So, although the vast majority of the world’s carbon outputs can be blamed on 100 or so companies around the world, the way in which these emissions eventually reached the consumer who, through their use of a product finally injects a significant part of that carbon into the atmosphere, is complex, and so hard to count.
The consumer makes the emissions.
The fact is that we do not wish to measure the amount of carbon that is being injected into the atmosphere as if that is the way to solve our climate crisis. What we as a society want is that those emissions be radically reduced. In other words, the problem that businesses have to solve is not how they measure their carbon emissions, but how they eliminate them, and at what cost.
No, therefore it is the consumer that must reduce their emissions.
The problem that must be solved is carbon elimination. It is a completely different issue and many of the decisions that are required to achieve it do not require absolute precision in carbon counting. It is time that we focused on the important issues.
Quite so, which pretty much kills sustainable cost accounting, doesn’t it?
Carbon elimination. Life on this planet is carbon based. I really wish activists would think before they said or write things.
The problem is that living a completely environmentally friendly impact free life is inconvenient and actually takes a lot of work. You have to have dedication to use the the required products and solutions.
The rest of us are simply waiting for the alternatives to fossil fuels to become convenient, workable and cheap.
So, although the vast majority of the world’s carbon outputs can be blamed on 100 or so companies around the world, the way in which these emissions eventually reached the consumer who, through their use of a product finally injects a significant part of that carbon into the atmosphere, is complex, and so hard to count.
The fact is that we do not wish to measure the amount of carbon that is being injected into the atmosphere as if that is the way to solve our climate crisis.
Timmy –
I think it might be time for you to start a “This week’s Ritchie Sentence” to highlight just how awful a writer he is. Back in the days of Dennis the Peasant I did the same with Amanduh Marcotte. It was great fun in a mean-spirited sort of way.
He writes in a way that suggests Esperanto as being his native tongue.
The only way to have no impact on the environment is not to exist. No doubt this is what the drongo has in mind – for the rest of us.
Dennis is right. He has an increasingly stilted didactic style. The second meaning in that link fits him perfectly.
Go on Ritchie, why don’t you set an example? Show us poor, ignorant consumers how to live a carbon-free life.
When you’ve managed that for, say, 10 years, then we’ll all know how easy it can be!
Given the oft tortured nature of my own writing style that might be a tease too far.
Another in Spud’s long line of world problems he has no expertise in but where he alone has the answers and everyone else is wrong.
“we as a society”
Oh, f**k off. Unless you’re speaking for a formally constituted Society for Buggering Everything Up, just f**k off.
I am still waiting to hear the origin story of how Tim and Ritchie became mortal enemies. A new Netflix series?
I’ll just remind everyone:
This is a SINGLE man, living in a FOUR bedroom house, with THREE public rooms, preaching about over-consumption and carbon emissions
@Bravefart
You have been to his house?
@BF
But he’s hardly an exception. Pretty well all of the people loudly advocating reducing carbon emissions to a point of poverty live carbon extravagant lives. The Insulate Britain women takes her kids to school in a diesel car & the similar oik holiday tours Europe in a diesel van. When he’s not flying the Atlantic.
“ The problem that must be solved is carbon elimination. ”
Nope, that’s not the problem. The problem, to the extent there is a problem, is that we are wealthy and getting wealthier and we want that to continue and for the poor world to get wealthier as well. Nobody is going to elect politicians who promise to make us poorer and we certainly won’t re-elect those that do make us poorer.
The solution is an energy source that is cheap and reliable 24/7 and not just when the wind is blowing and the sun shining.
As it happens that’s the type of solution that humans are good at finding, especially when left to their own devices, being in a market economy helps.
To that end we need to stop all this bollocks about cutting CO2 at the margins and invest in R&D.
Of course that doesn’t produce sinecures for failed politicians, gobby environmentalist and assorted leeches who see dollars by declaring their hobby horses affected by climate change or solving climate change.
The industrial revolution may have caused lots of mess but made us wealthy enough in the west to be able to spend time, money and resources on cleaning up said mess and others besides, rather than staying poor and spending our time simply trying to stay alive.
None of the alternatives currently being offered are as good, cheap* or plentiful as those we currently have, so use those resources to make all the still poor people wealthy enough so that they can do the same and help to find better options.
*This may change given TPTB’s propensity for fucking up everything they touch.
p.s I liked Bidens commitment to building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the US. Shame he didn’t explain how they are going to get the electricity to those stations…..
There exists a CO2 cycle by which this trace gas enters and leaves the atmosphere naturally. Industrial activity adds roughly 3% to the plus side of this natural cycle. All things being equal, one would expect to see a small rise in CO2 levels as a result of this. But we don’t even know if things are equal. Given the fact that man made emissions are such a tiny part of the natural cycle, it is possible that ceasing all man made emissions would have no effect on these rising CO2 levels at all. In any case, the effects that some claimed that this extra CO2 would cause haven’t happened, strongly suggesting that they are wrong. So why are we rushing to abandon fossil fuels again?
Dennis,
A textual and lexicological analysis suggests that Spud’s first language would be “Old High Bollocks” inflected with and accented with Arrogantese and Pompousese.
It is exceptionally easy to translate into English.Replace any word with “Blah” and the meaning is perfectly preserved.
ANNRQ-
Well said.
I mean, to be fair, he’s not wrong when he says “can be blamed on”… If you’re looking to apportion blame rather than accurately determine causes.
I’m blaming the funeral pyres in India for the next few years.
“The amount of carbon that is being injected into the atmosphere “
For Fucks Sake – How many more times do I have to read the utterances of a twat who doesn’t know the difference between Carbon Dioxide (a harmless, trace gas) and the solid element CARBON… Along with this level of ignorance, and being lectured by “renewable energy experts” who don’t know the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt hour, I’m glad I completed my edjurkayshun before the real rot set in.
We’re all doomed, utterly doomed….
Isn’t the reason the forecast effects aren’t occurring that they keep finding that they don’t fully understand the process and turns out they missed some factors or control/feedback effects or some of the assumptions were wrong.
But of course the science is all settled isn’t it so I must be imagining all that
That these companies aren’t actually emitting themselves notwithstanding, wouldn’t the first step in creating a reduction program be *to measure your emissions and where they’re coming from*?
So you know what’s easy to change and what needs to be prioritized? And so you can figure out ‘at what cost’?
Oh, also so you can know if the things you implement actually are reducing emissions and by how much?
The lockdown had no measurable effect on CO2 emmissions. Despite closing down vast swathes of industry and transport systems, no measurable effect.