You missed “Climate change is real and caused by humans but it’s the responsibility of individuals to fix it.”
“It’s not the company’s fault that you didn’t recycle. Grow up!”
Or just “Climate change is real, but it is to late to do anything about it”.
Soon in theaters “climate change is real, caused by humans, but it’s too late now and there’s nothing we can do about it anymore”
Thank you BP
Well, I mean, companies don’t buy their own products.
Blaming it on the individual is just a strategy to delay regulation. Yes, it is lots of individuals, who buy the climate-killing products. But regulating the company does nothing else than prevent those individuals from buying the climate-killing products.
In particular, this is also in the interest of all individuals to solve via regulation, because it creates a new baseline, where companies will scale production and push down prices. If it’s up to the individual to buy eco-friendly, then eco-friendly comes at a premium price. If it’s the default, it’s going to be commodity price.
Regulation without public backing is not possible. You need people to show that it’s possible to live without burning fossil fuels or eating meat. If the government would just ban them there would be riots.
You don’t have to ban them. The strategy I usually see recommended by researchers, is a tax for companies releasing CO2-equivalents into the atmosphere (“carbon tax”) + giving that tax money to consumers.
This increases the price of products proportional to how bad they are for the climate, but on average does not decrease how much money consumers have in their wallets.
It means that people consuming lots of climate-unfriendly products need to pay more or switch to more climate-friendly alternatives. This will lead to some resistance, but on the flipside, people consuming lots of climate-friendly products will be rewarded. This tax is also usually introduced gradually, so companies and consumers can adjust to it.
Except they do to produce other products. Customers can’t be expected to know every step of every supply chain, but the companies already do, they just don’t care.
A company doing something bad every time they make a sale doesn’t make it the purchaser’s fault. The company is performing the bad action and is accountable for that action.
I think you mean should be accountable for that action. Clearly they are not held accountable in any meaningful sense.
Burning the fuel is the problem, and the consumer does it. The companies paid politicians to force us into it.
FTFY:
Doing God’s work
Right now oil companies are at an inserted stage before oops which is “it’s too hard and too late to do anything about it now, we’re all doomed anyway”
Honestly I think we’re past oops and fuck and the current attitude just isn’t pictured cause it goes off the page.
“Hydrogen is the Future” - sponsored by Shell
After years of denialism and fucking up our planet these cunts want to sell us the solution to the problem they caused so that we stay dependent on their supply chain and pipelines.
The one case I have seen for hydrogen, that might be useful, is that when things like solar energy generation, create and overload of power, it can be used to create hydrogen, then the hydrogen can be stored, and used for a variety of ways to power things, in a largely eco-friendly, way. Otherwise… yeah.
Losses stack up for hydrogen. It’s kinda of a bad battery and storage is dangerous. Fuel cells are bulky and fragile.
Right now, it’s relatively viable because we get it as a petrolium byproduct. But that version doesn’t burn very clean.
Once we’re using solar at home, it’s green, but you’re chewing through freshwater which isn’t ideal.
Something like sodium ion batteries would be better is most ways. (Other than refilling cars in a gas station)
Hydrogen storage is very expensive and difficult, which makes personal storage difficult. Industrial storage is easier, but still… sketchy. Just look at how many times a year Texas City has an explosion at their gas plant network.
There are better ways to store energy. Hydrogen is just cheap to acquire, which makes it an attractive substance for the existing industry.
Most of what I have read are discussing this possibility is industrial storage, for industrial scale fuel use. Then they usually come in with asides if the car industry, or whom ever, ever creates a good fuel cell. Though I know there are a lot of BS articles about hydrogen fuel cells powering everything, especially cars. Largely pushed by the oil, and auto, industries.
I looked up Texas City explosions, there aren’t actually a whole lot. Though they do have one devastating one (1947), and one really bad one (2005). Most of them seem to have less to do with the stores of hydrogen, and more to do with mishandling of other aspects of the fuel refinement, and fertilizer, manufacture/storage. Large scale hydrogen storage is not as dangerous as it would seem. When punctures in LH tanks happen, even though they are now mixing with oxygen, it proves to be very difficult to actually get it to light. With most attempts to create a hydrogen leak explosion showing it lights briefly, before the pressure of the expanding gas puts it back out, because it actually displaces all the oxygen. The biggest dangers actually seem to be burns from the extreme temperature of it, and suffocation as leaks rapidly fill areas, displacing all the oxygen. Most of the storage explosions of hydrogen are due to how rapidly it expands, which, when improperly stored, can cause a run away pressure build up, and pressure explosion, rather than an ignition one. Though there are exceptions, such as the Muskingum River power plant explosion. Though we still don’t know what managed to ignite the hydrogen leaking from the truck. This means hydrogen isn’t any more dangerous than the storage of other fuels, and materials, that can explode. It is more dangerous to store large amounts of grain.
https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so-just-how-dangerous-is-hydrogen-fuel/
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/hydrogen-vehicle-danger1.htm
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/christian-tae/hydrogen-safety-lets-clear-air
https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/npre470/sp2019/web/readings/Hydrogen safety issues.pdf
I looked up Texas City explosions, there aren’t actually a whole lot.
Interactions continued long after the 2005 explosion. OSHA leveed an $87M fine on facilities in 2009.
There were a series of leaks and minor explosions leading up to a fire as recently as last December.
The '05 was a big one, but problems at the site are routine enough that shelter orders and shutdowns are regularly on the local news.
Oh, I wasn’t saying those two were the only ones. Just that over nearly a century of them being a big producer of refined fuel, and synthetic fertilizer, there really haven’t been enough explosions to warrant the “times per year” comment. This is also only one, out of many, places like this, and none of them, at least that there is public record for, have a whole lot of bad things happening. Unfortunately, the occasional leak of toxic chemicals, explosions due to mishandling of fuels, etc. is something that can’t be avoided if the modern world is to continue working. This is why regulatory bodies, and enforcement of safety, and procedural, laws are important. In the big picture though, hydrogen isn’t particularly dangerous.
nearly a century of them being a big producer of refined fuel, and synthetic fertilizer, there really haven’t been enough explosions to warrant the “times per year” comment.
Idk what the “minimum number of catastrophic accidents” would qualify. But more minor accidents in Texas City are routine. You just found the two historic ones.
Like saying you Googled Biggest Hurricanes In Texas and only came back with Harvey and The Great Galveston Hurricane, so why is everyone complaining? That’s just two in a century.
I am not just talking about catastrophic incidents, in that I mean to say the ones that killed people, and devastated the facility it was in. I looked up data with the BSEE, FERC, and PHMSA. There are little leaks of hydrogen that are considered the most minor hazard a several times a year yes. But the amount of incidents when it goes from potential, to actual, are not frequent enough to be rated in times per year. I was considering situations like where it just lit then went out, or created an environment that could suffocate someone, etc. Beyond that, most of these hazards are not from hydrogen, but other materials.
What it boils down to, is that hydrogen is no more dangerous than other chemicals, we commonly use, that can be explosive.
The main problem with Hydrogen is the efficiency. If we want to get off fossil fuels, we need to talk about primary energy, not only the electricity consumed today. That alone means that we need multiple of the electric production (the physicist in me shudders at that word) of what we have today.
So instead of the finite resource of oil or gas, there’s a bottleneck in energy production and its infrastructure, which means that we need to be efficient with the energy we have. With Hydrogen, you first need energy for Hydrolysis, then cool it down and pressurize it which uses a lot of energy. And then converting it back in the fuel cell to usable electric energy is again lossy. On a good day that’s an overall efficiency of about 30% (which is around the peak efficiency of the combustion itself in modern ICEs). A good LiPo Battery (which comes with its own problems, and for industrial applications energy density is less of a problem) has a roundtrip efficiency of 98%. So you’d need triple the production infrastructure (PV, wind mills, geothermal, etc.) for your storage, if you’d do everything with H2 compared to everything with batteries.
Which means, that if there aren’t major breakthroughs, like a totally different technology (e.g. photosensitive bacteria) to produce H2 at a multiple of the efficiency of today’s tech, then H2 and E-Fuels in general have to be reserved for the applications, where energy and power density are un-negotionable (like airplanes, some construction equipment, or for some agricultural applications).
This is correct, however the idea, at least the one not being pushing by industry, is not that hydrogen will be the primary source of power, nor is it considered efficient. It is just one way that we can, right now, capture some of the excess power generation, as opposed to losing it, or other problems is can create. This is all being considered precisely because we can’t really create batteries at the scale needed to accomplish this, yet. Hydrogen is also something that can be broken down into units that can be transported via numerous different means, such as trucks, rather than needing it to just be grid attached. It is also not being proposed as THE solution here. Most, reasonable, sources discussing this, that I have found, see this as one of many methods needed to accomplish this. All working together, with different strengths, for different uses. This one lacks in efficiency, but is highly portable, and not grid dependent, which makes it attractive to a number of different use cases.
Yes these are all good and valid arguments as a bridge technology used when we can’t meet demands through other, already availabe, often better suited technologies. With the power structures today though, it often gets pushed as the ONLY future. Which is what I’m pushing back against. We should use it where it makes sense, not where it serves some particular interest group to consolidate power to the detriment of us all. I mean H2-cars? Really?
Yeah, given the state of hydrogen fuel cells it isn’t gonna work out, as of now. Even then, there are already better alternatives. But yes, everywhere that isn’t industry propaganda, discusses it as one, of numerous, bridges to what will hopefully be industrial scale power storage batteries. It isn’t being pitched the only one, just that is has qualities that make it more useful for a number of cases, than other bridges that we will need.
That is one possibility. We could also use pumped hydro, thermal batteries, or just a big fucking rock on a pulley to store that extra energy.
Not only this, H₂ is also a green gas, and we can’t afford the leaks of H₂ due to the used as an energy supply.
The dumb thing is they could have bought the whole market 20 years ago
There is the doomerism timeline. “Well, it’s too late now, no reason to change anything now!”.
Doomerism is just an evolution of binary thinking.
I have an idea that might work for solving climate change. It has no scientific basis but hear me out, I think it’s worth at least trying. We should try sacrificing some oil execs in a volcano. Maybe tie them to a barrel of oil so that the earth understands we are trying to return what we took and make up for it a bit, so please chill out. Probably won’t actually do anything but it wouldn’t hurt to at least try it for a few decades, right?
I like it. I mean, people won’t go into the lava, as it’s liquid stone, everyone thinks they’ll just dive in but no, it’d be like falling onto solid rock; but you’ve solved that with the oil barrel - well done.
Yea no harm no foul if it doesn’t work out. But we should at least try.
This comment was reported for advocating violence. I’m chalking it up to venting. I share similar frustrations, but let’s make sure we aren’t pushing the envelope too far.
I’ve made similar comments, but I’m trying to take my mod duties (and reports associated with them) half seriously.
Kind regards
TS
Is a blood sacrifice violence?
Myeh. Kinda
Moderating online forums is hard and thankless. You giving thought to such things and not “just following rules” is laudable. Thank you :)
I’m new to moderating, but I’d like to do right by the users.
I’d add an overlapping step sponsored by BP in 2004: “Climate Change is real, and here’s a calculator to show you, that we have nothing to do with it.”
For the uninitiated: The Carbon Footprint Calculator was introduced by BP in 2004 as what can only be described as a successful attempt to shift attention and blame to the general public.
Like…why would anyone believe a company whose interest is enmeshed with their claims?? A company isn’t a person with morals. It’s a Machiavellian machine with the sole purpose of maximizing profits. They will never ever intentionally make a claim that hurts their profits. It would make absolutely no sense for a company to reduce demand of its product. That would be soooooo counterintuitive. If you sold lemonade, would you publish a study that showed that lemonade harms people? If yes, then your company would stop selling lemonade and disband while every other lemonade seller would flood the market with the benefits of consuming lemonade.
no dispute there. The thing is, it wasn’t advertised like that. It was advertised as: Here’s this scientifically sound tool to measure your impact and judge what you can do. Which in and of itself wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t burying the lead.
Exxon knew since at least the 70s
We knew about the Keeling curve in the 50’s
Veganism would be the biggest boycott to combat climate change while still allowing workers to still go to work.
Let’s get rid of fossil fuels and eat more plants?
The first part is a harder structural issue. The second is an action everyone can take now and have a greater impact towards sustaining the planet. With the side benefits of better health and less animal suffering.
If veganism was welded as a solidarity against capitalism greater market structures would be forced to bend to working class demands.
Speak for yourself, my bike has become my primary means of transportation and I’m saving up for a solar array for my house. That change can and should happen now on every level.
Speaking of structural issues: There are massive, pervasive systems in place both practically and politically surrounding the meat industry. They even get huge tax funded subsidies from the government! Using your logic, should people just give up because of it? What’s the difference?
Veganism and vegetarianism are a hard sell to many people too, encouraging people to eat more plants instead of chastising them for eating meat would probably be more effective in convincing them.
Your comment even leaves out one of the most persuasive reasons the public, at large, are hard to sway to eat less, let alone no, animal products. Our bodies are wired to have strong responses to things like the smell of cooking meat. The way grease affects the tastes of food, etc. Our bodies have long recognized indicators of edible things, that are calorie dense, as that was critical to survival for most of human existence.
Yep, cooked meat was a game changer for our species but now it’s become a health and environmental hazard because we eat so much of it.
Yeah, all that extra protein was a big deal to our development. It has played a critical role in our species for nearly a million years, it won’t be dropped easily.
deleted by creator
I’m not sure theres reason to promote adhering to your base instincts. Do you also try to mount every woman you find attractive?
Surely you can comprehend the idea of choosing to abstain from something you have the urge to do?
I am not promoting it. I am recognizing it as barrier to moving people away from using animals as food. If saying something is a reason that it is hard to convert the larger public, is the same as promoting it, I am not sure how you go about discussing the hurdles to achieving this goal. The old saying “it is an explanation, not an excuse”.
Well if I take it as a serious point, I dont see still how its useful to bring it up. We can’t change our natural impulses, only how we react to them. Following a vegan diet is no more challenging physically or mentally than managing a regular diet if you have the same goals.
Its akin to saying that a mans nature makes it difficult not to sexually assault women. While technically true, it has nothing to do with identifying problems and creating solutions.
I’m struggling to find any good reason to bring up natural instinct besides as an excuse.
I am not arguing that it is good, better, etc because it is natural though. I am saying we , over ~750k years, evolved to have a strong natural reaction to indicators of things that are calorie dense, and maybe protein/nutrient dense. This makes it harder to persuade people to the better option of veganism. It isn’t the only factor, but it is definitely one.
Just because humanity has done something for a long time doesn’t mean we should continue doing it. If this isn’t an appeal to nature then look beyond it and and realize there’s plenty of other ways to to get nutrients besides supporting mass murder of other sentient beings.
If you can over come that then radicalize and realize a unified boycott of the animal agriculture industry would cripple the owning class.
That’s cool I’m glad you have the means to get a house to put solar panels on. I’m also glad your able-bodied enough to get across town. Those are what’s called material conditions. People that have to use a car to get to work can easily take up a vegan diet and be more efficient at fighting climate change.
This second paragraph reads like you didn’t even read the second link.
I wondered how many flights Elon would have to do to undo your bike rides.
Your defeatist attitude is presumptuous bullshit bud
Your ableist attitude is adorable dude.
Keep on making presumtions but I won’t be reading them.
being vegan hasn’t decreased the size of the animal agriculture industry or even stopped it’s growth. for what reason do you think it would have any impact on the planet or animal suffering?
Absolute numbers vs percentages my friend. Populations increase, absolute numbers increase, but what happens with the percent of the whole?
the industry has ceaseless growth.
Growth itself can increase or decrease, you are aware of this right?
it’s still not less suffering or GHG/pollution, only more.
Give up cheese… Or die…
Sometimes sacrifices must be made. It is a shame though, this planet is pretty.
After even 100+ hours in no mans sky. Earth is the most beautiful planet I’ve ever been to.
Climate change deniers changed their tune. They re-branded themselves as “climate skeptic”, and from outright denialism they shifted to “climate change is happening, but it happened before and this one will not be as bad.”
A lot of O&G industry has pivoted to “Only we can fix climate change!” then started mopping up federal grants and subsidies to build quixotic hydrogen fuel cell, carbon capture, and “clean” carbon projects that consistently fail to pay dividends.
Their Republican enablers then point to these failures and announce “climate change is a hoax! We should go back to Drill Here, Drill Now!”
We go back into a debate, while O&G profits surge and temperatures continue to rise. Then everyone in the economy panics when a foreign power takes the lead on battery and nuclear technology.
You forgot the “yes it is real and it’s the consumers fault” phase
There is one step in between. “Climate change is real and caused by humans, but it’s already too late, might as well keep drilling”
That’s the oops section, and we got one foot in the door on that already.
Executives for these companies should publicly hang for this
Abolish the corporate veil! Their children and children’s children deserve to go to public school.
As should their supporters. This was all made possible by conservatives who delight in polluting the planet.
Conservatives gleefully defend the most pollutive corporations. They choose the most pollutive vehicles, roll coal, litter at will, dump used oil and chemicals into sewers and rivers and berate anyone who expresses support for a clean planet. Conservatism is a disease that is killing us all. It is time for a cure.
Conservatives gleefully defend the most pollutive corporations.
I know for a fact that there are evangelicals who believe the pollution hastens the ‘end times’ and think they’re bringing christ’s rapture to earth that much faster.
almost makes me want to believe in an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity just to see that god bitchslap these assholes, thundering “I WASN’T JOKING ABOUT PSALM 115 :15–16. YOU IDIOTS, I GAVE YOU A PARADISE AND YOU FILLED IT WITH SHIT AND PLASTIC.”
Gods or not, we’ve made our bed, I just fill bad for the kids who have to live through the end.
deleted by creator
For the vast majority of humanity - this is probably the coolest summer for the rest of our lives.
