I totally disagree. Hong Kong and Ukraine are 1) issues that would be easily solved with comparatively little effort and mostly just the will to stand against our enemies and with our allies, and 2) are both issues that directly effect only a small human population.

She's a marketing tool in the same sense that the entire Republican party is nothing more than a tool of the fossil fuel industry, except their science and tears are totally fraudulent and only self serving.

Have you considered that the adults around her may be tools in her hands?

@newtboy,

"bankrupting the global economy isn't the only way to plan for asteroids, now is it? What we have done is put some money towards developing solutions that could be implemented in time, with minor exceptions for super fast unknown asteroids we likely couldn't do much about if we did have a planetary defense system."

That's precisely my point though, bankrupting the global economy to reach negative net emissions tomorrow isn't the only way to plan for climate change either.

"the probability of disastrous climate change is near 100% if you take historic human behavior into account. For many it's already hit. It's only the severity and speed that are in question, and those estimates rise alarmingly with every bit of data we use to replace guesses in the equations.

And the odds of a catastrophic asteroid hit sometime in the future is near 100% too, it's just a question of how many millions of years Earth's luck holds out. Nor has every prediction or projection underestimated future warming so far, your flat wrong on that.

More to the point, the timing and severity of the changes we face is ABSOLUTELY relevant to the actions we need to take. Similarly, knowing the benefit of reducing our emissions by X% by a particular date is also extremely relevant to the actions we need to take. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that we have a lot of gaps and uncertainty in our knowledge on those points.

At minimum base level, we know changing global temperature on the whole will impact us negatively, that our CO2 emissions will make things warmer than they otherwise would be, and thus can easily conclude with certainty that the science dictates policies to reduce emissions are a good idea.

Now, you seem to be hell bent on demanding those policies take the shape of staring down the face of disaster 2-3 times worse than the IPCC AR5 reports absolute worst case scenario. I've got to tell you, that the uncertainties involved with that kind of prediction are too great to warrant an honest dictate that the facts support a need for economically devastating action being taken today. It's just not the case.

Even if green tech never takes over, if the next century sees us final solve fusion power and adoption of electric cars, we already get our emission outputs off the worst track scenario the IPCC projected in AR5. I honestly do believe that we will see non-fossil fuel electricity generation and electric cars as the norm in my lifetime, so I'm hopeful for a future that tracks better than the IPCC worst case. That doesn't mean we should do nothing, but it's more like we should take a similarly rational/practical approach to it like you see us doing with asteroids.

Almost as stupid as holding the producers of the toxic product AND the misleading or outright false information about it's hazards blameless. Because they actively misled their customers, I give them the vast lions share of blame, but maybe not 100%. There's plenty to go around.

You don't have to live in poverty to abandon fossil fuels.
Not.
Even.
Close.
I bought solar 10+- years back...it paid for itself in 8. It's lifespan is 20+-. I get 12 years of free electricity for abandoning that portion, with no blackouts, no brownouts, and no rate increases.

True, the video could be better at sharing the blame, but it stayed on topic instead, that topic being major polluters greenwashing their mage. I didn't take it as assigning ALL blame to one source, just not allowing the worst offenders to shirk all responsibility for their products.


Every one of these is the likely outcome of any anthropogenic rise over 2-3C because of feedback loops that drive us to 6-12C rise. Only the wars are likely this century, but I didn't put a timeframe on those outcomes. 140 million + will be displaced by just a 3' rise, which is all but guaranteed by 2100 under the most optimistic current projections.
That wipes out mangroves and other fish nurseries, further impacting the struggling ocean food webs. All the while it accelerates as our ability to cope erodes like the shorelines....it doesn't just halt at 3' rise.
The natural food webs on land are also struggling, and are unlikely to survive ocean collapse.

Not just from deforestation, but diatoms are near a point of collapse from ocean acidification. https://diatoms.org/what-are-diatoms. That's over 1/2....and the base of the ocean food web.


Since the IPCC (again, known for overly conservative estimates) now says at current rates we could hit as much as a 6C rise by 2100, and rates of emissions are rising as fast as carbon sinks are shrinking, they're not just a possibility, they a likelihood in the near future....but granted the hydrogen sulfide clouds are far in a worst case scenario future, far from guaranteed.

@newtboy,

Walking backwards to simplify, my main point is that simply blaming ALL fossil fuel usage on the company providing the fossil fuel is stupid and misleading in the extreme. We don't see millions of people willingly abandoning fossil fuels and living in abject poverty to save the world, instead they are all very willing and eagerly buying them and this video lets all those people off the hook. This video lets everybody keep using fossil fuels, and at the same time pointing the finger at Shell and saying it's all their fault. It's an extremely detrimental piece of disinformation.

"explain what, specifically, I claimed that's not supported by the science."
-Complete collapse of the food web
-Wars over hundreds of millions or billions of refugees
-Loss of most farm land and hundreds of major cities to the sea
-Loss of well over 1/2 the producers of O2
-Eventual clouds of hydrogen sulfide from the ocean covering the land
-Runaway greenhouse cycles making the planet uninhabitable for thousands if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of years

Yes, we're overpopulated. That doesn't invalidate my arguments.

I gave examples of multiple cultures that do what you claim is impossible. I never implied Americans would accept a lower standard of living, only that it's the right thing to strive for, and coming like it or not.

I grow 75% of the produce for two people on 3/4 acres.

Masses of people are going to die unnecessarily. Period. This could be avoided, but won't be. Our choice is accept less now, or have nothing later.

The dependence on fossil fuels for agriculture could be quartered with some minor changes with little drop in output. The western world won't make the investment needed to make that a reality. Also, the fossil fuel needed to make fertilizers is not a significant amount....maybe as little as 3%of natural gas produced.

There are millions of hungry people now without access to the artificially supported agriculture system who relied on natural sources that no longer exist. Aren't you concerned about them?

Name one I listed not supported by science.

Food shortages are preferable to no food.

The 3' estimate is old, based on estimates already proven miserably wrong. Like I said, Greenland is melting as a rate they predicted to not happen until 2075.

When tens of millions must flee low lying areas, and all low lying farmland is underwater, and much of the rest in drought or flood, what do you think happens?

By 2100, all estimates show us far past the tipping points where human input is no longer the driving force. Even the IPCC said we have until 2030 or so to cut emissions in half, and we are not lowering emissions, we're raising them. 50 years out is 75 years late....but better than never.....but we aren't on that path at all. Investment in fossil fuel systems continues to accelerate thanks to emerging third world nations like China and India making the same mistakes the Western world made, but in greater quantities.

The IPCC report said if we don't immediately cut emissions today, by half in 11 years and to zero in 30, then negative emissions for the next 50 that we're on track to hit 3-6C rise by 2100 and raising that estimated temperature rise daily....4C gives the 3' sea level rise by 2100 with current models, but they are woefully inadequate and have proven to be vast underestimation of actual melting already.

We may develop the necessary tech, we won't develop the will to implement it. Indeed, we're at that point today....have been for decades.

Yep, sure, no sacrifices needed. You can have it all and more and let the next guy pay the bill. What if we're the last guys in line?

Funny, isn't that what the Paris climate accord is? Sane leaders giving such stupidity serious consideration, because they understand it's not stupidity it's reality. Granted, they don't go nearly far enough, but they did something more than just claim it will be fixed in the future by something that doesn't exist today and ignoring human behavior and all trends, because using/having less is simply unacceptable.

We need a nice pandemic to cull us by 9/10 and a few intelligent Maos to drive us back to sustainability. We won't get either in time.

For some idea of how much energy could conceivably be extracted this way, see:

https://www.withouthotair.com/c16/page_96.shtml

In a nutshell, the numbers in this video sound extremely bogus. It's unlikely that anything like our current fossil fueled lifestyle would be possible using only geothermal energy.

@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.

You asked at least 3 questions and all fo them very much leading questions.

To the first 2, my response is that it's only the extremely fortunate few that have the kind of financial security and freedom to make those adjustments, so lucky for them.

Your last question is:
do those companies get to continue to abdicate their responsibility, pawning it off on their customers?

Your question demands as part of it's base assumption that fossil fuels are inherently immoral or something and customers are clearly the victims. I reject that.

The entirety of the modern western world stands atop the usage of fossil fuels. If we cut ALL fossil fuel usage out tomorrow, mass global starvation would follow within a year, very nasty wars would rapidly follow that.

The massive gains in agricultural production we've seen over the last 100 years is extremely dependent on fossil fuels. Most importantly for efficiency in equipment run on fossil fuels, but also importantly on fertilizers produced by fossil fuels. Alternatives to that over the last 100 years did not exist. If you think Stalin and Mao's mass starvations were ugly, just know that the disruptions they made to agriculture were less severe than the gain/loss represented by fossil fuels.

All that is to state that simply saying don't use them because the future consequences are bad is extremely naive. The amount of future harm you must prove is coming is enormous, and the scientific community as represented by the IPCC hasn't even painted a worst case scenario so catastrophic.

Because its marketing?
Like every ad ever?
Only say good things from a positive angle and if you have nothing to say, sing it?
If you want to be disgusted, you are invited, dear SJW!

We are supposed to be "disgusted" but instead I had to tank twice yesterday just because of work.

Not at Shell BTW because they are expensive. Maybe they are expensive because they are trying to look green, but my take is that its all just marketing. Marketing is there to be ignored or sneered at by the customer.

If we abruptly drop out of this vicious cycle of internet banking, meat eating and fossil fuel burning, will half of us not die for various reasons? Starting with me and my family, of hunger? Or more probably, just me, of blunt instrument to the head, held by wife?

And this video is also just marketing, for an ideology.

Car is freedom. Bus is a jail.

I think we are seeing things very differently.

How important do you think fossil fuels are to modern society right now and over the last hundred years? Do you believe that they have been net negative or net positive influence on humanity in that time?

That's why you and Trump are leveraging everything you own and buying up cheap coastal properties that will jump exponentially in value right after this fraud is exposed, or when the sea doesn't rise....no? Why not? If you believed what you spout, it's an absolute no brainer, the fact you (and others like you) don't act on it is proof that you don't believe your own position yourself.

Perhaps it's because the people who tell you there's a vast scientific conspiracy perpetrated for the sole purpose of milking that sweet sweet research money are paid by fossil fuel industries. Perhaps it's because the Pentagon agrees with the science and even Trump agrees when his money is on the line. Perhaps because of the hottest 18 years ever recorded, 17 occurred after 2000. Perhaps it's because these immigrants you are so afraid of are migrating in part due to climate change already. Perhaps it's because numerous Pacific islands are disappearing. No matter why, it's clear you really do believe in climate change, or you would own a huge chunk of Florida coast already.
Pathetic, Bob.


*nochannel
*politics
*nature
*science

Nuclear energy is the only way we can do it, we can run the planet forever and do things cleanly and more densely to leave more of our planet for wildlife.

The trouble is almost everything we hold as common wisdom about it is completely wrong, using breeder reactors have enough uranium to run the planet forever leaving almost no waste and removing the possibility of big accidents which actually aren't as harmful as commonly believed anyway.

We have thorium too, and many designs of each that can do the job. In fact we have a wealth of of options, but also a decades old and highly effective PR campaign from the fossil fuel industry to convince us otherwise.

Conservatives: FAKE DATA. NASA is just saying this to make money [but the denial stuff is all sponsored by the fossil fuel industry who somehow isn't biased]. Climate change is fake. If you think about it, CO2 is good for plants [most are doing their max exchange, and it makes them have less nutrition... plus most of the globe isn't green, it's blue or desert... would be one thing if there was a way to keep that CO2 where the plants actually were and down where they were], its what they breath. It's a war on coal and oil. Ice levels in the Antarctic are rising [some data suggests it has, and may, but it is offset by Greenland ice loss alone, let alone ice loss from every other place like Alaska, Canada, Russia, the Nordic countries, etc]. It's cold here on January 3, so much for global warming [odd they never mention the problem on August 23 or whatever]? They said there's going to be an ice age back in the 70's [they can't show the science papers, just an article in Newsweek or Time], and just last year or so, they said solar minimums will result in another mini-ice age [again, no, nothing about climate in the actual science paper, just the press running their own version of the paper].

Nuclear prices are going up because they are under attack from the fossil fuel industry and they are not allowed to innovate with new technologies that are much safer and cheaper.

So wait...he talks about how important the weight is because it determines the load that can be carried. He does the weight calculations and then immediately starts talking about the cost of the truck and never finishes his weight analysis.

According to his estimation, the weight of the unloaded truck with trailer is 7 tons. If the batteries on a 500 mile truck weigh 8 tons then the total 15 ton vehicle is lighter than the ~17 ton average for a standard semi with trailer. I'd round up for the weight of the motors and since his empty weight calculation seems a tad low. So you can assume the weights of a Tesla truck and stardard truck are at least within spitting distance of each other.

Range is less of an issue since a driver is only allowed to drive a maximum of 11 hours in a 14 hour period. So assuming they drove a solid 11 hours at 60 miles per hour (since that's what the 500 mile range is based on), the standard truck can drive 160 miles further. But if you're driving 11 hours without a break, you're an idiot. And Tesla indicates that a battery can fully charge in under 30 minutes.

Last point, he estimates the battery cost alone will be $108K and $180K but Tesla has set the expected price of the actual trucks as $150K and $180K. Considering a traditional truck runs $80K - $150K, it seems the return on investment for a Tesla truck might be shorter than a traditional truck, given the economy of electric compared fossil fuel.

Great video though. Love all the math.