Exxon says world set to fail 2°C global warming cap by 2050 | Hacker News Reader

Exxon says world set to fail 2°C global warming cap by 2050

reuters.com

71 pointsmyshpa142 comments

Amusing that fossil fuel companies are now both

- Acknowledging that Anthropogenic Global Warming is real, and - Revealing that their confidence on its effects is so strong, they can publicly predict its impact on global climate decades into the future.

I guess from their perspective, in spite of all criticism, they are just accommodating the energy demands of the global market, which have been universally "more energy now" until very recently.

They have gone from denial to 'It's too late so don't bother to try stopping us' as a propaganda strategy.

This is just part of that.

It's not happening and there isn't anything to worry about... right up until the moment when it's already happened and there isn't anything that can be done.

I recently heard it referred to as "The Slow Breakup" pattern[1] from a Youtuber who has done a great job (though tone is a little much sometimes) of breaking down alt-right propaganda and rhetoric, though these tactics can be used by any political movement.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpUN0q35Lak&list=PLJA_jUddXv...

"Don't bother to try stopping us"? When you're the paying customer, it's easy for you to stop your vendor from selling to you.

Not when your vendor is part of a vast ecosystem that is nearly impossible to opt out of. Even aside from what you buy directly, this vendor's products is baked into every product you buy. The entire national infrastructure is designed with this vendor's goals in mind.

The easiest way to see it would be to put a tax on the vendor's products, at the source. But they have lobbied specifically against that, as well as other any other approach that might cut into their profits.

I believe most of the sources do tax their products heavily. I'm Norwegian and we tax them at about 80%. Surely the Saudi princes' private airplanes were paid for with tax revenues, too.

Maybe you mean that the consumers' countries should tax the fossil fuel sold to consumers. You're a voter in one of those, I bet, and probably one that taxes fossil fuel at a rate well below 80%.

Have you stopped using fossil fuels and consuming products that required fossil fuels for their production and transportation? I'm guessing not since you haven't starved to death and have access to the Internet.

It's not possible to stop this juggernaut through individuals choosing to opt out of fossil fuels.

As an individual, my fossil fuel usage in August has been... probably not zero but low enough that I don't know about any. That seems irrelevant though, since I don't go around claiming that the banks/elite/1%/oil companies/jews made me do it and I'm powerless to stop.

I don't consider myself powerless. I can do some things, can't do others. Most significantly, I vote. That ~80% tax was established, and not just that. For example, you may have seen this charger (blue and white on the left)?

https://www.wartsila.com/images/default-source/products/e-pm...

That tiny little charger charges the batteries on the ferry. It and the ferry had to be developed. I voted for that and it exists.

It's a mess.

Energy companies are both huge part of the problem - and at the same time the only reason modern civilization exists.

Hydrocarbons are primary input still to most of the processes we have to exist above ... well, actually exist, because the alternative with this amount of people to hydrocarbon driven economy is mass starvation.

The energy companies should be taken to court for the damage they have done to planet via their anti-climate-action PR.

But, at the same time we need their product to live.

> But, at the same time we need their product to live.

This isn’t a binary choice. Imagine how much better off we’d be now if they’d accepted their own scientists’ reports in the 1970s and tried to get in on greening the economy instead of funding decades of obstruction? Jimmy Carter could have gotten his nuclear power plants, the remaining ICE vehicles would use a fraction of the fuel as the average vehicle purchased in the United States today, and we’d be saving our carbon emissions for things which are harder to replace like industrial chemistry rather than literally heating the outdoors so someone doesn’t need to wear long sleeves to dinner.

I think the more consistent counterfactual scenario without mass hydrocarbon extraction would be to consider that population would not have grown to the current level (instead of imagining the current population and a sudden disappearance of hydrocarbons).

Large energy companies should be nationalized and run rationally, i.e. in a way that acknowledges the extreme scarcity of waste absorption capacity we are faced with.

I think proponents of this should move to some of the beautiful utopias where the energy companies are already nationalized and through the magic of socialism, emissions will no doubt cease any day now: Venezuela, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia, Kuwait, Nigeria, or China.

My point here is that nationalization has nothing to do with climate change.

Norway did it

Nationalization is not a guaranteed solution because of the dangers of populism.

Venezuela sheds a tear.

Nationalized industry sucks. Every time we try it, ultimately we get worse off. But if you're saying that we need to have a carbon trading market or some other such strong regulation that includes externalities, yes we definitely should. In the US, conservatives used to believe in market-based approaches to solving big problems. Now they just deny the problems exist. This is the mindset of a child, not an adult. Grown ups own their mistakes and solve the problems, they don't point fingers and deny they exist.

> In 2015, investigative journalists uncovered that ExxonMobil had known that burning fossil fuels would lead to potentially catastrophic climate impacts as early as the late 1970s. Subsequent reporting showed that the company, and its oil and gas industry peers, likely knew about these impacts as early as the 1950s.

>This January, Harvard researchers published a new report that showed that not only did Exxon know about climate change, they were predicting the exact amount of global warming we’re now experiencing with remarkable accuracy.

exxonknew.org (The website is now changed to an emberassing star wars theme sadly.)

Shell also knew very early:

https://www.ftm.eu/articles/shell-climate-coal

> I guess from their perspective, in spite of all criticism, they are just accommodating the energy demands of the global market, which have been universally "more energy now" until very recently.

Most comments here comes down to 'that's just humanity man' while these are people that spend millions if not billions on manipulating public perception of fossil fuels even though they knew they were lying and inflicting actual harm on the world. It would've cost the economy much much less if we had started transitioning in the 1970s instead of knowingly leaving externalized debt to the rest of humanity.

"Big bad energy companies" is tiring. We demand the energy. Sure they should be held liable for lying. But it would be hard to convince me that if they did tell the truth things would of played out any different.

Energy is the life blood of our civilization.

The physical safety of executives at places like Exxon is at least in part dependent on the fact that people like me have too much to lose. They don't just deserve blame. They deserve some kind of justice.

Nobody has made them invest in more and more infrastructure instead of alternative energy. Nobody made them pay public relations companies to spread FUD about climate science and mitigation. These people are guilty of crimes against humanity as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, the same way America is outsourcing most of our carbon emissions whenever we claim to be reducing them, it is tiring. However the fact that they continue to also poison us directly by evading or influencing environmental regulations and lie about that stuff too - I wish I could see a beatdown.

I think if disinformation about Global Warming hadn't been rampant since the 80s directly due to the actions of these companies, that would be great. We could have been talking about these goals decades ago, we wouldn't have presidents and other elected officials running on a campaign that it's fake and we shouldn't care.

I think hell would be too good for the people who knew about this issue and lied for decades about it to try to turn a buck, instead of just doing the obvious thing and investing in new energy technologies.

They knew about CC 40 years ago. Their response was to do the same as tobacco industry did: resist all evidence and misinform the public in favour of profits. If that hadn't happened, we would absolutely have been sharper with our response.

No. They knew about CC. in the 50's - their own engineers pointed out the problem and the dire repercussions it would have. Admittedly, those engineers had only just realized what physicists had known since the late 19th century.

No matter how you slice it, as you point out, they've known about the problem, they've lied about the problem, they've spent millions of dollars in a public deception campaign - and they've been doing it for decades.

Heck, we're still getting to the bottom of all the damage brought on by their adding tetraethyl lead to their gasoline. It's going to take even longer sorting out through all this mess. They'd just like us to forget about it and move along. That's not gonna happen.

> which have been universally "more energy now" until very recently

They’re still that. The nature of competition suggests they’ll always be that. Trying to square the circle without acknowledging that led to a lot of failed environmental policy over the past decades.

Is Exxon saying that? It sounds like this article is combining Exxon’s profit forecast of “the world will use 25 billion metric tons of oil in 2050” with the IPCC’s “that won’t be enough to keep below 2 degrees” report, whether or not Exxon actually acknowledges the latter

They have now shifted to saying that they're part of the clean energy revolution or something of that sort. I started seeing commercials with this rhetoric a few years ago, but I see even more now.

Its more insidious. Give us hundreds of billions of dollars for carbon capture, we'll capture and ... use it for enhanced oil recovery.

Shell Is Looking Forward The fossil-fuel companies expect to profit from climate change. I went to a private planning meeting and took notes: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/shell-climate-change...

Algorithm:

1) Give us trillions of dollars in subsidies[1] to extract oil, well, because, people need it

2) Give us billions of dollars now for carbon capture (and this will increase), shows Greta's picture, because, erm, we are taking action on climate change

3) We'll extract more oil [3] (enhanced oil recovery, EOR) using the captured carbon to increase both (1) and (2)

Oil industry is exceptionally good at stealing everyone's money. Now there is some light on climate change, you can bet that oil industry will get hundreds of billions of dollars. The climate conversations are completely taken over by big oil: Sultan Al Jaber was named President-Designate of COP28 UAE in January of 2023. He is the chairman and a founder of the UAE's renewable energy company Masdar.

Trillions will be spent worldwide on carbon capture (not just the plants, but infrastructure for EOR such as pipelines[4]), all of which directly goes into big oil pockets.

[1] Worldwide subsidies for fossil fuels surged to a record $7-trillion in 2022, equal to 7.1% of the global gross domestic product, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-08-28-fossil-fu...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Nations_Climate_Ch...

[3] Out of the 27 commercially operational CCS projects worldwide, 21 inject carbon dioxide into oil reservoirs to force out petroleum: https://www.landclimate.org/what-is-happening-with-carbon-ca...

[4] CO2 pipelines: There are now about 5,300 miles of CO2 pipelines in the U.S., but in the next few decades, that number could grow to more than 65,000 miles

[5]It Will Cost More Than Total Future Production to Clean Up California Oil Sites: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36182016

Our profits margins are lacking, please do force some artificial scarcity so we get some of our power back after the competition in our field eroded our power!

Notice how every suggestion for fighting climate change always involves preventing new oil competitors from developing while doing nothing about existing oil fields?

They are laughing all the way to the bank as they know the world depends on them and can't possibly detach that dependence, renewables barely make a dent in that. They don't care about total oil consumption only profit margins.

There’s nothing artificial about the budget of carbon emissions we have before each temperature increase is bought. Increasing the cost of fossil fuel is a good way to make alternative energy more appealing to investors

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Surged to Record $7 Trillion

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...

... fossil-fuel subsidies rose by $2 trillion over the past two years as explicit subsidies (undercharging for supply costs) more than doubled to $1.3 trillion ...

Our analysis shows that consumers did not pay for over $5 trillion of environmental costs last year. This number would be almost double if damage to the climate was valued at levels found in a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature ...

I'm not defending our irresponsible Co2 emission behavior in any way, and this only applies to a part of your link, but I feel calling negative (future?) externalities "government subsidies" is simply dishonest reporting.

I'd also argue that this framing is actively harmful, because it perpetuates the view that "big government" and "big oil corporations" are mainly to blame for lackluster action, but the inconvenient truth is that the average western citizen just does NOT want to sacrifice neither vacation air travel nor personal car, nor is he willing to pay more for energy/electricity.

Government action (or lack thereof) mainly mirrors this popular sentiment-- its not a big lobbying conspiracy...

It literally is a big lobbying conspiracy.

> calling negative (future?) externalities "government subsidies" is simply dishonest reporting

If the government knows about those negative externalities, and chooses not to prevent or tax the behavior, but instead subsidizes that sector, how else would you describe it?

> "big government" and "big oil corporations" are mainly to blame for lackluster action

If one government takes action, those actions often get reversed within a few years. The issue isn't just one specific government; it's the system itself. Critics argue that neither capitalism nor communism can resolve this, but they're not the only systems possible.

The real culprits include the growth imperative in our financial system, politicians' focus on short-term actions at the expense of long-term vision, the slow adoption of renewable energy, and subsidies for harmful sectors decades after their impacts are known, etc.

We have only a few years/decades to reverse the effects of past actions; after that point, they'll become irreversible. We're in the overshoot for 50 years at this point, after all.

Blaming one political side or the other doesn't solve the issue. We must tackle problems like climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, overfishing, inequality, and the need for Universal Basic Income/Services across multiple fronts.

We need a Great Reset/Rewrite; otherwise, we should brace for a Great Simplification.

> If the government knows about those negative externalities, and chooses not to prevent or tax the behavior, but instead subsidizes that sector, how else would you describe it?

E.g. as "negative externatilites that were not appropriately taxed".

Because "subsidies" implies tax dollars being spent to deteriorate the situation, while the reality is basically the reverse.

And it is VERY obvious that this doesn't simply happen because "big oil" did so much lobbying that the government misrepresents the will of the people-- voters were visible in favor of subsidies and lower fuel prices (especially blatant during Ukraine-price spikes in Europe).

Just picture running on a "100% fossil fuel taxation to be spent on improved public transport" platform-- what country you think would elect that right now? Much less re-elect...

> We have only a few years/decades to reverse the effects of past actions; after that point, they'll become irreversible.

I disagree with this viewpoint: I think long term consequences are already completely inevitable, any current and future actions are only gonna change the exact magnitude.

> I think long term consequences are already completely inevitable

Degradation vs. collapse. Collapse is still preventable, but the window is closing fast.

If we'd stop fossil fuels, reform agriculture and reforest what we can, we'd be able to reverse the warming and let biodiversity rebound. Continue for a few more decades, and the carrying capacity falls drastically.

Collapse of what? Civilization?

I don't buy into that at all; massive waves of climate refugees, environmental disasters, loss of coastal urban space, economical crises: sure-- but collapse of civilization?! I simply don't see that happening, to me that appears like completely unfounded pessimism.

But feel free to try and change my view...

> Collapse of what? Civilization?

I was referring to the collapse (significant degradation) of the environmental carrying capacity. In such a scenario, our civilization would implode on its own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPb_0JZ6-Rc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/st-matthew-island/

> But feel free to try and change my view

It's a complex topic ... I only can give you a few links. The system we live in is very complex ... and as in every complex system even a minor error can cripple the system. Just remember how much damage to the economy was caused by just one ship blocking the Suez.

I don't think the system is able to handle large-scale agricultural failures, prolonged droughts or abrupt sea level rises. Everything seems to be changing more rapidly than predicted - from air and sea temperatures to thawing, droughts, biodiversity loss, etc.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/climate-...

Climate Collapse Could Happen Fast - As temperature and weather records fall, Earth may be nearing so-called tipping points.

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/cata...

Catastrophic climate 'doom loops' could start in just 15 years, new study warns

https://www.iflscience.com/chances-of-societal-collapse-in-n...

Chances Of Societal Collapse In Next Few Decades Is Sky High, Modelling Suggests

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119

Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/4/3/32

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x

Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers

https://apnews.com/article/climate-united-nations-paris-euro...

UN warns Earth ‘firmly on track toward an unlivable world’

https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html

Limits to Growth

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/09/the-planet-...

The planet heats, the world economy cools – the real global recession is ecological

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4

Humans are driving one million species to extinction

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7...

Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/08/ecological-cliff-edge/

Ecological cliff edge

The only way to make non-fossil energy sources more appealing, is to make fossil sources more expensive.

The side-effect of this is, yes, unfortunately increased profits for oil companies.

I don't know if these could be cut down using some windfall tax scheme.

Not if the increased cost is due to tax

Exactly, fuel should be more expensive because the negative externalities of its consumption should be priced in.

The extra value extracted from pricing in those externalities should be directed by the state towards offsetting the damage, it shouldn’t just be pocketed by the companies causing the damage.

> The only way to make non-fossil energy sources more appealing, is to make fossil sources more expensive.

Really? That seems pretty suboptimal to me. How about trying to make them cheaper/more reliable?

The problem is that we no longer have the time to let market forces work that slowly. Things like home heaters, stoves, vehicle engines, etc. have service lifespans measured in decades so we need everyone buying electric now. Things like EVs or heat pumps often have higher upfront cost so we need to stop having the situation where people feel like they have to pay more to do the right thing because the fossil fuel prices are subsidized so low that many people don’t feel much pressure to change.

Why would a much higher fuel tax, imposed on crude oil, and scaled in at 30% immediately and 10% over each the next 7 years, not work?

I'm wondering what effect that would have on food prices, which is a critical factor looking at stability of societies globally?

I am not an expert and have no answers, I just wanted to point out the situation is non-trivial form systems design point of view.

That's a valid concern and is the reason to scale the tax in over a many year period. That tax revenue doesn't have to be consumed by a swelling government, but part of it could be directly distributed as a dividend to each member of the society on an equal per-capita basis or biased towards lower income members of the society.

The counterfactual challenge is brutal, too: if we don’t do anything, the impact on food production will be far worse but if we don’t let it happen first we’re going to be plagued with people saying it wouldn’t have been so bad.

You can also subsidize clean energy, which is what we've been doing.

To clarify, we've been minimally subsidizing clean energy while not only significantly subsidizing oil exploration and development, but also using the largest military + intelligence budgets (US, UK) to "stabilize" oil producing regions and transportation.

Nice to rub it in our faces, I guess. Thanks, Exxon.

They knew about this in the 1980s, and have actively laboured to hide it from the public[1].

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

Edit: People have got to stop assuming that commenters are American...

Well, everyone did, or at least the US congress.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NOdTEIihFU

It's easy to blame the oil companies, but in fact, the governments around the world did not care or do anything about it. Car manufacturers did nothing to decrease size of their cars or fuel efficiency (certainly not the last 20 years). And consumers did not bother to buy smaller and more fuel efficient cars.

Everyone has known about global warming for 40 years. Everyone blames oil companies and not themselves.

If we completely stopped to use or at least massively reduced the usage of oil then there would be no rich oil companies.

It's easy to blame someone else.

[1] Carl Sagan testifying before congress in 1985.

I blame government AND fossil fuel companies. Harder to blame individuals when they're just trying to survive in a system they didn't build and have little power to change and they happen to be targets of PR campaigns to make them doubt reality. Funded by fossil fuel money.

At the end it's all humans.

Government does what the voters want so the get elected/re-elected. Unfortunately voters don't seem to want to pay more tax for fuel and electricity. They don't seem to want to pay additional taxes for their flights etc.

Politicians are slowly phasing in these kind of policies, but it is not fast and drastic enough.

Maybe soon with a bit more forest fires and heat waves and water scarcity the population will ask and show in the polls that they want more and more drastic measures.

Once the majority of the population decides we cannot continue as we have done, then things will happen, but it goes to slow unfortunately.

Just look at everyone who without blinking takes a long flight for their holiday. In one swoop they spend as much energy as they use in one year on commuting with car, cooking, heating house, warming water, household machines etc.

Even Margaret Thatcher made a speech about global warming. George HW Bush also believed in it.

Just saying: Al Gore was up for election 23 years ago, and climate change was basically his entire platform.

The inconvenient truth is that the average voter wasn't and still isn't willing to sacrifice ANYTHING significant to combat climate change.

Blaming corporations is unhelpful and reeks of hypocrisy.

Al Gore won the US popular vote and lost the electoral college vote by a whisker (and a recount.) The average voter was not opposed to his pro-climate agenda. If anything, the narrow nature of Bush’s win was due to his very pro-business agenda (which was huge on benefits for fossil fuel drillers). The idea of a candidate winning the popular vote and losing the electoral college may not seem surprising today, as politicians have optimized their pitch to appeal to the narrowest slice of the electorate they can win with — but it was extremely unusual back then (in fact Gore was the first Presidential candidate since the 1800s to lose this way.) The partisan Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision that decided the recount is also one of the most shameful partisan episodes in our country’s history.

My point is, Al Gore ran on climate change first and foremost and he did NOT win by a landslide.

If the US population actually cared, and and was willing to pay the price for taking action, then the nextbest presidential candidate could just run with it; voters would simply disregard how that candidate would interpret the second amendment, or his faith, or his view on gender/race representation, or healthcare or police-- he could simply win on a climate preservation platform.

But you very obviously can't, not 20 years ago and not now, because people care about other things more.

In 2000 climate change was mainly a theoretical issue, one that seemed mostly cost and little (immediate) upside. I remember viewing this as a problem that would mostly affect our children and grandchildren (a view that looks increasingly stupid in hindsight.) And despite all of this a majority of the US electorate still voted for Gore in 2000. Something that is completely at odds with the same party's platform during the entire 20th century.

While the US screwed around in the Middle East, European politicans went ahead and created a cap-and-trade regime in 2003. With a different election outcome the US might have done the same. Instead, one side of the US political landscape fought like goblins to prevent this -- and one result of this strategy is a platform that has failed to win the popular vote in 5 out of the last 6 elections.

The view that climate action isn't possible is a manufactured opinion, one that isn't supported by the 2000 election.

> In 2000 climate change was mainly a theoretical issue, one that seemed mostly cost and little (immediate) upside. I remember viewing this as a problem that would mostly affect our children and grandchildren (a view that looks increasingly stupid in hindsight.)

That is interesting to hear, because this sounds like an accurate classification to me (even if it is a bit mercenary). How did your view on this change, and why?

> The view that climate action isn't possible is a manufactured opinion, one that isn't supported by the 2000 election.

That is NOT my view: my view is that the electorate is mostly still unwilling to make sacrifices in favor of climate action, and all "free" climate change mitigations are slow and inconsequential.

Thought experiment: Biden takes drastic action to bring US Co2 emissions in line with Europe/China within a decade or less-- prices for gas and electricity rise by, say, 80%. Taxes are also additionally increased to subsidise green energy in India/other developing nations.

Do you honestly think he gets re-elected? Note how that is still insufficient, 8tons Co2/person/year are not sustainable globally...

I also think the problems are the exact same in Europe, emissions are just lower there because less fossil fuels availability and wealth (compare select rich countries like Luxembourg which are even significantly worse than the US in Co2/capita).

> How did your view on this change, and why?

A huge turning point for me was when climate scientists brought forward their estimates for ice-free arctic summers by 1-2 decades. That's a huge revision, and it made me realize that consensus climate science predictions (as terrifying as they are) are probably weighted toward being much too optimistic.

> my view is that the electorate is mostly still unwilling to make sacrifices in favor of climate action

The electorate has made huge sacrifices in favor of climate change. We just passed a 1/2 trillion dollars worth of climate incentives in the IRA, and a majority of voters say they support the incentives. Polling also supports that most Americans think climate change is a problem, and want the government to do something about it.

The important thing to remember here is that this doesn't get cheaper or better as we get farther out. Right now we're experiencing an exponential decrease in the LCOE of renewable energy, mainly stimulated by industrial policy in the US, Europe and China. If we'd pursued those policies earlier (either explicitly, or via a tiny carbon tax in the 2000s) we would now be a decade deeper into an exponential process.

Meanwhile politicians spent enormous amounts of money on both an invasion of Iraq and a healthcare bill, neither of which ever consistently polled higher than plans to address climate change. We should never pretend that our mistakes are the only choice, they're just the choice we made.

The average voter barely knows how their own income tax works, let alone a carbon tax.

Voter perception is shaped by marketing, and large energy companies lobbied hard, very hard, to shape public opinion about global warming, to include, famously, hiring Oglivy to launch a campaign about individual responsibility instead of the systemic, constant push by industry.

Example:

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/blog/big-oil-distracts-their-carbo...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...

Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million.

There's a whole lot of wild assumptions built into your comment, but that seems like a basic flaw.

> Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million.

Sure. But if people actually cared about climate change, he would have won by a long shot, because Bush was not even competing on that front...

Swap out his "mitigate climate change now" platform for <some generic 10 year old democrat talking points> and he would have probably not done much worse, and thats exactly my point.

Things have not changed too much in that regard.

Another Inconvenient Truth is that the very structure of our political systems may make it literally impossible to fix this problem. And unfortunately, our culture is not able to discuss reforming institutions, perhaps due to an excess of faith (kill religion and it has to go somewhere maybe).

> Another Inconvenient Truth is that the very structure of our political systems may make it literally impossible to fix this problem.

Can you expand on this? Because I disagree-- in my view, climate change in the US does not get tackled "appropriately" because of lack of will in the population-- everything else is mostly just shifting blame IMO.

The public may have the will, but if the political system or those who are within it (which is a function of the system) aren't willing to exercise the will of the people, it ain't getting done.

Take Medicare For All as an example: bipartisan support among the public, never gonna happen.

How people continue to fall for "Democracy" being our most sacred institution would be puzzling if one didn't realize that the world runs on stories, and those who write such stories are professionals at it, whereas those who consume them are rank amateurs....like taking candy from babies.

If you ask me, if the public really cared about climate change, they'd be willing to surrender their memes....and maybe they are, but they are not able - some things require training, and such things are not taught in school, which is rather convenient.

If the average voter hadn't been the target of PR campaigns by fossil fuels companies to make them doubt the science I might agree with you.

Back in the early 90's (post Valdez), a friend of mine had a tshirt:

  At Exxon, we don't have to care, 
  Because at Exxon, 
  We're Part of the Problem

While I agree with the prediction, the tone they use seems somewhat too close to "well, if we're not going to make it anyway, how about we sell some more fossil fuels?"

Exxon produces less than 3% of the world's daily crude demand and in May its shareholders overwhelmingly rejected calls for stronger measures to mitigate climate change.

What else can be said, there are assholes that are legally allowed to actually pursue this and there is absolutely nothing in the way of the law that's going to stop it.

Our current system of governance isn't equipped for this.

Until people are willing to use less energy or consume fewer goods and services (that cost energy to produce), it's going to be difficult to achieve.

You can blame the big evil corporations but they're polluting so we can buy our crap from them.

The average US consumer causes 15t emissions of CO2 per year.

The average EU consumer causes 7.5t emissions of CO2 per year.

This is a structural difference, not one of consumers.

They want you to blame the individual so the big actors can keep pocketing big money.

Why isn't it reasonable to blame the individual when the individual EU consumer manages to cause half the pollution of the individual US consumer?

I am form the EU and I don't "manage" anything. It just happens that on average, Europe has more efficient infrastructure, more strict regulation on pollution and is massively supporting green energy.

Don't be fooled to believe that your personal life-choices will make the difference. In most countries 50% of all emissions are determined by the electricity you are consuming with transportation coming in second.

The US used to be a railroad country. But that was bad for big oil, cars and aircraft so it was dismantled.

When it comes to being forced to drive in the US, sure, but everything in the US from cars to buildings to meals is massively oversized compared to Europe. That's a personal choice. Many americans also proudly vote against environmental legislation or public transport infrastructure. That's also a personal choice. Blaming big oil for that is just an excuse.

Oversized by how much? 100%?

That alone cannot explain why the US pollutes twice as much. And as I have said, most of pollution comes from energy production. You are missing the mark.

If the consumers consume twice as much then energy production will pollute twice as much, that's exactly my point.

Logically, this is correct.

However, your point is irrelevant as you have insufficient data to prove it. Stating that the average US citizen consumes twice as much is quite a daring that needs to be proven.

Personal life choices do make a difference. Do you drive a fuel efficient car or an oversized pickup truck? Do you take the bike or train instead of the car? Do you go on vacation by plane? Is your home insulated, and how high do you turn up the heat?

All of those things do matter. But of course they're not the whole story; plenty of industries pollute far more than consumers do. Regulations matter. And regulations, taxes and subsidies can do a lot to help both consumers and corporations to make better choices. I'd like to see heavy taxes on all fossil fuels, and the revenue from those taxes spent on increasing clean energy capacity.

It's politicians, and indirectly voters, who decide the way forward. Big oil companies might lobby and promote their stuff, but at the end of the day it's bad decisions by politicians and voters.

I think it’s more complicated than that. It’s pretty easy to live in most western European cities without a car. It’s almost impossible to live well in most American cities without several cars per family. America has been engineers around environmentally unfriendly habits. Today’s consumer has little to do with the massive foundation on which their society rests.

Edit: my family has only one car, but it’s because I hate driving / commuting and have worked remotely for 10 years. If I had to drive to work, we’d have two cars.

Today's consumer can choose to not buy a huge pickup truck or eat beef three meals a day, or not vote against the new bike lane.

Yeah. I do all those things. I'm vegan and I have a single car, and I support local walking and biking trails. But even so, I bet I'm not as green as the average European because I still have to drive far more than they do.

That's great to hear but there's a country full of people who don't do that.

One of the structural reasons is that US produces most of it's own energy (aka hydrocarbons) and has enough left to export, while afaik EU imports 50% of the energy it needs.

Do you think the EU consumers are trying harder than the US ones?

Yes, absolutely.

Most people in either region are not making any significant effort. They just live their lives like everyone else around them. The difference is in what that looks like.

Anyway, what's with this dichotomy "corporations should change behavior" vs. "consumers should change behavior"? Those two interact and influence each other. Obviously, both must change their behavior. This is a process that must be bootstrapped.

That's definitely true and top-down regulation is important so the whole economy has to clean up its act and it's not a competitive disadvantage for any one company to do it.

However, I don't like this frequently repeated claim that "it's actually big companies that are polluting!". They're polluting on our behalf, that's not an excuse.

It is more along the lines of "I can't do much personally against big companies". In the same way that you can't just "personally" create a better public transport system instead of driving.

You can absolutely personally not buy so much shit from big companies.

You can also vote for more public transport, which most americans don't.

And big oil & friends are massively lobbying to keep it just the way it is. It's easy to buy a senator, in same cases 10k are all you need to get his support.

Edit: Since the maximum nesting was reached. I will leave it at saying that "A party system is twice as good as a one party system".

You still need people to vote for them, and then the responsibility is on the individual voter.

No of course not. It is surprisingly different though. Is it all the nukes and renewables?

In addition to US salaries being higher, energy (petrol and gas and electricity, each of them) are significantly more expensive in Europe.

Random US person, imagine if your salary was cut in half, auto gas cost $6/gallon, and your monthly utility bill tripled. You'd think hard about your consumption.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price....

Only recently energy prices had a hike. But the EU has always been well below the levels of pollution of the US:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/986460/co2-emissions-per...

Blaming individuals is useless.

Governments are the parties who generally are responsible for fixing structural problems.

The market is composed of companies that operate within boundaries set by the government.

Individuals are more or less forced to live their lives by the market environment where they live.

The solution is in governments and corporations.

The only reason why one would want to fix the problem via individual consumers is in fact if one: a) does not want to fix the problem b) wants to direct blame from the more guilty party (energy companies) to the consumer

OFC this is not that black or white. Currently there are NO OPTIONS to fossil fuels to keep planetary civilization running.

How do we hold a government accountable in any reasonable time frame, mass scale protests ? Election cycles are too slow now.

> to keep planetary civilization running

Did you mean: "to never decrease consumption in rich countries"?

No. Without hydrocarbons there is no food to start with. We are way, way, way behind a point where the humanity could decide to stop using any hydrocarbons cold turkey and not mass starve in the billions. Then comes rest of the industry (on which food production depends). I hope the reality was different.

That is not to say rich world consumption is not a pathological facet of the equation. But it's far from being the only consideration.

There's a huge gap between "cold turkey into starving" and current goals (which are still not enough and also mostly won't be achieved). A transition away from fossil fuels that was just constrained by ensuring no mass starvation would look very different. This is not at all what the discussion is about. Meanwhile, mass starvation will be on the agenda at 3°C of warming...

People need to feed their family, and in order to do that, they need transportation. Until public transportation is good enough not to make you miserable, people will use cars.

Blaming people for consuming is like blaming the victim of domestic abuse from not running away and becoming homeless.

Cars are only a part of the problem, but people who need to drive any old car just to work are an even smaller one. There are many many people who drive oversized fuel inefficient cars for no particular reason, or are just as wasteful in the rest of their lives. Even in Europe many people drive alone in their cars even when great public transport is available just because it's more comfortable.

That's not the gas station's or the car manufacturer's fault, it's the driver's.

Cars are basically the entire problem. Cars allow everyone to consume more space per person, and more space per person means more mass can be consumed and that mass has to travel further distances. And all of that translates to more energy consumed per person.

When it comes to the overall problem of climate change cars are only one issue, the others being manufacturing, construction, services, agriculture, travel, etc. Many of these don't have a clean solution yet for the current demand so fossil fuels are here to stay unless we manage to reduce that demand, which the individual consumer needs to accept.

>unless we manage to reduce that demand, which the individual consumer needs to accept.

My point was no one needs to accept that as long as cars are around.

I don't think cars are responsible for waste in agriculture or air travel, but ok.

That is true, I guess if people did not have personal cars, then that consumption could be replaced by air travel and/or more food that travels further (even more than the current amounts).

If public transportation was as reliable, comfortable and cheap as driving a car, nobody would drive a car. That's my whole point. But it's not - it's expensive, unreliable and utterly uncomfortable.

In my city we have fantastic public transportation that's cheap, comfortable, reliable and faster than sitting in traffic. Despite that, the streets are full of single-occupant cars with drivers who just don't want to mingle with the plebs. They're not helpless against big oil - they're just wasteful.

> the streets are full of single-occupant cars with drivers who just don't want to mingle with the plebs

I assume the "comfortable" public transportation still requires one to occupy same space with many other people, perhaps even sharing personal space during rush hour?

If my assumption is correct, I'd say that public transportation is not nearly as comfortable as it needs to be to replace cars. Not many people like having to share room with strangers, especially when there is no requirement of personal hygiene or quieteness.

And that's not even mentioning the issue of safety - how safe are you from getting mugged and/or killed on your public transportation? The risk is drastically lower when you're in your own car.

> If my assumption is correct, I'd say that public transportation is not nearly as comfortable as it needs to be to replace cars. Not many people like having to share room with strangers, especially when there is no requirement of personal hygiene or quieteness.

Well then those people can't pretend that they have no choice but to pollute or that it's big companies' fault, they're just too spoiled to accept any change to their lifestyle. That's my whole point.

> And that's not even mentioning the issue of safety - how safe are you from getting mugged and/or killed on your public transportation? The risk is drastically lower when you're in your own car.

Where I live (Budapest) you're way more likely to die in a car crash than get killed on public transport (or anywhere). This isn't the US or Somalia.

For comparison, last year there were 89 murders and 201 traffic fatalities. People make 3.2 million trips on public transport every day.

> they're just too spoiled to accept any change to their lifestyle

You can blame people for not sacrificing their individual comforts (while probably enjoying many certain comforts yourself), but it's pointless, because you'll never get all the people to stop using cars individually one by one by guilt tripping them

Why not blame government that doesn't want to create comfortable public transportation, or cars, effectively making public transportation the most comfortable of all available? Government is the only one capable of actually making a change, so how are they not to blame for not doing it, and why are individuals (who by themselves cannot make a change) to blame?

The very view that "public transportation is supposed to be less comfortable than cars" is the reason why cars will never die out. At least until that view dies out.

According to you being among strangers is already uncomfortable, so by your logic comfortable _public_ transportation is impossible.

I'm not guilt tripping anyone, I'm just saying if someone gets in their car because they don't want to be next to other people then they lose the right to shift the blame to big companies. You don't get to blame McDonalds for pollution if you choose to eat a Big Mac there every day.

> According to you being among strangers is already uncomfortable, so by your logic comfortable _public_ transportation is impossible.

Being among strangers is less comfortable than driving alone. A big part of comfort is being able to control your environment. Are you saying you wouldn't care if random strangers started walking around your house every day?

It is not necessary to be among strangers in public transportation - there are many trains that provide private cabins. It's just cheaper to not have them and just cram everyone into a one big room.

> You don't get to blame McDonalds for pollution if you choose to eat a Big Mac there every day.

I disagree. If McDonalds is polluting the environment, the government is to blame for not stopping them. Consumers are not, as they individually can't do anything about them.

You seem to imply that consumers should magically synchronize and all stop eating McDonalds at the same time to teach them a lesson, but I hope you see how that's just a pipe dream.

> It is not necessary to be among strangers in public transportation - there are many trains that provide private cabins. It's just cheaper to not have them and just cram everyone into a one big room.

This is totally impossible for urban transport like trams or buses. When you walk on the street, you're among strangers. It's exactly the same. This idea of travelling around in the city in your private little bubble is a half-century old luxury and not the standard (unless you were an aristocrat).

> If McDonalds is polluting the environment, the government is to blame for not stopping them. Consumers are not, as they individually can't do anything about them.

> You seem to imply that consumers should magically synchronize and all stop eating McDonalds at the same time to teach them a lesson, but I hope you see how that's just a pipe dream.

It's exactly the same argument as with democracy. No individual voter can decide the election but they have an individual responsibility to act according to their values. If many individuals vote with a spine, the dictator won't get elected. If many individuals consume with a spine, polluting companies will go out of business.

If you take that logic line one more step, it’s a good thing Exxon stands ready to supply those consumers with the oil products they need.

Yes, as much as it's good that a domestic abuser still pays the rent and puts the food on the table.

On the other hand, it is a failure of the government that people don't have any other choice but to consume what is available.

Don't blame powerless victims, blame the powerful who are responsible, but do nothing about the problem.

If 5% of the people on the road are victims and 95% of the people drive huge cars just because they feel like it, can't they be blamed?

The victims? Of course they can't be blamed.

The people who drive huge cars can be blamed, but it's pointless because you'll never get people to voluntarily stop driving huge cars if they want to drive huge cars. You can, and should, blame the government for allowing manufacturers to sell huge cars and people to drive them, if the problem is so huge.

If there's a point to your comment, I did not get it.

The point is that people who buy huge cars can't claim that it's Ford's fault for polluting when it's their personal choice to get a wasteful vehicle. Same with people who fly a lot for fun or any number of environmentally damaging things.

Yeah, but each individual, by themselves, cannot make any significant positive change by giving up huge cars, while doing so means giving up something they want. So the gain/loss tradeoff is not good on an individual level.

You can assign collective blame, but what good is that, except for virtue signalling and guilt tripping? It's not an effective method of social change.

There is an organization (government) that can make those changes that you want (ban huge cars) - so why not blame them for not doing it?

If I choose not to fly then the plane will still depart without me. Many airlines flew completely empty planes during the pandemic.

Sure, if just one person decides to not fly it will still fly. But what if 10% of consumers? 30% of consumers? 80% of consumers? If nobody is standing at that gate does the plane still fly? Sure, regulation quirks mean a few will, but would they keep flying that empty plane forever?

If half the people buying bottled water stopped this year, would the bottled water industry keep production the same, increase it, or decrease it?

I can deprive myself from the experience of seeing far away countries, but billionaires won't deprive themselves from their yachts and private jets.

And no - trains are not a solution. I can't travel to the American continent with a train.

Should travelling be available only to rich people again?

And thus, we continue to spiral into the same thing most people are harking on in this thread. Should single family homes with large yards be available to only rich people?

And unless the government starts shooting private planes out of the sky, even government regulations aren't going to stop rich people from flying.

I'm not saying you should never fly. I don't know your life. I agree there's a lot of good economic outcomes from having an aviation industry and overall it brings the world closer together, which is probably good. But I do think global tourism probably isn't the best thing in the world climate-wise.

I'm just trying to push back against the idea that end consumers have zero say about what corporations do climate-wise. Those planes are flying because people want to sit in those seats (generally, outside of those flights during covid to keep routes). Bottled water makers make bottled water because people buy it. Car companies keep making bigger cars because most Americans keep wanting bigger cars. There's a feedback loop, and ignoring it or flat out denying it isn't going to help solve these challenges.

I'm not saying never board another plane in your life. I know I am, eventually. I'm just suggesting, maybe swap some trip involving a flight for a more local vacation every now and then. If we all reduced the demand for the flights a bit, fewer planes would fly. I'm not saying never buy another bottled beverage. I'm just saying, maybe the tap water isn't that bad, and its not too difficult to just fill a cup instead of grabbing a single use bottle every time.

That's because under current regulations they would lose their license to fly that route, which is certainly bad, but it doesn't extend to everything else.

The past decades have shown the massive shift from public/national actors to the private actors. It is just as expected that now, the government cannot act strong enough to fight against a (global) crisis of the common people. Or perhaps it is the cause why we face so many threats to our planets all so seemingly suddenly.

Most of all, consultancies have taken the job of people in ministries. This brain drain is another reason why the government seems so lobotomized to outsiders. But when one of your large clients is Exxon mobile and another team should consult a government about climate change... oh well

This is one of those problems that takes either collapse or dictator to fix. It's just too big and nebulous for society as it is to even acknowledge it across the board.

The problem with both of those things is all the dead people.

But we seem to think we can just keep skating by like we are in perpetuity.

> The problem with both of those things is all the dead people.

Right. The consequences of communism or totalitarianism are well known and have recent precedents for how bad they will be. Climate change is an unknown, but throwing ourselves into the hands of a dictatorship (and that's what a lot of people are advocating, we're already seeing dictatorial rules in the name of climate) we know what will happen.

The alternative is a technological solution. People need to stop using climate change to push a political agenda (which is literally all that's done) and get behind building nuclear and carbon capture.

The alternative is that biased researchers are extremely bad at math when they want to demonstrate something they already agree with, and it’s a big nothing burger. Because, they’re so bad at math that when I compiled the figures they give, I find that we’ll get a +8°C and above scenario.

So, if announce it’s even remotely possible to not fall into that scenario, it must be that their figures are better than they say.

> The consequences of communism or totalitarianism are well known and have recent precedents for how bad they will be. Climate change is an unknown, but throwing ourselves into the hands of a dictatorship (and that's what a lot of people are advocating, we're already seeing dictatorial rules in the name of climate) we know what will happen.

It's a very popular culturally infused meme, but not really. There are levels of "authoritarianism"...for example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship#Lee_...

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMj8mXByQ/

> People need to stop using climate change to push a political agenda (which is literally all that's done) and get behind building nuclear and carbon capture.

People might benefit from wondering what needs to be done, rather than assuming that their intuition is correct. If we don't desire to know what is true, we may never reach it.

Meanwhile they (allegedly) fund stuff like this:

https://co2coalition.org/facts/

Anyone ever heard of the conversation of happiness? Happiness cannot be created or destroyed, only taken. See I have a good idea of where we are headed and what could be done to fix it; energy shortages and nuclear respectively. When the wind and solar people are crying that we failed these warming goals and still don't have stable electric grids, I will be laughing; its pretty obvious what environmentalist policies do to anyone who understands energy, and I'm prepared.

A diversified profile needs to exist to meet fluctuating demand. I think energy storage or some long term reliance on natural gas is baked in to any sort of emergency response, because nuclear is harder to adjust willy nilly. But yeah it's hard to ignore the largest low-carbon baseload power source

There is a possible way to offset this, an energy consumer of last resort, someone who's paying you more than nothing but doesn't compete with other demands. Bitcoin mining is ideal because it can be deployed anywhere at any scale, it can ramp up to soak up excess power off peak, and ramp down to provide it back to the grid. Since mining is a globally decentralized competition for cheap energy, its unlikely it would ever price out other uses of energy, which could be limited by contract anyways.

Is this another way of saying our profits are secure with your DCF models!?s

They should know, after all …

So, it turns out that the world will not stopping using oil in the foreseeable future? Colour me surprised.

...."thanks to us".

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