2019 forecast - Climate Change is primary issue humans face, ignored because of Economics

I work for a reseller that does not own any E&P or generation; we buy wholesale and sell retail. We're not producing any green house gases. The company's official position is that climate change is real and is a threat to our future and that the company will facilitate its customers' efforts to reduce their carbon impacts. To that end, we sell renewable power, we install commercial solar, we provide energy efficiency solutions. But, I suppose we also are willing to sell fossil fuel energy if that's what the customer wants, so in your paradigm we're bad people.

I'm sympathetic to your concerns because I share them. I do not want to give my children a planet with sunken cities, scorching summers, and natural disasters. But, the worldview you present in the OP is so facile and so unhelpful that I can't take it seriously. We need the energy industry for civilization to function. Most in the energy industry now recognize the problem and are transforming to address it, but it's like turning a battleship and it's going to take time -- maybe even time we don't have. There are some monied interests in the energy industry that want to milk the old fossil fuels as long as they can, but they are not all the market -- outside the oil industry (not my area), I wouldn't even say half.

I do oppose nuclear energy for environmental and innovation reasons, which I explained in some other thread. Watch in the next 1-2 years as Democrats fall for a simpleminded zero-emission argument and give over a billion dollars to Exelon shareholders anyway. But I'm a big fan of renewables, storage, electrification, free markets, distributed generation, smart grids, automated and market-based energy management, and progressive decarbonization regulation. That's the path forward I see. I'm glad that I work for a company that lets me do my part to save the planet.

 

strong odds the people responsible for that report don't live like climate change is a concern

hazard a guess what carbon footprint percentile they fall into?

 

irrelevant.

 

Skin in The Game is the most relevant thing.

Look at their actions for truth, not their words.

"How much you truly “believe” in something can only be manifested through what you are willing to risk for it."

 

So if I murder someone my "skin in the game" makes me the appropriate party to pronounce my own sentence?

Sorry Mr Impartial Judge. You ain't got no skin in the game. If you knew that b***h you'd agree she needed to die.

The skin in the game is the same skin in the game that allows nonsmokers to exile smokers to the smoking dungeon. Your "skin" has direct effect on my skin... and bones and heart and lungs.

 

Even if true, so what? How they personally live their lives says very little about what they believe about the problem. Some of them may be personally lazy, or they may believe whatever they do is not enough to make a real difference (which is, in fact, true).

Why not focus on the findings in the report rather than going after the hundreds of people, across dozens of agencies, who produced the report?

 

The evidence they are presenting is the most relevant thing. How these people personally live their lives is only relevant to people who are unwilling to look at the evidence. It is a blatant ad hominem argument.

 

Well, I am working part time in solar energy - and as soon as I finish my game, and sell the company will move their full time.....for my last 15 or so working years.

DD

 

Texas has a great model that effectively uses markets to take risk off of consumers. But it still uses a regulated monopoly model for the natural monopoly of electric distribution. So the superstructure of the system will still be master planned. But generating units and other assets on the system are private investments, meaning shareholders will take the risk of those investments and not their customers. If you heard about that SCANA boondoggle nuclear plant in the southeast - that will cost ratepayers hundreds of millions even though they had nothing to do with the failure. That doesn’t happen in Texas. So yeah I think we’re in good shape. The concern today is that maybe there isn’t enough compensation to get generators to risk building. But ERCOT is using market-based tweaks to address.

 

We all know we will die. Some tell others, hey, don't waste your time on internet forum, chasing after material goods, working too hard. Spend your time with your family and friends, and don't do the silly arguments and fights, holding grudges and stuffs. Some of those some then do pretty much what they preached to others not to do. Human are funny in that way. But it sure doesn't change the fact that we all know we will die.

 

The suffering that's going to happen is the fault of idiots like you, because if it were not idiots like you, something might have gotten done in time to have prevented this.

 

"cautious optimism" from the former U.S. Energy Secretary

https://www.irishtimes.com/business...t-global-response-to-climate-change-1.3692191

more at the link

 

19 of 20 world leaders pledge to fight global warming. Guess who the 1 who didn't was.

Of all his ****ery, his stance on the environment makes me truly sad.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/12/trump-g20-climate-paris-accord-denial/

 

yep, that pesky economics

"What does the National Climate Assessment actually say? In 2090 the U.S. will experience annual climate-related costs of $500 billion. Notice that $500 billion, to echo a widespread misinterpretation of the Times report, is not 10% even of today’s economy (it’s 2.5%). It’s 10% of 1971’s economy.

"Steven Koonin, a former Obama administration official and physicist, made a similar point last week on these pages. He calculates that, after climate costs and modest assumptions about growth, 2090’s economy would still be 3.8 times larger than today’s. If so, $500 billion in annual costs would amount to just 0.6% of GDP. Understand too that many costs enumerated in the report are not detractors from gross domestic product but contributors to it. Building a sea wall adds to GDP. Constructing a house to withstand 2090’s weather adds to GDP."​

https://www.wsj.com/articles/press-is-the-enemy-of-climate-1543966906?mod=hp_opin_pos2

 

They probably have a understanding of the scale and magnitude of emmisions reduction required better than you since you know..
They actually did the math and concluded that indvindivi actions won't do **** but rather drastic reform in industry, government regulation and international cooperation will only make a dent.