Coal produces about 33% of global electricitySolar and wind produce 8–9% eachElectricity meets about 20% of total energy demandhttps://www.visualcapitalist.com/coal-still-powers-more-electricity/
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@knud The actual solution is to use less energy, period. Transitions have always been a smokescreen to, in fact, use more. @gerrymcgovern
That's an easy statement to make. Sure, that would solve a lot of things. But no matter what, even if we half the total energy used, we need to produce the other half from renewable sourced. So there is no way around expanding solar and wind. Energy efficiency is completely independent from that. And is much harder: putting up solar panels is an easy thing (we produce 2.5x more than we directly consume), fixing e.g. US suburbs and low density is hard.
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@gerrymcgovern @knud @dnkboston
How is that consumption calculated and allocated? One of the reasons why the UK managed to reduce its carbon footprint was relocating energy intensive production to the Far East. If we count the carbon emissions for stiff made in China towards the carbon footprint that consumes/buys that stuff, the figures might change dramatically.
@tschenkel @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
Typically imports account for ~1 tCO2 per person and year. This is not nothing, but substantially less than the per capita emission even in the UK right now. UK's main change was much more wind power to phase out coal.
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That's an easy statement to make. Sure, that would solve a lot of things. But no matter what, even if we half the total energy used, we need to produce the other half from renewable sourced. So there is no way around expanding solar and wind. Energy efficiency is completely independent from that. And is much harder: putting up solar panels is an easy thing (we produce 2.5x more than we directly consume), fixing e.g. US suburbs and low density is hard.
@knud I don't know what your metrics and projections are based off of, and it's irrelevant. You're looking at it, perhaps from the POV of the people using the energy. I'm thinking about the people who are being exploited to get the raw material for said energy, the ecosystems they're coming from, and the actual capacity of the planet. Your orientation requires more, mine less.
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@oceane We need to consume less. I'd love to live in a world in which pay phones and water fountains were abundant. And in which I don't have to use my phone on an increasing number of sites in order to access them, period. Or be forced to use websites to do basic financial transactions.
@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern Yes it’s a systemic issue. But we don’t need less salads, we need actual salads – salads with thick leaves, bought through a food bank, that will fill you for several meals.
This has to be combined with higher wages, merely because they’re extracted from workers by their employers (CEOs, top executives, and shareholders). Drawing from a single read – although an awarded one, CNRS gold medal – I’m going out on a limb here and claim that growth is pauperism by another name.
Anyway, I’d consider “less forced consumerism” as “better consumption”, wouldn’t you?
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@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern Yes it’s a systemic issue. But we don’t need less salads, we need actual salads – salads with thick leaves, bought through a food bank, that will fill you for several meals.
This has to be combined with higher wages, merely because they’re extracted from workers by their employers (CEOs, top executives, and shareholders). Drawing from a single read – although an awarded one, CNRS gold medal – I’m going out on a limb here and claim that growth is pauperism by another name.
Anyway, I’d consider “less forced consumerism” as “better consumption”, wouldn’t you?
@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern I’m not being condescending or sarcastic, this isn’t a rhetoric question – you’re talking here about dematerialization and forced consumerism with public services tied to the Google/Apple ecosystems, aren’t you?
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@tschenkel @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
Typically imports account for ~1 tCO2 per person and year. This is not nothing, but substantially less than the per capita emission even in the UK right now. UK's main change was much more wind power to phase out coal.
@knud @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
Does that include things like producing the steel, to build the ships for transport, well to till balances for all the production?
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@knud I don't know what your metrics and projections are based off of, and it's irrelevant. You're looking at it, perhaps from the POV of the people using the energy. I'm thinking about the people who are being exploited to get the raw material for said energy, the ecosystems they're coming from, and the actual capacity of the planet. Your orientation requires more, mine less.
For the past hour I"ve tried to figure out why this seems to be a disagreement where there should be none.
The solution is that we need a combination of both, less consumption, and fully sustainable production of the rest. You can cut energy use in half – if that remaining half is not produced via renewables, then it's still always "more". Even the last fossil fuel plant burns things that are then gone.
1/
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For the past hour I"ve tried to figure out why this seems to be a disagreement where there should be none.
The solution is that we need a combination of both, less consumption, and fully sustainable production of the rest. You can cut energy use in half – if that remaining half is not produced via renewables, then it's still always "more". Even the last fossil fuel plant burns things that are then gone.
1/
Then they need more fuel. Fuel that will displace people (coal), or impact their immediate (fracking) or wider (extreme weather) environment. Producing this energy with renewables removes this "more".
By now solar panels and batteries can be 100% recycled. Sodium batteries use little exotic materials, etc.
So my point is not one of "more" but of "instead". And that implies installing solar and wind harvesting, and shutting down burning facilities.
2/2
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@knud @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
Does that include things like producing the steel, to build the ships for transport, well to till balances for all the production?
@tschenkel @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
Yes. There is a formal and accepted way of accounting and numbers exist per country that include or exclude these imports.
I also thought that we exported a lot of our emission to elsewhere, but it is not a large fraction. Heating, transport, construction, and food still dominate the balance sheet.
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@tschenkel @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
Yes. There is a formal and accepted way of accounting and numbers exist per country that include or exclude these imports.
I also thought that we exported a lot of our emission to elsewhere, but it is not a large fraction. Heating, transport, construction, and food still dominate the balance sheet.
@knud @gerrymcgovern @dnkboston
The formal and accepted way is not including all the emissions. At least not in my field of work, so I have no reason to believe it to be different in another.
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@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern Yes it’s a systemic issue. But we don’t need less salads, we need actual salads – salads with thick leaves, bought through a food bank, that will fill you for several meals.
This has to be combined with higher wages, merely because they’re extracted from workers by their employers (CEOs, top executives, and shareholders). Drawing from a single read – although an awarded one, CNRS gold medal – I’m going out on a limb here and claim that growth is pauperism by another name.
Anyway, I’d consider “less forced consumerism” as “better consumption”, wouldn’t you?
@oceane Yes, I think we're on the same page. And that's a very good way of putting it.
Jesus, even just being able to repair our things would be such an improvement.
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@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern I’m not being condescending or sarcastic, this isn’t a rhetoric question – you’re talking here about dematerialization and forced consumerism with public services tied to the Google/Apple ecosystems, aren’t you?
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Then they need more fuel. Fuel that will displace people (coal), or impact their immediate (fracking) or wider (extreme weather) environment. Producing this energy with renewables removes this "more".
By now solar panels and batteries can be 100% recycled. Sodium batteries use little exotic materials, etc.
So my point is not one of "more" but of "instead". And that implies installing solar and wind harvesting, and shutting down burning facilities.
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@knud @dnkboston @gerrymcgovern Deb, how do you propose to get the overwhelming majority of white supremacist Americans to use less energy when they're busy pushing the USA into racist dictatorship that is massively escalating fossil fuel use?
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Then they need more fuel. Fuel that will displace people (coal), or impact their immediate (fracking) or wider (extreme weather) environment. Producing this energy with renewables removes this "more".
By now solar panels and batteries can be 100% recycled. Sodium batteries use little exotic materials, etc.
So my point is not one of "more" but of "instead". And that implies installing solar and wind harvesting, and shutting down burning facilities.
2/2
@knud I think you are well-intentioned, but we're looking at this differently. I do not think that the renewable/green technology production cycle is sustainable. The amount of damage done to ecosystems to get the materials, to say nothing of the costs to human health, needs to be taken into account with these assessments. At the very least, you can move people around only after you've damaged the places they live only so many times before you run out of places to move them. @gerrymcgovern
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@knud @dnkboston @gerrymcgovern Deb, how do you propose to get the overwhelming majority of white supremacist Americans to use less energy when they're busy pushing the USA into racist dictatorship that is massively escalating fossil fuel use?
@jonesmurphy Excellent question, and I have no idea yet. But I have to persist with this until I do see a direction.
This is not an endorsement of Trump in any way, but his idiotic conflicts are making the point about the vulnerabilities of a fossil fuel environment. There is only so much political leverage and manipulation that can lower prices.
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@knud @dnkboston @gerrymcgovern Deb, how do you propose to get the overwhelming majority of white supremacist Americans to use less energy when they're busy pushing the USA into racist dictatorship that is massively escalating fossil fuel use?
@jonesmurphy At this point, reality should have done the trick. Katrina, Sandy, the horrible Houston flooding, followed by Texas freezing. Hurricane/Cancer Alley. Mississippi dead zones. Persistent droughts in the Northeast. It's practically a sign of mental illness that people would still vote for their own doom after all of the disasters.
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@jonesmurphy At this point, reality should have done the trick. Katrina, Sandy, the horrible Houston flooding, followed by Texas freezing. Hurricane/Cancer Alley. Mississippi dead zones. Persistent droughts in the Northeast. It's practically a sign of mental illness that people would still vote for their own doom after all of the disasters.
@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern yes. Racism is brain damage literally to a psychiatrically concerning degree. They are suicidal. This closely resembles the mindset of the nearly 40 million women who voted once again for the Pu$$y Grabber to police their own vaginas. Or the Latinos who voted for ICE. And the increased % of black voters(led by Clarence Thomas, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg etc) who voted for resegregation. This is the crowd we are hoping will reduce energy usage. That's not happening.
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@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern yes. Racism is brain damage literally to a psychiatrically concerning degree. They are suicidal. This closely resembles the mindset of the nearly 40 million women who voted once again for the Pu$$y Grabber to police their own vaginas. Or the Latinos who voted for ICE. And the increased % of black voters(led by Clarence Thomas, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg etc) who voted for resegregation. This is the crowd we are hoping will reduce energy usage. That's not happening.
@jonesmurphy Yeah, you're right. In general, I don't bother flipping myself into a pretzel to get them to do the right thing.
Best bet is to re-enfranchise those who have been disenfranchised. Second best is to get the people who stayed home.
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@jonesmurphy Excellent question, and I have no idea yet. But I have to persist with this until I do see a direction.
This is not an endorsement of Trump in any way, but his idiotic conflicts are making the point about the vulnerabilities of a fossil fuel environment. There is only so much political leverage and manipulation that can lower prices.
@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern Trump supporters overwhelmingly do not care. His approval is insanely high, averaging right around 40%, well above his low of 34% after Jan 6th. Worse, Trump supporters led by Supreme Court Republicans have rolled back MLK's voting rights legacy to the point where 40% or even less is more than enough for them to retain power indefinitely.
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@jonesmurphy Yeah, you're right. In general, I don't bother flipping myself into a pretzel to get them to do the right thing.
Best bet is to re-enfranchise those who have been disenfranchised. Second best is to get the people who stayed home.
@dnkboston @knud @gerrymcgovern rew-enfranchisement will not happen peacefully. Enfranchisement did not happen peacefully. It took 100 yrs from the Civil War to Civil Rights and a LOT of bloodshed.
