Current Events > CNBC: Greta Thnberg could backfire for environmentalists

(+) Yeah! (+)

Looking around my desk, I wonder how many chinese products I see.

Let me try.

Laptop.
Coffe cup.
Plugs.
Light lamp.
Thing that hooks up monitor to laptop.
Monitor.
Office chair.
Mousepad.

Or so I assume most of it would have ben made in China or parts of them.

Crepes posted...

Butterfiles posted...

the personal responsibility movement is horseshit because corporations are responsible for 90% of the world's carbon emissions

Need to decide whether people in the west consume more because these corporations produce the goods or the corporations produce the goods because there is demand.

This is where the personal responsibility comes from. If there wasnt a demand these companies wouldnt produce the goods that go towards producing climate change.

It's easier to deal with the corporations than it is to make it so every single consumer goes green
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DifferentialEquation posted...

Butterfiles posted...

the personal responsibility movement is horseshit because corporations are responsible for 90% of the world's carbon emissions

Then take some personal responsibility and stop buying their stuff. But that won't happen. The whole environmental movement is about appearing woke by making symbolic gestures without actually doing anything meaningful. These green shills won't give up anything that would actually inconvenience them.

Wow it's almost like it's difficult to give up things you need to survive and function in society.
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Bio1590 posted...

things you need to survive

Most of what we own we don't need. It is convenient.

We could brew coffee with a tin can, a pot, a metal ginder and a campfire.

But that is alot of work compared to a machine that we just pour water in, put the already ground beans in and push a button.

Coffee is also a convenience.

How dare a news organization try to tone police an innocent child who just wants to have a future.

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Bio1590 posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

Butterfiles posted...

the personal responsibility movement is horseshit because corporations are responsible for 90% of the world's carbon emissions

Then take some personal responsibility and stop buying their stuff. But that won't happen. The whole environmental movement is about appearing woke by making symbolic gestures without actually doing anything meaningful. These green shills won't give up anything that would actually inconvenience them.

Wow it's almost like it's difficult to give up things you need to survive and function in society.

You can buy a $200 android phone and easily get 3 years out of it. You don't need buy Apple's flagship products every single year. You can also grow your own tomatoes at home, but that would require you to actually get your hands dirty.
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is not buying new phones really pro-environment?

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Balrog0 posted...

is not buying new phones really pro-environment?

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2018/04/the-energy-hogging-dark-side-of-smartphones/

Greenhouse gas emissions of the Information and Communications Industry (ICT)which includes computers and phones but also infrastructure like data centerscould grow from about 1 percent of global emissions in 2007 to over 14 percent in 2040, researchers at McMaster University in Canada report in the Journal of Cleaner Production. Thats more than half the current carbon footprint of the entire transportation sector.

Among devices, smartphones will be worse for the environment. By 2020, their carbon footprint will exceed that of desktop computers, laptops, and displays, the study shows.

To gauge ICT emissions, the duo analyzed the energy it takes to produce and operate consumer devices, as well as the energy it takes to run telecom infrastructure. They found that data centers and telecom networks are energy hogs. Operating them results in about two-thirds of ICT emissions, growing from 215 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007 to 764 megatons in 2020.

Meanwhile, a smartphones energy cost comes from production. Making a phone accounts for 8595 percent of its annual carbon footprint because manufacturing its electronics and mining the metals that go into them is energy-intensive.

The analysis showed that smartphone emissions will go up from 17 to 125 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent between 2010 and 2020. Thats an increase from 4 percent to 11 percent of total ICT emissions. This footprint is driven by the pithy two years that a smartphone is used on average. Sadly, less than 1 percent of smartphones get recycled, this and other studies have found.

So making phones is really intensive carbon emissions.

Huh!

Guess who makes the phones?
China.

Who buys them?
Rich people in the USA including climate activists.

DifferentialEquation posted...

You can also grow your own tomatoes at home, but that would require you to actually get your hands dirty.

Imagine making this post thinking you legitimately had some kind of "gotcha" as if I don't.

Balrog0 posted...

is not buying new phones really pro-environment?

Not to the point where there's a functional difference between a "$200 android phone" and "Apple's flagship products". They both fucking suck.
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FrozenXylophone posted...

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2018/04/the-energy-hogging-dark-side-of-smartphones/

So making phones is really intensive carbon emissions.

Huh!

Guess who makes the phones?
China.

Who buys them?
Rich people in the USA including climate activists.

well my phone is almost 7 years old now so I feel about as ok as I can with myself

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FrozenXylophone posted...

So making phones is really intensive carbon emissions.

Huh!

Guess who makes the phones?
China.

Who buys them?
Rich people in the USA including climate activists.

You'd basically have to not buy a phone at this point. Like usual DE's post was laughably stupid.
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Balrog0 posted...

well my phone is almost 7 years old now so I feel about as ok as I can with myself

Nice.

Problem is the big data industry is tied to your phone use and they have a hefty carbon footprint as well.

ffff

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"You can live off the land if you really care about the environment rather than demand greener technology from corporations and the government!"
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hockeybub89 posted...

"You can live off the land if you really care about the environment rather than demand greener technology from corporations and the government!"

About that greener technology

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with todays renewable energy technologies simply wont work; we need a fundamentally different approach. So were issuing a call to action. Theres hope to avert disaster if our society takes a hard look at the true scale of the problem and uses that reckoning to shape its priorities.

former director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the worlds foremost experts on climate change, showed the true gravity of the situation. In it, Hansen set out to determine what level of atmospheric CO2 society should aim for if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted. His climate models showed that exceeding 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere would likely have catastrophic effects. Weve already blown past that limit. Right now, environmental monitoring shows concentrations around 400 ppm. Thats particularly problematic because CO2 remains in the atmosphere for more than a century; even if we shut down every fossil-fueled power plant today, existing CO2 will continue to warm the planet.

We decided to combine our energy innovation studys best-case scenario results with Hansens climate model to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldnt just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences

Those calculations cast our work at Googles RE<C program in a sobering new light. Suppose for a moment that it had achieved the most extraordinary success possible, and that we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that could gradually replace all the worlds coal plantsa situation roughly equivalent to the energy innovation studys best-case scenario. Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldnt have solved climate change. This realization was frankly shocking: Not only had RE<C failed to reach its goal of creating energy cheaper than coal, but that goal had not been ambitious enough to reverse climate change.

That realization prompted us to reconsider the economics of energy. Whats needed, we concluded, are reliable zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over soonsay, within the next 40 years. Lets face it, businesses wont make sacrifices and pay more for clean energy based on altruism alone.

To bring levels down below the safety threshold, Hansens models show that we must not only cease emitting CO2 as soon as possible but also actively remove the gas from the air and store the carbon in a stable form. Hansen suggests reforestation as a carbon sink. Were all for more trees, and we also exhort scientists and engineers to seek disruptive technologies in carbon storage

Now, the funny thing is that article admits we should cease all emissions ASAP, reforest to remove existing carbon, but doesn't go the extra mile.
Instead it wants to keep industry hoping one day a genius finds a breakthrough tech that will just reverse it all while we keep emitting.

CNBC talking heads rail against Tesla on the reg. I think they just have it out for anything that could disrupt fossil fuels.
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hockeybub89 posted...

Crepes posted...

Butterfiles posted...

the personal responsibility movement is horseshit because corporations are responsible for 90% of the world's carbon emissions

Need to decide whether people in the west consume more because these corporations produce the goods or the corporations produce the goods because there is demand.

This is where the personal responsibility comes from. If there wasnt a demand these companies wouldnt produce the goods that go towards producing climate change.

Are people specifically demanding climate unfriendly goods though? Do cars run on gasoline because consumers hate electric? Are we demanding coal because we hate solar and nuclear? Do we demand that the factories that produce our goods pump out as much pollution as possible? That they dump their waste in the water supply?

You don't just have free rein to do whatever you want because "Welp people want things"

"There couldn't be pollution if people were still cool with a pre-industrial society! Personal responsibility!"

@hockeybub89

Good points. I guess the counter argument is the assumption that companies that move to more environmentally friendly production incur more costs that are passed on to the consumer and so the consumers opt to go for the cheaper products. One of the reasons why regulation might be required to jump start the move to more environmentally friendly production.

Opinion?
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https://twitter.com/dorrismccomics/status/1143925435107041280

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Kombucha posted...

CNBC talking heads rail against Tesla on the reg. I think they just have it out for anything that could disrupt fossil fuels.

Do you have any idea how much destruction of the Earth is done to make Tesla's?

Like, seriously - go find out how much strip-mining needs to be done to make the batteries, and what gets done with the by-products.
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I also dont agree with having a child be the face of a movement like this.

But at the same time, anyone who disagrees with this particular movement needs to fuck off anyway. Jump in a spaceship and never return to earth.
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I still cant believe shes real and not an SNL skit.
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I don't listen to any environmentalist unless they're yelling at China. I appreciate efficiency that much
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BasedSnowden posted...

I still cant believe shes real and not an SNL skit.

At least we're getting good memes from it.

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s0nicfan posted...

BasedSnowden posted...

I still cant believe shes real and not an SNL skit.

At least we're getting good memes from it.

Why does she look 12 and 74 at the same time?
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BasedSnowden posted...

s0nicfan posted...

BasedSnowden posted...

I still cant believe shes real and not an SNL skit.

At least we're getting good memes from it.

Why does she look 12 and 74 at the same time?

She speaks about her present future
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konokonohamaru posted...

As long as we keep rewarding theatre instead of actual solutions then nothing's gonna get done.

And pro-tip, corporations LOVE the theatre. Don't be surprised when some corps start using Greta for their marketing

Yeah, it will happen. 'We turn off the lights for an hour in the morning to save $0.50 worth of electricity a day!'

It is so easy for corporations to make it LOOK like they are doing something... and people fall for it.
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Also, as a side note, places such as Canada have very rigorous environmental standards on oil extraction which is constantly targeted by 'green' terrorists. Other places, which are not criticized, do not anywhere near the standards that Canada does.
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Rika_Furude posted...

I also dont agree with having a child be the face of a movement like this.

But at the same time, anyone who disagrees with this particular movement needs to fuck off anyway. Jump in a spaceship and never return to earth.

She's not the face. She's a face. People all over have been warning about the environment for decades, but jokers want to pretend one teenager is going to make or break the movement by being loud.
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I don't think she cares about consumers so much or the people who would find her anger too offputting - if they're dumb enough to deny climate science they're probably beyond help. She seems to go straight for the current governments, policymakers or whoever actually has the power to immediately make a change.

Also the lifetime carbon cost of a modern phone is like 80kg - about the same as driving 150-200 miles in a car or the average US household's weekly electricity use.