EnviroLink Forum

I was just looking at an interview on a China-for-English-speakers TV show. They were discussing China's progress in moving off coal. An expert projection was offered that it will go from roughly 70% energy source from coal now to roughly 50% sourced by 2060. Wow! And that doesn't even include oil and natural gas.

When you consider that China is supposed to be on the cutting edge of every alternative to fossil fuel - solar, wind, hydro, nuclear etc. one has to wonder whether these visions of major worldwide energy conversion are not just pipe dreams.
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Here is an authoritative projection of the energy sources for electrical production in 1940. Does that change anything?



And then there is this, substantially different.

Very true Dingo, this is hardly progress. Disgusting.
The CO2 emitted in China is mostly a result of production of goods for the western world, our buying choices literally fuel those coal generators. Had we been slightly wiser and not cultivated such a fascination with cheap crap maybe we would not have allowed the destruction of our manufacturing sector. There would still be GHG emitted to create the products, but on for the most part better quality products. In the past when we valued quality over style our manufactured goods had a longer lifespan, therefore a smaller GHG impact per unit produced.
The big issue I see at play here is greed. Our greed drives demand for ever cheaper goods, no matter what the consequences. Corporate greed drives demand for ever lower costs per unit , that is their job.
In order to drive demand for their goods most manufactures employ designed obsolescence, planned failure points combined with clever designs to hinder future repairs.

Why is all this happening? Because we keep buying all this crap.
If we want to locate the source of those rising emissions in China most of us need look no further than the mirror.

Farmer "Our greed drives demand for ever cheaper goods, no matter what the consequences."

How about our need? Overpopulation from immigration has driven down wages and has millions out of work at any pay. Other crap has gone up in cost, like health care.
The long term tendency observed is that generally the lowest spectrum of IQ breed the most, some from "genetic greed", and this dumbing down has affected how many can actually see the consequences of what they do.
This has led to the impossibility of lowering emissions enough and in time to prevent global terminal extinction. At least without a population crash to <10% within 8 years, and there still is the 50% chance that we are already past that point of no return.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Kind of like Krypton and send off our selected children to various potentially amenable planets.
There could be a way that triggers a 90+% population crash that doesn't irradiate the biosphere. Those due geologic disasters, or economic collapse.
I think investigation of trying to cause at least one super volcanic eruption, for a Toba style event is the best bet.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

But I like that cheap crap! I love going to Walmart and buying a mixer for $20, throwing it away in 6 months, and then buying a different one from Lowes for $40 and having it last 5 years. Personally, I miss the days when appliances lasted 50 years. In my opinion, they're programmed to die.

Chinese goods are cheap for two reasons; 1) overpopulation has driven down wages to 1/10th the US, and 2) China has easier coal, pollution, and materials regulations.
People affected by the forced overpopulation of the USA by the 1965 Immigration Act, now actually increasing their per capita pollution by buying from high carbon sources like China and high transportation emissions like from overseas and far away.
Raising one country's standard of living while another keeps trying to hold its own, still results in even more emissions, not the 90+% reduction we need in about 7 years to have a 50% chance of stopping Global Terminal Extinction.
This is not progress toward that goal of stopping thermageddon at all.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Here is a recent set of projections from China with their promise to employ an accelerated approach to lowering CO2. It appears to have CO2 emissions in 2050 at roughly where they were in 2015, not much to jump up and down about.



And this gives you a projection of the energy source mix of that accelerated approach up to 2050. Coal down, although still considerable, everything else, including oil and gas, up. I'm surprised hydro is so little given all the publicity around the 3 gorges dam project and its upstream counterparts. Also the biggest rise in the nonfossil fuel sources is nuclear, a technology that whatever its promise continues to flunk any free market test, not to mention favorable PR.

Too little and too late, the attempt should be for 90% of 1998 emissions, or more after 2023. One country moving too slow with too many emissions can destroy the biosphere. Everyone seems to be moving way too slow toward this goal, so thermageddon needs another way to be stopped, like a Yellowstone eruption. We should be progressing toward saving most life and ourselves, but are still going in the opposite direction. Insufficient progress looks to be the norm.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

Somehow China is trying to reduce greenhouse emission though we see it low. Well, according to the article that I have read. China is embracing renewable energy though it will depend on electric power market.

https://www.climatecentral.org/news/chi ... 2050-18903

Kind of gets me, the year 2050, as if humanity will even get to that late date. Even without the fantastically bad CAGW, overpopulation itself would lead to a crash to less than 10% before 2050, and with CAGW, it could be extinction.
The fact that the tipping point of open ocean warming leading to tundra methane self release along with oceanic, was passed EIGHT YEARS AGO, and since 2009 have been in an Arctic Methane Emergency, proclaimed by Arctic scientists.
That tiny sliver of hope that people will wise up and lower emissions and their numbers enough voluntarily by 2024, is fast disappearing.
Then there is the wonder of geologically due large enough catastrophes to crash the human population. Will they happen before 2024?
Will financial meltdown initiate the crash soon? Nuclear war? A plague or set of them larger than ever?
After 2024, it would take the super eruption of Yellowstone to stop the progression to Global Terminal Extinction worse than ever in Earth history. Methane turnover is no joke and we are in the first stages toward losing our entire biosphere.
The people of now are murdering all the billions of kids who could have lived if we would have collectively changed our lives to one child, solar, Earthship style , hybrid, electric vehicles only, sails on the sea, grow your own type of life. Not just those poor human kids, but all the cute puppies, kittens and kits, probably forever.
Half ass will not get the job done, nor will even an 80% reduction. There probably will be no civilization to ring in 2050, and damn few humans left in worsening conditions. There has been no progress that is really evident, and certainly not the effort and knowledge needed to save ourselves, our needed ecosystems, and most other life. It is very sad. It is a painful ordeal to even know about.
So let us try to enjoy what time we have left. Smoke a bowl, play my solar electric guitars, and attempt to gut the increasing pain of my combat injured back caused sciatica. Death is coming toward me, and the world, like a freight train. I hear my train a'comin'.
Well, chiropractic has really helped. In response to Dingo below;
Nigeria and other parts of Africa, with various islands countries, will be followed by India then China in the cascading population crash starting around 2030. Maybe that is how they will reduce emissions, except for the stench of death.
Well, if China and India are not going to do enough, it doesn't matter if the USA goes emissions free. Everyone is in for an exciting ride into hell on Earth. 15 years ago was Y2K, and only 15 years ahead before the party is definitely over, and death spreads with chaos. It may be hard to imagine for most, so ignorance will be a blessing.

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein

India and parts of China, the US, the middle east, Africa, will be short on water to the point of crashing the population well before mid century. Just as CAGW goes exponential....

"We’re using groundwater at a terrifying rate, and it’s not just California
By Grist staff on 17 Jun 2015 3 comments

Earth is running out of water. But, like, really.

The Washington Post has the story:

The world’s largest underground aquifers – a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people — are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth’s surface.

Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France — have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. Thirteen aquifers declined at rates that put them into the most troubled category. The researchers said this indicated a long-term problem that’s likely to worsen as reliance on aquifers grows."
http://grist.org/list/were-using-ground ... gn=climate

_________________
"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”― Chief Seattle
“Those Who Have the Privilege to Know Have the Duty to Act”…Albert Einstein