Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Berkut]

The USSC is about to rule that all the federal agencies in charge of protecting the environment, setup by Congress, are actually not allowed to do so - only Congress is allowed to do that.

And we know Congress cannot do anything.

This is brilliant. It's so fucking evil. Who cares what the US agrees to at this point in regards to climate change. No matter what we agree to do, internally or externally, the USSC is going to just make it impossible to actually execute.

[Syt]

The USSC is about to rule that all the federal agencies in charge of protecting the environment, setup by Congress, are actually not allowed to do so - only Congress is allowed to do that.

And we know Congress cannot do anything.

This is brilliant. It's so fucking evil. Who cares what the US agrees to at this point in regards to climate change. No matter what we agree to do, internally or externally, the USSC is going to just make it impossible to actually execute.

Freedom!







Clean air and water is only for those who deserve it. And per prosperity gospel, the ones who deserve it are the ones with TEH MONEY.

[CountDeMoney]

The USSC is about to rule that all the federal agencies in charge of protecting the environment, setup by Congress, are actually not allowed to do so - only Congress is allowed to do that.

And we know Congress cannot do anything.

This is brilliant. It's so fucking evil. Who cares what the US agrees to at this point in regards to climate change. No matter what we agree to do, internally or externally, the USSC is going to just make it impossible to actually execute.

Wait until we get to the point of 50 separate environmental standards, with the eventual inability of one state to sue another for its cross-border toxicity.

[crazy canuck]

More like the inability of governmental actors to sue polluters.  Just wait for the mantra of the market will find a solution to start coming out of conservative talking heads.

[Syt]

More like the inability of governmental actors wanting to sue polluters.

FYP. No one wants to be the "bad guy" getting blamed for putting a brake on ECONOMIC GROWTH (PEACE BE UPON IT).

[crazy canuck]

More like the inability of governmental actors wanting to sue polluters.

FYP. No one wants to be the "bad guy" getting blamed for putting a brake on ECONOMIC GROWTH (PEACE BE UPON IT).

Friendly amendment accepted

[HisMajestyBOB]

The USSC is about to rule that all the federal agencies in charge of protecting the environment, setup by Congress, are actually not allowed to do so - only Congress is allowed to do that.

And we know Congress cannot do anything.

This is brilliant. It's so fucking evil. Who cares what the US agrees to at this point in regards to climate change. No matter what we agree to do, internally or externally, the USSC is going to just make it impossible to actually execute.

Wait until we get to the point of 50 separate environmental standards, with the eventual inability of one state to sue another for its cross-border toxicity.

We will then learn that pollution is a protected form of speech, as intended by the Founders. 

[Legbiter]

Texas Republican, Louie Gohmert, comes up with a unique way to tackle climate change. Change the earths orbit 


https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/louie-gohmert-moon-orbit-nasa-climate-1180092/

Geoengineering concepts like this and more direct methods like carbon air capture are still just meme-tier at this stage. For instance the carbon recapture plant being constructed here will annually sequester 4000 metric tons of carbon dioxide once it's up and running. According to this calculator https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator that's the annual carbon emission output of around 900 passenger cars. In the grand scheme of things that's nothing, just proof of concept really. Yet these technologies are always just around the corner and have been for 20 years it feels.

40.000.000 metric tons of carbon dioxide captured and petrified into basaltic rock annually would be like 10 coal power plants, small but at least noticeable on a global scale.

Update on this project, it is to be progressively scaled up to 40.000 metric tons of co2 within a year and a half, by 2030 it will capture co2 in the millions of metric tons and the goal is that by 2050 it will sequester a billion tons annually. That is the annual output of around 270 coal power plants.

[Josquius]

When will it break even vs the co2 to make it?

[Legbiter]

Local energy is all from hydro and geothermal. The new facility is the size of a warehouse. So the plan is to capture enormous quantities of atmospheric co2, pump it directly underground and let geology take it's course. The co2 will be petrified into basaltic rock. The last few years have mostly been about fine tuning the engineering.

[Jacob]

Update on this project, it is to be progressively scaled up to 40.000 metric tons of co2 within a year and a half, by 2030 it will capture co2 in the millions of metric tons and the goal is that by 2050 it will sequester a billion tons annually. That is the annual output of around 270 coal power plants.

That's edging into non-trivial

[Legbiter]

Yeah theoretically build 10 of these gigaplants around the world and you have essentially turned mankind carbon neutral, even if you do nothing else. I hope they expedite the timeline.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, the timing is the important part - if we do nothing else, moving carbon neutrality forward to the 50s or 60s is too late. From a summary of the April IPCC report (which unfortunately, has become completely overshadowed by other issues):

In the scenarios assessed, limiting warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F) requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third. Even if we do this, it is almost inevitable that we will temporarily exceed this temperature threshold but could return to below it by the end of the century.

"It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F)," said Skea. "Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible."

The global temperature will stabilize when carbon dioxide emissions reach net zero. For 1.5°C (2.7°F), this means achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions globally in the early 2050s; for 2°C (3.6°F), it is in the early 2070s.

This assessment shows that limiting warming to around 2°C (3.6°F) still requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by a quarter by 2030.

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/ipcc-now-or-never-15%C2%B0c-warming-limit

summary of the summary - it does not look like we are going to avoid going past 1.5C.  And it looks doubtful that we are going to avoid topping 2.0C.

 

[Jacob]

Yeah theoretically build 10 of these gigaplants around the world and you have essentially turned mankind carbon neutral, even if you do nothing else. I hope they expedite the timeline.

That would be an interesting turn on the public discourse...

Say we build enough of these plants to make burning fossil fuel a non-event from a climate perspective, what would happen?

Would climate "sceptics" dial down their opposition to the science since it'd no longer impact fossil fuel?

Would the holy holier-than-thou/resentment-against-perceived-holier-than-thou dynamic go away?

Would oil/coal production go up or down in price or volume? Would would happen to the momentum of non-carbon energy production?

[crazy canuck]

Yeah theoretically build 10 of these gigaplants around the world and you have essentially turned mankind carbon neutral, even if you do nothing else. I hope they expedite the timeline.

That would be an interesting turn on the public discourse...

Say we build enough of these plants to make burning fossil fuel a non-event from a climate perspective, what would happen?

Would climate "sceptics" dial down their opposition to the science since it'd no longer impact fossil fuel?

Would the holy holier-than-thou/resentment-against-perceived-holier-than-thou dynamic go away?

Would oil/coal production go up or down in price or volume? Would would happen to the momentum of non-carbon energy production?

By the point there is meaningful carbon sequestration, the world would be in a position of needing to be negative, not neutral.  So no, all the dynamics we currently have would still exist.  Although, by that time the effects of climate change would be more severe and so, hopefully, less people will be part of the don't look up cult.