At what point does this become so scary that something happens to increase the taxes on fossil fuels so that consumption will go down?
Falling renewable prices are not enough, and use-based taxes are the single best way to let individuals make their own decisions about what/how much to use.
Carbon credits are a good market-based solution too, but it seems likely that people and industries will try to game the system.
If Japan is losing population to climate change, if the US is losing population to climate change, if the EU is losing population to climate change, THEN we will see change.
Deaths in Indonesia, middle East, Africa, South + Central America won't be enough to inspire change. The people who have the power won't act until they feel directly threatened.
The scary thing is that these reefs are so incredibly diverse & their creation took millions of years. Millions of years to create and they can be globally destroyed in just 200 or so years.
It's also scary is to consider what else may be balanced just as precariously.
Slight increases make it impossible for some creatures to create shells. Those creatures are key parts of the food chain, which means that fisheries (already under sever pressure from over-fishing) risk total collapse.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140502-ocean...
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidificati...
But not all species are going to be vulnerable to this. Some grow thicker shells. http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-r...
> Under very high experimental CO2 conditions, the shells of clams, oysters, and some snails and urchins partially dissolved. But other species seemed as if they would not be harmed, and crustaceans, such as lobsters, crabs, and prawns, appeared to increase their shell-building (see interactive).
The entire discussion around coral reefs has been going on since I was young and can remember(at least 20-odd years). It was always emotional (think of the children level guilt-tripping, almost), and was always "assumed" and dictated. There was never any convincing, discussing; it was just the way it is and we as young children were to accept it.
And despite all of that, we as a society have spoken the other way around and gone ahead and potentially ruined the delicate environment required for these creatures. It's who a majority of us are. Perhaps not who we should be, or who we'd like to be, but this is largely of our doing and our inability to convince those in power and the rest of society to protect the things we value.
It seems like a revolution is necessary to stop them from acting against humanity's long term existence for their short term financial gain.
Reminds me a bit of banning plastic bags in California to help the ocean. That's lovely, but given Asia dumps something like 150 times the amount plastics into the ocean, so is basically meaningless.
They were banned because they don't decompose, so they end up all over the place. Not just in the ocean, but on the beach, in creeks, lakes, anywhere near a highway, etc. As an example local to Silicon Valley, Stevens Creek used to be completely clogged with plastic bags. It's gotten a lot better now.
Of course any wasteland or street is still littered with fast food plastic, plastic bottles and the excessive packaging found in most supermarkets.
We have slightly effective recycling schemes for a tiny proportion of what we use, and massive amounts of recycling end up shipped to the developing world to be dumped. Manufacturers of TVs, appliances, IoT toys and any thing else using plastics aren't required to own their debris at end of lifespan.
So, as is typical with modern politics, we've had a token gesture that affects the public but utterly avoids the real issue.
The oceans are doomed unless we grow up and own our debris as a species.
"Paper or Plastic?
How many plastic bags does the US use in one year? 10 bags per grocery store trip x 2 trips per week x 52 weeks per year = 1000 bags per person per year. 300 x 10^6 people in the U.S. = 300 x 10^11 bags in the US per year.
Is this a lot? Compared to what? A roll of bags weighs a few ounces so there are about 200 bags/lb Your 10^3 bags weigh about 5 pounds.
The 500 gallons of gasoline you burned last year weighs 4000 pounds (2 tons).
Your 10^3 bags are irrelevant. (Just don’t litter)."
...Or use a re-usable bag ;)
I want to read "How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint Of Everything" by Mike Berners-Lee. It addresses similar disconnections on how we think about our impact on the climate, and the steps we take to try and do something. For example, people who bike everywhere, but eat foods shipped from all over the world over local produce.
I agree that focus are many times misdirected and ineffective, but that's no reason not to try.
China signed a climate deal with the US to limit emissions for the first time in 2014. In 2015 they and earlier this year they signed a global deal on climate also.
Leading and being by example can lead to change.
China dumps a lot of CO2, and it's growing. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/sci...
One could say this about both sides of this issue. Clean tech has utilized an enormous amount of lobbying and been given substantial subsidies as a result - despite the lack of appreciable results.
Solar would continue to grow if it were economically viable on its own. It's getting closer and I hope it gets there. But when I said "appreciable results" I meant the introduction of economically viable alternatives, absent subsidies.
Do you think any of that evidence is terrifying to skeptics? If not, think about why not.
Hilarious considering the truth.
The US has done a lot to help out climate change and the environment. We have all kinds of EPA standards on our vehicles (that are actually followed), which have been in place for at least a decade or more. I can go to most major cities and not feel like I'm choking from the rancid air.
These taxes only end up strangling our economy because we follow the rules and other countries go un-checked because there is virtually no penalty.
"Carbon credits are a good market-based solution too, but it seems likely that people and industries will try to game the system."
Carbon credits are a joke. Huge companies pay for them and then just continue polluting. I thought the goal was to fix our environment, not make carbon credit companies wealthy. Money shouldn't give you a free pass to pollute.
Are we also going to tax electric vehicles because the batteries cause damage to the environment (and we don't have a good way to dispose of them yet)? How about the electricity used to charge the vehicle itself? Will that be taxed as well unless it's solar/wind/hydro?
Do you have citations for this?
I don't see any reason to say the batteries damage the environment.
The damage to the environment may not be egregious, but it is clear enough that it is there.
You're jumping to conclusions on the actual solution to the problem.
I suggest unpacking this problem a bit more. Given the time scales, and potential delay between addition of CO2 into the atmosphere and consequence, I imagine that we should also be thinking "How do we adjust to our new climate?". "Taxes, now" is short sighted.