Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Valmy]

If we solve it too late, its not going to matter all that much.

See I am just an engineer, I don't know if that is true.

[crazy canuck]

If we solve it too late, its not going to matter all that much.

See I am just an engineer, I don't know if that is true.

Perhaps it is a matter of grammar, when you say "too late" I read those words in terms of the IPCC report of what will happen with a high degree of certainty if we are too late.  If you read the report  tell me why fixing it too late is better than nothing. 

Your view of better late than never is part of the problem.  This is one of those times when better late than never is not going to be true.

[Sheilbh]

It is important to remember that emissions are still going up. That, and the time lag between increased CO2 levels and the new equilibrium, mean that things are going to very bad as we move forward.

It is very frustrating because I feel like the solutions are so close. Electric vehicles and renewable energy are just taking off in a big way. If we only had a few more decades...ok a century.

I have been generally pessimistic, but i do have one optimistic hope about this. It is that the opportunities to make megabucks from green technologies are increasing; that being so it could be like a giant snowball rolling down a hill.

Human greed to the rescue!  Well, just maybe 

I saw that last weekend we had 80% low carbon energy (65% renewables; 15% nuclear) and, yes, it was a sunny blustery weekend. But it's still a big shift over the last decade.

[Malthus]

It is important to remember that emissions are still going up. That, and the time lag between increased CO2 levels and the new equilibrium, mean that things are going to very bad as we move forward.

It is very frustrating because I feel like the solutions are so close. Electric vehicles and renewable energy are just taking off in a big way. If we only had a few more decades...ok a century.

I have been generally pessimistic, but i do have one optimistic hope about this. It is that the opportunities to make megabucks from green technologies are increasing; that being so it could be like a giant snowball rolling down a hill.

Human greed to the rescue!  Well, just maybe 

Indeed, that was more or less the title of an article I posted upthread, about how the relative value or renewables has increased dramatically.

[Valmy]

If we solve it too late, its not going to matter all that much.

See I am just an engineer, I don't know if that is true.

Perhaps it is a matter of grammar, when you say "too late" I read those words in terms of the IPCC report of what will happen with a high degree of certainty if we are too late.  If you read the report  tell me why fixing it too late is better than nothing. 

Your view of better late than never is part of the problem.  This is one of those times when better late than never is not going to be true.

I am just giving myself the mental strength to carry on dude, hoping that my efforts will not totally be in vain. I am not sure what you think I am proposing here.

[crazy canuck]

If we solve it too late, its not going to matter all that much.

See I am just an engineer, I don't know if that is true.

Perhaps it is a matter of grammar, when you say "too late" I read those words in terms of the IPCC report of what will happen with a high degree of certainty if we are too late.  If you read the report  tell me why fixing it too late is better than nothing. 

Your view of better late than never is part of the problem.  This is one of those times when better late than never is not going to be true.

I am just giving myself the mental strength to carry on dude, hoping that my efforts will not totally be in vain. I am not sure what you think I am proposing here.

I know you have good intentions but let's not give up hope just yet.

[Berkut]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyULP9rk-iM

[crazy canuck]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyULP9rk-iM

Brilliant scene but the IPCC says we have about 10 years to act still, so not as hopeless but pretty damn close.

[Eddie Teach]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyULP9rk-iM

Michael Scott was right. 

[Admiral Yi]

The linked Mother Jones "fact check" was useless crap.

[Tamas]

I saw that last weekend we had 80% low carbon energy (65% renewables; 15% nuclear) and, yes, it was a sunny blustery weekend. But it's still a big shift over the last decade.

Does the country import any energy?

[viper37]

Neither the NDP or Greens have had a chance 

The NDP has held the power in some provinces.
The Parti Libéral du Québec and Parti Québécois are both centre-left parties that did nothing for the environment.

The Liberals held promise, which is one of the reasons I voted for them last time, but they have been a disaster.

Yes, everyone knew they would be a disaster.  They're the ones who voted to support Kyoto and done exactly nada to achieve its objectives, except coming up with the silly idea of a carbon tax later on.

Revenue neutral for the right meant that other taxes, like income tax, would be reduced.  Revenue neutral for the left only means all the money will be spent.

Use google translate:
"Green fund"'s money wasted  ("The green Fund" (Le Fond vert)) is a government fund to sustain reliable development alternative that will reduce our ghg emissions.  It is mostly funded by a tax on gaz&fuel, but also with the carbon market we are part of)
Highlights:

• Maple syrup producers receive subsidies for new evaporators only used in spring
  
• Air Canade benefited of a gift to install winglets on Boeing 767
  
• Gatineau received 1M$ to stabilize the borders of small stream
  
• When Orléans Express (figure Greyhound, but for Quebec) announced it would no longer desserve Gaspesia (the tip of eastern Quebec), the Green fund money was used to compensate
  
• For 2015 only, the fund received 830M$
  
• The fund was created in 2010, the Department of environment is nominally responsible for the fund, but 11 Departments and public organism have access to these funds
  
• The Quebec Department of environment had not given a specific account of GHG emissions by then, but the Federal govt had estimated an increase.
  

GGE report for 2015
Govt papers report a small decrease of 8,8% between 1990 and 2015.

According to the latest news (nov 2018)], Quebec is on track to miss its targets.

If you look at page 18 of the PDF document, you'll see a comparison between Quebec, Ontario, Canada, US and EU.
Noticed the dip around 2008...  Much more pronounced for Ontario and Canada than for Quebec, and we see an increase as soon as the economic recovery hits us.
While I don't have detailed figures for Canada, I see that for Quebec that industrial and municipal (waste management) sectors have consistantly decreased their emissions, compared with the transportation sector that completely went in the opposite direction.

I'm going to provide you with keyword translations from page 12:
Transportation
Road transport
Other transport
Aerial transportation
Railroad transportation
Maritime transportation
Industry
Industrial combustion
Industrial process
Fugitive emissions
Residential, commercial, institutional
Residential
Commercial and institutional
Agriculture
Enteric fermentation
Manure management
Agricultural grounds management
Liming and other carbonated fertilizers
Waste (trash)
Waste burial
Biological treatment of waste
Used waters treatment
Incineration of waste
Electricity

I'm not going to compare these numbers with every other provinces, but feel free to do it, of course.

anyway.
Road transport includes cars as well as big trucks.  Difficult to precisely determine if we drive more cars, if we drive longer, if we drive more often or if commercial road transport is stagnant or seeing an increase without other stats that I don't readily have available.
I can only provide an "eye" view of the thing: there are much, much more cars on the highway when I travel, and Quebec city is rapidly becoming a nightmare to get in and out of.  That's the net effect of having a Liberal government: no major infrastructure investments were made in the area for the last 4 years, except for finally announcing the financing of the tramway project for Quebec city last spring.

As long as greens try to fight new road developments that repair/complete existing road networks abandonment midway through construction or badly designed in the first place, we will get nowhere.  Public transit has its limits, and it's extremely difficult to extend it for interurban travels.  It's also really hard for cities to justify expenses to their core citizens so they can provide adequate services to suburbanites.  Even when they are technically part of the same city.

Jamming roads does not work.  People simply find other places to travel through, and by expanding their travel time, they increase their emissions (hell-o Plateau Mont-Royal! ).

When I travelled to university in 2010, road traffic delayed my trip by about 30 minutes for 3km if I arrived at 7h30 at the bridge's entrance.  Arriving before 7h15 only delayed for 15 minutes, 1km away from the bridge.

Nowadays, it's 1hr for 10km, even when there are no roadworks, and I must arrive before 7:00 if I want to be delayed by no more than 15 minutes.

The old bridge is totally rusted.  Ok, not totally, about 1/4 was repainted under the agreement made by the previous Liberal government and the Cons failed to make the CN budge on this, the court ruled against the government.  The 3/4 left is scary, and dangerous.

What is the left's solution?  Figth tooth and nails against a 3rd link on the St-Lawrence.  No word on the 6th link for Ottawa-Gatineau though...  It seems over there, it ain't a banana republic, compared to Quebec city.

Since you're not all familiar with the geography: Quebec city and Lévis are seperated by the St-Lawrence river, there are 3 lanes on the "newest" (1960s) Pierre-Laporte bridge with 3 lanes on each direction.  The old bridge (1916) has 3 lanes,  one alternating in each direction depending on traffic flows.  It belongs to the CN and has 2 tracks on it, as well as pedestrian and bike crosswalk.

The only public transit accross the river are buses.  It takes roughly 1hr to cross by bus from Lévis (downtown, near Desjardins HQ) and Université Laval.

The population of both Lévis and Quebec city has steadily increased for the last 15-20 years, while no new public transit or no new major links have been added either inside the cities themselves or accross them.

The tramway might densify Quebec city, but it offers no new means of transportation between the South and North shore of the St-Lawrence, as of now.  Nonetheless, the left finds nothing better than to complain about a new bridge that offers spaces for an eventual link between the two shores.

When I look at the Green's platform, all I see is cloud shoveling.
Take this, for example:
Respect the unionized employees of the federal public service and the bargaining process by rejecting
back-to-work legislation as a bargaining tool.
What that means is, unions will now be free to make outrageous demands and go on strike, using money from non public sector to pay for the strike fund of public employees.  We will see the return of endless strikes and disruption of public services for which we have no alternatives.

End offshore tax dodging by taxing funds hidden in offshore havens and requiring companies to prove that
their foreign affiliates are actual functioning businesses for tax purposes. Provide adequate funding to
GREEN PARTY OF CANADA 2019 33
the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to collect tax revenue hiding in offshore tax havens. Several Auditors
General have recommended that the CRA should focus on people who hide vast wealth, rather than
conduct random audits of ordinary Canadians.
See, that's the Liberal's approach.  And that proved to be wholly inneffective.  What you need to do is do as Harper did: create small, specialized teams, that go after the offenders and establish the level of proof required to nail them.  Otherwise, you are just adding bureaucracy and allowing another set of loophole by big corporations.

Impose a financial transactions tax of 0.2 per cent in the finance sector as France has done since 2012.
That didn't do much for France...

Eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies, including payments and tax write-offs
See, I'm all for that.  But the very capitalist Alberta will be totally against it.

Increase the federal corporate tax rate from 15 to 21 per cent to bring it into line with the federal rate in
the United States, our biggest trading partner.
See, that's wishful thinking and a total misunderstanding of our differing tax codes.
corporations based in the US have a much lower taxable benefit than our corporations.  And that is just one country.

Prohibit Canadian businesses from deducting the cost of advertising on foreign-owned sites such as
Google and Facebook which now account for 80 per cent of all spending on advertising Canada
Way to cripple our corporations.  It's not like American companies never spent here in advertising.

Eliminate the 50 per cent corporate meals and entertainment expense deduction, which includes season
tickets and private boxes at sporting events.
Yeah.  And then you'll see lots of small charitable and community events just die off from lack of funding.

Revamp national trade policy to align with national and international climate change plans. This includes
reducing the distances over which food is shipped by increasing domestic and local food production
I can't wait for my made-in-Quebec oranges and bananas!

Renegotiate Canada's trade and investment agreements to remove the Investor State Dispute
Settlement (ISDS) provisions that give foreign corporations extraordinary powers to challenge the
laws and policies of democratically elected governments, and include binding labour, health, safety
and environmental standards.
Pandering to the left, again.  That is only used to challenge laws that give unfair advantage to a local company over a foreign one.  Instead, they raise the scarecrow that foreign entities can challenge our public schools, kindergardens, hospitals, ets to force privatize everything. I've been hearing that since the first FTA with the US.


Ensure professionals being considered for immigration have the licensing requirements for their
professions clearly explained before entry.
• Work with professional associations to create a robust system for evaluating the education and training
credentials of immigrants against Canadian standards, with the goal of expediting accreditation and
expanding professional opportunities for immigrants.
Basically, it's the "racists" policies of Quebec and of the last Federal campaign, as proposed by the Conservatives, but slightly better worded.

Enough clouds for now.

[Sheilbh]

I saw that last weekend we had 80% low carbon energy (65% renewables; 15% nuclear) and, yes, it was a sunny blustery weekend. But it's still a big shift over the last decade.

Does the country import any energy?

We import just under 10% of our electricity. I think the government policy is to try to get that up to 20% as we build more cables linking us to the Netherlands, Norway, France etc.

Energy overall I think about 35%, overwhelmingly oil and gas.

[Grey Fox]

Well, that was a Giant climate strike.

[Syt]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49838650

'Alarming' extinction threat to Europe's trees

The conker tree has been put on the official extinction list.

Ravaged by moths and disease, the horse chestnut is now classified as vulnerable to extinction.

The tree is among more than 400 native European tree species assessed for their risk of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

About half face disappearing from the natural landscape.

Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List unit, described the findings as "alarming".

"Trees are essential for life on Earth, and European trees in all their diversity are a source of food and shelter for countless animal species such as birds and squirrels, and play a key economic role," he said.

The conservation status of most animals in Europe has already been assessed for the inventory of endangered species known as the Red List.

Experts are now turning their attention to plants, with an assessment of all 454 tree species native to the continent.

The report found:

- 42% are threatened with extinction (assessed as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered)
- Among endemic trees - those that don't exist anywhere else on Earth - 58% are threatened.

Species highlighted include the horse chestnut, which is declining across Europe, and most of almost 200 trees in the family that includes the rowan and mountain ash.

The report identified a wide range of threats, including pests and diseases, competition from invasive plants, deforestation, unsustainable logging, changes in land use and forest fires.

Dr Steven Bachman, conservation scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who was not part of the report, said trees played a critical role in sustaining and enhancing our lives.

"This report fills an important knowledge gap on the threat status of European trees, but the results reveal a disturbingly high level of extinction risk that requires urgent and effective conservation action at all levels."

A second report found almost half of all Europe's shrub species are threatened with extinction, due to the loss and destruction of Europe's wild areas, as well as agriculture, invasive species and climate change.

Luc Bas, director of IUCN's European regional office, said human activities were causing tree population declines across Europe.

"This report has shown how dire the situation is for many overlooked, undervalued species that form the backbone of Europe's ecosystems and contribute to a healthy planet."

Recommendations included further research into the impact of climate change.

Mike Seddon, chief executive of Forestry England said the "climate crisis" was a real threat to woodlands, including the nation's forest they manage, increasing the risk from pests and diseases.

"Our efforts to have resilient forests include planting a greater variety of trees, including native species, only grown in the UK," he said.