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EU Sets Goal To Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions 40% By 2030
An anonymous reader writes: The 28 nations in the European Union agreed Friday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% (going by 1990 levels) by the year 2030. The deal received widespread criticism; industry bosses said the 2030 targets were too extreme, while many environmental groups said the goals weren't ambitious enough. The deal requires each nation to achieve the goal independently — earlier targets could use international offsets to avoid or reduce action. EU officials hope the agreement will encourage the U.S. and China to take a more aggressive stance on fighting climate change.
The cruel way to cut emissions is to offer suicide booths to people. That way that person won't contribute anymore.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"EU officials hope the agreement will encourage the U.S. and China to take a more aggressive stance on fighting climate change."
The US?
Would that be the same United States that met the original Kyoto reduction targets without trying?
-Styopa
Why not 257%?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
WIth the way that European country economies are shrinking, we'll get to 40% carbon reduction with no trouble at all.
The majority of greenhouse gasses come from transportation and electricity production. If everyone stayed home and we quit using air conditioning and heat the problem will be solved.
Should be easier now.
Recently Germany decided that their nuclear power plants weren't contaminating the environment enough so they decided to dump vastly more radioactive shit into the air around Europe.
This came with a bunch of CO2. When they actually decide that radioactive contamination is bad, they can simply shut down the coal plants and start using nuclear again.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
while many environmental groups said the goals weren't ambitious enough.
They could say they want to cut the number 100% by 2030, and there would be people out there saying its not fast enough. It seems for some reason everytime something like this comes up, the only people you hear are those who say we shouldnt do anything, and those who say we are already doomed and should live in mud huts. Why cant we come up with a rational response? something where we use what we have now, and work towards a better tomorrow together?
instead of saying "global warming is a hoax!" why not say "well, its always better to have a clean environment, so lets work towards the goals"
and instead of saying "we need to stop using oil now! we need to stop using X Y Z NOW!!!" , how about we say "well, i know we cant stop society by eliminating everything that is "bad for the environment" so lets work at it one step at a time"
in the end, we go broke, shady business people get rich, and nothing changes. its disgusting
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The so-called scientists
Please post a list of your published papers that relate to climatology.
We know what an Anonymous Coward is.
But what is frof.
What is Ureacrats.
Cutting greenhouse gasses by 40% will also cut jobs by 40%.
Why should it? It's my understanding that a lot of areas of industry are actually reducing their energy expenses. Is Germany a country economically reliant of aluminum smelters (where the electrochemistry can't be cheated)? (And even here, let's forget for a moment conveniently that Dutch smelters are getting into market competition problems because of cheap German electricity anyway...)
Ezekiel 23:20
All signs are that an increase in the price of polluting energy sources does not just boosts the development of alternatives but is especially making people and companies work more efficient.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Cutting greenhouse gasses by 40% will also cut jobs by 40%.
This is fallacious reasoning. You could replace some of the current energy production with human power: pushing a flywheel for room, board, and $1.50/hour. Unemployment would drop to nil! Of course productivity would reduce because overall energy production would be much less, but jobs are how the government measures economic success right now.
It's roman_mir. He always goes full retard.
Or stay behind.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
They are having a giraffe - The Americans will just use it as another excuse why they don't need to cut theirs
Cutting emission by 40% doesn't solve a problem that is already past the point of no return.
I think vacations in Europe will be cheap a few years from now after their economies crash and the Dollar once again becomes worth more that the local currencies.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
And at the same time they dislike "nucular" 'cos it is ..., well, "nucular".
I live in Northern Europe - for us this will mean insane regulations. Just insane.
The people who we call "redgreen" (communistic-environmentalist-extremists) are the second biggest problem to earth. The biggest is exponential population growth. Global warming is somewhere aroung fifth to tenth - at least for us here in the north.
Because there will be more than double that number of cars on the road by that time, and so it will still result in a net increase. It's better than no cuts at all, but IMO,. they should be focusing on reducing emissions by at least 10% every single year to really stay ahead of the rate at which more cars are being added to roads... by the same time, at that rate, emissions would have been cut by about 80% off of what they are today.
That would make a difference. Reducing by 40% over 16 years is just political posturing, not any serious attempt at wanting to make the future any better than the present.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Nice try, but feeding people (or even draft animals) calories to perform manual labor produces more GHG than using more efficient methods like coal power plants. :)
Not that there's anything wrong with more GHG production, but broken window fallacy and all that as well...
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Given that a good proportion of the world was forested in the past and CO2 was a lot lower back then, I don't think you can use that argument. England used to be heavily forested until we started fighting the French, Spanish and Portuguese navies. Similar things happened all over the world as industry and war kicked off. More importantly plants don't solely depend on CO2 to survive, there are limiting factors like nutrient content in soils, water and so on which are more likely to dominate.
As for politics: leaders tend not to go through with their bold claims because they know that it's political suicide if they actually start enacting them in a meaningful way. If we committed seriously to lowering emissions, things would probably get more expensive and that's a fast way to get kicked out of power. Similarly if you're being backed by energy companies, as are a lot of senators, it's awfully hard for you to admit that global warming is a problem. This is compounded with serious scientific ignorance on the part of many politicians.
How far do we have to get into the 21st century before you people stop putting "the year" in front of a year? What else could "by 2030" be referring to? It was arguably ok to write that in the first couple of years of the century, when people were still not used to years starting with "20", rather than "19", but it's not ok any more - it's redundant, clunky, and stupid.
Even if what you propose was physically possible, a hibernating society is not really a solution.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Germany, Ireland, and the Czech Republic have entered into a mult-lateral agreement to fight the Leprechaun scourge and reduce the number of children replaced by fairy changelings by 2025.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
And when it was warmer, the savanna extended further into the Sahara. If this repeated, some dirt-poor African countries might be more able to feed themselves. Heck, this might even lessen conflict in those same areas. But this doesn't fit the "Global Warming is a total CATASTROPHE" propaganda...
If you are wondering about the impact of carbon dioxide on say, forests, this type of question is easy to research with a quick Google search. In 30 seconds, I found this NSF study by Harvard researchers, for example, not exactly normally a hotbed of pro-GHG folks.
It's actually quite well-established that increased carbon dioxide levels are very good for plant growth. As it turns out, it also enables them to grow while needing less water, for example.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
The good news is the European nations just signed an economic suicide pact.
The bad news is there's no way they'll actually keep to it.
Not that hard. 25 dollar a gallon gas tax and triple the price of electricity and people would have no choice except of course for the rich.
Here is environmentalist George Monboit embracing the deployment of nuclear power: http://www.monbiot.com/2013/12...
Here is climate scientist James Hanson calling for the development and deployment of nuclear energy: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes....
As a general rule, I consider that if you're being criticized by all sides, you're pretty much spot on.
Of course artificially inflating the costs of energy makes companies and employees more efficient. That is because they have to compete with outside sources who are not burdened with the artificial costs or risk going under.
If everyone in the word was subject to the exact same costs increases, it would only become inflation and the world would move on just the same. Instead when only part of the world has to deal with increased costs, they have options to consider, either becoming more efficient, paying less for labor, materials, or whatever else is a cost, or escaping the costs increases altogether by moving to an area without the increased costs (offshoring). Presumably, the last option is a last resort because leadership of these companies will not want to move.
Is it any wonder that EU countries have more than tripled their imports from China within the last 10 years? In the last 20 years, trade with China and the EU countries went from almost nothing to over 428 billion a year in 2013. Of that 428 billion, only 148 billion is exported from EU countries while 279 billion was imported into them.
But keep on increasing costs, China and India and all the other countries like the concept.
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/docl...
Yes, and you can go back to live in stone age.
After a hundred years people in frozen caves will break tears hearing stories of how their ancestors once had great heaters, capable of heating the entire earth! But they dumped all these because it hurts their precious earth and lovely innocent animals!
I rather all vehicles were electric because i'd like to walk around towns and cities that didn;t smell of car fumes and i see that as a valid target for cutting back on pollution.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Except rebel, of course. Which I'd have to do, since without heating I'd freeze to death in the winter, even if I'd be willing to suffer being under effective house arrest.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Sure some Chinese imports are cheaper due to their lacking environmental concerns but the vast majority had to do with people there working for peanuts, a situation that's rapidly changing.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Why cant we come up with a rational response? something where we use what we have now, and work towards a better tomorrow together?
Because of bad journalism. The reality is that the mainstream environmental movement is very rational and practical. There are even some politicians that are too. They don't make good headlines or make the reader angry and fearful though, so they tend to be ignored by journalists.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
anyone who has ever grown anything indoors knows one of the things you do is buy a CO2 generator! anyone who thinks CO2 is bad for plant growth knows nothing about plants
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
agreed, which is the point I am making. Sure they are nice, and one day they will become viable to the masses. now is not that time and trying to force them onto us would be a horrible idea (CAFE is heading in that direction already)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
just a side note, my shady business people was more of a jab at the people making the laws with the politicians, not the oil companies. they have some very low return, government taxes take more pennies per gallon than the oil companies make per gallon (how would you like that gig? do nothing and collect more than the business does?)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Better tomorrow for whom? If I burn a gallon of gasoline getting to work today, my tomorrow will be better, even if the day after that will be worse for everyone. Powers that be have spent several decades trying to get people to believe selfishness is a virtue rather than a character flaw. That same bullshit is now preventing them from doing anything about anything.
Everyone are making rational decisions based on the principle of selfishness: "I have mine, screw you". They're following it straight to Hell.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Carbon footprint = measurable thing
Global warming = demonstrated beyond doubt (to most)
CO2 = some is good for your plants, too much will hurt them (and you)
For someone with a "univercity" degree in meteorology you sure as heck don't know what you're talking about. Also, meteorology != climate science. You should know that if you have the degree you state you do.
"Global warming" = the warming of the globe
"Climate change" = the changes to the climate the warming causes
The pause doesn't exist, either. You stating that it does (and expecting to be taken seriously) shows you are woefully ignorant of the science, and desperate to not learn. Did you know you can ignore all the models and anthropogenic warming is still very much evident?
You're the one who's been had. You are arguing against trying to protect the world that you are leaving to future generations, and paying more for in the process.
When will you get over it, get mad, and get even with those who took you in? Oh, you won't, as you're too lazy to even bother to learn. What a surprise.
They changed the name from "Global warming" to "Climate change" for PR reasons, the underlying principles are still the same.
Global warming means the average temperature of the globe raises by a small amount. And people would assume that the only thing that would change is that temperatures will raise by a few degrees. Except that it may not match local observations (hey, this winter is colder than the previous one) and even if it was, it would be mostly viewed as something desirable (who likes freezing cold winters ?).
In reality, global warming would result in more extreme weather, sea level rise, a redistribution of local cold and hot areas rather than a steady raise in temperatures everywhere. Hence "climate change".