We've Already Built too Many Power Plants and Cars to Prevent 1.5 °C of Warming:
In a [...] paper published in Nature today[*], researchers found we're now likely to sail well past 1.5 ˚C of warming, the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate accords, even if we don't build a single additional power plant, factory, vehicle, or home appliance. Moreover, if these components of the existing energy system operate for as long as they have historically, and we build all the new power facilities already planned, they'll emit about two thirds of the carbon dioxide necessary to crank up global temperatures by 2 ˚C.
If fractions of a degree don't sound that dramatic, consider that 1.5 ˚C of warming could already be enough to expose 14% of the global population to bouts of severe heat, melt nearly 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) of Arctic permafrost, and destroy more than 70% of the world's coral reefs. The hop from there to 2 ˚C may subject nearly three times as many people to heat waves, thaw nearly 40% more permafrost, and all but wipe out coral reefs, among other devastating effects, research finds.
The basic conclusion here is, in some ways, striking. We've already built a system that will propel the planet into the dangerous terrain that scientists have warned for decades we must avoid. This means that building lots of renewables and adding lots of green jobs, the focus of much of the policy debate over climate, isn't going to get the job done.
We now have to ask a much harder societal question: How do we begin forcing major and expensive portions of existing energy infrastructure to shut down years, if not decades, before the end of its useful economic life?
Power plants can cost billions of dollars and operate for half a century. Yet the study notes that the average age of coal plants in China and India—two of the major drivers of the increase in "committed emissions" since the earlier paper—is about 11 and 12 years, respectively.
[*] Monday.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @03:12PM (7 children)
If you think we live in a "capitalist" era you are pretty deluded. "Capitalists" aren't the ones promoting constant inflation to collect seignorage and keep their Ponzi scheme alive.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @05:14PM (6 children)
This is hardly off-topic. If you want to successfully solve a problem you need to correctly identify the root cause. The root cause is quite simply that the current world economic system requires infinite growth to not collapse. This system is controlled by central banks and governments. Just read "financial news", it is all about central banks, trade wars, trump tweets, etc.
Here is the current set of headlines on Reuters:
https://i.ibb.co/NZR6B6L/finance.png [i.ibb.co]
Topics:
Federal Reserve rate cuts
Chinese Tariffs
Trump
Us factory orders
New head of the European Central Bank
Hong Kong regulator
Federal Housing Finance Agency
So the only non-government focused story is "US factory orders".
And just look at the circus around every FOMC statement where people all around the world are trying to interpret why they changed single words or phrases:
https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/!/fomc-statement-redline-20171213 [forexlive.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:19PM (5 children)
Keep digging, root doesn't end there, is just a little farther to go :-)
This seems relevant to your interests: Wall Street rules [wsws.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @10:44PM (4 children)
What aspect of the actual information there do you think is in conflict with what I said? I see random mentions of "capitalist" that have nothing to do with reality. Central banks and governments and to a much lesser extent corporations are in charge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03 2019, @11:46PM (3 children)
Nothing in conflict. It seems like you and the wswswswsws both share a healthy contempt for the Fed and corporations, so I'm hoping they might prod you in the right direction. Your analysis seems to be going in the right direction, especially wrt needing infinite growth to make the system work. The Accumulation of Capital [marxists.org] (Luxemburg) may also be relevant to your interests.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:03AM (2 children)
I see a missing type of organization there... but I will check out your link.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:06AM (1 child)
Yea, checked it. At first glance it is the same old boring ideas that require mass murder to work in theory and still fail despite mass murder in practice.
If you claim it is different then let me know.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @01:28AM
https://www.quora.com/What-has-killed-more-people-communism-or-capitalism [quora.com]
https://eand.co/if-communism-killed-millions-how-many-did-capitalism-kill-2b24ab1c0df7 [eand.co]