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And there will be some collateral dammage, but humanity has faced many more threats and challenges in the past.
Humanity found solutions to overcome hunger, war and diseases and as a consequence, population grew exponentially, just like a virus.
I am not very worried about climate change. I think that rising CO2 levels are not necessarily a bad thing and may actually be a positive factor for the earths flora.
I would be more concerned if temperatures were steadily falling and earth was entering into another ice age.
Actually I am not worried as much about humanity as about the loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species. There is no doubt that humanity will survive. But if we lose half of all plant and animal species, is that a win for you?
Then you don't understand the real issues of climate change. Who cares about CO2 levels in themselves? It's what they represent that matters. About 10% of global warming is caused by deforestation, mainly in tropical regions (developed countries tend to reforest more than they deforest at home, or are stable in terms of forest cover). This deforestation is the main cause of species extinction, especially in the Amazon and in Indonesia, but also in Africa.
Another leading cause of climate change is the petrol industry. Just burning petrol in itself is not a big problem if enough trees can absorb the CO2 and the more noxious nitrogen oxides. But the petroleum industry also pollutes oceans either directly (offshore oil extraction, accidental spills, coastal refineries) or indirectly (operational discharges from ships and from industries, atmospheric fallout, and especially plastics), which also destroys the environment and kills off sensitive species.
No, it is not a win. But neither is climate hysteria leading to rush decisions which afterwards prove to be counterproductive and a waiste of resources.
I like the climate plan Macron announced today. He intends to invest more in small nuclear plants and hydrogen technology. I believe that makes sense.
But the Germans won't be happy with that. They took a rush decision after Fukushima and converted from nuclear to brown coal. They based their decision on green hysteria. The green hysteria says Fukushima is a nuclear disaster while in fact it was a very exceptional natural disaster aggravated by the nuclear. More than 80 % of the death toll simply drowned.
Other examples of such rush decisions in the past are investments in power plants on biomass or heating houses on woodpellets.
Solar and wind energy can be very usefull, but the way it has been oversubsidised and implemented has created overspending, a lack of energy storage capacity and a mismatch between supply and demand. And what about the plans in Belgium to invest in large gas power plants to rectufy all this?
If many more such counterproductive rush decisions are made, many financial resources will be waisted and the enthousiasm of the taxpayer to finance all this will be gone.
Climate hysteria is not a win. It risks to destroy the motivation for the green transition in the long run.
Because I don't believe the green transition can be made in 1 generation, I think it will be a marathon which will last 100 years. And there will be collateral dammage in the mean time.
We simply don't have the technology yet for a swift and fast solution.
Since I was involved in the power industry and some of the studies about integration of different technologies into the grid, I think it qualifies me to have an opinion.
To those that think that solar and wind have been overincentivized, you have not seen all the tax breaks that gas and oil have been getting over the last 100 years in the US.
Here is my opinion on the different power sources in terms of climate change:
1. Nuclear needs to be part of any future power grid energy mix. Maybe not current technology but it needs to serve as the base load serving source
2. Solar and wind need to be accompanied by storage otherwise they need to buy ancillary services from the market
3. Gas combined cycle units need to be part of the mix as load following units
4. No place for coal fired units
Rain forests need to be reforested. We have lost a lot when the Amazon and South Asian rainforests got cleared for farming. Please do your part by not buying any products from what used to be rainforest.
Please do your part by not contributing to overpopulation. Please also do your part by conserving energy, buying energy efficient vehicles and energy efficient housing.
To all the trucking companies: Please do not use trucks for long haul loads, use trains instead. For local distribution use electric trucks instead of fossil fueled ones. The goes for commercial trucks (plumbers, electricians, etc.)
To all the commuters: Please buy and use electric cars for your daily commute.
To all the car companies: Please help us transition from a fossil fuel economy to an electric car economy. Move the economies of scale down market so people can afford to be energy efficient.
Then you don't understand the real issues of climate change. Who cares about CO2 levels in themselves? It's what they represent that matters. About 10% of global warming is caused by deforestation, mainly in tropical regions (developed countries tend to reforest more than they deforest at home, or are stable in terms of forest cover). This deforestation is the main cause of species extinction, especially in the Amazon and in Indonesia, but also in Africa.
Another leading cause of climate change is the petrol industry. Just burning petrol in itself is not a big problem if enough trees can absorb the CO2 and the more noxious nitrogen oxides. But the petroleum industry also pollutes oceans either directly (offshore oil extraction, accidental spills, coastal refineries) or indirectly (operational discharges from ships and from industries, atmospheric fallout, and especially plastics), which also destroys the environment and kills off sensitive species.
I agree with most of what you say.
It was a terrible decision of the German government to close nuclear plants and replace them by polluting and emission-rich coal plants. But the anti-nuclear lobby in Germany has been active for decades, long before climate change was on the political agenda. That decision was not related in any way to a desire to fight climate change. It was just brought by fear of radiations.
I have also never been in favour of burning biomass or wood pellets to make electricity. The businesses who lobbied for that argued that it was 'renewable' energy as plants can be regrown. But renewable energy is not necessarily clean or low emission.
Anyway the biggest environmental issue in my eyes is the extinction of species, which is caused mostly by deforestation, loss of natural habitat and pollution. Fighting these issues usually go hand in hand with combating climate change.
Too many people associate climate change with burning fossil fuels like gas and petrol, and think first of cars and airplanes as the culprits. But transportation is only responsible for about 15% of climate change, while agriculture (including deforestation, land use and methane emissions from cattle) is responsible for 30 to 35%. The rest of mostly mining (4 to 7%), construction (5 to 8% only to make cement) and industry (about 20%, including 8% for metallurgy alone), home heating and cooling.
This is all the more reason to encourage companies to set up factories in the US; instead of internationally. Too many jungle products are ending up in our supermarkets.
I agree with most of what you say.
It was a terrible decision of the German government to close nuclear plants and replace them by polluting and emission-rich coal plants. But the anti-nuclear lobby in Germany has been active for decades, long before climate change was on the political agenda. That decision was not related in any way to a desire to fight climate change. It was just brought by fear of radiations.
I have also never been in favour of burning biomass or wood pellets to make electricity. The businesses who lobbied for that argued that it was 'renewable' energy as plants can be regrown. But renewable energy is not necessarily clean or low emission.
Anyway the biggest environmental issue in my eyes is the extinction of species, which is caused mostly by deforestation, loss of natural habitat and pollution. Fighting these issues usually go hand in hand with combating climate change.
Too many people associate climate change with burning fossil fuels like gas and petrol, and think first of cars and airplanes as the culprits. But transportation is only responsible for about 15% of climate change, while agriculture (including deforestation, land use and methane emissions from cattle) is responsible for 30 to 35%. The rest of mostly mining (4 to 7%), construction (5 to 8% only to make cement) and industry (about 20%, including 8% for metallurgy alone), home heating and cooling.
Moderately worried to be honest. Should probably be more worried. Feel like we're passing on the problems to later generations, although we're already starting to feel the effects. Just feel like we as individuals are basically helpless against it. The major problems can only be solved by powerful actors: ie nation states, intl orgs, multinatl corporations, etc.
Human greed is boundless though, so I don't hope for a quick solution. However at the same time, I do think humanity will find a way to make it past this problem like others in the past... the solution may not be ideal but we will survive it.
Well, at least those who claim to be so worried about climate change should have stepped in when Germany decided to abondon nuclear energy production, but there are many who are anti-nuclear and climate activist at the same time which is denying all logic.
Nor did I ever understand the reasoning why burning biomass or wood pellets to make electricity were classified as climate neutral.
To many climate activists and politicians reason from an ideologic stance instead of using unbiassed logic.
Climate change is not causing the extinction of species, but both problems have common causes indeed.
Biomass & wood pellet burning is climate neutral because no matter what you do, whether the biomass rots in the forest or gets burned in a biomass reactor, it will produce the same amount of CO2.
sometimes they go as far as deforestating the Amazon forest and sending the wood to biomass power plants overseas
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