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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.
"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
WIth the way that European country economies are shrinking, we'll get to 40% carbon reduction with no trouble at all.
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
Not that I am pro-suicide booths, but at least they are voluntary for individuals (well at least if they had a few safeguards against accidental usage sadly lacking from the Futurama version were it not for the comedic element). They are not as cruel as forcing millions a people to live in squalor with poor sanitation, non-potable water supplies, limited food resources, etc. because someone else decided CO2 is bad and you can't be allowed to have any fossil fuels.
Please, if you are going to insist on no fossil fuels, delay that enforcement until we actually have some viable alternatives. Any alternative that is not nuclear or future tech is not really a viable alternative. Renewables without cheap energy storage are clearly not a viable replacement technology by themselves. The time to develop LFTR on a Manhattan Project basis is negligible in terms of additional CO2 burden if you could start converting fossil fuels power plants en masse starting in 2025. Lockheed Martin hss promised fusion by 2025. LFTR is the safe bet in terms of viability; no-one that really understands the technology says any fundamental breakthroughs are needed. So do both and let ITER and other projects continue.
Give us cheap room temperature superconductors and we could cover deserts around the world with solar panels and windmills without having to store energy. Or just nano-tech solar cells that grow themselves all over our roads. I am not fussy about how it is done, but if you double the cost of electricity you are killing people in large numbers. German electricity is already 0.36 per kWh and 0.12 in the US and 0.08 in China and India. Where do you think manufacturing will grow, where are people burning lots of wood because it it deemed renewable? You and Al Gore are probably safe though, so why should you really care -- pretending to care is enough isn't it.
Not really harping on you in particular since I suspect you would going for the comedic line. But we are ruled by lots of stupid and venal politicians that are pissing on the future as well as today.
There's no need to wait for the perfect solution and there are plenty of avenues to follow and that are being followed.
2030 is 15 years away and there are other very significants sources of CO2 apart from energy use. Given how long the warnings about global warming have been around, this should have been a problem that's nearly solved, not in desperate need of a magic solution within a decade.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
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.
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.
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.
As I understand it, we could prevent global warming right now without reducing our use of fossil fuels, and even cause an ice age if we so choose. Of course there will be side-effects for those methods. And we will have to cease our use of fossil fuels in the not-too-distant future anyhow. And the use of fossil fuels also generally creates other pollutants as well. So we could kill three birds with one stone if we could wean ourselves off fossil fuels now rather than later.
I suspect the reason we're all dragging our feet about this is economics. Not many are willing to commit economic suicide now even if it is to prevent real suicide later.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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....
If it's a conspiracy of dunces & a pack of lies, why does Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon believe that the world is warming due to fossil fuel use?
Well-connected corporations frequently espouse whatever the political class wants them to say. That keeps government regulators from targeting them and makes it more likely that the corporation will be the recipient of special favors from the government. Example from outside the world of climate change: The Dallas Cowboys signed Michael Sam to their practice squad because American politicians are pushing the gay agenda and want to help gay activists queerify professional sports. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones "took one for the team" so-to-speak so that the NFL could keep all its tax perks. After the requisite waiting period and after mumbling in an irritated way about all the attention being given by the media to a player who was only on the practice squad, Jones got rid of Sam. Corporations and their executives read the political fashions and try them on on occasion, but that doesn't mean they sincerely believe whatever nonsense is being peddled. Another example if you need one: Health insurance companies backed Obamacare even though Obamacare is designed to destroy the private health insurance industry. A third example: Healthy U.S. Banks accepted TARF bailout funds even though they didn't want to because the Obama Administration threatened to eff them up if they didn't.
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)
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