenvironmental before having kids, but I am even more so now. It factors into my daily decision making for many consumption contexts.

Yeah I would agree with this. Having kids at or below your "replacement level" might be a better way to frame it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Having kids has made me care more about my ecological footprint, and to crystalize a long-term perspective on the issue of ACC. I was very proenvironmental before having kids, but I am even more so now. It factors into my daily decision making for many consumption contexts.

Same here. Didn't care as much about this until having kids and then doing graduate work on the topic while on exchange in the US, which exposed me not just to the environmental hazards but the security and stability issues that come with climate change.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Not on price. BC is a mix, and anybody with electric heating (baseboards) has much higher energy bills. BC has cheap electricity too.

This is largely a result of how poorly built/insulated our homes are in Canada (not just BC).

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is largely a result of how poorly built/insulated our homes are in Canada (not just BC).

Poor insulation will hurt anything. Natural gas however is very cheap for heating.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I don't subscribe to Malthusian theory. The problem is not over population. We let food rot in monumental amounts due to Capitalism and profit driven agriculture. Climate Change shouldn't be a call to kill off population, rather to redistribute hoarded wealth and reduce consumption.

I don’t think we operate under Malthusian conditions, let alone advocate for it - I have a kid myself - but it’s a fact that even a vegan who never travels and lives in a passivhaus has a greater impact on the earth than a person who is never born.

Also, if we redistribute wealth, it will almost certainly lead to greater consumption of material resources. Jeff Bezos might have the collective wealth of a mid-sized city, but doesn’t use nearly the same amount of resources no matter how many private jets he flies and how many empty homes he air conditions.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don’t think we operate under Malthusian conditions, let alone advocate for it - I have a kid myself - but it’s a fact that even a vegan who never travels and lives in a passivhaus has a greater impact on the earth than a person who is never born.

Yeah, I think this is an area where the cold hard calculus of resource requirements (e.g. new tons of CO2 in atmosphere) is quite far off from the most common morality (who is virtuous or not).

The national accounting often doesn't make much sense either. Most of Canada's population growth comes from immigration, people moving from country to country rather than new births. So the environmental impact is not the same, and the CO2 emissions of most of the native population in most provinces must have really cratered. And absolute impact is what really matters, not per capita. CO2 emissions really took off once more populous regions started burning coal. Some people rationalize this by talking about colonialism or something but that doesn't have much impact on what Canada can do about it today; again it is detached moralizing.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Poor insulation will hurt anything. Natural gas however is very cheap for heating.

The lack of adequate pricing on the externalities of NG has indeed made it cheap....

[Airboy]

working on one of the largest solar roof mounted installations in Alberta. 2500 panels. about 1110kW. This is taking advantage of the Federal government rec and entertainment accessibility and environmental enhancement funds.

[milomilo]

What has made me more optimistic about solar in the last year or two has been how easy they appear to be to build at scale. I can drive down a road, see a churned up field, then a few weeks later a bunch of posts and wonder what it is. Then a few weeks after that there's a thousand solar panels. I can't think of anything that can be built that easily, let alone a gas or nuclear plant. Even though there's still not that much in Alberta, driving around it's very noticeable how much of an increase there is.

Most of the solar facilities I see look relatively low tech too - it appears they might be able to pivot up and down but I don't know if they can even do that. I guess the cost of increased complexity to be able to track the sun is greater than the cost to just build more panels.

[Truenorth00]

Not only is solar relatively modular and scalable. It's actually getting better over time with more standardization and fittings that speed up installation. That's just the learning curve at play.

I really look forward to more industrial rooftop solar. There's a lot of unused roadspace in this country. And the economics to put that space to use are getting better everyday.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Not only is solar relatively modular and scalable. It's actually getting better over time with more standardization and fittings that speed up installation. That's just the learning curve at play.

I really look forward to more industrial rooftop solar. There's a lot of unused roadspace in this country. And the economics to put that space to use are getting better everyday.

Distributed solar lessens the burden (or requirement) on large scale transmission lines as well.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Distributed solar lessens the burden (or requirement) on large scale transmission lines as well.

That really depends on the demand profile for the province you are talking about. What works in Ontario will not work for Alberta.

[rofina]

Great read on technocrats, abdication of responsibility, and an endless trust in elites despite failure upon failure.

All this to say; are carbon taxes the panacea that they are being sold as?

Highly encourage the whole read.

ESG and Carbon Pricing La La Lands
Link: https://policytensor.substack.com/p/...ng-la-la-lands

Given this history of catastrophes driven by the groupthink of elite technocrats, it is hardly reassuring when Adam Tooze tells us, approvingly, that ‘The solution favored by the majority of economists—including critical voices like economist Joseph Stiglitz—is carbon pricing.

The logic of a price on carbon is purely economic: people, firms and other economic actors respond automatically to price signals; so, if you get the price signals aligned with planetary survival, all economic actors will be incentivized to do the right thing,

In order to work at all, a price or tax on carbon would have to be very large and very painful. If you want to be well on your way to get off the hockey-stick of doom by 2030, which may turn out to be a precondition for the survival of advanced human civilization, then you have to make it really, really painful for people and institutions to dump carbon into the atmosphere

What makes the elite groupthink about carbon pricing so infuriating is that there is a clear alternative that evades all these political constraints. Instead of using market discipline, directly fund and implement the energy transition, taking care that the costs imposed on different strata of society are bearable enough to get buy-in for the world-remaking project. In order to transition to a low carbon economy, we cannot rely on the false promise of market discipline, we need laws and regulations, finance and operational task forces. Instead of chasing the chimera of carbon pricing, we need something closer to a war plan.

Technocratic elites misunderstand the nature of the planetary impasse. Carbon pricing works in a world of egotistic agents who respond only economically to price signals—it cannot work in a world where they also form political coalitions to oppose idealistic elite schemes that impose great costs on them. And these coalitions can already be seen, even before the price of carbon on the continent has begun to bite. So, it’s a non-solution because you simply cannot build the political coalition to see it through

I encourage the whole read for proper context.