As an alternative, we could just ban Taylor Swift from private jets, which would save 8,293 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum - 8 times the theoretical (and unproven) capability of the Direct Air Capture plant
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » This site
Dealing with Climate Change & Justice
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Posted 1 year ago #
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The environmental impact of generative AI is also huge. Keeping data centres running requires enormous amounts of both electricity and water. I read that a single query on ChatGPT requires half a litre of fresh water, and five times as much energy as a typical web search.
Posted 1 year ago # -
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Hundreds of jobs are expected to be lost as Grangemouth Refinery prepares to close down.
The only operating crude oil refinery in Scotland, and one of only six remaining in the UK, supplies 80% of the country’s fuel.
The refinery in Falkirk is responsible for 4% of Scotland’s GDP and approximately 8% of its manufacturing base.
Refinery operations are expected to cease in under 18 months in spring 2025.
Owners Petroineos, a joint venture between PetroChina and INEOS, said the site would become an import and distribution hub.
First Minister Humza Yousaf said the scale of job losses could be “quite significant”.
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Posted 1 year ago # -
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The government could save some money on flood control by investing in natural flood management, but there’s little doubt that the budget needs to rise faster than our rising seas and rivers, from the current £5.2bn across six years. Flooding is one of 34 climate risks listed by the government’s Climate Change Committee as “requiring urgent attention”. But addressing our climate deficiencies might not require an overall budget increase, as so much money is currently wasted. For example, if the government were to spend £8bn making 3m homes more energy efficient, it would save much of the £78bn across two years used to subsidise our energy bills. But, in deference to the fossil fuel industry, it refuses to invest.
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So much public money is wasted on transport that a modern, efficient network would cost much less than our antiquated, failing version. The government has earmarked £27.4bn until 2025 for road building and upgrades. By comparison, electrifying every kilometre of railway would cost around £15bn in total. Subtract a saving of £5bn a year once road-building programmes have been scrapped.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/22/britain-money-bank-bailouts-state-failure
Posted 1 year ago # -
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Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Ben Okri have joined the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and leading climate scientists to highlight what they describe as a “collective act of madness” that is driving “the destruction of life on Earth”.
A letter signed by more than 100 actors, authors, scientists and academics says the UK government is ignoring the scientific reality of the climate and ecological crisis, pushing ahead with new fossil fuel developments and criminalising peaceful protesters who raise the alarm.
“Rather than listening to reason or scientific fact, the UK government continues to hand out contracts for oil exploration in the name of false ‘energy security’ while steering the UK towards authoritarianism,” the letter states. “In Britain today, it is verging on illegal to urgently and effectively protest for the right of life to survive.”
The intervention, which is also signed by Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, and Prof James Hansen, who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s, comes amid growing concern about the crackdown on peaceful protest in the UK.
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Posted 1 year ago # -
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The economic viability of the landmark Acorn carbon capture and storage (CCS) project could need to be “reassessed” if the Grangemouth refinery closes down, a leading academic has warned.
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Posted 1 year ago # -
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“Think global, act local!” “Be the change you want to see in the world!” “Every little bit counts!” We can all get on board with such sentiments, right? That, of course, is exactly what corporate spin-masters across the world are banking on. By weaponizing such seemingly innocuous yet powerful narratives, change becomes a matter of personal choice, something each of us must slave away at day by day: switching off lightbulbs to save the environment or exercising to shed the weight we’ve gained from consuming junk food. All the while, the corporate welfare tap continues to flow, with over $6 trillion worth of annual subsidies dished out to industries that directly contribute to the deaths of over 5.5 million people each year through diabetes, road deaths, global warming, and other crises. But such framing is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the corporate disinformation playbook. This playbook is the dark matter of activist work: the unseeable element shaping harmful spin across all issues. It has never been reverse engineered – until now. In Dark PR, Grant Ennis – drawing on his decades of experience working in the environmental, philanthropy, and public health sectors – reveals exactly how multinationals go about hoodwinking and manipulating us. In doing so, he lifts the lid on the nine devious frames contained within the cross-industry corporate disinformation playbook: through denialism, normalization, victim-blaming, multifactorialism, and a variety of other tried-and-tested tactics, corporations divert citizens’ attention away from the real causes of global problems, leading them into counter-productive blind-alley “solutions” like ethical consumerism and divestment. Sadly, though, buying Fair Trade chocolate has not and never will save the world. Only by collectively organizing to lobby our governments can we break this destructive cycle of lies and deadly incentives and reclaim control of our lives.
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https://www.amazon.co.uk/DARK-PR-Corporate-Disinformation-Environment-ebook/dp/B0BX3VQ5F7
Posted 1 year ago # -
I went from disliking cyclists to wishing there were more on the roads. Looking at the article now, I know it was written by a thoughtless younger version of myself, putting clicks before people. I’ve come to appreciate those taking journeys that save us from pollution. I wish my town, and Britain, could repay cyclists’ and pedestrians’ efforts with an infrastructure to help them go everywhere, safely.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I found this statement rather odd:
Was [using public transport] a faff compared with driving? Yes. I let go of some independence and forgot about late-night socialising.
Most forms of late night socialising that I have participated in ended up being exactly the sort of thing you shouldn't even have considered driving to and from. Maybe that's just me, though...
Posted 1 year ago # -
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Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”.
Little was known about theoil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/27/revealed-saudi-arabia-plan-poor-countries-oil
Posted 1 year ago # -
We’re not gonna make it, are we?
Posted 1 year ago # -
It's in your nature to destroy yourselves.
Posted 1 year ago # -
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This report builds on that work and considers how we can decarbonise public transport.
We looked at trains, buses and ferries.
Given the cross-party nature of the group, we will not all agree on everything all the time.
However, we have come up with a set of recommendations for the Government that are clear and challenging.
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Posted 1 year ago # -
Don’t believe the hype…
Posted 1 year ago # -
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Al Jaber said: “I am inviting and incentivising and motivating all parties to engage in a collaborative manner to see and assess how we can include fossil fuel in the negotiated text, that will cater for consensus and common ground, while keeping 1.5C within reach.”
Campaigners have also questioned the presence of fossil fuel companies and lobbyists at the talks, and leaked documents show the UAE planned to use Cop28 to promote oil deals. Al Jaber said representation from the fossil fuel industry was needed.
“The International Energy Agency [in a recent report] tells us that all sectors must be part of the solution,” he said. “Real tangible climate action will only come with everyone being held responsible and accountable. [We need] to ensure that they all progress towards an energy transition. And you can’t do that without including the heavy-emitting industries as well as oil and gas.”
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Posted 1 year ago # -
Probably equally belongs in Today's Rubbish Driving thread tbh, but one of my neighbours didn't want to scrape all the frost off their car this morning. Instead they just sat inside the car, with the engine and all the heaters going until they could see enough out of the windows. They clearly got bored, because they drove off with both nearside windows still partially frosted up.
Either petrol is too cheap, or they're making too much money to care.
When I had a car, scraping all the frost off was a chance to get myself all warmed up before even getting in, let alone doing any driving.
Posted 1 year ago # -
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At the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) conference on Thursday, Labour’s Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, will promise to get infrastructure – that is, pylons – built quickly to connect rural people to the grid. He will pledge to reduce the wait for farmers and landowners to plug their renewable energy into the grid “from years to months”.
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Posted 1 year ago # -
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During the World Climate Action Summit of the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change today, more than 20 countries from four continents launched the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy. The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree goal within reach.
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This may or may not (still) be true -
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The most important result of the present work is that the contribution of nuclear power to mitigate climate change is, and will be, very limited. At present nuclear power avoids annually 2–3% of total global GHG emissions. Looking at announced plans for new nuclear builds and lifetime extensions this value would decrease even further until 2040. Furthermore, a substantial expansion of nuclear power will not be possible because of technical obstacles and limited resources. Limited uranium-235 supply inhibits substantial expansion scenarios with the current nuclear technology. New nuclear technologies, making use of uranium-238, will not be available in time. Even if such expansion scenarios were possible, their climate change mitigation potential would not be sufficient as single action.
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521002330
Posted 1 year ago # -
Interesting, and pretty much confirms my prior intuition that pro-nuclear greens are still living 20 years in the past - we simply don't *need* nuclear for the vast majority of places given the increasing efficiency and affordability of renewables. Our main challenges now aren't generating power, but storing it and getting it/its generation where it's needed.
Imagine if instead of wasting billions and billions on new nuclear, the UK instead comprehensively upgraded its grid to make it fit for modernity rather than an awful patchwork fundamentally still stuck in the era of coal - you could buy a house anywhere and know with certainty you could put up as much microgeneration as you like, rather than having to roll the dice that the grid wherever you bought would be able to support more than 4kw single phase. Major substations in the grid could become local generators themselves, and are well placed to accept upcoming flywheel or grid-scale battery technologies. But no, ministers gotta have their bungs and can't be seen supporting silly "lefty green crap".
Posted 1 year ago # -
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Cop28 president says there is ‘no science’ behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels
Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’
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Posted 1 year ago #
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