Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[The Brain]

Sweden has around 4 depending on who you ask, and has a roughly similar climate to Canada.

Norway is a better comp.  They are at 9.

How is it better?

Oil

My rough google-based calculation puts oil production per capita in Norway at three times oil production per capita in Canada. Ie Canada's oil production per capita is closer to Sweden's than to Norway's.

[crazy canuck]

Sweden has around 4 depending on who you ask, and has a roughly similar climate to Canada.

Norway is a better comp.  They are at 9.

How is it better?

Oil

My rough google-based calculation puts oil production per capita in Norway at three times oil production per capita in Canada. Ie Canada's oil production per capita is closer to Sweden's than to Norway's.

Right you are.

[Barrister]

Sweden has around 4 depending on who you ask, and has a roughly similar climate to Canada.

Norway is a better comp.  They are at 9.

How is it better?

Oil

My rough google-based calculation puts oil production per capita in Norway at three times oil production per capita in Canada. Ie Canada's oil production per capita is closer to Sweden's than to Norway's.

What the fuck are you smoking?

Sweden's oil production per day - 12,000

Canada's oil production per day - 5,000,000

Norway's oil production per day - 2,000,000



Sweden's population - 10,000,000

Canada's population - 37,000,000

Norway's population - 5 million

[crazy canuck]

Now do the math BB.  Brain is roughly correct.

the real problem with Brain's per capita calculation is that it does not account for the emissions per barrel of oil.  That is Canada's problem.

[Jacob]

Sweden: 12,000 / 10,000,000 = 0.0012
Canada: 5,000,000 / 37,000,000 = 0.13
Norway: 2,000,000 / 5,000,000 = 0.4

[The Brain]

I mean any comparison of carbon dioxide between countries is gonna be pretty rough, because there are all kinds of differences between them. Norway for instance gets pretty much all its power from hydro, which is hard for most major countries to achieve.

[Barrister]

Now do the math BB.  Brain is roughly correct.

the real problem with Brain's per capita calculation is that it does not account for the emissions per barrel of oil.  That is Canada's problem.

I'm just going to quote this here for posterity's sake...


To be fair to Brain, when I first looked up the figures I thought he was right - but then I realized that the graph I was looking at (which listed about 5,100 barrels of oil) was denominated in the number of thousands of barrels of oil.  I confirmed it with the text accompanying it.

Decimal places can be tricky sometimes.

[The Brain]

Now do the math BB.  Brain is roughly correct.

the real problem with Brain's per capita calculation is that it does not account for the emissions per barrel of oil.  That is Canada's problem.

I'm just going to quote this here for posterity's sake...


To be fair to Brain, when I first looked up the figures I thought he was right - but then I realized that the graph I was looking at (which listed about 5,100 barrels of oil) was denominated in the number of thousands of barrels of oil.  I confirmed it with the text accompanying it.

Decimal places can be tricky sometimes.

I'm not sure I follow.

FWIW Wiki (I know) agrees with me and CC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

[Jacob]

Using BB's number 0.13 (Canada) is closer to 0.0012 (Sweden), with a delta of  0.1288, than it is to 0.4 (Norway) with a delta of 0.27.

Using wikipedia's numbers 100,000 (Canada) is closer to 0 (Sweden), with a delta of 100,000, than it is to 300,000 (Norway) with a delta of 200,000.

(this is per capita, in absolute numbers Canada is closer to Norway than Sweden as it produces more)

[Barrister]

Now do the math BB.  Brain is roughly correct.

the real problem with Brain's per capita calculation is that it does not account for the emissions per barrel of oil.  That is Canada's problem.

I'm just going to quote this here for posterity's sake...


To be fair to Brain, when I first looked up the figures I thought he was right - but then I realized that the graph I was looking at (which listed about 5,100 barrels of oil) was denominated in the number of thousands of barrels of oil.  I confirmed it with the text accompanying it.

Decimal places can be tricky sometimes.

I'm not sure I follow.

FWIW Wiki (I know) agrees with me and CC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

Your list doesn't even include Sweden.

Norway produces about 4x as much oil per capita as Canada.

Canada produces about 100x as much oil as Sweden per capita.

Which country is the better comparison for Canada?

[The Brain]

Now do the math BB.  Brain is roughly correct.

the real problem with Brain's per capita calculation is that it does not account for the emissions per barrel of oil.  That is Canada's problem.

I'm just going to quote this here for posterity's sake...


To be fair to Brain, when I first looked up the figures I thought he was right - but then I realized that the graph I was looking at (which listed about 5,100 barrels of oil) was denominated in the number of thousands of barrels of oil.  I confirmed it with the text accompanying it.

Decimal places can be tricky sometimes.

I'm not sure I follow.

FWIW Wiki (I know) agrees with me and CC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

Your list doesn't even include Sweden.

Norway produces about 4x as much oil per capita as Canada.

Canada produces about 100x as much oil as Sweden per capita.

Which country is the better comparison for Canada?

In my calculation I put Sweden's production at 0.

I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning regarding which makes the best comparison.

[Barrister]

Using BB's number 0.13 (Canada) is closer to 0.0012 (Sweden), with a delta of  0.1288, than it is to 0.4 (Norway) with a delta of 0.27.

Using wikipedia's numbers 100,000 (Canada) is closer to 0 (Sweden), with a delta of 100,000, than it is to 300,000 (Norway) with a delta of 200,000.

(this is per capita, in absolute numbers Canada is closer to Norway than Sweden as it produces more)

Just to be clear - this is like arguing that Donald Trump (net worth around $2 billion) has more in common with a homeless person (net worth zero), than he does with Jeff Bezos (net worth $195 billion), because a $2 billion difference is less than a $193 billion difference.

[viper37]

Seems like COP26 announcements are starting to heat up and this one is particularly striking as I understand China finances about 70% of international coal plant building:

Karl Mathiesen
@KarlMathiesen
BREAK: Xi Jinping says China will stop building coal plants overseas. This almost completely ends the international finance of coal in a single sentence.

Also Biden is doubling the US commitment to support developing countries' energy transition.

Edit: For wider context - South Korea and Japan are also ending funding this year:

What is it about UK restarting their own coal plants?

[Sheilbh]

What is it about UK restarting their own coal plants?

It could be one of two things I think.

One is Drax power plant. It's now largely biomass but started life as a coal-fired plant, different units have been shut down and then converted to biomass. I think the last few coal units are supposed to be shut down this year (then converted) but given the current energy crisis they have said if requested they can delay shutting them down.

The other is a proposed new coal mine in Cumbria. Generally these are being shut down and there are very few left operating. I'm torn on this. My basic view is that we shouldn't open new coal mines. But the proposal is for a mine that would basically only produce coke for steel manufacturing. The last UK steel producers almost went bust in the 2010s or so and I strongly supported the idea of nationalising them because I think it is important to have some domestic steel manufacturing capacity. There is no UK coke production so it's largely imported mainly from Australia, Russia and Colombia. So I sort of feel like if I wanted that industry to survive and I think it should exist domestically then I should accept the UK taking the hit on exctracting the fossil fuels for it and it sort of living on our carbon budget. But I don't know

Coal-fired power plants in general are still shutting down and will be unlawful from 2025.

[The Brain]

Using BB's number 0.13 (Canada) is closer to 0.0012 (Sweden), with a delta of  0.1288, than it is to 0.4 (Norway) with a delta of 0.27.

Using wikipedia's numbers 100,000 (Canada) is closer to 0 (Sweden), with a delta of 100,000, than it is to 300,000 (Norway) with a delta of 200,000.

(this is per capita, in absolute numbers Canada is closer to Norway than Sweden as it produces more)

Just to be clear - this is like arguing that Donald Trump (net worth around $2 billion) has more in common with a homeless person (net worth zero), than he does with Jeff Bezos (net worth $195 billion), because a $2 billion difference is less than a $193 billion difference.

I don't see it.