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!"
Why should our profits go down to save the world?
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.
They do buy each other's a whole lot though, and they've been relying on subsidized, cheap oil to send it overseas to each other, and to the end consumer as well
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.
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.
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).
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
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
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.
..
That's a strawman of doomerism. There's as many different opinions as there are "doomers", but most are probably in the realm of "do what we can to reduce the damage, but the science and math is saying we're way past any great solutions." I guess some would call that realism to separate it from the doomer label, but whatever it's called, that's where we are.
I can’t believe the straight up science denial in these comments lmfao.
Actual, real scientists that have been studying this for decades all agree. Within 50 years, the Earth will witness a mass die-off of all current life forms directly due to runaway climate change.
And you have lemmings calling this shit “doomer”, so they can feel good in their little liberal bubble about their metal water bottle and paper straws like that’s making any fucking difference.
“Drastic change in the current human way of life” is not just switching to recyclables. It’s fucking over and the liberals, in predictable fashion, are doing nothing to stop it besides feel-good band aids that don’t actually do anything.
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.
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.
Literally any time I bring up veganism and climate change, I have ten people jumping my neck screaming "but the corporations!". Like, it's so easy to eat vegan and it's cheaper. I don't get people
So the thing people miss about this one is people who live out of the reduced/sale section. While at full price a vegan diet is cheaper (though requires a bit more prep time, not much more though microwave steamers are a miracle) Meat is much more calorie dense and can end up being as much as 80-90% off just before it turns, vegetables on the other hand never go on sale. In this circumstance meat is cheaper.
More regionally some of the foods in a vegan diet that make up for protein can be more expensive than you might be used to. Sure beans are universally cheap and there's some nice varieties (I like kidney and butter beans a lot) but chickpeas, nuts and really all of the non-bean alternatives are actually pretty expensive in some places (e.g. where I live).
That said I admit to being one of these people who could maybe drop meat (I only get it when its on sale/reduction at this point) but couldn't live without cheese and eggs. iirc chickens are the lowest carbon livestock but I await a good cheese alternative or non-dairy cheese.
thing is that you're completely ignoring how culturally important meat is to a lot of people, and how much easier it is to cook a very tasty and nutritious meal with meat.
sure, rice and beans is cheaper, but you need to eat other things too and to most people "rice and beans" sounds like abject misery.
You can't just say "go vegan" as if that's just a switch you flip, the easy vegan alternatives are expensive and the cheap ones aren't easy.
If you want people to go vegan, start producing cheap and easy vegan food that is indistinguishable from non-vegan stuff, we have a small amount of such products here and it's helped me eat less meat.
Exxon knew since at least the 70s
Same for Shell, if I remember correctly.
We knew about the Keeling curve in the 50's
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.
You forgot the "yes it is real and it's the consumers fault" phase
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.
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.
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.
The one from Total lately is more subtle: climate change is real and humans cause it, but there's still an increasing demand for fossil fuel, so we answer it (would rather buy more from the Russians?), by opening new wells we keep it affordable for the people (do you want yellow jackets again?).
It would be nice to at least have a plan to one day be immune to oil price chaos and geopolitical fights surrounding distant oil wells. And day now...
I think the only way is to reduce oil dependency. As long as it exists, people will exploit the dependency for economical and political advantage.
Let's all remember that jury nullification exists, even if being on jury duty kind of sucks.
we're approximately three inches right of fuck
I zoomed in the image as much as I could so 3 inches to the right is not that bad. I'm glad I could pull my weight to save the climate.
Progress 🙄
Before that: 80 years of "things are definitely going to heat up"
For the vast majority of humanity - this is probably the coolest summer for the rest of our lives.
Even if someone isn't convinced climate change is caused by humans, pretty much all of the shit that causes climate change is some form of pollution.
Can we make an effort to pollute our environment a little less, at least?
Stop burning finite resources like coal and oil, just because?
“The poor peons will die before they ever do anything about it, we already control the media & make it all their fault - straws, recycling — & our bunkers will keep us cool while they all boil alive. It doesn’t matter. They’re not profitable. Mankind was mean to profit.”
We just have to find those bunkers and raid them! 😉
Nah, just pour concrete down the ventilation shafts and exits.
Then they can enjoy their tombs in peace.
Oh no no no, we are already in the holy f$ck stage. Massive storm is the devastate coastal communities, massive droughts that lead to widespread death, wildfires that are bigger than any on record, those things are all connected with climate change.
For some reason people really want it to be polar. They really want to say that if we don't take action this month then the world will end. The reality is that things have gotten bad in some ways and will continue to get bad in some ways no matter what we do, but every action that we start taking now helps. Politicians and corporations hate that because it means the problem is one they have to keep on dealing with.
Currently we're in the "It's real, but it's not the end of the world" phase of their arguments.
Red on yella, you're a dead fella
Better rule of thumb, if you see a snake, don't pick it up. If you can't tell what kind of snake it is definitely don't pick it up.
my right or fuck's right ?
If entrenched capital hasn't moved off of oil by now they're just asking to get their lunch eaten by the green push. Can we move off the doomsday juice already? Nothing but laggards and bored investors hanging on at this point
I've talked personally to climatologists. My mother minored in meteorology. I've read the articles, I've watched the documentaries, I've seen Bill Nye. The "evidence" can point to many conclusions. Also, from personal experience, I'm not at all convinced we are causing global warming. And I'm not even convinced the earth, on average, is warming rather than cooling.
What is a fact is that people/politicians (those with power) have agendas, and they will steer beliefs about our climate/atmosphere with all their might to meet these agendas. There are many sheep that will buy into these beliefs and repeat them as if it were an original idea of their own. Don't be sheep, don't let them make you into a solder for their agenda. Be careful, be discernful. Stay beautiful.
Yeah, it'd be a real shame if we made the world a cleaner place for no reason!
Wasn't my point at all... but ok.
Note, that in writing down this post, you haven't brought forth any objective argument to justify your skepticism. Your argument that because people have agendas, you should be skeptical could be ok if the goal is to get objective information, not form a reactionary opinions.
A strong scientific consensus over this topic is not the result of some political agenda but of the scientific method. One of the central parts of it, is that any claim must be falsifiable through experiment. When anyone comes with a claim, others will try to reproduce or falsify it. Depending on the results the claim is either rejected or used in further research. With vasts of experiments explaining the effect or verifying the effect to better explain what was previously known, a consensus is formed. Politicians are only involved when it comes to appropriating public funding for research. That doesn't corrupt the research itself, but hinders it if research can't be done. When industry funds it though, then it does degrade the research very often (see tobacco industry in the 1920s-1980s, the food industry until today, or oil&gas industry which have known about the effects for at least the 1970s through their own research and have not published it).
For some more factual things you can read up on:
That CO2 gets warmer when subjected to light is known since the 1850s when Eunice Foote did experiments with water vapor and CO2 and made this observation and roughly quantified it.
John Tyndall did incorporate this effect into a first, very rudimentary, climate model of the atmosphere in 1862. The global temperature projections of that model for 1950 aren't perfect, but still astonishingly precise.
Planck in 1900 formulated the Planck Postulate as part of his work concerning black body radiation. Quantization he thought of as a mathematical quirk. Einstein a few years later proposed that the energy of light or photons to be more precise is itself quantized. Einstein got his Nobel Prize in 1923 adopting this to not only explain the Plack Postulate (radiation) but also the photoelectric effect, i.e. that a molecule such as CO2 can absorb energy from the electromagnetic radiation interacting with it.
The scientific community was not convinced of the anthropogenic nature of the warming of the climate until in 1957 Roger Revelle and Hans Suess use the C14-method to show that the ratio of C-isotopes in the atmosphere is shifting towards those of fossil fuels. Since then more measurements have been done using this method to date things and reconstruct atmospheric composition (e.g. through ice-coring).
Since then technology such as satellites have improved the overall quality of measurements. And all of them show a clear tendency. With more computational power climate models have become more powerful and the projections are very good. The differences to measurements, when they happen are usually underestimating because the models are conservatively developed. You can refer to the IPCC reports which show you the data pretty clearly. If you want, then look at data from your local weather station, if it existed over 100 years ago, but even if only 50 years and you'll probably see a difference even locally. Do that for all stations in the world and you can see a clear trend.
These are only a fraction of topics which anybody can read up on to form an informed decision, rather than opposing something just because it is consensus.
edit: A word.
This is so well written. Thanks for posting this, really.
I am saving this for the next time someone tries to deny climate change just to try and seem smart or be a contrarian. You explained it so much better than I could have.
Yeah, it's called an opinion. I used to have the opinion that global warming was a serious concern. After learning more and more life experiences, my opinion has changed.
The only fact I claimed is that politicians have political agendas, and that is a fact. Some politicians promote that the earth is getting warmer, some say that it isn't, but if it comes from a politician, it comes from an agenda.
I appreciate that you came with some scientific facts, surely. And you're right I brought forth no objective argument, it was subjective. Maybe I should have started my comment with "IMO". I assumed everyone would catch on to that since I was relating my own personal experience with the topic.
A person on the internet whose mother minored in meteorology doesn't agree with scientific consensus! How do we move forward now?
The "evidence" can point to many conclusions.
Not when reviewed objectively.
Also, from personal experience, I'm not at all convinced we are causing global warming. And I'm not even convinced the earth, on average, is warming rather than cooling.
Global average surface temperature has been rising since 1850. The ten warmest years in the historical record have all occurred in the past decade.
The earth is getting hotter. This is an objective fact. Facts don't care about your feelings.
Your opinion on climate science (or any science for that matter) can be disregarded out of hand. Your comment history reveals you are a far-right conservative troll who makes far-right conservative statements and then claims to be a centrist who "hates politics" because they are so divisive.
Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. Every word.
I've talked personally to climatologists. My mother minored in meteorology. I've read the articles, I've watched the documentaries, I've seen Bill Nye.
Is this satire? It has to be satire.
The first paragraph was candid self evaluation and my personal speculation. The second paragraph was commentary on politicians and political agenda. I could have written the 2nd paragraph better. The sheep I meant to represent are those who adopt the narratives of these political agendas without realizing that that is what they have done. They have unknowingly joined a political agenda. And it's absolutely both sides, left and right.
The topic of climate change has unfortunately become a tool for politicians, whether it be the right or left. This is bad. It is bad because it muddies the water, it muddies the the real scientific facts, what what those facts suggest. I honestly didn't mean to only suggest that those who subscribe to global warming were sheep. Rather, it's both sides pushing a narrative for an agenda. To buy into a narrative because "the experts said so" isn't always a good idea. Personal exploration, research, and observation are very important. Even "scientific consensus" needs to be weighed and judged soberly. Very much, "Scientific consensus" can, and does change over time.
There was "scientific consensus" in that 80s that because of the polar ice caps melting, newyork would be underwater by now...
Hey. This comment was reported due to climate change denial-ism. I get the sentiment in wanting this comment removed, but there is good discussion attached to. I also abhor an echo chamber.
You're very rightly crucified in the comments below, anyway, so me removing this isn't going to do much. Climate change is very real, regardless of your experiences or self-directed 'research'.
