All of this "green" technology we've produced hasn't made an iota of a difference, yet, in terms of the actual problem. Maybe it will soon? Let's hope.
Globally industrialization and increased economic activity hides these improvements, but without green technology things would be much worse.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/natural-ga...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuel-production?co...
Looking at that graph, it looks like a mirror: the more coal decreased recently, the more other fossil fuel extraction increased. This goes back to my original point: The rate of fossil fuel extraction is the only metric that matters. And it's not going down in any meaningful way, is it? Hopefully soon, but I'm doubtful.
In terms of electricity, net fossil fuel use per person is also down significantly from 9,616 kWh per person in 2008 to 7,861 kWh in 2019. Gasoline is fairly steady and responds to economic activity, from 141 billion gallons in 2004 to 134 in 2012 and back up to 146 in 2019. That looks slightly better when you consider the 12% population increase from 2004.
On a global scale, worldwide production of fossil fuels is not going down. I fail to see any evidence that this is being fixed. Maybe someday the various technologies will converge in a way that fixes the issue -- but I doubt it.
Global trends are more troublesome, but coal peaked in 2013 and it’s use has declined from 44,993 TWH in 2013 to 43,839 in 2019.
Anyway, per person numbers are critical for understanding trends. Infrastructure ages, the average US power plant is over 41 years old in 2020. The industry is essentially running off a huge cliff, which is less obvious when you look at year over year production. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-age-o... In China on the other hand the average coal power plant is 11, that infrastructure is likely going to be around for decades.
Long term the rest of the world is catching up developed economies, but what that meant in 2006 looked much worse than what that means today.
That's exactly my point. It doesn't matter if one country becomes completely carbon neutral. We're screwed anyways if oil extraction continues unabated. It's easy to play around with different numbers to find ones that are favorable, but you can't hide the fact that fossil fuel extraction hasn't gone down. Unless it rapidly slows, and then stops, we're screwed, no matter which countries emit less carbon. And no matter which populations are more "efficient."
Climate change is cumulative so both reducing past emissions, reducing growth in emissions, and slowing down future emissions matter, but the sooner you start the less rapid the change needs to be.
That’s especially true when for example old cars are exported to developing countries. Those hybrids people bought in 2010 are going to end up in South America, Africa, India etc.
That's where I'm quite skeptical. I'm very doubtful that overall fossil fuel extraction will decrease. This is a worldwide problem. The climate is affected by the global level of fossil fuel use, not by the amount released by individual countries. The extraction rate is still at or near record highs (worldwide). Will it slow down? Maybe? However, it seems unlikely, given the political and economic cost necessary to actually make a real dent. Governments just aren't taking the problem as seriously as they should.
Where I see real progress globally is more efficient processes release less CO2 so there are economic incentives even if governments do nothing. India isn’t building solar farms to look green, they are building solar farms to save money. That means even more economies of scale and thus more solar farms.
As these trends continue eventually fossil fuels lose economies of scale. That’s by far a more realistic path to success than every single government making wise long term policy decisions. Will that be fast enough is kind of an arbitrary metric, it’s not going to be as fast as possible but it will avert the worst possibilities.
I fought hard for transit-alternatives in Austin... left the city when they ditched the bicycle master-plan to build an express lane on the freeway. I fought for transit alts in NYC, and they've seen a bunch of progress, and I'm fighting for the same in SF now, also seeing slow progress.
To this day, the vast majority of people are so deeply dependent on fossil fuels, the asks put forward are considered unacceptable. How do we run AC in Texas? How do we convince people to, not just build up, but to build anything. How do we turn suburbs into commuter towns? How do we convert interstate highways into high-speed rail. How do we convince people that meat should be a special occasion food, not the basis for every meal. The concept of a carbon tax is so, so obvious, but people have built their lives around carbon every second of every day. We can't even solve the fucking duck curve for electric generation even though getting batteries in every home is an easy solution.
I'm so jaded at this point, but I'll never give up fighting for mitigation, even if it seems so fucking impossible. I have my plans in place to move to places that will likely benefit from the changes... but that's just the world we live in.
But indeed, jaded is the term. I've pretty much given up, I could no longer justify making all these changes while around me everybody is partying like it's 1999, yes, I'm an idealist and would love for people to wake up but I don't have the energy to be a living example for decades without any meaningful impact.
I still try to drive as little as possible and do the bulk of my trips on the e-bike but I'm not going to overdo it and I'm happy to take the car when it rains. Frustrating, but ultimately a few people are not going to be able to convince a public that 100's of times larger that they should change their ways when society's momentum is still moving the other way, and politicians will not move until they feel that such a move will land well with their electorate. We've made a lot of changes in spite of all that, too little, too late, but given the amount of headwind I still consider that an impressive result.
The dutch have a proverb 'the ship will be turned by the shore', if you don't change course in time then your course will be changed for you, but then by main force. It would have been better to avoid that but apparently collectively we only really learn the hard way. Which is a pity because if humanity would resolve its differences amicably and start pulling in the same direction for a change this place could be paradise, for all of us instead of just for a select few.
1. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/renewable-electricity-per...
Yeah I've been saying this for months but people refuse to get it. I can't even get people to the point where they'll rebut that Russian oil is at least discounted; they don't even admit the chain exists.
> My point is national security is enough reason alone to move off from oil and thus it should a matter of security for a country to do so.
Okay, fair enough and I agree.
Which is the way these things go: "we should do nothing because it is so far into the future", "we should do nothing because it is too expensive and affects our lifestyle too much and besides it doesn't affect us, but only our children", "we should do nothing because we're already past the point of no return".
You are somewhere in the middle, and I'm already at the third stage but still believe we should do something because it might take the edge of. Sticking your head in the sand certainly isn't going to help.
It has, without all the green tech we'd be in even worse shape.