The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It takes plastic out the landfill and puts paper in instead, and the paper used more energy (CO2) to produce. That's better?

Did it? It's renewable, degrades naturally, and doesn't require extracting something out of the earth.

[milomilo]

Who cares if it came out the earth? All the reporting says a paper straw uses more energy to create than a plastic one (and that's probably true for any other packaging), and while it might be possible to compost some of the paper packaging, the majority of it will go in a landfill along with the plastic stuff where it will stay forever.

The impact of either packaging on the climate is going to be negligible, but seeing as the paper is marginally worse, it should not be seen as a win. Especially considering it contains food, including beef, that uses far more CO2 to make. The whole war on plastics thing is an ignorance fueled distraction.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Who cares if it came out the earth? All the reporting says a paper straw uses more energy to create than a plastic one (and that's probably true for any other packaging), and while it might be possible to compost some of the paper packaging, the majority of it will go in a landfill along with the plastic stuff where it will stay forever.

The impact of either packaging on the climate is going to be negligible, but seeing as the paper is marginally worse, it should not be seen as a win. Especially considering it contains food, including beef, that uses far more CO2 to make. The whole war on plastics thing is an ignorance fueled distraction.

I disagree. Power usage aside (can be renewable anyway), plastic stays around almost forever, and is having unpredictable impacts on our ecosystem (see: garbage island).

Paper will degrade and be absorbed much more quickly, and be definition is renewable.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I disagree. Power usage aside (can be renewable anyway), plastic stays around almost forever, and is having unpredictable impacts on our ecosystem (see: garbage island).

Paper will degrade and be absorbed much more quickly, and be definition is renewable.

Paper won't degrade if it goes in a landfill. And really, what is the actual problem with landfills?

All the nonsense around plastic recently has be shown to be a pack of lies. Ocean plastic isn't caused by straws. It's actually probably best we incinerate it, with carbon capture.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It takes plastic out the landfill and puts paper in instead, and the paper used more energy (CO2) to produce. That's better?

Cutting plastic isn't so much about climate change as it is about reducing trash and the recycling problems with plastics. Dunno where you got the idea that paper straws are about fighting climate change.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Cutting plastic isn't so much about climate change as it is about reducing trash and the recycling problems with plastics. Dunno where you got the idea that paper straws are about fighting climate change.

I don't have that idea, lots of other people conflate the issues though and this is a climate change thread after all. If people are going to fight a war against plastic, then it's right they are told they harming the climate in the process and have no idea what they are talking about.

And most of the other 'issues' with plastic are vastly misunderstood. There is no plastics problem in Canada, other than the pointless attempts to recycle things that will be net negative in energy terms.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

I'd like to defend my province and say that we're not all this ignorant, but I'm starting to feel like we deserve what's coming to us if we don't change course soon.

And that would be... better barley?

[whatnext]

Maybe governments should just ban SUVs. As I pointed out elsewhere, they were largely the creation of lazy, inept North Amercian automakers who could never make a decent small car:

SUVs second biggest cause of emissions rise, figures reveal

Growing demand for SUVs was the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018, an analysis has found.

In that period, SUVs doubled their global market share from 17% to 39% and their annual emissions rose to more than 700 megatonnes of CO2, more than the yearly total emissions of the UK and the Netherlands combined...

...As the global fleet of SUVs has grown, emissions from the vehicles have increased more than fourfold in eight years. If SUV drivers were a nation, they would rank seventh in the world for carbon emissions.

“An SUV is bigger, it’s heavier, the aerodynamics are poor, so as a result you get more CO2,” said Florent Grelier from the campaign group Transport & Environment....

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...figures-reveal

[milomilo]

Or perhaps people like SUVs?

I'd rather base policy on sound economics and science rather than emotional kneejerks.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by whatnext

they were largely the creation of lazy, inept North Amercian automakers who could never make a decent small car

Even if true, it turns out that everybody loves them.



https://www.jato.com/global-suv-boom...wth-moderates/

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Or perhaps people like SUVs?

I'd rather base policy on sound economics and science rather than emotional kneejerks.

I agree. Do what the Europeans do and apply fleet wide gCO2/km standards. Or nix the SUV exemptions from CAFE standards and treat them as cars. Watch how quickly automakers respond.

[milomilo]

Actually I'd say Canada's laws are as close to optimum as there is. We have the appropriate policies in place, we just need to increase the carbon price in line with what is acceptable to society. The rules should be as simple as possible.

[theman23]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I agree. Do what the Europeans do and apply fleet wide gCO2/km standards. Or nix the SUV exemptions from CAFE standards and treat them as cars. Watch how quickly automakers respond.

Except SUV sales have risen faster in Europe. Like I said, fuel taxes have been shown to reduce C02 emissions and influence consumer behaviours. Your personal demagoguery aside, taxing vehicles based on their emission rating has not.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by theman23

Except SUV sales have risen faster in Europe.

A misleading statistic that's often brought up. European sales are up..... From a smaller base.

Originally Posted by theman23

Like I said, fuel taxes have been shown to reduce C02 emissions and influence consumer behaviours. Your personal demagoguery aside, taxing vehicles based on their emission rating has not.

That's why I'm okay with simply resorting to regulatory measures and putting it all on the OEMs. Maybe this will get them to electrify SUVs faster. Taxing is only an option where IEMs have refused and successfully lobbied against things like including SUVs as cars under CAFE.

That aside this seems like a convenient dodge put up by folks who know that Canadian gas prices would never catch up to Europe, even with a $200/tonne carbon tax.

I'd like to see what your genuine solution is for this:

A recent report by the International Energy Agency shows that Canada’s vehicles have the highest average fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions per kilometre driven. They are also the largest and the second heaviest in the world.

...

Far and away the biggest reason for Canada’s fuel inefficient vehicles comes down to cost. Simply put, the cost to purchase and operate a gas guzzler in Canada (or the U.S.) is far less than the rest of the world.

This cost difference comes in two forms: upfront charges for vehicle registration and gas prices.

In Europe, vehicle registrations are often based on the vehicle’s fuel economy or emissions profile. In France, for example, car buyers face a sliding “bonus-malus” scale (or “feebate”). High-emitting vehicles incur a registration charge up to €10,000 while zero-emission vehicles receive €6,000 in rebates. And in Norway, where new vehicles are subject to a 25 per cent value-added tax and up to €10,000 in registration fees, electric vehicles are exempt from both charges.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5259474/c...-economy-cars/

Because you and I both know the carbon taxes probably won't be high enough in two decades to solve this.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by theman23

Except SUV sales have risen faster in Europe. Like I said, fuel taxes have been shown to reduce C02 emissions and influence consumer behaviours. Your personal demagoguery aside, taxing vehicles based on their emission rating has not.

Nope.

As the article points out 50% of vehicles sold in North America count as SUVs, in Europe it is only 33%.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Nope.

As the article points out 50% of vehicles sold in North America count as SUVs, in Europe it is only 33%.

And rapidly growing; Europeans just discovered the crossover later than North Americans and the Chinese. But in a decade or so, European car enthusiasts too will be lamenting the lack of hatchbacks and wagons with manual transmissions.

[whatnext]

From the Washington Post today, maybe I should visit before they're gone:

The ice used to protect them.
Now their island is crumbling into the sea.

ILES-DE-LA-MADELEINE, QUEBEC — High on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Adele Chiasson no longer ventures into her backyard for a simple reason: It is falling into the sea.

“I’m afraid to go out there,” the widow said one afternoon from the safety of her kitchen. She nodded toward the 70-foot-tall, red sandstone cliffs out back that creep closer with each passing year. “You never know when a section will fall off.”

Decades ago, when she and her husband moved to this modest house with its majestic views, they never imagined a vanishing coastline might one day drive them away. But the sea long ago claimed the ground where their children once played. An abandoned road out back has mostly crumbled into the surf below. Two of her neighbor’s homes have been moved inland...

..In the Magdalen Islands, the consequences are unmistakable: Some parts of the shoreline have lost as much as 14 feet per year to the sea over the past decade. Key roads face perpetual risk of washing out. The hospital and the city hall sit alarmingly close to deteriorating cliffs. Rising waters threaten to contaminate aquifers used for drinking water. And each year, the sea inches closer to more homes and businesses...

...Milder winters and longer summers have kept the tourists coming — some 80,000 trekked here last year to wind surf, bike and bird-watch — many arriving on a ferry that now runs year-round.

But the islands’ fragility has brought them a sort of grim notoriety. Time magazine put the Magdalen Islands on its list of “10 amazing places to visit before they vanish.” Architectural Digest included them on its “30 places to visit before they’re gone forever.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...limate-change/

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by whatnext

From the Washington Post today, maybe I should visit before they're gone:

The ice used to protect them.
Now their island is crumbling into the sea.

ILES-DE-LA-MADELEINE, QUEBEC — High on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Adele Chiasson no longer ventures into her backyard for a simple reason: It is falling into the sea.

“I’m afraid to go out there,” the widow said one afternoon from the safety of her kitchen. She nodded toward the 70-foot-tall, red sandstone cliffs out back that creep closer with each passing year. “You never know when a section will fall off.”

Decades ago, when she and her husband moved to this modest house with its majestic views, they never imagined a vanishing coastline might one day drive them away. But the sea long ago claimed the ground where their children once played. An abandoned road out back has mostly crumbled into the surf below. Two of her neighbor’s homes have been moved inland...

..In the Magdalen Islands, the consequences are unmistakable: Some parts of the shoreline have lost as much as 14 feet per year to the sea over the past decade. Key roads face perpetual risk of washing out. The hospital and the city hall sit alarmingly close to deteriorating cliffs. Rising waters threaten to contaminate aquifers used for drinking water. And each year, the sea inches closer to more homes and businesses...

...Milder winters and longer summers have kept the tourists coming — some 80,000 trekked here last year to wind surf, bike and bird-watch — many arriving on a ferry that now runs year-round.

But the islands’ fragility has brought them a sort of grim notoriety. Time magazine put the Magdalen Islands on its list of “10 amazing places to visit before they vanish.” Architectural Digest included them on its “30 places to visit before they’re gone forever.”...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...limate-change/

Maybe they shouldn’t have cut down all the trees, you know those things that protect islands against soil erosion?

Prior to permanent settlement, the vegetation of the Magdalen Islands was mostly dense coniferous forests (i.e., Balsam Fir, Abies balsamea, and spruce, Picea spp.), though these were likely dwarfed and twisted by the wind into “elfinwoods”. Interspersed among these forests were boggy areas and low sand ridges (Hamilton 2002). The six main islands of the archipelago have experienced deforestation starting in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At present, GoogleEarth imagery (2015) shows that much of the vegetation on Île du Havre Aubert, Île du Havre aux Maisons, Île du Cap aux Meules and Île d’Entrée have been cleared and are now open meadow or pasture habitats, with little conifer forest remaining.

[FrankieFlowerpot]

https://climatecommunication.yale.ed...ons-data/ccom/

[WarrenC12]

Quick let's get one for vaccines, flat earth, and gravity.