The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well the first thing to decide is what problem you are trying to solve, and the most important problem, the problem that actually threatens our existence, is climate change. And the easiest solution to that is just to put a price on carbon rather than arbitrary, ineffective government diktats banning things. If throw away items actually are having a large effect on climate change, then they will become disproportionately more expensive. And if they are not actually having much impact, who cares? No harm, no foul.

I don't think it works that simply or can be considered in such simplistic terms, such as 'just throw a carbon tax on everything based on its carbon footprint'. If anything the carbon tax is just as arbitrary as an all out ban on 'everything' that falls under a particular category.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe a carbon tax will look that deeply into each situation and be decided by some complex formula that reflects the actual carbon footprint of an item. I don't believe that the government has the resources, or the will, to implement the tax more intricately than broad categories, like usage of petroleum products (actually, it appears to be mostly aimed at petroleum products).

But, if you want to look at the example you cited based on carbon, then you don't have to think very hard to understand the carbon footprint of manufacturing a device, like a printer for example, overseas in a plant that probably gets its power from an older coal-fired plant, then shipping it overseas by container ship to Canada, where it's shipped to a depot, then sorted and shipped to a store, used for a couple of years (maybe) before it breaks or becomes outdated, and then has to be recycled (which also requires energy) and the cycle starts again when you have to buy a replacement. Is the government going to calculate the carbon footprint of each such device? Even if they did, how would they determine the lifespan of such a device, as lifespan has a heavy influence on its carbon footprint, by requiring a new device to be manufactured and shipped to replace the failed one. It's not simple, but it's a real situation.

I agree that we need to be pragmatic and look at the situation from a problem-solution standpoint, but I'm afraid that's not being done, nor will it be.

[whatnext]

Permafrost melting far faster than thought, but hey, "lay that pipe, lay that pipe":

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

“What we saw was amazing,” Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters. “It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years.“..

....Diving through a lucky break in the clouds, Romanovsky and his colleagues said they were confronted with a landscape that was unrecognisable from the pristine Arctic terrain they had encountered during initial visits a decade or so earlier.

The vista had dissolved into an undulating sea of hummocks – waist-high depressions and ponds known as thermokarst. Vegetation, once sparse, had begun to flourish in the shelter provided from the constant wind.

Torn between professional excitement and foreboding, Romanovsky said the scene had reminded him of the aftermath of a bombardment.

“It’s a canary in the coalmine,” said Louise Farquharson, a postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the study. “It’s very likely that this phenomenon is affecting a much more extensive region and that’s what we’re going to look at next.“...

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...climate-crisis

[Hackslack]

You can drive change whatnext... stop consuming, reduce demand and supply will follow!

[acottawa]

Not good news for Team Carbon Tax

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ele...ange-1.5178514

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I don't think it works that simply or can be considered in such simplistic terms, such as 'just throw a carbon tax on everything based on its carbon footprint'. If anything the carbon tax is just as arbitrary as an all out ban on 'everything' that falls under a particular category.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe a carbon tax will look that deeply into each situation and be decided by some complex formula that reflects the actual carbon footprint of an item. I don't believe that the government has the resources, or the will, to implement the tax more intricately than broad categories, like usage of petroleum products (actually, it appears to be mostly aimed at petroleum products).

But, if you want to look at the example you cited based on carbon, then you don't have to think very hard to understand the carbon footprint of manufacturing a device, like a printer for example, overseas in a plant that probably gets its power from an older coal-fired plant, then shipping it overseas by container ship to Canada, where it's shipped to a depot, then sorted and shipped to a store, used for a couple of years (maybe) before it breaks or becomes outdated, and then has to be recycled (which also requires energy) and the cycle starts again when you have to buy a replacement. Is the government going to calculate the carbon footprint of each such device? Even if they did, how would they determine the lifespan of such a device, as lifespan has a heavy influence on its carbon footprint, by requiring a new device to be manufactured and shipped to replace the failed one. It's not simple, but it's a real situation.

I agree that we need to be pragmatic and look at the situation from a problem-solution standpoint, but I'm afraid that's not being done, nor will it be.

It's not that complicated to calculate the carbon cost, at least within Canada - we're already doing it. Most of the consumption is embedded in the fuel cost or electrical, and any carbon emitted in industrial processes can be calculated too - otherwise how would we even know how much CO2 Canada emits? If there are any problems with the calculation, it needs to be fixed regardless, and it is not solely managed by governments, businesses carry most of the burden of calculating it.

Calculating it for other countries is more complicated, for sure. My first thought is to put a 'worst case' estimate of imported goods' carbon impact and tariff them if the exporting country is not doing a good enough job of calculating and pricing their carbon. That way the final price will have all the carbon included into it.

Regardless, no matter how complicated pricing carbon would be, it's orders of magnitude less complicated than implementing regulations to reduce 'throw away items'. Where would you even begin? And it would suffer immense pushback from companies as well as increasing cost. All for something that would likely be easy for manufacturers to get around and likely reduce emissions by a negligible amount compared to other things.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Not good news for Team Carbon Tax

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ele...ange-1.5178514

Well if they don't want a carbon tax but do want to reduce emissions, then they are going to pay for it somehow. And the alternative will cost them more.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well if they don't want a carbon tax but do want to reduce emissions, then they are going to pay for it somehow. And the alternative will cost them more.

A carbon tax specifically allows you to make choices in order to not pay it, or pay less of it. The economic efficiency of carbon taxes is unmatched by anything else proposed.

[Hackslack]

But likely will not accomplish anything, at least for decades when the carbon tax gets to such a price that it will legitimately make economic sense to use other means of travel, heating, and most importantly, when the rest of the world also implements a carbon tax, including that which we tax all means of products being imported. Until then, the carbon tax will have minimal positive effects on the environment, if anything at all.

Dreamers can keep dreaming, relying on the government to tax as a means to make them more environmentally conscious, in the meantime, true innovators will ensure technology will get more and more efficient.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

But likely will not accomplish anything, at least for decades when the carbon tax gets to such a price that it will legitimately make economic sense to use other means of travel, heating, and most importantly, when the rest of the world also implements a carbon tax, including that which we tax all means of products being imported. Until then, the carbon tax will have minimal positive effects on the environment, if anything at all.

Dreamers can keep dreaming, relying on the government to tax as a means to make them more environmentally conscious, in the meantime, true innovators will ensure technology will get more and more efficient.

So do nothing? Or we could gradually increase the price to let the economy adjust.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by milomilo

So do nothing? Or we could gradually increase the price to let the economy adjust.

In a context where the US, China, India and Russia are doing nothing then joining the consensus is the most rational response. Focus should be on adaption, not meaningless, token gestures.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by milomilo

So do nothing? Or we could gradually increase the price to let the economy adjust.

Industry is already doing something. Lots actually. Vehicles are becoming more and more efficient. O&G industry continues to reduce emissions, including a $30/Tombe carbon price, and Compans have invested more than $1.4 billion collectively into developing new technologies to improve environmental performance.

Not to mention people like Bill Gates and Murray Edwards investing in a privately held company developing technology to reduce CO2, which some have called “the smartest and least descriptive way to deal with CO2 and climate change”.

The notion of chasing people off fossils fuels in the next few decades is absurd when oil consumption sets new records every year, which a technology like the one being developed would perfectly compliment global standard of living.

One of the incredible things is if this technology succeeds from its headquarters in Squamish BC, Western Canada would be home to the largest boreal forest reserve in the world, one of the largest oil reserves, and the greenest least descriptive climate-saving technology in the world.

The notion that incrementally increasing carbon tax on the the 38th most populous country in the world, will save the climate, is absolutely ludicrous. Stupid. It won’t work, unless the tax is implemented for all countries at such a level that makes people realize flying all over the world, consuming good from all over the world, is not an option any longer.

[MonctonRad]

Melting Arctic sea ice forces sled dogs to slosh through water
Last week saw the onset of warm conditions in Greenland and much of the rest of the Arctic
Thomson Reuters · Posted: Jun 19, 2019 9:26 AM ET | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/s...-ice-1.5181086

Approximately two billion tonnes of ice was lost in a (single) day on June 13 when the photograph was taken

On Monday, as the heat wave continued, the Danish Polar Portal reported more than three cubic kilometres of ice melted — the most lost in one day so far this year — and on Tuesday, maximum temperatures in that part of Greenland were remained above 17 C. The portal is where Danish research institutions share their Arctic monitoring data.

[Eau Claire]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

BC has a couple of Agroforestry Specialists who can help answer questions about implementing this, but as far as I can tell there are unfortunately no programs in place to promote this sort of idea. Here's a brief page where they talk about it: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/i...t/agroforestry

Thanks. This seems to be an emerging area right now. Here's another high level idea related to this, although much more research would be required to flesh it out. We could pay not just Canadian farmers but third world subsistence farmers as well. I believe that it's in some of these places that burning brush and clearing forest, and other detrimental practices, are most common. So if we paid them to use practices that regenerated the soil and sequestered carbon we could address this and add another revenue stream for them. They would continue to farm and raise livestock but they would also "carbon farm" as well. And if we were able to bump their income up enough so that they became more middle class within the context of their countries they would be more able and likely to send their kids to school, and that would lower birth rates, and address some of the other points high up on that drawdown.org list. It seems to me that a well designed program could multiple positive impacts.
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

[Eau Claire]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Melting Arctic sea ice forces sled dogs to slosh through water
Last week saw the onset of warm conditions in Greenland and much of the rest of the Arctic
Thomson Reuters · Posted: Jun 19, 2019 9:26 AM ET | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/s...-ice-1.5181086

Careful now! Don't get tricked! Is this fear industry propaganda or is something of genuine concern? It's spring, remember. Ice melts in spring. Greenland is essentially one huge block of ice, so that much ice melt may not be unusual.

Edit: I just read the article, and note that they don't say this is climate change related, or that is unusual. But I don't think you were fooled by accident. I think this was designed to imply something without saying it.

[Eau Claire]

Any chemists here? Here's another potential way to use CO2.


Can catalysis save us from our CO2 problem?
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/...010555.article

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

But likely will not accomplish anything, at least for decades when the carbon tax gets to such a price that it will legitimately make economic sense to use other means of travel, heating, and most importantly, when the rest of the world also implements a carbon tax, including that which we tax all means of products being imported. Until then, the carbon tax will have minimal positive effects on the environment, if anything at all.

Dreamers can keep dreaming, relying on the government to tax as a means to make them more environmentally conscious, in the meantime, true innovators will ensure technology will get more and more efficient.

You know the existence of a carbon tax will foster that exact type of innovation right?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Eau Claire

Edit: I just read the article, and note that they don't say this is climate change related, or that is unusual. But I don't think you were fooled by accident. I think this was designed to imply something without saying it.

Might want to check your reading comprehension again, this is in the short article, hard to miss:

On average, the Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the world with climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

Industry is already doing something. Lots actually. Vehicles are becoming more and more efficient. O&G industry continues to reduce emissions, including a $30/Tombe carbon price, and Compans have invested more than $1.4 billion collectively into developing new technologies to improve environmental performance.

Not to mention people like Bill Gates and Murray Edwards investing in a privately held company developing technology to reduce CO2, which some have called “the smartest and least descriptive way to deal with CO2 and climate change”.

The notion of chasing people off fossils fuels in the next few decades is absurd when oil consumption sets new records every year, which a technology like the one being developed would perfectly compliment global standard of living.

One of the incredible things is if this technology succeeds from its headquarters in Squamish BC, Western Canada would be home to the largest boreal forest reserve in the world, one of the largest oil reserves, and the greenest least descriptive climate-saving technology in the world.

The notion that incrementally increasing carbon tax on the the 38th most populous country in the world, will save the climate, is absolutely ludicrous. Stupid. It won’t work, unless the tax is implemented for all countries at such a level that makes people realize flying all over the world, consuming good from all over the world, is not an option any longer.

You're giving credit to companies making these innovations or changes, but none to the environment I'm which they exist. If there was no current or future possibility of fossil fuels not being in demand so much, then there would be no reason for companies to develop beyond fossil fuels.

You mentioned carbon capture. Think about how a company monetizes that - it cannot possibly be done at scale without government subsidy, which means carbon pricing.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You know the existence of a carbon tax will foster that exact type of innovation right?

Innovation has been going on wayyyy before any of this CO2 tax BS was implemented. Companies develop technologies not necessarily to specifically to reduce emissions, rather increase productivity, in which emissions are subsequently reduced. An example of innovation is capturing CO2 in the atmosphere and inject it into soils to help crop growth, which will subsequently sequester more CO2.

At face value the CO2 tax is simply something for the Liberals to shout “hey we are tackling climate change”. But in reality the CO2 tax is plain and simple a waste. Will do nothing. Especially when it is only implemented in Canada, will drive business elsewhere, including something as simple as filling up gas. Lio45 is case in point, while he is a supporter of the carbon tax, he still takes advantage of filling up his tank and Gerry cans on the US side of the border simply because it’s cheaper.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

Innovation has been going on wayyyy before any of this CO2 tax BS was implemented. Companies develop technologies not necessarily to specifically to reduce emissions, rather increase productivity, in which emissions are subsequently reduced. An example of innovation is capturing CO2 in the atmosphere and inject it into soils to help crop growth, which will subsequently sequester more CO2.

Are you kidding? Do you not think these companies see the global focus of things like the Paris accord, carbon taxes, cap and trade, etc? It's all creating a market for carbon.

Who's going to pay for that? Libertarians? No, this requires national and international markets (ie. CARBON PRICING).