If we can't have a carbon tax because of the politics, we should at least try for a ban on fracking. Every molecule of gas extracted has to go somewhere, either into the atmosphere directly or as CO2.
https://www.drawdown.org/ has a big list of things that can be done, with the benefits of each in terms of cost and carbon reduction. It would make most sense to work through the list. If you guessed what number 1 is, you're a smarter human than I am!
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/materials/refrigerant-man...
I feel differently. We should do everything. All at the same time. We don't have the luxury of time to pick and choose anymore.
Good that you brought up the drawdown project. Even the number 1 on their list is "only" like about 5% of total ghg.
No single solution will be enough. So we need to try to do as much in as many sectors as possible. Including fracking.
As much as it would incredibly suck (for convenience and variety in life) I think we, as a species, need to completely abandon fossil fuels in the next 10 years. Sadly it'll never happen, we will be burning fossil fuels well past seeing massive deaths from starvation/drought/unpredictable weather/food wars.
Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight.
The good news is that it wouldn't even suck. I don't think so. We are being brainwashed (sorry, being informed about products and services via advertisement) that car ownership is the best thing since the pill, and that flying to a tech conference is a great experience. There are better (and much less polluting) ways to have fun. I believe without the fossil industry we will flourish and our quality of life will skyrocket.
Doesn't have to be run on fossil fuels, though.
You don't need to force anyone. It's happening by itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization
Bring farming machinery into the equation and replacing fossil fuels suddenly becomes far more important than reducing car ownership.
It would for me. I work in international freight, I'd be unemployed. It looks like my employer may have used 1.2 billion gallons of jet fuel alone last year, if these figures are accurate https://www.statista.com/statistics/878539/fedex-express-tot... -- at 9.57kg of carbon per gallon that is 11,640,000 metric tons of carbon (again if the numbers are accurate) just from our planes last year :(
We'd also be forced back to a (largely) pre 1950s-1960sish era level of tech as devices started to die off simply because we currently don't have the means of mining and moving goods globally on renewable energy at anywhere near current levels. I'm mostly fine with this though, if I woke up tomorrow and magic had made the computers/the internet/smartphones/e-readers disappear I'd have a really rough few days then I'd be like "oh well, let's go outside or down to the library, let me show these kids how a card catalog works".
What is your profession? If it has anything to do with software you will EASILY find a job in ANY industry.
> means of mining and moving goods globally
Electronics are perfectly recyclable.
> let's go outside or down to the library
+1
Which is also the lever to go to net zero, make emissions of CO2 and such expensive enough and the world will change.
That being said, done well a global supply chain can very well be more efficient from a emissions perspective than a non-global one. The optimization knowledge needed to achieve that is already there. So, all in all I guess transportation of goods will even be more important going forward.
clean energy will free more people to choose to live how they want to live rather than live how others tell them too.
By cultivating dissatisfaction and greed in the populace, it encourages net overconsumption and unnecessary waste.
This is the one mechanism that actually has the potential to turn the entire economy around without directly making politicians look bad, so it has a nonzero chance of passing.
The best thing you can do for the climate today is to call your representatives about this bill, or better, send handwritten letters or letters to the editor.
Without fracking were we closing this many coal plants?
Would other nations close this many coal plants?
Not sure when zero coal is going to happen in Germany...
If a carbon tax is so high that fertiliser becomes uneconomic to use (which is sorta the goal of a carbon tax at some point, to squeeze people who emit so they behave differently) that is maybe going to start impacting food prices. Somebody is going to feel that. As a political topic fertiliser needs careful handling.