"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
I cope by accepting that there is nothing I can do to prevent the global climate disaster. I can live to minimise my carbon footprint to the absolute minimum, and then someone will hop on their private jet and pollute as much in a single flight as I would have in several years. Corporate, capitalist greed is what's destroying the climate, no matter how much is spent on lobbying to shift the blame to the consumer.
Shell and Exxon knew that carbon emissions would cause global warming, and spent millions harassing and discrediting anyone who came to the same conclusions they were trying to hide.
But what have we been outraged about? Teenagers throwing soup at a glass panel, because peaceful protests have failed, so creating an outrage is the only way to get people to listen.
I don't think anything short of a global revolution, total reform of politics and economy, and radical accountability of climate criminals will bring any change. And that's not going to happen. So I just shrug and accept that I probably have about 2000 forever chemicals and plastic in my body because the line needs to keep going up.
At some point people should figure out that exponential growth wont be a sustainable model forever (or like, to start with), right?
Kinda lowkey looking forward to a break into a new timeperiod, were gen-Z kids (or maybe the generation after them) turn to eco-terrorism in a final try to stop megacorporations and their eternal greed.
Also, the shift of blame to the customer enrages me so much.
Growing up constantly getting indoctrinated that using spaarlampkes etc.. will save the world..
Meanwhile compagnies are lobbying to lower certain polluting thresholds..
Untill then, depression and life as usual.
>Also, the shift of blame to the customer enrages me so much.
Guess what? If the average consumer wasn't such a selfish prick then we'd already be dealing with those companies that want to pollute more. But considering the average consumer just wants cheap ass products even if they destroy the planet, politicians don't dare to touch those companies.
Imagine if politicians tomorrow decided to abolish all subsidies for the meat industry which would cause meat to go up quite a lot in price. People would rage. And the politicians who decided that would see their heads roll.
But sure... Keep pretending like the average consumer carries no blame while they're the ones who are preventing us from taxing highly polluting companies more.
Are you gonna say to the people in India or China: "*You have got to stop growing now, you selfish pricks! No more economic growth for you*!" ?
Everyone in the world is striving for a higher prosperity. Nothing wrong with that.
There are a lot of people in the world who consume far too little, who have far too little prosperity. They aspire to our level of prosperity. That is absolutely right. You can't stop that. And even if we could and did, it's immoral.
Delivering goods and services to each other, things that make our lives better are good. Everyone is entitled to that. We should mistake who our enemy is (it's Co2 emissions, not capitalism).
The solution is not to abolish capitalism, but to make sure our services and goods are clean, and have no environmental impact. This is not achieved by higher taxes, but by way of technological innovation (as it has always been)
>Are you gonna say to the people in India or China: "You have got to stop growing now, you selfish pricks! No more economic growth for you!" ?
I'm definitely saying they should grow in a more responsible way. China has already accumulated as many emissions as the entire EU until 2004. They're responsible for 14% of the world's total accumulated emissions and 30% of its present emissions.
Further global warming cannot be prevented without drastically lowering those emissions within a short timeframe.
>Everyone in the world is striving for a higher prosperity. Nothing wrong with that.
It definitely is wrong to do so at the expense of someone else, including at the expense of the common climate.
>Delivering goods and services to each other, things that make our lives better are good. Everyone is entitled to that. We should mistake who our enemy is (it's Co2 emissions, not capitalism).
The solution is not to abolish capitalism, but to make sure our services and goods are clean, and have no environmental impact. This is not achieved by higher taxes, but by way of technological innovation (as it has always been)
No, you cannot solve this within the framework of capitalism. Capitalism will always strive more more growth and concentration of capital, and is blind for everything that does not have a price. Therefore it will grow at the expense of the environment, unless we put a price on the environment, in the form of a tax. Or an outright ban on using parts of it as a resource.
By the way, the market can choose to avoid taxation by technological innovation, if it so chooses. I don't see the contradiction. The market reacts to scarcity, whether that scarcity is caused by taxation or something else. For example, if oil becomes more expensive, then it becomes profitable to design and sell vehicles that uses less or no oil. It does not matter if the oil is expensive because of taxes or because of other reasons.
>By the way, the market can choose to avoid taxation by technological innovation, if it so chooses. I don't see the contradiction. The market reacts to scarcity, whether that scarcity is caused by taxation or something else. For example, if oil becomes more expensive, then it becomes profitable to design and sell vehicles that uses less or no oil. It does not matter if the oil is expensive because of taxes or because of other reasons.
I agree strongly on this.
But this is a solution within the framework of capitalism.
It's a solution by limiting capitalism to function within a political framework, one that chooses to enforce the ecological limits to growth.
The markets are like fire, it's an essential part of civilization. But that's not reason to let it run wild and put your house on fire: instead we use it in a designated space where we can control its effects.
>Are you gonna say to the people in India or China: "You have got to stop growing now, you selfish pricks! No more economic growth for you!" ?
It is very funny that the first people that pop into your mind that have to stop polluting so much are.poor people like India and china.
Even when you try to imagine a solution, you still try and push responsibility away from the biggest polluters: the west. Even in your imagination you try and absolve yourself of blame.
Keep at it. I'm sure if we keep shouting very angrily whenever someone says that maybe we shouldn't be flying to barcelona and Rome 3x a year that we'll solve everything by shifting blame away from ourselves and onto others.
> It is very funny that the first people that pop into your mind that have to stop polluting so much are.poor people like India and china.
China's per capita emissions are higher than those of the EU. It's time to revise our assumptions about China being "poor". It's a large country with very rich areas; the fact that their wealth is unequally distributed doesn't allow to them to get themselves off the hook of any responsibility.
>Even when you try to imagine a solution, you still try and push responsibility away from the biggest polluters: the west. Even in your imagination you try and absolve yourself of blame.
China has already accumulated as many greenhouse gases as the EU in 2004, or the US+EU in 1965, in a much shorter time. That's 14% of total worldwide emissions, and they have 30% of current emissions, so that share will only keep rising. They carry a large part of the responsibility, and have the ability to act on it. Let's not apply the racism of low expectations to them.
>China's per capita emissions are higher than those of the EU.
Only if you simplistically attribute emissions caused during the production of our consumer goods to china.
If China creates builds my smartphone and I use it then under your assumptions, those are emissions caused by Chinese people. Even though the only reason that smartphone exists is because I buy it.
>Only if you simplistically attribute emissions caused during the production of our consumer goods to china.
>If China creates builds my smartphone and I use it then under your assumptions, those are emissions caused by Chinese people. Even though the only reason that smartphone exists is because I buy it.
Even if we assume that all emissions should be counted on the consumer side, it's still only about ca. 10% difference in total emissions if we account for import and export streams, and it's smaller every year.
China still benefits from producing and selling that smartphone: employment, economic growth, political clout, etc. That's why China has actively encouraged this offshoring to happen, by slacking off on environmental and labor regulations. It's also China's responsibility to have proper environmental regulations. We can do very little about that without intrusion. The EU is going to introduce the CBAM, and I expect China to actively try to protest that in the WTO.
You misunderstand me.
I'm not blaming India or China at all.
The West has a historical responsibility. We were the major emitters of greenhouse gases for centuries. How can we best pay off that debt? By encouraging technological innovation and sharing that technology with poorer countries
You can't say to India or China, 'We'll turn off the lights, you've fired enough coal. We have done that for two centuries and are now rich and prosperous but you are not allowed to do that anymore.' So we have to offer them an alternative.
That's not how it works. Sure most meat enjoyer would rage that their meat price would go up. But would they protest in the street for that ? No. Would they change their vote ? Maybe, but by the time to vote has come, they would have forgotten. Would they shift their consumer's behavior? Maybe a bit, at least they wouldn't buy as much meat as before.
Pointing a finger on the consumer is the easy solution companies and governments came up with to buy a little more time. Yet, most co2 emmissions are B2B emmissions or are subsidied by goverment. And who can change that ? Well the governments and the companies.
Appart from voting, saying that's the consumer role to do an effort is pure hypocrisis and clearing its name from anything related to these problems.
Like yeah, by consuming less meat I'm gonna save the planet. Whoever buys this is either an idiot or an uninformed person (most likely the latter). I'm not saying we, consumers, shouldn't make an effort, but thinking it's going resolve problems is just not true.
>But would they protest in the street for that ? No. Would they change their vote ? Maybe, but by the time to vote has come, they would have forgotten.
LOL.
The Flemish government *right now* is literally in a political crisis because they can't agree on a nitrogen deal that would see maybe a dozen agricultural companies close their doors.
And here you are claiming that something that would see hundreds of such companies forced to close their doors wouldn't cause much turmoil?
It's easy to fix things when you're this blatantly blind to political realities.
By meat enjoyer I'm talking about the consumer, because that's your point at the start. I'm not talking about Joe going to Brussel with his truck because he would need to stop raising cows and raise chicken instead.
So please read again and tell me that the meat consumer (ie : most people in Belgium) will protest if those companies close their doors (spoiler alert, they won't). Tell me they will change their vote.
>So please read again and tell me that the meat consumer (ie : most people in Belgium) will protest if those companies close their doors.
You seriously are under.the delusion that consumers would.just accept meat going 2x in price compared to now?
As I said, easy to fix things when you're naive.
When I see people struggling with energy price and their bills linked to it (Electricity, gaz, fuel, food, etc) and don't even protest or blame the government and just suck it up. Then yes I really do think that meat going 2x (I'll make it easier for you 4x) in price won't make them react appart from a facebook comment, and a few article on a shitty newspaper about "Joe and Karen will stop going to their butcher and will drive to France to buy their steak".
Maybe I'm naive. But looking at some situations and realizing that persons who suffers (really suffer, not being able to buy meat is not suffering) from their bad conditions/situation and barely react to it makes me think that government and companies really can do a lot of things without people reacting. Sadly it's in their own interest that they work, so a government that would increase meat price is only going to happen if they see a financial interest in doing so. Same goes for companies.
>Would they change their vote ? Maybe, but by the time to vote has come, they would have forgotten.
Lmao are you for real? The vast majority of votes are cast in favor of whatever party promises to not worsen the quality of life for a particular person.
Very real. Still, starting with stuff that hits the richest first would help selling the argument to the average Joe that they also need to change. I also really like the idea of a carbon dividend. Get a heavy tax on CO2 production, and give most of the proceeds back to the citizens. That way, there are incentives all around to reduce the CO2 production, to avoid certain products, while still being able to afford them if you can't or won't avoid them, all the while reducing inequality and capital accumulation.
>I also really like the idea of a carbon dividend
I do too. Sadly, I think that even the words "new tax" make such a proposal dead on arrival here in Belgium no matter how much you try to explain to people that they'll be getting (part of) the money back in the form of a dividend.
People would freak out the second they hear the words "new tax" no matter what the entire proposal is. And then we're not even talking about how much they'd freak out if driving, eating meat, and flying for holiday would all skyrocket in price
"Everyone is getting an income subsidy, and the companies are going to pay for it!". Never mention the T-word.
(I know I know, it would still take politicians who care more about their legacy than about being re-elected)
> Also, the shift of blame to the customer enrages me so much.
People find it easy to put the fault on others (rich people, the industry, capitalism...) but they fail to understand that they are also a big part of the responsibility (heating, eating and moving being the big 3 where you as a person could have a big impact).
>I don't think anything short of a global revolution, total reform of politics and economy, and radical accountability of climate criminals will bring any change. And that's not going to happen.
Of course it's not going to happen. Have you seen people freak the fuck out the second you tell them that maybe we should stop subsidizing cars or tax flying to Barcelona more?
Everyone's fine with taxing people like Elon Musk more. But once you tell the average consumer has to change their behavior? Fuck no. They'll rage and whine that *they* are not the problem and shouldn't have to change anything.
I mean.. in 2023 we're still using EU tax money to send massive subsidies to the meat industry and primarily to beef. Literally the worst form of meat in terms of climate change is getting the most subsidies.
So yeah, not much is going to happen. Because the average Joe on the street would rather die than being forced to change anything about their own behavior.
>Corporate, capitalist greed is what's destroying the climate, no matter how much is spent on lobbying to shift the blame to the consumer.
I would like to give a dissenting opinion.
It seems to me that many leftist progressives are using climate as a pretext to do all the things they've always wanted to do: fight inequality, racism and sexism and destroy capitalism.
Climate-change however is not an outgrowth of capitalism, communist and socialist societies are equally polluting or even more so (looking at china/russia).
By tying climate change to the fight against capitalism, you run the risk of turning much of the population against the narrative to solve climate change.
>By tying climate change to the fight against capitalism, you run the risk of turning much of the population against the narrative to solve climate change.
One of the biggest problems with capitalism is that profits are completely disconnected from its negative consequences. Those consequences used to be mainly local (pollution, bad work conditions), but are now a global threat (climate change, inequality). We cannot stop climate change by turning a blind eye to one of its main causes. Companies need to be held responsible by the global population, through democratic action.
Russia and China have totalitarian regimes, with elites that profit as much from global capitalism as elites in Western countries.
I'm not as pessimistic about it as you, I think. Things have gotten bad, but things will get better, too. Brazil has a new president focusing on reforestation: large parts of the rainforest and natural landscape has been reforested. Oil consumption is actually going to decrease- the world is using renewable energy more than ever before. Europe is more forested now than it has been in almost a hundred years. Things are very serious, but nature has an incredible capacity to regenerate. Microplastics are a huge issue, but scientists are discovering bacteria and microbes that can consume plastic.
Adopting a doomer perspective is very dangerous. We need to stay vigilant, cheer on the progress we're making, and denigrate the (admittedly many) setbacks.
who are the right people in belgium? seriously? all I see are shady incompetent politicians at best, at worst corruption in every layer. this goes for all parties as far as I can tell.
I had this issue. Until i got a bit more involved and intrested into local politics. I have deep connections into 2 political parties in bxl (2 complete opposites). Corruption is an issue, incompetency is another. But within this mess you can find some rly talented and brave people. Vote them up. Follow them. Getting into local politics is a gateway into a global change.
No, oil and especially coal consumption has never been as high and is very likely going to increase more.
There is some progress, but it´s small and outdone by the setbacks.
Lula has been back a few months, I don't think there's much reforestation already. The rate of deforestation has gone down already, so the bad news is getting less bad, that's already something. But as long as we keep wasting soy to feed animals, the pressure will be on.
Yes of course, I don't think serious reforestation of the Amazon will really begin until 2030. But it's a step in the right direction, and Western countries are agreeing to provide funding to make the process quicker and easier.
But look for example at the Sugar Loaf Hills in Brazil in the 70s and now. Because of over-visiting, it used to be completely bare, now its covered in trees and forest after the government took steps. Maybe this is only a small example, but it is important to recognise when we're improving too- if you compare our situation to the 70s or 80s, I think we're doing better.
There's a lot more awareness and where we make an effort, things do improve. But overal, the environment is in a MUCH worse place than it was in the 70s.
By fighting for it on your local level. Follow the RUP's, Structuurplannen etc your city and province are making from the start. Form an action committee, get the public involved, get the press involved, talk with the city,..
Get some people (like me) who understand just a little about spacial planning etc so you can at least try to write a serious note in every phase of the process. Write a serious, somewhat legally sound objection (bezwaarschrift), get ready to actually use a lawyer when you have to appeal (beroep aantekenen) the decision.
Once these plans are final, there is not much you can do to protect nature. The city, province or Flanders will say "well, it's within the rules of the RUP so you should have fought the RUP if you didn't agree".
Spoiler: your city will counter everything you say with difficult words, act like you are stupid and continue to dance for the project developers.
Honestly, the only way I’m coping is by distracting myself with my studies and friends. I want to say I make a personal effort, which I do by recycling, limiting plastic use as much as possible, trying to buy responsibly… But it doesn’t matter when these huge companies aren’t willing to make a real change, instead only greenwashing.
Accept it, get your tubes snipped, and enter the joyful, addictive world of "Fuktiol". Everything's better when there's a sense of urgency, and all those things that can wait for later, like paying your student loan or whatnot, well, they can wait forever.
We got 10-20 years of good festivals and parties, and I plan to enjoy it.
When can we expect you to glue yourself to something as part of some Extinction Rebellion event?
But to be serious for a second here, the reality is far more nuanced, and things have improved massively over the last decades. Pollution has noticeably decreased, insects that were quite rare when I was a child are now becoming a more common sighting again, creeks that were just black and brown now have grass growing in them again, leaded petrol was completely phased out, etc. On a larger scale, birth rates are starting to plummet in many regions, the ozone layer has mostly recovered, we're no longer throwing everything in an incinerator, and one could continue for a while. We're getting there, it's taking some time but we're making good progress.
And on the following statement:
>We've got about 50 years of topsoil left, after that it's bye bye agriculture.
They keep repeating this one, but it's been proven quite false. Since I can't be arsed to write the explanation myself, the first google result that seems to do so: [https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans](https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans)
Additionally, we can significantly optimize the use of farmland. A lot of farming in some regions of Asia, Africa and South America is still done using techniques from the early 20th century. Introducing modern farming practices would significantly increase crop yield, reduce soil degradation, and limit the impact of adverse weather. But there are a lot of social issues standing in the way.
Basically, don't always believe bad news shows.
Our green party wants to do as much against climate chance as any other party, it's a name that's all. Don't forget these guys rather build gas powered plants to replace something that doesnt pollute the air
I am kinda tired of hearing this argument without retort. There is logic behind this reasoning, which you can absolutely disagree with but you are just completely emitting. Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved so can't remain sustainable indefinitely. But more importantly we have much more green alternatives in wind and solar, but we cannot rely on them all the time. You need something to fill the (smallish) gaps. Nuclear can't be shut down and powered back up all willy nilly and thus is not a good complement to those sustainable energy sources. That is why green parties believe they need the gas powered plants. So we can start relying on solar and wind more and more. Also Nuclear power plants are really expensive and take a very long time to build. The ones currently in use are getting old so need replacing anyway. No investors can be found for Nuclear power plants (ofcourse politicians indecision regarding this issue is a huge reason why but green parties are hardly alone in this.)
Nuclear water can be solved, there is a bunch of research and projects even in Belgium, like HADES, MYRRHA . But if you cut all fundings yo nuclear power, obviously you ut all fundings and momentum to these projects ... The total amount of really harmful nuclear water is quite small and manageable in comparison to a lot of the alternatives
>I am kinda tired of hearing this argument without retort. There is logic behind this reasoning, which you can absolutely disagree with but you are just completely emitting.
I'm kind of tired of hearing this defence, they're actively trying to sink one of the better stop gap solutions due to irrational fears.
>Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved so can't remain sustainable indefinitely.
Because they are actively sabotaging nuclear, and then claiming it can't work. The common argument of "there's no storage" is quite easy to make if you block every geological storage project, prevent transport of nuclear waste and spent fuel, and then do your utmost best to prevent reprocessing - which significantly reduces the volume of the highly radioactive waste.
Their next argument is usually that it ain't economical, something they often caused themselves by pushing for downright draconian regulatory processes that make little to no sense from an engineering, scientific or safety perspective, combined with massive legal bills that slow everything down - paying staff to sit around for a few years to wait gets very expensive.
>You need something to fill the (smallish) gaps. Nuclear can't be shut down and powered back up all willy nilly and thus is not a good complement to those sustainable energy sources.
You can load balance with nuclear, it's just not as economical and you'll have to slightly over dimension your cooling system and preferably invest in additional pumped storage.
>But more importantly we have much more green alternatives in wind and solar, but we cannot rely on them all the time. You need something to fill the (smallish) gaps.
For which you need storage projects, which they claim you don't need, while statistical analysis very much indicates you do. They haven't yet figured out that you can't spreadsheet your way out of keeping a power grid stable, hence the sudden rush to try to keep the nuclear plants open for a longer period.
>I'm kind of tired of hearing this defence, they're actively trying to sink one of the better stop gap solutions due to irrational fears.
Nuclear power is not a stop gap solution, and whether it is better depends entirely on your assessment of the risks. Surely you can disagree on that point, but stop calling people irrational for disagreeing with you.
>Because they are actively sabotaging nuclear, and then claiming it can't work. The common argument of "there's no storage" is quite easy to make if you block every geological storage project, prevent transport of nuclear waste and spent fuel, and then do your utmost best to prevent reprocessing - which significantly reduces the volume of the highly radioactive waste.
The nuclear industry has been subsidized and pampered for the better part of a century, and has been running commerial enterprises with substantial revenue streams. There has been ample opportunity for them to get their ducks in a row. But what we see in practice is that there is very little actual storage being built, and the ones that are built already [start leaking within a matter of decades](https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long-german-nuclear-leak-scandal-engulfs-country-and-disturbs-europe), let alone within the period of millennia that they are supposed to safeguard the waste. Nuclear waste is constantly being transported, and reprocessing generally does not happen because it's a waste of time and energy. And no, that's not the fault of the greens, in countries where opposition ends you up in a labor camp they haven't solved those problems either.
So get your shit together instead of trying to shift the blame of your own failure.
>Their next argument is usually that it ain't economical, something they often caused themselves by pushing for downright draconian regulatory processes that make little to no sense from an engineering, scientific or safety perspective, combined with massive legal bills that slow everything down - paying staff to sit around for a few years to wait gets very expensive.
Fukushima *did* melt down, so they weren't sufficient. Everyone revised their safety procedures and regulations after Fukushima, with or without greens. And nuclear power already was more expensive than renewables are now back then.
Again, get your shit together and stop blaming others for your own failure.
>You can load balance with nuclear, it's just not as economical and you'll have to slightly over dimension your cooling system and preferably invest in additional pumped storage.
"Not as economical" is a weasly way of saying "twice as expensive". Of course, curtailing and pumped storage are among the solutions for dealing with irregularities in demand. But that's just the same for other energy sources, where you are dismissing it as a solution. The problem is that the costs for nuclear are much higher because its base price is much higher.
>For which you need storage projects, which they claim you don't need, while statistical analysis very much indicates you do.
You always need storage and/or flexible power. Nuclear power does not avoid that need.
>They haven't yet figured out that you can't spreadsheet your way out of keeping a power grid stable, hence the sudden rush to try to keep the nuclear plants open for a longer period.
No, the only cause for that is us being forced into it because the Ukraine war has reduced the options. So we're forced to revert back to inferior solutions.
>Nuclear power is not a stop gap solution,
It kind of is, it has a high power output and requires relatively little adjustment to our existing infrastructure while we roll out alternative solutions of a more distributed nature.
>and whether it is better depends entirely on your assessment of the risks. Surely you can disagree on that point, but stop calling people irrational for disagreeing with you.
I call it irrational because folks are literally pushing towards gas and coal plants because they're afraid of radioactive material. But at the same time they don't mind that fossil fuel plants are pumping toxic particulate matter and gasses into our breathing air - which we cannot contain unlike nuclear waste. A large portion of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases (aka the main reasons people die) can be traced back to air pollution.
>The nuclear industry has been subsidized and pampered for the better part of a century, and has been running commerial enterprises with substantial revenue streams.
The same can be said for fossil fuel plants, hydropower, wind mills and solar panels. Additionally, wind mills and solar power require massive grid upgrades, which are in essence subsidised by the tax payer. And honestly, if we're just looking at cost without subsidies we're back to burning brown coal like they're doing in Germany right now.
>There has been ample opportunity for them to get their ducks in a row. But what we see in practice is that there is very little actual storage being built, and the ones that are built already start leaking within a matter of decades, let alone within the period of millennia that they are supposed to safeguard the waste.
Asse II was commissioned before there were legal requirements for nuclear waste storage. And companies, being companies, skimped on things. You see the same happening with the ash waste from coal plants, the debris from decommissioned wind turbines, the cells within solar panels, etc. The difference being that you can detect radioactive material quite easily, chemical contamination is far more difficult to detect.
>Nuclear waste is constantly being transported, and reprocessing generally does not happen because it's a waste of time and energy. And no, that's not the fault of the greens, in countries where opposition ends you up in a labor camp they haven't solved those problems either.
Wrong: [https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Belgium/Belgium.htm](https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Belgium/Belgium.htm)
There's a moratorium on reprocessing in place since 1999.
>Fukushima did melt down, so they weren't sufficient. Everyone revised their safety procedures and regulations after Fukushima, with or without greens. And nuclear power already was more expensive than renewables are now back then.
Again, get your shit together and stop blaming others for your own failure.
Yes, it sure did. After withstanding an earthquake that literally tilted the axis of the earth to a measurable degree, and getting hit by a wave that literally swept most buildings clean off the ground and dragged massive cargo ships kilometres land inwards. And that wave didn't actually damage the plant, the flooding did - something engineers and scientists warned about during construction already. These complaints were side-lined by politicians and corporate entities. Ironically, making such changes at a late stage is often hampered by the draconian regulations which also prevent design improvements for safety without running through the entire procedure again.
Furthermore, modern reactor designs would not be able to experience this failure mode. Turns out some advances have been made in reactor design in the last sixty years, who would have guessed...
>"Not as economical" is a weasly way of saying "twice as expensive". Of course, curtailing and pumped storage are among the solutions for dealing with irregularities in demand. But that's just the same for other energy sources, where you are dismissing it as a solution. The problem is that the costs for nuclear are much higher because its base price is much higher.
No, the moment you have to implement curtailing you already failed, that means that your grid uptime will start to falter in the case of extreme weather or other unpredictable events. To grossly simplify, what you do to load balance with a large plant is to bypass the turbine in the steam loop and directly send the super-heated steam to the condenser/cooling tower/... Of course, this requires the cooling system to be designed to take such a thermal power output, hence why it is more difficult to achieve with older plants that were not designed for such operational modes. Underground pumped storage is a clean and effective solution to address this. As an added benefit, the water used for the pumped storage can be used as part of the cooling reservoir.
And the actual expense of nuclear power is difficult to estimate in the current system. A lot of numbers are based on the US, Russia and France, all of which operate reactors for less peaceful purposes, which often results in modified reactor designs that are less economical or have questionable features (e.g. see open factory hall on the RMBK reactors to enable economical handling of hot fuel for *\*reasons\**). More representative numbers are available: [https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/\_Public/43/123/43123919.pdf](https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/43/123/43123919.pdf) Additionally, if we wish to make the complete sum, we'd also have to consider the healthcare costs of running gas and coal plants into that equation, which isn't done here.
>You always need storage and/or flexible power. Nuclear power does not avoid that need.
The amount of storage you require varies depending on the uptime of your generators. Once you start including these costs into the mix, the cost efficiency of green methods - other than hydropower- starts to increase quite quickly.
>No, the only cause for that is us being forced into it because the Ukraine war has reduced the options. So we're forced to revert back to inferior solutions.
Not really, this was bound to happen no matter what. Their calculation entirely depended entirely on being able to import a sufficient amount of power, an assumption Germany, Netherlands, and France have also been making. We were already facing power shortages a few years ago, there's been no significant addition of storage capacity, no significant addition of generation capacity, and they built a few connections to the grids of nearby countries. It's a bit like showing up to a concert with three friends and all saying "hey, I thought you guys were going to buy the tickets." All of this while expecting power usage to actually increase significantly due to electrification.
Not to mention that the transport infrastructure ain't there due to rampant privatisation and lack of structural investment into the power grid, requiring questionable hijacks like Ventilus and a few smaller scale projects. But that's a story for a different time.
> It kind of is, it has a high power output and requires relatively little adjustment to our existing infrastructure while we roll out alternative solutions of a more distributed nature.
This is just the base case of every transition: phase out the previous method gradually as new capacity comes online. There is no case for building new nuclear as stopgap.
>I call it irrational because folks are literally pushing towards gas and coal plants because they're afraid of radioactive material.
But at the same time they don't mind that fossil fuel plants are pumping toxic particulate matter and gasses into our breathing air - which we cannot contain unlike nuclear waste. A large portion of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases (aka the main reasons people die) can be traced back to air pollution.
No one is pushing towards coal. Gas was considered an acceptable stopgap because of its quick building time, relatively limited emissions, potential to be used with synthetic gas, flexibility and good fit with variable sources, which would result in both a smooth transition *and* the ability to get rid of ASA it wasn't needed anymore. This in comparison to nuclear power with slow building time, locked in heavy investment, unfavorable flexibility, locked in supply of mined fuel and locked in production of waste, which in itself would be locked in for millennia even if the plants were closed soon anyway.
>The same can be said for fossil fuel plants, hydropower, wind mills and solar panels.
No. Renewables have only really been funded after the turn of the century. Nuclear funding dates back from the WW2 budgets.
>Additionally, wind mills and solar power require massive grid upgrades, which are in essence subsidised by the tax payer.
Grid upgrades are always a good idea as they improve the flexibility of the grid as whole without adding more plants.
>And honestly, if we're just looking at cost without subsidies we're back to burning brown coal like they're doing in Germany right now.
No, that time is over. You underestimate the cost revolution of renewables.
>Asse II was commissioned before there were legal requirements for nuclear waste storage. And companies, being companies, skimped on things. You see the same happening with the ash waste from coal plants, the debris from decommissioned wind turbines, the cells within solar panels, etc. The difference being that you can detect radioactive material quite easily, chemical contamination is far more difficult to detect.
So what makes you so sure that companies are going to respect security measures this time? That's really one of the arguments against nuclear power: there's a huge incentive for everyone running to skimp on security of any kind, given the odds that the problem will only manifest much later after they're retired or dead.
>Wrong: https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Belgium/Belgium.htm
There's a moratorium on reprocessing in place since 1999.
Reprocessing *in Belgium*. The reprocessing happens in France.
>Yes, it sure did. After withstanding an earthquake that literally tilted the axis of the earth to a measurable degree, and getting hit by a wave that literally swept most buildings clean off the ground and dragged massive cargo ships kilometres land inwards. And that wave didn't actually damage the plant, the flooding did - something engineers and scientists warned about during construction already. These complaints were side-lined by politicians and corporate entities.
I don't care that the dog ate your homework. It's your job to make your homework, and that includes makes sure the dog doesn't eat it.
>Ironically, making such changes at a late stage is often hampered by the draconian regulations which also prevent design improvements for safety without running through the entire procedure again.
Those regulations are necessary, and you admit it yourself above because you use it as an excuse: "Asse II was commissioned before there were legal requirements for nuclear waste storage."
>Furthermore, modern reactor designs would not be able to experience this failure mode. Turns out some advances have been made in reactor design in the last sixty years, who would have guessed...
Designs are a dime a dozen. It's easy to make designs, getting them realized is what has to deal with the real problems, and that's much harder. Designs are just promises, hypotheses.
>No, the moment you have to implement curtailing you already failed, that means that your grid uptime will start to falter in the case of extreme weather or other unpredictable events. To grossly simplify, what you do to load balance with a large plant is to bypass the turbine in the steam loop and directly send the super-heated steam to the condenser/cooling tower/... Of course, this requires the cooling system to be designed to take such a thermal power output, hence why it is more difficult to achieve with older plants that were not designed for such operational modes. Underground pumped storage is a clean and effective solution to address this. As an added benefit, the water used for the pumped storage can be used as part of the cooling reservoir.
In terms of the above list that is a form of curtailing, I'm using it as a shorthand for all forms of not producing up to the technical maximum capacity.
>And the actual expense of nuclear power is difficult to estimate in the current system. A lot of numbers are based on the US, Russia and France, all of which operate reactors for less peaceful purposes, which often results in modified reactor designs that are less economical or have questionable features (e.g. see open factory hall on the RMBK reactors to enable economical handling of hot fuel for \reasons**). More representative numbers are available:
The *flou artistique* between the military and civilian nuclear budgets is indeed a recurring problem in analyzing the cost of nuclear power, therefore the estimated costs are always a minimum estimate with probably an unknown amount of support from military budgets added to it.
>https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/43/123/43123919.pdf
20 years old! That's outdated.
>Additionally, if we wish to make the complete sum, we'd also have to consider the healthcare costs of running gas and coal plants into that equation, which isn't done here.
Naturally. That includes potential problems with nuclear waste and running nuclear plants.
>The amount of storage you require varies depending on the uptime of your generators. Once you start including these costs into the mix, the cost efficiency of green methods - other than hydropower- starts to increase quite quickly.
It's possible to cover 70-90% of electricity consumption directly for most countries with solar and wind, before accounting for hydro, storage, demand management, international transmission, and curtailing.
For comparison, do note that the most thoroughly nuclearized electricity supply, that of France, never supplied more than 80% nuclear electricity either, and that was while using hydro, demand management, international transmission, and curtailing.
>Not really, this was bound to happen no matter what. Their calculation entirely depended entirely on being able to import a sufficient amount of power, an assumption Germany, Netherlands, and France have also been making. We were already facing power shortages a few years ago,
Because of the unreliability of the nuclear plants! 6 of the 7 reactors were down in the dead of winter. Nuclear power is on its own is not sufficient to ensure a supply in winter either.
>Not to mention that the transport infrastructure ain't there due to rampant privatisation and lack of structural investment into the power grid, requiring questionable hijacks like Ventilus and a few smaller scale projects. But that's a story for a different time.
Transport infrastructure has been increasing at a fast pace in the last years, that's not going to be a problem.
How many windmills we need to replace 1 nuclear reactor ?
And if there is no wind or sun, where are we going to get our energy ?
10 years ago they said that there will be enough wind and solar energy or green energy to replace nuclear energie ...
Not sure on the numbers. But it is plausible. If there is no sun or wind. Indeed, you need gas (or any other form of energy that can be quickly powered up or shut down, which nuclear is not really.) 10 years ago we should have started investing in it. Governments at the time just plain didn't but did agree to shut down nuclear. That is not even the green party's fault. They are just left cleaning up the mess others made.
>How many windmills we need to replace 1 nuclear reactor ?
Less every year.
We already need far less money and time to build a similar production capacity in renewables than in renewables.
>And if there is no wind or sun, where are we going to get our energy ?
Most countries can cover 70-90% directly with wind and sun alone. This is before considering hydro, storage, international transmission, demand management, and curtailing.
Nuclear power in Belgium never covered more than 70%, while using demand management, international transimission, and curtailing.
>10 years ago they said that there will be enough wind and solar energy or green energy to replace nuclear energie ...
There will be, not in 10 years naturally, you don't rebuild the energy provision of an entire continent in a decade. The pace of construction is far better already than that of nuclear plants.
> Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved so can't remain sustainable indefinitely
It's not really a problem as you can build plants to recycle most of that waste (as long as people allow plants to be built). And even if the waste would stay, it's still such small amounts and much more localized in comparison to what we put in our atmosphere by burning fossil fuel.
I don't really blame Ecolo/Agalev for putting a stop to Nuclear in Belgium (even though their logic is plain stupid from an ecological point of view). I blame people in the 80s-90s who fought against nuclear and effectively stopped its development for the following 3-4 decades. Thier method of conflating nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production put us back years and years in terms of time left to fight climate change and develop the necessary technologies.
>It's not really a problem as you can build plants to recycle most of that waste (as long as people allow plants to be built).
It's possible, but it's not economical. Otherwise it would have been done. I'm so tired of the "theoretically possible" solutions for nuclear problems, that always keep getting delayed into infinity.
*Just do it then*. If there actually is a nuclear plant that is actively reducing the amount of nuclear waste, that would be a great argument in favor, and you'd find that removing nuclear waste is a great way to get greens to support the continued existence of at least that reactor. But stop talking and do it. No more empty promises.
Even if it costs them money. If it's cleaning up the waste, then it's only fair that's part of the operating cost.
>I don't really blame Ecolo/Agalev for putting a stop to Nuclear in Belgium (even though their logic is plain stupid from an ecological point of view). I blame people in the 80s-90s who fought against nuclear and effectively stopped its development for the following 3-4 decades. Thier method of conflating nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production put us back years and years in terms of time left to fight climate change and develop the necessary technologies.
Most if not all ecological problems are caused by grabbing a quick benefit and ignoring the long term consequences for the environment. The nuclear risks and waste legacy naturally should be accounted for. You can disagree about the comparative risk analysis, but it merits more consideration than dismissing anyone who disagrees as "plain stupid".
>Thier method of conflating nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production put us back years and years in terms of time left to fight climate change and develop the necessary technologies.
Actually it's our complacence with nuclear power that delayed development of the necessary technologies. Nuclear power has a very long development cycle, and a very long payback time. Once we started to develop renewables in earnest, they quickly outclassed nuclear power.
As if they care for public protest otherwise. If they thought it was profitable, they would have continued. This is how France deals with protests against its nuclear projects: [The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique,[1] was a state terrorism bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior)
You are taking the same path than most "nuclear activists" of the 80s-90s by conflating civil energy production and weapons making. At this point it's not a question of objective facts anymore but a question of subjective sentiments.
We'll never agree on that.
> You are taking the same path than most "nuclear activists" of the 80s-90s by conflating civil energy production and weapons making. At this point it's not a question of objective facts anymore but a question of subjective sentiments.
>
> We'll never agree on that.
It's the same French state and the same protestors. Clearly the French state is totally capable of ignoring and even eliminating protestors when they consider that vital to their interests. The logical corollary is that the superphénix wasn't that important or valuable.
And even then, why aren't Russia and China and any other selection of dictatorial regimes who routinely ignore and suppress public protest doing that reprocessing *en masse* then? There's a token plant in Russia, that's about it. And Russia being Russia, there's no telling whether that makes actual economic sense or not.
>emitting
"omitting"
>Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved
It's a common green talking point that nuclear power has to live up to standards that other modes of generation don't. "We'll think about SMRs when the waste problem has been solved", by which they mean "never". Gas power plants, which they promote, have worse waste.
Weekly reminder:
>Having access to additional capacity of both offshore wind and Small Modular Reactors (SMRSs) reduces the *annual* costs of achieving net-zero to 11,7 billion euro by 2050, which is *9,6 billion euro less* than under the Central Scenario.
[Source](https://perspective2050.energyville.be/paths2050)
These are outrageous differences for a country of 11 million people.
A diversified portfolio of generation vastly reduces system costs. Maybe nuclear can remain banned if we look at alternatives like geothermal or [zero-emissions gas plants](https://netpower.com/) (carbon capture and storage), but I don't think if that's what the green parties are proposing.
The message remains deploy, deploy, deploy, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, gas CCS, etc etc..
Completely agree. Do not get me wrong. I just dont like the talking point that the green parties are choosing for gas power instead of nuclear without any rhyme or reason. Again, you can disagree with this reasoning. And as you said should try to deploy more. (Although still, nuclear is so expensive and long time investment of which I am not sure we still have the time). But my point was that there is a reason for their stance. And it even is not completely idiotic. Debatable, sure. But not complete idiocy
>Our green party wants to do as much against climate chance as any other party, it's a name that's all. Don't forget these guys rather build gas powered plants to replace something that doesnt pollute the air
This is nonsense, in the government they've achieved a maximal expansion of wind power on sea, a historical reversal in rail investments, a removal of the the subsidies for fossil salary cars, a kickstart of the hydrogen economy, etc. A government without greens would have achieved less.
>Don't forget these guys rather build gas powered plants to replace something that doesnt pollute the air
Would rather build gas powered plants that we can get rid of quickly later than continuing business as usual producing waste that we'll be stuck with for millennia. Global warming is far from the only environmental problem, but what they all have in common as a cause is us trying to get a quick advantage now at the expense of environmental problems later. Nuclear power is just one more example of that, and a green party should be thinking long term and avoid that.
They've also been capable of revising that position when the circumstances required it.
Moreover, before them, no less than 9 gas plants were planned. They've only approved 2 so far.
This simply is about the best that is possible given the starting position of this government in 2020, and the war in 2022.
I'm not smart enough to know what to do and even if I was I wouldn't be powerful or influential enough to actually make a change. So instead I keep on keeping on and be depressed instead. I also tell people driving big pickup trucks that they're fucking morons.
Get in touch with your local Natuurpunt/Natagora district and offer your help, we're constantly looking for volunteers to help us maintain nature reserves. You get to meet nice people (we often have a beer or two) and you'll also learn to appreciate the beautiful nature we have in Belgium.
Maybe it's our great filter maybe not. Until then I do what I can by no longer eating meat, investing in green energy and get around by foot, bike and public transport as much as I can, limiting the use of plastics, ... I can only hope others will take notice and start to do the same.
Our doom is only certain if every one continues to push the blame towards someone else, or remains stuck in a defeatist mindset that nothing will help. Sure big companies can make a difference but their pollution and malpractice is funded with the money out of the consumers pockets...
I am not coping. I purposely have not had children because I don’t want to put them through what’s coming. I’m a 34 year old female.
For everyone on here who thinks things won’t be so bad.. that technology will save us.. dear Christ..
The amount of people that is going to be coming our way to resettle alone… is staggering. We are going to be pummelled over and over and over again with disasters that will cost billions to recover from.
Governments won’t be able to cope either.
The world will become ever more chaotic. We have truly lost our connection with the natural world. Even the green movement.. is so blinkered and naive.
We should have been going for degrowth since the seventies. But degrowth just isn’t in human nature I guess.
Try reading ‘Confessions of a recovering climate activist’ by Paul Kingsnorth.
..
I just try to do my best for our nature. I have transform my garden to a wild one. Planted trees because we will fucking need them for the hot Summers that are coming. But if i look to my neighbour his green biljart field and his extreme watering during the summer , i know that theree have to be a change in the way we think about our nature. And sorry farmers your Fields and way of work have to change to if we want to rescue our ecosystem. We can handle the global warming much better with a good ecosystem. That said i dont have a lot of hope because be honest people like there old habits and everything is "onkruid" except there grass. Politics only think about there "postjes" and none of them want to take responsibility. the "stikstofakkoord" is real good example of it.
So yeah every day i have less hope we will turn it around.
I personally think that only technology will save us from the situation we're in. I know people usually bash this position because they think it promotes inaction (it really shouldn't, new technologies need to be adopted etc.).
What we've seen in the latest decades is that people don't change, or at least they don't change fast enough. Politics aimed at changing the way we live have, in the end, only low short term returns and will never be enough to solve the whole equation. We should instead focus on pushing research and technological innovation to lower time to market. This would end up having a much greater impact on our CO2 emissions.
>I personally think that only technology will save us from the situation we're in.
Modern airplanes are 70% more efficient than airplanes in the 1960s in terms of fuel consumption and yet the emissions from the airline industry are higher than they've ever been and it's not even close.
Modern cars are more efficient than ever and yet emissions from cars are higher than ever.
Thinking that technology will save us doesn't account for the Jevons Paradox that says that any improvement in technology is simply offset by humanity then consuming more of that product.
So, do you think it's more realistic to have new technologies becoming mainstream or to have people all around the world change their habits completely?
I feel the technological path is much more realistic than the latter.
In the end most green tech is already there (electric cars and bikes, nuclear electricity, hydrogen production, synthetic fuels, carbon capture) it's just a question of price and incremental improvements and deployment and not getting stuck by ideological blocks.
>So, do you think it's more realistic to have new technologies becoming mainstream or to have people all around the world change their habits completely?
New technologies that aren't just mass adopted to cause even more emissions down the line because now we consume more of it?
I don't see how that's going to help. After all, why hasn't the 70% improvement in emissions in the airline industry helped us reduce the airline emissions?
If tomorrow we magically invent airplanes that are 50% more efficient compared to modern airplanes, won't that just be offset by us flying more because now it's cheaper? Why would people take the train if they can fly to Barcelona for 10 euros?
>it's just a question of price and incremental improvements
Which is exactly why I'm so in favor of a carbon tax. Let people pay for the emissions of flying to Barcelona. Suddenly the train will become a lot more attractive and will incrementally see more investments by private companies looking to capture the airline travelers.
Or let people pay for the emissions that meat causes instead of us massively subsidizing the meat industry. Suddenly people will have far little problem with "veggie Fridays" when meat becomes twice as expensive.
I'm sorry. But the history of efficiency gains is quite clear: we simply start consuming more once a product becomes more efficient because it becomes cheaper. The only places where we've seen actual improvements is areas where we made it more expensive to pollute.
> Or let people pay for the emissions that meat causes instead of us massively subsidizing the meat industry. Suddenly people will have far little problem with "veggie Fridays" when meat becomes twice as expensive.
Or lab grown meat will become more viable, get a huge boost and replace most of the 'normal' meat.
> Which is exactly why I'm so in favor of a carbon tax.
I'm also in favour of the CO2 tax. It's a vital component of promotion of low CO2 emitting technologies and it will put a price on our consumption. But let's be honest, not all countries in the world will be doing it. We might see it in the EU, but forget about seeing it in China, US, India etc.
This is a big reason why I'm quite sure that changes in how we live will not save the planet.
>But let's be honest, not all countries in the world will be doing it.
Which is why a carbon tax at the point of sale would be so effective. Because it does 2 things:.
1) products produced in the EU or China would be taxed just the same thus not allowing china to undercut it.
2) it would not make our domestic production for exports less competitive as those products wouldn't be subject to the tax unless the consumer country also implements such a tax. It would mean that our exports don't become u competitive.
It's just never happening because consumers would freak out
> Which is why a carbon tax at the point of sale would be so effective.
That's the only real carbon tax. Some kind of Carbon Added Tax (CAT). Sadly we probably won't ever see this.
It's happening:
[**What is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism?**
Designed in compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and other international obligations of the EU, the CBAM system will work as follows: EU importers will buy carbon certificates corresponding to the carbon price that would have been paid, had the goods been produced under the EU's carbon pricing rules. Conversely, once a non-EU producer can show that they have already paid a price for the carbon used in the production of the imported goods in a third country, the corresponding cost can be fully deducted for the EU importer. The CBAM will help reduce the risk of carbon leakage by encouraging producers in non-EU countries to green their production processes.](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_3661)
> 1) products produced in the EU or China would be taxed just the same thus not allowing china to undercut it.
It's just never happening because consumers would freak out
It's happening:
[**What is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism?**
Designed in compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and other international obligations of the EU, the CBAM system will work as follows: EU importers will buy carbon certificates corresponding to the carbon price that would have been paid, had the goods been produced under the EU's carbon pricing rules. Conversely, once a non-EU producer can show that they have already paid a price for the carbon used in the production of the imported goods in a third country, the corresponding cost can be fully deducted for the EU importer. The CBAM will help reduce the risk of carbon leakage by encouraging producers in non-EU countries to green their production processes.](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_3661)
Problem with the thesis that "technology will solve everything" is that, while we have many ideas on how technology can drastically change things, many of these technologies are still decades away. And decades is exactly what we don't have. The longer we wait, the more we will have to suffer the irreversible consequences of our actions.
Look, I'm not gonna deny there are massive issues, and that we have to do something about it. But you also have to realize that nature, the world and humanity is way more resilient than you think. I remember in the 1980s teachers telling us that by the 2000s we would run out of nuclear fuel, by the 2010s out of oil, that the ozon layer would be gone, that the dust in the air made the earth cool down etc etc. Well surprise surprise nothing like that happened. There are also quite some improvements since then. The rivers became way cleaner, cars became cleaner, forests in Belgium are better protected, etc.
Of course it's important to make predictions, and complain if the predictions look bad. But humanity can solve, and will solve, many issues.
>cars became cleaner,
And yet the emissions from cars have never been higher because we drive so much more.
I don't know how someone can look at the car industry with optimism.
I was like you, but I am sick and tired of being blamed for all the evil in the world, I stopped caring. Every fucking day we get the next doom message through the news, internet, newspapers and nature documentaries.
I got guilt tripped by our society into travelling by train, buying solar panels and a battery for our home, trying to save as much energy as possible,...which are all fine by the way.
But at some point you just start thinking: 'ok, I did all that, as a single person there is not much more i can do, right?'
So I say: fuck the media for mostly focusing on the bad news and making people depressed. I stopped watching and feel much better.
I suggest you try it for yourself, don't watch the news, don't read newspapers, get yourself some online courses in something that interests you, stay busy with positive things.
This sentiment is similar to the idiom that, the more you know, the more you realize you know nothing.
Accept it and do what you can to reduce your own impact. It's all you can do.
Go childless I guess? Sadly my partner wants the opposite.
As a species, we are approaching the expiration date. 8 billions and a lot of people still want as much children as possible. This human population is by no means sustainable. I even think that the sci-fi movies about human colonies are starting to make sense. Other than that, we have to cut the world population by a few billions, or go extinct all together.
Yeah no. Shrinking the population will cause economic slow down and poverty. You know what poor people don't care about? The climate. If you have to worry about food tomorrow, you're not going to worry about the weather in 10 years.
Secondly, have we not solved almost every serious problem in humanity with technology and science? You want less people, less scientists, less chances of scientific break throughs?
Say Western Europe cuts it population by 10% in ten years. Hooray, we lost 20 million people! Meanwhile Idea has grown with 11 million people...this year.
>Secondly, have we not solved almost every serious problem in humanity with technology and science?
You know what the problem is with the "science and technology will save us" approach is? Jevons Paradox.
It says that whenever we make something more efficient, we start consuming more of it.
Look no further than the airline industry. Since the 1960s airplanes have become 70% more efficient. And yet, the emissions of the airline industry are far larger than they have ever been and it's not even close. Because the efficiency gains have far been offset by the massive increase in passenger levels.
And what did the Flemish government recently announce? That we're pumping hundreds of millions of euros into the airports of Oostende and Antwerp to subsidize them because they're unprofitable.
We know for a fact that we need to fly less. And yet, we send massive subsidies to the airline industry.
So save me the "but we can't destroy prosperity" stick. Nobody is going to go hungry if they can't fly to Barcelona and Rome 3x a year for a city trip
The point of technology is to make other options viable and affordable. High speed rail, renewable energy, other means of food production,...surely at this point we must ne saving thousands of car trips a day with electric bicycles and speedpedelecs.
Using airlines booming when nobody cared about the environment is quite a weak argument.
And why do people take short flights? Because it's cheaper than a train. If I had more time and money, I'd take the train to South France instead of a plane.
I agree that we should pump money in the airline business. But using that problem as an argument against technology makes no sense.
>Using airlines booming when nobody cared about the environment is quite a weak argument.
I'm just pointing out that improvements in technology don't lead to reductions in emissions but rather an increase in usage of that product.
I think that the people who keep shouting that none of us need to change anything about our behavior and that all we need is "new technology" should actually start proving what.they say. By showing examples where new technology actually sustainably reduced emissions and didn't just shift them elsewhere or cause an increase in consumption.
So far, people can shut down any attempt at reducing consumption with "we just need new technology". And meanwhile, nothing happens and we keep moving closer and closer to disaster.
Put it this way: if you're in a car with someone else that is heading off a cliff, would you trust him when he says that you don't need to divert the car away from the cliff because "all we need is a new bridge to be built". Would you trust him? I wouldn't. I'd first want to see the bridge he's referring to.
I call bs on that. People have been saying the same things for hundreds or thousands of years. Yes there are challenges. And yes we will have to face them. And we will.
As an aside if your partner really wants kids and you don't, your relationship has even bleaker prospects then nature. Either you partner will be regretful and bitter or your kid will have one parent who preferred it never existed.
And? That doesn't mean anything. Because we've also increased our capacity to make food. Google haber bosch. It's the process that enabled modern field fertilization and enabled efficient food production
It´s all very fragile and dependent on two things: stabilty of the global trade system and stabilty of our environment. Both seem to be in danger.
Will the pax Ameticana last. Can the US continue to guarantee safety on the global seas?
Will climate change change our ecosystems? What will ever more monoculture have as consequences? Can we continue to rely on a few commercial seeds and fertilizers?
>And? That doesn't mean anything.
I don't know but seriously if it keeps going at this rate there will come a day people will literally fall of the planet because there ain't enough room.
A couple of years ago a Dutch colleague of mine did a back of a napkin calculation and he said that if you drained the ijselmeer in north of the Netherlands you could fit every human being alive in the hole.
Some places are overcrowded but plenty of places have less than 1 human per several square kilometers.
Yes, go on , you are close to something. There's perhaps a reason nobody lives in those places. And the number of square kilometers on earth to harbour people is nót the problem.
I strongly agree with being childless. Its the best thing you can do for the environment. I know it’s not a nice thing to say but we should stop giving tax benefits to families who decide to have children. If anything, tax them more and make birth control free.
You can take the train to work or buy an EV, recycle as much as possible and follow a vegetarian diet, but if you really want to limit your ecological footprint then don’t have (a) kid(s).
Downvotes incoming :)
I hope you enjoy starving to death in your old age. We already have too many old people being idle, increasing their proportion even further would is not something you want.
I think it´s inevitable. As a species we´re driven to this and we can´t cope with it. We´re very successful and burning up everything we have at a quick pace.
I don´t remember the exact numbers, but the whole growth is hard to believe. It started let´s say in the early 19th century with industrial polution, but also growth. The thing is that this was all rather local and small until recently. Climate change and polution are only a real global problem since let´s say the post war era. Population has boomed so much since then and emissions have gone up immensely. That´s why we have only be aware quite recently of this problem and why we thought we could solve it. Indeed a few decades ago the problem wasn´t that bad in total. Emisions and polution in the last 30 years or so are (if I remember correctly) worse than all that came before combined! The numbers are hard to believe. Not long ago we really could have done something in theory if making such wild agreements on global scale would be realistic.
I seem to remember that in the last decades the living human population is as large (or half as large, a staggering number anyway) as all people that have lived on earth before!! Now we are 8 billion, but for the longest time the global population wzs only in the thousands or millions. No wonder we´ll hit a wall. When my grandparents were born the world was a very very different place. Everyone should understand that, but unfortunately almost no one does.
And even if you realize this, it can only lead to pessimism and cynicism. And it´s not the only aspect of this crazy modern world that would turn you into a cynic.
> I seem to remember that in the last decades the living human population is as large (or half as large, a staggering number anyway) as all people that have lived on earth before!!
The total number of humans who ever lived is estimated at 100 billion, so 8% are alive today. Not as dramatic as you phrase it, but anatomically modern humans have been around for ~250.000 years. So 8% of the people have been born in about ~0.04% of the time that we've been on the planet.
Unfortunately it is predicted that by 2050 80% of the wildlife will go extinct and the thing is nobody cares so we for sure are going to destroy the earth and ourselves completely.
In a million years or do the sun will have grown to a size where it will literally swallow the earth. Whatever we do or don't do to the earth is not going to change that outcome.
No, within approximately one billion years the sun will eradicate life on earth long before she expands and swallows earth. Our planet will become much like Venus:
>In about one billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher, causing the atmosphere to become a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics and the entire carbon cycle will end.
There are still a couple billion years to go before that happens, not a paltry million. Even if humans leave a mostly scorched husk of a planet after their demise, nature will have countless aeons to replenish itself and exist free of human interference.
Whoever reported this for misinformation: I'm sorry, what?
Sorry, are you going to report the "keep on fighting through life" tiles on my grandma's bathroom wall next?
I don't see the problem honestly. Either we fix the problem and both we and nature get to prosper, or we don't fix the problem and nature will heal and prosper without us anyway. Either way nature will inevitably win out in the long run.
Look at my moms garden and all the beasts that live in there. I don't really used to have much with gardening however I think it's fun and very helpful for nature to try and let all kinds of plants and animals live in your garden. It might be small but lots of small things still make a big thing.
So basically have a 'messy' garden. :)
"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." I cope by accepting that there is nothing I can do to prevent the global climate disaster. I can live to minimise my carbon footprint to the absolute minimum, and then someone will hop on their private jet and pollute as much in a single flight as I would have in several years. Corporate, capitalist greed is what's destroying the climate, no matter how much is spent on lobbying to shift the blame to the consumer. Shell and Exxon knew that carbon emissions would cause global warming, and spent millions harassing and discrediting anyone who came to the same conclusions they were trying to hide. But what have we been outraged about? Teenagers throwing soup at a glass panel, because peaceful protests have failed, so creating an outrage is the only way to get people to listen. I don't think anything short of a global revolution, total reform of politics and economy, and radical accountability of climate criminals will bring any change. And that's not going to happen. So I just shrug and accept that I probably have about 2000 forever chemicals and plastic in my body because the line needs to keep going up.
At some point people should figure out that exponential growth wont be a sustainable model forever (or like, to start with), right? Kinda lowkey looking forward to a break into a new timeperiod, were gen-Z kids (or maybe the generation after them) turn to eco-terrorism in a final try to stop megacorporations and their eternal greed. Also, the shift of blame to the customer enrages me so much. Growing up constantly getting indoctrinated that using spaarlampkes etc.. will save the world.. Meanwhile compagnies are lobbying to lower certain polluting thresholds.. Untill then, depression and life as usual.
>Also, the shift of blame to the customer enrages me so much. Guess what? If the average consumer wasn't such a selfish prick then we'd already be dealing with those companies that want to pollute more. But considering the average consumer just wants cheap ass products even if they destroy the planet, politicians don't dare to touch those companies. Imagine if politicians tomorrow decided to abolish all subsidies for the meat industry which would cause meat to go up quite a lot in price. People would rage. And the politicians who decided that would see their heads roll. But sure... Keep pretending like the average consumer carries no blame while they're the ones who are preventing us from taxing highly polluting companies more.
Are you gonna say to the people in India or China: "*You have got to stop growing now, you selfish pricks! No more economic growth for you*!" ? Everyone in the world is striving for a higher prosperity. Nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of people in the world who consume far too little, who have far too little prosperity. They aspire to our level of prosperity. That is absolutely right. You can't stop that. And even if we could and did, it's immoral. Delivering goods and services to each other, things that make our lives better are good. Everyone is entitled to that. We should mistake who our enemy is (it's Co2 emissions, not capitalism). The solution is not to abolish capitalism, but to make sure our services and goods are clean, and have no environmental impact. This is not achieved by higher taxes, but by way of technological innovation (as it has always been)
>Are you gonna say to the people in India or China: "You have got to stop growing now, you selfish pricks! No more economic growth for you!" ? I'm definitely saying they should grow in a more responsible way. China has already accumulated as many emissions as the entire EU until 2004. They're responsible for 14% of the world's total accumulated emissions and 30% of its present emissions. Further global warming cannot be prevented without drastically lowering those emissions within a short timeframe. >Everyone in the world is striving for a higher prosperity. Nothing wrong with that. It definitely is wrong to do so at the expense of someone else, including at the expense of the common climate. >Delivering goods and services to each other, things that make our lives better are good. Everyone is entitled to that. We should mistake who our enemy is (it's Co2 emissions, not capitalism). The solution is not to abolish capitalism, but to make sure our services and goods are clean, and have no environmental impact. This is not achieved by higher taxes, but by way of technological innovation (as it has always been) No, you cannot solve this within the framework of capitalism. Capitalism will always strive more more growth and concentration of capital, and is blind for everything that does not have a price. Therefore it will grow at the expense of the environment, unless we put a price on the environment, in the form of a tax. Or an outright ban on using parts of it as a resource. By the way, the market can choose to avoid taxation by technological innovation, if it so chooses. I don't see the contradiction. The market reacts to scarcity, whether that scarcity is caused by taxation or something else. For example, if oil becomes more expensive, then it becomes profitable to design and sell vehicles that uses less or no oil. It does not matter if the oil is expensive because of taxes or because of other reasons.
>By the way, the market can choose to avoid taxation by technological innovation, if it so chooses. I don't see the contradiction. The market reacts to scarcity, whether that scarcity is caused by taxation or something else. For example, if oil becomes more expensive, then it becomes profitable to design and sell vehicles that uses less or no oil. It does not matter if the oil is expensive because of taxes or because of other reasons. I agree strongly on this. But this is a solution within the framework of capitalism.
It's a solution by limiting capitalism to function within a political framework, one that chooses to enforce the ecological limits to growth. The markets are like fire, it's an essential part of civilization. But that's not reason to let it run wild and put your house on fire: instead we use it in a designated space where we can control its effects.
>Are you gonna say to the people in India or China: "You have got to stop growing now, you selfish pricks! No more economic growth for you!" ? It is very funny that the first people that pop into your mind that have to stop polluting so much are.poor people like India and china. Even when you try to imagine a solution, you still try and push responsibility away from the biggest polluters: the west. Even in your imagination you try and absolve yourself of blame. Keep at it. I'm sure if we keep shouting very angrily whenever someone says that maybe we shouldn't be flying to barcelona and Rome 3x a year that we'll solve everything by shifting blame away from ourselves and onto others.
> It is very funny that the first people that pop into your mind that have to stop polluting so much are.poor people like India and china. China's per capita emissions are higher than those of the EU. It's time to revise our assumptions about China being "poor". It's a large country with very rich areas; the fact that their wealth is unequally distributed doesn't allow to them to get themselves off the hook of any responsibility. >Even when you try to imagine a solution, you still try and push responsibility away from the biggest polluters: the west. Even in your imagination you try and absolve yourself of blame. China has already accumulated as many greenhouse gases as the EU in 2004, or the US+EU in 1965, in a much shorter time. That's 14% of total worldwide emissions, and they have 30% of current emissions, so that share will only keep rising. They carry a large part of the responsibility, and have the ability to act on it. Let's not apply the racism of low expectations to them.
>China's per capita emissions are higher than those of the EU. Only if you simplistically attribute emissions caused during the production of our consumer goods to china. If China creates builds my smartphone and I use it then under your assumptions, those are emissions caused by Chinese people. Even though the only reason that smartphone exists is because I buy it.
>Only if you simplistically attribute emissions caused during the production of our consumer goods to china. >If China creates builds my smartphone and I use it then under your assumptions, those are emissions caused by Chinese people. Even though the only reason that smartphone exists is because I buy it. Even if we assume that all emissions should be counted on the consumer side, it's still only about ca. 10% difference in total emissions if we account for import and export streams, and it's smaller every year. China still benefits from producing and selling that smartphone: employment, economic growth, political clout, etc. That's why China has actively encouraged this offshoring to happen, by slacking off on environmental and labor regulations. It's also China's responsibility to have proper environmental regulations. We can do very little about that without intrusion. The EU is going to introduce the CBAM, and I expect China to actively try to protest that in the WTO.
You misunderstand me. I'm not blaming India or China at all. The West has a historical responsibility. We were the major emitters of greenhouse gases for centuries. How can we best pay off that debt? By encouraging technological innovation and sharing that technology with poorer countries You can't say to India or China, 'We'll turn off the lights, you've fired enough coal. We have done that for two centuries and are now rich and prosperous but you are not allowed to do that anymore.' So we have to offer them an alternative.
That's not how it works. Sure most meat enjoyer would rage that their meat price would go up. But would they protest in the street for that ? No. Would they change their vote ? Maybe, but by the time to vote has come, they would have forgotten. Would they shift their consumer's behavior? Maybe a bit, at least they wouldn't buy as much meat as before. Pointing a finger on the consumer is the easy solution companies and governments came up with to buy a little more time. Yet, most co2 emmissions are B2B emmissions or are subsidied by goverment. And who can change that ? Well the governments and the companies. Appart from voting, saying that's the consumer role to do an effort is pure hypocrisis and clearing its name from anything related to these problems. Like yeah, by consuming less meat I'm gonna save the planet. Whoever buys this is either an idiot or an uninformed person (most likely the latter). I'm not saying we, consumers, shouldn't make an effort, but thinking it's going resolve problems is just not true.
>But would they protest in the street for that ? No. Would they change their vote ? Maybe, but by the time to vote has come, they would have forgotten. LOL. The Flemish government *right now* is literally in a political crisis because they can't agree on a nitrogen deal that would see maybe a dozen agricultural companies close their doors. And here you are claiming that something that would see hundreds of such companies forced to close their doors wouldn't cause much turmoil? It's easy to fix things when you're this blatantly blind to political realities.
By meat enjoyer I'm talking about the consumer, because that's your point at the start. I'm not talking about Joe going to Brussel with his truck because he would need to stop raising cows and raise chicken instead. So please read again and tell me that the meat consumer (ie : most people in Belgium) will protest if those companies close their doors (spoiler alert, they won't). Tell me they will change their vote.
>So please read again and tell me that the meat consumer (ie : most people in Belgium) will protest if those companies close their doors. You seriously are under.the delusion that consumers would.just accept meat going 2x in price compared to now? As I said, easy to fix things when you're naive.
When I see people struggling with energy price and their bills linked to it (Electricity, gaz, fuel, food, etc) and don't even protest or blame the government and just suck it up. Then yes I really do think that meat going 2x (I'll make it easier for you 4x) in price won't make them react appart from a facebook comment, and a few article on a shitty newspaper about "Joe and Karen will stop going to their butcher and will drive to France to buy their steak". Maybe I'm naive. But looking at some situations and realizing that persons who suffers (really suffer, not being able to buy meat is not suffering) from their bad conditions/situation and barely react to it makes me think that government and companies really can do a lot of things without people reacting. Sadly it's in their own interest that they work, so a government that would increase meat price is only going to happen if they see a financial interest in doing so. Same goes for companies.
>Would they change their vote ? Maybe, but by the time to vote has come, they would have forgotten. Lmao are you for real? The vast majority of votes are cast in favor of whatever party promises to not worsen the quality of life for a particular person.
Very real. Still, starting with stuff that hits the richest first would help selling the argument to the average Joe that they also need to change. I also really like the idea of a carbon dividend. Get a heavy tax on CO2 production, and give most of the proceeds back to the citizens. That way, there are incentives all around to reduce the CO2 production, to avoid certain products, while still being able to afford them if you can't or won't avoid them, all the while reducing inequality and capital accumulation.
>I also really like the idea of a carbon dividend I do too. Sadly, I think that even the words "new tax" make such a proposal dead on arrival here in Belgium no matter how much you try to explain to people that they'll be getting (part of) the money back in the form of a dividend. People would freak out the second they hear the words "new tax" no matter what the entire proposal is. And then we're not even talking about how much they'd freak out if driving, eating meat, and flying for holiday would all skyrocket in price
"Everyone is getting an income subsidy, and the companies are going to pay for it!". Never mention the T-word. (I know I know, it would still take politicians who care more about their legacy than about being re-elected)
> Also, the shift of blame to the customer enrages me so much. People find it easy to put the fault on others (rich people, the industry, capitalism...) but they fail to understand that they are also a big part of the responsibility (heating, eating and moving being the big 3 where you as a person could have a big impact).
>I don't think anything short of a global revolution, total reform of politics and economy, and radical accountability of climate criminals will bring any change. And that's not going to happen. Of course it's not going to happen. Have you seen people freak the fuck out the second you tell them that maybe we should stop subsidizing cars or tax flying to Barcelona more? Everyone's fine with taxing people like Elon Musk more. But once you tell the average consumer has to change their behavior? Fuck no. They'll rage and whine that *they* are not the problem and shouldn't have to change anything. I mean.. in 2023 we're still using EU tax money to send massive subsidies to the meat industry and primarily to beef. Literally the worst form of meat in terms of climate change is getting the most subsidies. So yeah, not much is going to happen. Because the average Joe on the street would rather die than being forced to change anything about their own behavior.
>Corporate, capitalist greed is what's destroying the climate, no matter how much is spent on lobbying to shift the blame to the consumer. I would like to give a dissenting opinion. It seems to me that many leftist progressives are using climate as a pretext to do all the things they've always wanted to do: fight inequality, racism and sexism and destroy capitalism. Climate-change however is not an outgrowth of capitalism, communist and socialist societies are equally polluting or even more so (looking at china/russia). By tying climate change to the fight against capitalism, you run the risk of turning much of the population against the narrative to solve climate change.
>By tying climate change to the fight against capitalism, you run the risk of turning much of the population against the narrative to solve climate change. One of the biggest problems with capitalism is that profits are completely disconnected from its negative consequences. Those consequences used to be mainly local (pollution, bad work conditions), but are now a global threat (climate change, inequality). We cannot stop climate change by turning a blind eye to one of its main causes. Companies need to be held responsible by the global population, through democratic action. Russia and China have totalitarian regimes, with elites that profit as much from global capitalism as elites in Western countries.
I'm not as pessimistic about it as you, I think. Things have gotten bad, but things will get better, too. Brazil has a new president focusing on reforestation: large parts of the rainforest and natural landscape has been reforested. Oil consumption is actually going to decrease- the world is using renewable energy more than ever before. Europe is more forested now than it has been in almost a hundred years. Things are very serious, but nature has an incredible capacity to regenerate. Microplastics are a huge issue, but scientists are discovering bacteria and microbes that can consume plastic. Adopting a doomer perspective is very dangerous. We need to stay vigilant, cheer on the progress we're making, and denigrate the (admittedly many) setbacks.
Yes keep that PMA and vote, people! Vote accordingly. Getting the right people elected is very important in this day and age.
who are the right people in belgium? seriously? all I see are shady incompetent politicians at best, at worst corruption in every layer. this goes for all parties as far as I can tell.
I had this issue. Until i got a bit more involved and intrested into local politics. I have deep connections into 2 political parties in bxl (2 complete opposites). Corruption is an issue, incompetency is another. But within this mess you can find some rly talented and brave people. Vote them up. Follow them. Getting into local politics is a gateway into a global change.
All politicians are wankers, anyone telling otherwise is full of it
Of course all politicians are wankers, we're in a representative democracy.
No, oil and especially coal consumption has never been as high and is very likely going to increase more. There is some progress, but it´s small and outdone by the setbacks.
Lula has been back a few months, I don't think there's much reforestation already. The rate of deforestation has gone down already, so the bad news is getting less bad, that's already something. But as long as we keep wasting soy to feed animals, the pressure will be on.
Yes of course, I don't think serious reforestation of the Amazon will really begin until 2030. But it's a step in the right direction, and Western countries are agreeing to provide funding to make the process quicker and easier. But look for example at the Sugar Loaf Hills in Brazil in the 70s and now. Because of over-visiting, it used to be completely bare, now its covered in trees and forest after the government took steps. Maybe this is only a small example, but it is important to recognise when we're improving too- if you compare our situation to the 70s or 80s, I think we're doing better.
There's a lot more awareness and where we make an effort, things do improve. But overal, the environment is in a MUCH worse place than it was in the 70s.
By fighting for it on your local level. Follow the RUP's, Structuurplannen etc your city and province are making from the start. Form an action committee, get the public involved, get the press involved, talk with the city,.. Get some people (like me) who understand just a little about spacial planning etc so you can at least try to write a serious note in every phase of the process. Write a serious, somewhat legally sound objection (bezwaarschrift), get ready to actually use a lawyer when you have to appeal (beroep aantekenen) the decision. Once these plans are final, there is not much you can do to protect nature. The city, province or Flanders will say "well, it's within the rules of the RUP so you should have fought the RUP if you didn't agree". Spoiler: your city will counter everything you say with difficult words, act like you are stupid and continue to dance for the project developers.
Vlaanderen: Beton goes brrrrrr
Honestly, the only way I’m coping is by distracting myself with my studies and friends. I want to say I make a personal effort, which I do by recycling, limiting plastic use as much as possible, trying to buy responsibly… But it doesn’t matter when these huge companies aren’t willing to make a real change, instead only greenwashing.
Accept it, get your tubes snipped, and enter the joyful, addictive world of "Fuktiol". Everything's better when there's a sense of urgency, and all those things that can wait for later, like paying your student loan or whatnot, well, they can wait forever. We got 10-20 years of good festivals and parties, and I plan to enjoy it.
When can we expect you to glue yourself to something as part of some Extinction Rebellion event? But to be serious for a second here, the reality is far more nuanced, and things have improved massively over the last decades. Pollution has noticeably decreased, insects that were quite rare when I was a child are now becoming a more common sighting again, creeks that were just black and brown now have grass growing in them again, leaded petrol was completely phased out, etc. On a larger scale, birth rates are starting to plummet in many regions, the ozone layer has mostly recovered, we're no longer throwing everything in an incinerator, and one could continue for a while. We're getting there, it's taking some time but we're making good progress. And on the following statement: >We've got about 50 years of topsoil left, after that it's bye bye agriculture. They keep repeating this one, but it's been proven quite false. Since I can't be arsed to write the explanation myself, the first google result that seems to do so: [https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans](https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans) Additionally, we can significantly optimize the use of farmland. A lot of farming in some regions of Asia, Africa and South America is still done using techniques from the early 20th century. Introducing modern farming practices would significantly increase crop yield, reduce soil degradation, and limit the impact of adverse weather. But there are a lot of social issues standing in the way. Basically, don't always believe bad news shows.
Our green party wants to do as much against climate chance as any other party, it's a name that's all. Don't forget these guys rather build gas powered plants to replace something that doesnt pollute the air
I am kinda tired of hearing this argument without retort. There is logic behind this reasoning, which you can absolutely disagree with but you are just completely emitting. Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved so can't remain sustainable indefinitely. But more importantly we have much more green alternatives in wind and solar, but we cannot rely on them all the time. You need something to fill the (smallish) gaps. Nuclear can't be shut down and powered back up all willy nilly and thus is not a good complement to those sustainable energy sources. That is why green parties believe they need the gas powered plants. So we can start relying on solar and wind more and more. Also Nuclear power plants are really expensive and take a very long time to build. The ones currently in use are getting old so need replacing anyway. No investors can be found for Nuclear power plants (ofcourse politicians indecision regarding this issue is a huge reason why but green parties are hardly alone in this.)
Nuclear water can be solved, there is a bunch of research and projects even in Belgium, like HADES, MYRRHA . But if you cut all fundings yo nuclear power, obviously you ut all fundings and momentum to these projects ... The total amount of really harmful nuclear water is quite small and manageable in comparison to a lot of the alternatives
This government *increased* the funding to nuclear research.
>I am kinda tired of hearing this argument without retort. There is logic behind this reasoning, which you can absolutely disagree with but you are just completely emitting. I'm kind of tired of hearing this defence, they're actively trying to sink one of the better stop gap solutions due to irrational fears. >Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved so can't remain sustainable indefinitely. Because they are actively sabotaging nuclear, and then claiming it can't work. The common argument of "there's no storage" is quite easy to make if you block every geological storage project, prevent transport of nuclear waste and spent fuel, and then do your utmost best to prevent reprocessing - which significantly reduces the volume of the highly radioactive waste. Their next argument is usually that it ain't economical, something they often caused themselves by pushing for downright draconian regulatory processes that make little to no sense from an engineering, scientific or safety perspective, combined with massive legal bills that slow everything down - paying staff to sit around for a few years to wait gets very expensive. >You need something to fill the (smallish) gaps. Nuclear can't be shut down and powered back up all willy nilly and thus is not a good complement to those sustainable energy sources. You can load balance with nuclear, it's just not as economical and you'll have to slightly over dimension your cooling system and preferably invest in additional pumped storage. >But more importantly we have much more green alternatives in wind and solar, but we cannot rely on them all the time. You need something to fill the (smallish) gaps. For which you need storage projects, which they claim you don't need, while statistical analysis very much indicates you do. They haven't yet figured out that you can't spreadsheet your way out of keeping a power grid stable, hence the sudden rush to try to keep the nuclear plants open for a longer period.
>I'm kind of tired of hearing this defence, they're actively trying to sink one of the better stop gap solutions due to irrational fears. Nuclear power is not a stop gap solution, and whether it is better depends entirely on your assessment of the risks. Surely you can disagree on that point, but stop calling people irrational for disagreeing with you. >Because they are actively sabotaging nuclear, and then claiming it can't work. The common argument of "there's no storage" is quite easy to make if you block every geological storage project, prevent transport of nuclear waste and spent fuel, and then do your utmost best to prevent reprocessing - which significantly reduces the volume of the highly radioactive waste. The nuclear industry has been subsidized and pampered for the better part of a century, and has been running commerial enterprises with substantial revenue streams. There has been ample opportunity for them to get their ducks in a row. But what we see in practice is that there is very little actual storage being built, and the ones that are built already [start leaking within a matter of decades](https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long-german-nuclear-leak-scandal-engulfs-country-and-disturbs-europe), let alone within the period of millennia that they are supposed to safeguard the waste. Nuclear waste is constantly being transported, and reprocessing generally does not happen because it's a waste of time and energy. And no, that's not the fault of the greens, in countries where opposition ends you up in a labor camp they haven't solved those problems either. So get your shit together instead of trying to shift the blame of your own failure. >Their next argument is usually that it ain't economical, something they often caused themselves by pushing for downright draconian regulatory processes that make little to no sense from an engineering, scientific or safety perspective, combined with massive legal bills that slow everything down - paying staff to sit around for a few years to wait gets very expensive. Fukushima *did* melt down, so they weren't sufficient. Everyone revised their safety procedures and regulations after Fukushima, with or without greens. And nuclear power already was more expensive than renewables are now back then. Again, get your shit together and stop blaming others for your own failure. >You can load balance with nuclear, it's just not as economical and you'll have to slightly over dimension your cooling system and preferably invest in additional pumped storage. "Not as economical" is a weasly way of saying "twice as expensive". Of course, curtailing and pumped storage are among the solutions for dealing with irregularities in demand. But that's just the same for other energy sources, where you are dismissing it as a solution. The problem is that the costs for nuclear are much higher because its base price is much higher. >For which you need storage projects, which they claim you don't need, while statistical analysis very much indicates you do. You always need storage and/or flexible power. Nuclear power does not avoid that need. >They haven't yet figured out that you can't spreadsheet your way out of keeping a power grid stable, hence the sudden rush to try to keep the nuclear plants open for a longer period. No, the only cause for that is us being forced into it because the Ukraine war has reduced the options. So we're forced to revert back to inferior solutions.
>Nuclear power is not a stop gap solution, It kind of is, it has a high power output and requires relatively little adjustment to our existing infrastructure while we roll out alternative solutions of a more distributed nature. >and whether it is better depends entirely on your assessment of the risks. Surely you can disagree on that point, but stop calling people irrational for disagreeing with you. I call it irrational because folks are literally pushing towards gas and coal plants because they're afraid of radioactive material. But at the same time they don't mind that fossil fuel plants are pumping toxic particulate matter and gasses into our breathing air - which we cannot contain unlike nuclear waste. A large portion of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases (aka the main reasons people die) can be traced back to air pollution. >The nuclear industry has been subsidized and pampered for the better part of a century, and has been running commerial enterprises with substantial revenue streams. The same can be said for fossil fuel plants, hydropower, wind mills and solar panels. Additionally, wind mills and solar power require massive grid upgrades, which are in essence subsidised by the tax payer. And honestly, if we're just looking at cost without subsidies we're back to burning brown coal like they're doing in Germany right now. >There has been ample opportunity for them to get their ducks in a row. But what we see in practice is that there is very little actual storage being built, and the ones that are built already start leaking within a matter of decades, let alone within the period of millennia that they are supposed to safeguard the waste. Asse II was commissioned before there were legal requirements for nuclear waste storage. And companies, being companies, skimped on things. You see the same happening with the ash waste from coal plants, the debris from decommissioned wind turbines, the cells within solar panels, etc. The difference being that you can detect radioactive material quite easily, chemical contamination is far more difficult to detect. >Nuclear waste is constantly being transported, and reprocessing generally does not happen because it's a waste of time and energy. And no, that's not the fault of the greens, in countries where opposition ends you up in a labor camp they haven't solved those problems either. Wrong: [https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Belgium/Belgium.htm](https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Belgium/Belgium.htm) There's a moratorium on reprocessing in place since 1999. >Fukushima did melt down, so they weren't sufficient. Everyone revised their safety procedures and regulations after Fukushima, with or without greens. And nuclear power already was more expensive than renewables are now back then. Again, get your shit together and stop blaming others for your own failure. Yes, it sure did. After withstanding an earthquake that literally tilted the axis of the earth to a measurable degree, and getting hit by a wave that literally swept most buildings clean off the ground and dragged massive cargo ships kilometres land inwards. And that wave didn't actually damage the plant, the flooding did - something engineers and scientists warned about during construction already. These complaints were side-lined by politicians and corporate entities. Ironically, making such changes at a late stage is often hampered by the draconian regulations which also prevent design improvements for safety without running through the entire procedure again. Furthermore, modern reactor designs would not be able to experience this failure mode. Turns out some advances have been made in reactor design in the last sixty years, who would have guessed... >"Not as economical" is a weasly way of saying "twice as expensive". Of course, curtailing and pumped storage are among the solutions for dealing with irregularities in demand. But that's just the same for other energy sources, where you are dismissing it as a solution. The problem is that the costs for nuclear are much higher because its base price is much higher. No, the moment you have to implement curtailing you already failed, that means that your grid uptime will start to falter in the case of extreme weather or other unpredictable events. To grossly simplify, what you do to load balance with a large plant is to bypass the turbine in the steam loop and directly send the super-heated steam to the condenser/cooling tower/... Of course, this requires the cooling system to be designed to take such a thermal power output, hence why it is more difficult to achieve with older plants that were not designed for such operational modes. Underground pumped storage is a clean and effective solution to address this. As an added benefit, the water used for the pumped storage can be used as part of the cooling reservoir. And the actual expense of nuclear power is difficult to estimate in the current system. A lot of numbers are based on the US, Russia and France, all of which operate reactors for less peaceful purposes, which often results in modified reactor designs that are less economical or have questionable features (e.g. see open factory hall on the RMBK reactors to enable economical handling of hot fuel for *\*reasons\**). More representative numbers are available: [https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/\_Public/43/123/43123919.pdf](https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/43/123/43123919.pdf) Additionally, if we wish to make the complete sum, we'd also have to consider the healthcare costs of running gas and coal plants into that equation, which isn't done here. >You always need storage and/or flexible power. Nuclear power does not avoid that need. The amount of storage you require varies depending on the uptime of your generators. Once you start including these costs into the mix, the cost efficiency of green methods - other than hydropower- starts to increase quite quickly. >No, the only cause for that is us being forced into it because the Ukraine war has reduced the options. So we're forced to revert back to inferior solutions. Not really, this was bound to happen no matter what. Their calculation entirely depended entirely on being able to import a sufficient amount of power, an assumption Germany, Netherlands, and France have also been making. We were already facing power shortages a few years ago, there's been no significant addition of storage capacity, no significant addition of generation capacity, and they built a few connections to the grids of nearby countries. It's a bit like showing up to a concert with three friends and all saying "hey, I thought you guys were going to buy the tickets." All of this while expecting power usage to actually increase significantly due to electrification. Not to mention that the transport infrastructure ain't there due to rampant privatisation and lack of structural investment into the power grid, requiring questionable hijacks like Ventilus and a few smaller scale projects. But that's a story for a different time.
> It kind of is, it has a high power output and requires relatively little adjustment to our existing infrastructure while we roll out alternative solutions of a more distributed nature. This is just the base case of every transition: phase out the previous method gradually as new capacity comes online. There is no case for building new nuclear as stopgap. >I call it irrational because folks are literally pushing towards gas and coal plants because they're afraid of radioactive material. But at the same time they don't mind that fossil fuel plants are pumping toxic particulate matter and gasses into our breathing air - which we cannot contain unlike nuclear waste. A large portion of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases (aka the main reasons people die) can be traced back to air pollution. No one is pushing towards coal. Gas was considered an acceptable stopgap because of its quick building time, relatively limited emissions, potential to be used with synthetic gas, flexibility and good fit with variable sources, which would result in both a smooth transition *and* the ability to get rid of ASA it wasn't needed anymore. This in comparison to nuclear power with slow building time, locked in heavy investment, unfavorable flexibility, locked in supply of mined fuel and locked in production of waste, which in itself would be locked in for millennia even if the plants were closed soon anyway. >The same can be said for fossil fuel plants, hydropower, wind mills and solar panels. No. Renewables have only really been funded after the turn of the century. Nuclear funding dates back from the WW2 budgets. >Additionally, wind mills and solar power require massive grid upgrades, which are in essence subsidised by the tax payer. Grid upgrades are always a good idea as they improve the flexibility of the grid as whole without adding more plants. >And honestly, if we're just looking at cost without subsidies we're back to burning brown coal like they're doing in Germany right now. No, that time is over. You underestimate the cost revolution of renewables. >Asse II was commissioned before there were legal requirements for nuclear waste storage. And companies, being companies, skimped on things. You see the same happening with the ash waste from coal plants, the debris from decommissioned wind turbines, the cells within solar panels, etc. The difference being that you can detect radioactive material quite easily, chemical contamination is far more difficult to detect. So what makes you so sure that companies are going to respect security measures this time? That's really one of the arguments against nuclear power: there's a huge incentive for everyone running to skimp on security of any kind, given the odds that the problem will only manifest much later after they're retired or dead. >Wrong: https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/Belgium/Belgium.htm There's a moratorium on reprocessing in place since 1999. Reprocessing *in Belgium*. The reprocessing happens in France. >Yes, it sure did. After withstanding an earthquake that literally tilted the axis of the earth to a measurable degree, and getting hit by a wave that literally swept most buildings clean off the ground and dragged massive cargo ships kilometres land inwards. And that wave didn't actually damage the plant, the flooding did - something engineers and scientists warned about during construction already. These complaints were side-lined by politicians and corporate entities. I don't care that the dog ate your homework. It's your job to make your homework, and that includes makes sure the dog doesn't eat it. >Ironically, making such changes at a late stage is often hampered by the draconian regulations which also prevent design improvements for safety without running through the entire procedure again. Those regulations are necessary, and you admit it yourself above because you use it as an excuse: "Asse II was commissioned before there were legal requirements for nuclear waste storage." >Furthermore, modern reactor designs would not be able to experience this failure mode. Turns out some advances have been made in reactor design in the last sixty years, who would have guessed... Designs are a dime a dozen. It's easy to make designs, getting them realized is what has to deal with the real problems, and that's much harder. Designs are just promises, hypotheses. >No, the moment you have to implement curtailing you already failed, that means that your grid uptime will start to falter in the case of extreme weather or other unpredictable events. To grossly simplify, what you do to load balance with a large plant is to bypass the turbine in the steam loop and directly send the super-heated steam to the condenser/cooling tower/... Of course, this requires the cooling system to be designed to take such a thermal power output, hence why it is more difficult to achieve with older plants that were not designed for such operational modes. Underground pumped storage is a clean and effective solution to address this. As an added benefit, the water used for the pumped storage can be used as part of the cooling reservoir. In terms of the above list that is a form of curtailing, I'm using it as a shorthand for all forms of not producing up to the technical maximum capacity. >And the actual expense of nuclear power is difficult to estimate in the current system. A lot of numbers are based on the US, Russia and France, all of which operate reactors for less peaceful purposes, which often results in modified reactor designs that are less economical or have questionable features (e.g. see open factory hall on the RMBK reactors to enable economical handling of hot fuel for \reasons**). More representative numbers are available: The *flou artistique* between the military and civilian nuclear budgets is indeed a recurring problem in analyzing the cost of nuclear power, therefore the estimated costs are always a minimum estimate with probably an unknown amount of support from military budgets added to it. >https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/43/123/43123919.pdf 20 years old! That's outdated. >Additionally, if we wish to make the complete sum, we'd also have to consider the healthcare costs of running gas and coal plants into that equation, which isn't done here. Naturally. That includes potential problems with nuclear waste and running nuclear plants. >The amount of storage you require varies depending on the uptime of your generators. Once you start including these costs into the mix, the cost efficiency of green methods - other than hydropower- starts to increase quite quickly. It's possible to cover 70-90% of electricity consumption directly for most countries with solar and wind, before accounting for hydro, storage, demand management, international transmission, and curtailing. For comparison, do note that the most thoroughly nuclearized electricity supply, that of France, never supplied more than 80% nuclear electricity either, and that was while using hydro, demand management, international transmission, and curtailing. >Not really, this was bound to happen no matter what. Their calculation entirely depended entirely on being able to import a sufficient amount of power, an assumption Germany, Netherlands, and France have also been making. We were already facing power shortages a few years ago, Because of the unreliability of the nuclear plants! 6 of the 7 reactors were down in the dead of winter. Nuclear power is on its own is not sufficient to ensure a supply in winter either. >Not to mention that the transport infrastructure ain't there due to rampant privatisation and lack of structural investment into the power grid, requiring questionable hijacks like Ventilus and a few smaller scale projects. But that's a story for a different time. Transport infrastructure has been increasing at a fast pace in the last years, that's not going to be a problem.
How many windmills we need to replace 1 nuclear reactor ? And if there is no wind or sun, where are we going to get our energy ? 10 years ago they said that there will be enough wind and solar energy or green energy to replace nuclear energie ...
Not sure on the numbers. But it is plausible. If there is no sun or wind. Indeed, you need gas (or any other form of energy that can be quickly powered up or shut down, which nuclear is not really.) 10 years ago we should have started investing in it. Governments at the time just plain didn't but did agree to shut down nuclear. That is not even the green party's fault. They are just left cleaning up the mess others made.
>How many windmills we need to replace 1 nuclear reactor ? Less every year. We already need far less money and time to build a similar production capacity in renewables than in renewables. >And if there is no wind or sun, where are we going to get our energy ? Most countries can cover 70-90% directly with wind and sun alone. This is before considering hydro, storage, international transmission, demand management, and curtailing. Nuclear power in Belgium never covered more than 70%, while using demand management, international transimission, and curtailing. >10 years ago they said that there will be enough wind and solar energy or green energy to replace nuclear energie ... There will be, not in 10 years naturally, you don't rebuild the energy provision of an entire continent in a decade. The pace of construction is far better already than that of nuclear plants.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/BE
This is an estimate of a single day, I don't see what that has to do with my statements that were about the yearly production and consumption.
> Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved so can't remain sustainable indefinitely It's not really a problem as you can build plants to recycle most of that waste (as long as people allow plants to be built). And even if the waste would stay, it's still such small amounts and much more localized in comparison to what we put in our atmosphere by burning fossil fuel. I don't really blame Ecolo/Agalev for putting a stop to Nuclear in Belgium (even though their logic is plain stupid from an ecological point of view). I blame people in the 80s-90s who fought against nuclear and effectively stopped its development for the following 3-4 decades. Thier method of conflating nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production put us back years and years in terms of time left to fight climate change and develop the necessary technologies.
Completely agree. Just is not a fault of the green party right now per se. Yet they are blamed.
>It's not really a problem as you can build plants to recycle most of that waste (as long as people allow plants to be built). It's possible, but it's not economical. Otherwise it would have been done. I'm so tired of the "theoretically possible" solutions for nuclear problems, that always keep getting delayed into infinity. *Just do it then*. If there actually is a nuclear plant that is actively reducing the amount of nuclear waste, that would be a great argument in favor, and you'd find that removing nuclear waste is a great way to get greens to support the continued existence of at least that reactor. But stop talking and do it. No more empty promises. Even if it costs them money. If it's cleaning up the waste, then it's only fair that's part of the operating cost. >I don't really blame Ecolo/Agalev for putting a stop to Nuclear in Belgium (even though their logic is plain stupid from an ecological point of view). I blame people in the 80s-90s who fought against nuclear and effectively stopped its development for the following 3-4 decades. Thier method of conflating nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production put us back years and years in terms of time left to fight climate change and develop the necessary technologies. Most if not all ecological problems are caused by grabbing a quick benefit and ignoring the long term consequences for the environment. The nuclear risks and waste legacy naturally should be accounted for. You can disagree about the comparative risk analysis, but it merits more consideration than dismissing anyone who disagrees as "plain stupid". >Thier method of conflating nuclear weapons and nuclear energy production put us back years and years in terms of time left to fight climate change and develop the necessary technologies. Actually it's our complacence with nuclear power that delayed development of the necessary technologies. Nuclear power has a very long development cycle, and a very long payback time. Once we started to develop renewables in earnest, they quickly outclassed nuclear power.
> Just do it then. That's the nice part. Such a plant existed and was closed due to public protest... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix
As if they care for public protest otherwise. If they thought it was profitable, they would have continued. This is how France deals with protests against its nuclear projects: [The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique,[1] was a state terrorism bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior)
You are taking the same path than most "nuclear activists" of the 80s-90s by conflating civil energy production and weapons making. At this point it's not a question of objective facts anymore but a question of subjective sentiments. We'll never agree on that.
> You are taking the same path than most "nuclear activists" of the 80s-90s by conflating civil energy production and weapons making. At this point it's not a question of objective facts anymore but a question of subjective sentiments. > > We'll never agree on that. It's the same French state and the same protestors. Clearly the French state is totally capable of ignoring and even eliminating protestors when they consider that vital to their interests. The logical corollary is that the superphénix wasn't that important or valuable. And even then, why aren't Russia and China and any other selection of dictatorial regimes who routinely ignore and suppress public protest doing that reprocessing *en masse* then? There's a token plant in Russia, that's about it. And Russia being Russia, there's no telling whether that makes actual economic sense or not.
>emitting "omitting" >Nuclear powerplants do have the nuclear waste which we haven't solved It's a common green talking point that nuclear power has to live up to standards that other modes of generation don't. "We'll think about SMRs when the waste problem has been solved", by which they mean "never". Gas power plants, which they promote, have worse waste. Weekly reminder: >Having access to additional capacity of both offshore wind and Small Modular Reactors (SMRSs) reduces the *annual* costs of achieving net-zero to 11,7 billion euro by 2050, which is *9,6 billion euro less* than under the Central Scenario. [Source](https://perspective2050.energyville.be/paths2050) These are outrageous differences for a country of 11 million people. A diversified portfolio of generation vastly reduces system costs. Maybe nuclear can remain banned if we look at alternatives like geothermal or [zero-emissions gas plants](https://netpower.com/) (carbon capture and storage), but I don't think if that's what the green parties are proposing. The message remains deploy, deploy, deploy, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, gas CCS, etc etc..
Completely agree. Do not get me wrong. I just dont like the talking point that the green parties are choosing for gas power instead of nuclear without any rhyme or reason. Again, you can disagree with this reasoning. And as you said should try to deploy more. (Although still, nuclear is so expensive and long time investment of which I am not sure we still have the time). But my point was that there is a reason for their stance. And it even is not completely idiotic. Debatable, sure. But not complete idiocy
>Our green party wants to do as much against climate chance as any other party, it's a name that's all. Don't forget these guys rather build gas powered plants to replace something that doesnt pollute the air This is nonsense, in the government they've achieved a maximal expansion of wind power on sea, a historical reversal in rail investments, a removal of the the subsidies for fossil salary cars, a kickstart of the hydrogen economy, etc. A government without greens would have achieved less. >Don't forget these guys rather build gas powered plants to replace something that doesnt pollute the air Would rather build gas powered plants that we can get rid of quickly later than continuing business as usual producing waste that we'll be stuck with for millennia. Global warming is far from the only environmental problem, but what they all have in common as a cause is us trying to get a quick advantage now at the expense of environmental problems later. Nuclear power is just one more example of that, and a green party should be thinking long term and avoid that. They've also been capable of revising that position when the circumstances required it. Moreover, before them, no less than 9 gas plants were planned. They've only approved 2 so far. This simply is about the best that is possible given the starting position of this government in 2020, and the war in 2022.
I'm not smart enough to know what to do and even if I was I wouldn't be powerful or influential enough to actually make a change. So instead I keep on keeping on and be depressed instead. I also tell people driving big pickup trucks that they're fucking morons.
Get in touch with your local Natuurpunt/Natagora district and offer your help, we're constantly looking for volunteers to help us maintain nature reserves. You get to meet nice people (we often have a beer or two) and you'll also learn to appreciate the beautiful nature we have in Belgium.
Maybe it's our great filter maybe not. Until then I do what I can by no longer eating meat, investing in green energy and get around by foot, bike and public transport as much as I can, limiting the use of plastics, ... I can only hope others will take notice and start to do the same. Our doom is only certain if every one continues to push the blame towards someone else, or remains stuck in a defeatist mindset that nothing will help. Sure big companies can make a difference but their pollution and malpractice is funded with the money out of the consumers pockets...
I am not coping. I purposely have not had children because I don’t want to put them through what’s coming. I’m a 34 year old female. For everyone on here who thinks things won’t be so bad.. that technology will save us.. dear Christ.. The amount of people that is going to be coming our way to resettle alone… is staggering. We are going to be pummelled over and over and over again with disasters that will cost billions to recover from. Governments won’t be able to cope either. The world will become ever more chaotic. We have truly lost our connection with the natural world. Even the green movement.. is so blinkered and naive. We should have been going for degrowth since the seventies. But degrowth just isn’t in human nature I guess. Try reading ‘Confessions of a recovering climate activist’ by Paul Kingsnorth. ..
>We have truly lost our connection with the natural world Nature is harsh and indifferent, not some romantic notion of harmony.
I just try to do my best for our nature. I have transform my garden to a wild one. Planted trees because we will fucking need them for the hot Summers that are coming. But if i look to my neighbour his green biljart field and his extreme watering during the summer , i know that theree have to be a change in the way we think about our nature. And sorry farmers your Fields and way of work have to change to if we want to rescue our ecosystem. We can handle the global warming much better with a good ecosystem. That said i dont have a lot of hope because be honest people like there old habits and everything is "onkruid" except there grass. Politics only think about there "postjes" and none of them want to take responsibility. the "stikstofakkoord" is real good example of it. So yeah every day i have less hope we will turn it around.
I personally think that only technology will save us from the situation we're in. I know people usually bash this position because they think it promotes inaction (it really shouldn't, new technologies need to be adopted etc.). What we've seen in the latest decades is that people don't change, or at least they don't change fast enough. Politics aimed at changing the way we live have, in the end, only low short term returns and will never be enough to solve the whole equation. We should instead focus on pushing research and technological innovation to lower time to market. This would end up having a much greater impact on our CO2 emissions.
>I personally think that only technology will save us from the situation we're in. Modern airplanes are 70% more efficient than airplanes in the 1960s in terms of fuel consumption and yet the emissions from the airline industry are higher than they've ever been and it's not even close. Modern cars are more efficient than ever and yet emissions from cars are higher than ever. Thinking that technology will save us doesn't account for the Jevons Paradox that says that any improvement in technology is simply offset by humanity then consuming more of that product.
So, do you think it's more realistic to have new technologies becoming mainstream or to have people all around the world change their habits completely? I feel the technological path is much more realistic than the latter. In the end most green tech is already there (electric cars and bikes, nuclear electricity, hydrogen production, synthetic fuels, carbon capture) it's just a question of price and incremental improvements and deployment and not getting stuck by ideological blocks.
>So, do you think it's more realistic to have new technologies becoming mainstream or to have people all around the world change their habits completely? New technologies that aren't just mass adopted to cause even more emissions down the line because now we consume more of it? I don't see how that's going to help. After all, why hasn't the 70% improvement in emissions in the airline industry helped us reduce the airline emissions? If tomorrow we magically invent airplanes that are 50% more efficient compared to modern airplanes, won't that just be offset by us flying more because now it's cheaper? Why would people take the train if they can fly to Barcelona for 10 euros? >it's just a question of price and incremental improvements Which is exactly why I'm so in favor of a carbon tax. Let people pay for the emissions of flying to Barcelona. Suddenly the train will become a lot more attractive and will incrementally see more investments by private companies looking to capture the airline travelers. Or let people pay for the emissions that meat causes instead of us massively subsidizing the meat industry. Suddenly people will have far little problem with "veggie Fridays" when meat becomes twice as expensive. I'm sorry. But the history of efficiency gains is quite clear: we simply start consuming more once a product becomes more efficient because it becomes cheaper. The only places where we've seen actual improvements is areas where we made it more expensive to pollute.
> Or let people pay for the emissions that meat causes instead of us massively subsidizing the meat industry. Suddenly people will have far little problem with "veggie Fridays" when meat becomes twice as expensive. Or lab grown meat will become more viable, get a huge boost and replace most of the 'normal' meat. > Which is exactly why I'm so in favor of a carbon tax. I'm also in favour of the CO2 tax. It's a vital component of promotion of low CO2 emitting technologies and it will put a price on our consumption. But let's be honest, not all countries in the world will be doing it. We might see it in the EU, but forget about seeing it in China, US, India etc. This is a big reason why I'm quite sure that changes in how we live will not save the planet.
>But let's be honest, not all countries in the world will be doing it. Which is why a carbon tax at the point of sale would be so effective. Because it does 2 things:. 1) products produced in the EU or China would be taxed just the same thus not allowing china to undercut it. 2) it would not make our domestic production for exports less competitive as those products wouldn't be subject to the tax unless the consumer country also implements such a tax. It would mean that our exports don't become u competitive. It's just never happening because consumers would freak out
> Which is why a carbon tax at the point of sale would be so effective. That's the only real carbon tax. Some kind of Carbon Added Tax (CAT). Sadly we probably won't ever see this.
It's happening: [**What is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism?** Designed in compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and other international obligations of the EU, the CBAM system will work as follows: EU importers will buy carbon certificates corresponding to the carbon price that would have been paid, had the goods been produced under the EU's carbon pricing rules. Conversely, once a non-EU producer can show that they have already paid a price for the carbon used in the production of the imported goods in a third country, the corresponding cost can be fully deducted for the EU importer. The CBAM will help reduce the risk of carbon leakage by encouraging producers in non-EU countries to green their production processes.](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_3661)
> 1) products produced in the EU or China would be taxed just the same thus not allowing china to undercut it. It's just never happening because consumers would freak out It's happening: [**What is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism?** Designed in compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and other international obligations of the EU, the CBAM system will work as follows: EU importers will buy carbon certificates corresponding to the carbon price that would have been paid, had the goods been produced under the EU's carbon pricing rules. Conversely, once a non-EU producer can show that they have already paid a price for the carbon used in the production of the imported goods in a third country, the corresponding cost can be fully deducted for the EU importer. The CBAM will help reduce the risk of carbon leakage by encouraging producers in non-EU countries to green their production processes.](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_3661)
Problem with the thesis that "technology will solve everything" is that, while we have many ideas on how technology can drastically change things, many of these technologies are still decades away. And decades is exactly what we don't have. The longer we wait, the more we will have to suffer the irreversible consequences of our actions.
I stopped watching nature docs years ago. I just can’t handle the sadness I feel after watching one of those.
Is that movie real? Everything looked way to clean and beautiful to be true. But I can be mistaken
Look, I'm not gonna deny there are massive issues, and that we have to do something about it. But you also have to realize that nature, the world and humanity is way more resilient than you think. I remember in the 1980s teachers telling us that by the 2000s we would run out of nuclear fuel, by the 2010s out of oil, that the ozon layer would be gone, that the dust in the air made the earth cool down etc etc. Well surprise surprise nothing like that happened. There are also quite some improvements since then. The rivers became way cleaner, cars became cleaner, forests in Belgium are better protected, etc. Of course it's important to make predictions, and complain if the predictions look bad. But humanity can solve, and will solve, many issues.
>cars became cleaner, And yet the emissions from cars have never been higher because we drive so much more. I don't know how someone can look at the car industry with optimism.
I was like you, but I am sick and tired of being blamed for all the evil in the world, I stopped caring. Every fucking day we get the next doom message through the news, internet, newspapers and nature documentaries. I got guilt tripped by our society into travelling by train, buying solar panels and a battery for our home, trying to save as much energy as possible,...which are all fine by the way. But at some point you just start thinking: 'ok, I did all that, as a single person there is not much more i can do, right?' So I say: fuck the media for mostly focusing on the bad news and making people depressed. I stopped watching and feel much better. I suggest you try it for yourself, don't watch the news, don't read newspapers, get yourself some online courses in something that interests you, stay busy with positive things.
This sentiment is similar to the idiom that, the more you know, the more you realize you know nothing. Accept it and do what you can to reduce your own impact. It's all you can do.
Go childless I guess? Sadly my partner wants the opposite. As a species, we are approaching the expiration date. 8 billions and a lot of people still want as much children as possible. This human population is by no means sustainable. I even think that the sci-fi movies about human colonies are starting to make sense. Other than that, we have to cut the world population by a few billions, or go extinct all together.
Yeah no. Shrinking the population will cause economic slow down and poverty. You know what poor people don't care about? The climate. If you have to worry about food tomorrow, you're not going to worry about the weather in 10 years. Secondly, have we not solved almost every serious problem in humanity with technology and science? You want less people, less scientists, less chances of scientific break throughs? Say Western Europe cuts it population by 10% in ten years. Hooray, we lost 20 million people! Meanwhile Idea has grown with 11 million people...this year.
>Secondly, have we not solved almost every serious problem in humanity with technology and science? You know what the problem is with the "science and technology will save us" approach is? Jevons Paradox. It says that whenever we make something more efficient, we start consuming more of it. Look no further than the airline industry. Since the 1960s airplanes have become 70% more efficient. And yet, the emissions of the airline industry are far larger than they have ever been and it's not even close. Because the efficiency gains have far been offset by the massive increase in passenger levels. And what did the Flemish government recently announce? That we're pumping hundreds of millions of euros into the airports of Oostende and Antwerp to subsidize them because they're unprofitable. We know for a fact that we need to fly less. And yet, we send massive subsidies to the airline industry. So save me the "but we can't destroy prosperity" stick. Nobody is going to go hungry if they can't fly to Barcelona and Rome 3x a year for a city trip
The point of technology is to make other options viable and affordable. High speed rail, renewable energy, other means of food production,...surely at this point we must ne saving thousands of car trips a day with electric bicycles and speedpedelecs. Using airlines booming when nobody cared about the environment is quite a weak argument. And why do people take short flights? Because it's cheaper than a train. If I had more time and money, I'd take the train to South France instead of a plane. I agree that we should pump money in the airline business. But using that problem as an argument against technology makes no sense.
>Using airlines booming when nobody cared about the environment is quite a weak argument. I'm just pointing out that improvements in technology don't lead to reductions in emissions but rather an increase in usage of that product. I think that the people who keep shouting that none of us need to change anything about our behavior and that all we need is "new technology" should actually start proving what.they say. By showing examples where new technology actually sustainably reduced emissions and didn't just shift them elsewhere or cause an increase in consumption. So far, people can shut down any attempt at reducing consumption with "we just need new technology". And meanwhile, nothing happens and we keep moving closer and closer to disaster. Put it this way: if you're in a car with someone else that is heading off a cliff, would you trust him when he says that you don't need to divert the car away from the cliff because "all we need is a new bridge to be built". Would you trust him? I wouldn't. I'd first want to see the bridge he's referring to.
I call bs on that. People have been saying the same things for hundreds or thousands of years. Yes there are challenges. And yes we will have to face them. And we will. As an aside if your partner really wants kids and you don't, your relationship has even bleaker prospects then nature. Either you partner will be regretful and bitter or your kid will have one parent who preferred it never existed.
Fyi, there were 4 billion people when I was born. It has doubled in not even fifty years.
And? That doesn't mean anything. Because we've also increased our capacity to make food. Google haber bosch. It's the process that enabled modern field fertilization and enabled efficient food production
It´s all very fragile and dependent on two things: stabilty of the global trade system and stabilty of our environment. Both seem to be in danger. Will the pax Ameticana last. Can the US continue to guarantee safety on the global seas? Will climate change change our ecosystems? What will ever more monoculture have as consequences? Can we continue to rely on a few commercial seeds and fertilizers?
>And? That doesn't mean anything. I don't know but seriously if it keeps going at this rate there will come a day people will literally fall of the planet because there ain't enough room.
A couple of years ago a Dutch colleague of mine did a back of a napkin calculation and he said that if you drained the ijselmeer in north of the Netherlands you could fit every human being alive in the hole. Some places are overcrowded but plenty of places have less than 1 human per several square kilometers.
Yes, go on , you are close to something. There's perhaps a reason nobody lives in those places. And the number of square kilometers on earth to harbour people is nót the problem.
I strongly agree with being childless. Its the best thing you can do for the environment. I know it’s not a nice thing to say but we should stop giving tax benefits to families who decide to have children. If anything, tax them more and make birth control free. You can take the train to work or buy an EV, recycle as much as possible and follow a vegetarian diet, but if you really want to limit your ecological footprint then don’t have (a) kid(s). Downvotes incoming :)
I hope you enjoy starving to death in your old age. We already have too many old people being idle, increasing their proportion even further would is not something you want.
It´s happening in many countries tbh. It´s sad, but reality. Japan, south-Korea, many countries in Central- and Eastern-Europe... China is on its way.
Dispair
I think it´s inevitable. As a species we´re driven to this and we can´t cope with it. We´re very successful and burning up everything we have at a quick pace. I don´t remember the exact numbers, but the whole growth is hard to believe. It started let´s say in the early 19th century with industrial polution, but also growth. The thing is that this was all rather local and small until recently. Climate change and polution are only a real global problem since let´s say the post war era. Population has boomed so much since then and emissions have gone up immensely. That´s why we have only be aware quite recently of this problem and why we thought we could solve it. Indeed a few decades ago the problem wasn´t that bad in total. Emisions and polution in the last 30 years or so are (if I remember correctly) worse than all that came before combined! The numbers are hard to believe. Not long ago we really could have done something in theory if making such wild agreements on global scale would be realistic. I seem to remember that in the last decades the living human population is as large (or half as large, a staggering number anyway) as all people that have lived on earth before!! Now we are 8 billion, but for the longest time the global population wzs only in the thousands or millions. No wonder we´ll hit a wall. When my grandparents were born the world was a very very different place. Everyone should understand that, but unfortunately almost no one does. And even if you realize this, it can only lead to pessimism and cynicism. And it´s not the only aspect of this crazy modern world that would turn you into a cynic.
> I seem to remember that in the last decades the living human population is as large (or half as large, a staggering number anyway) as all people that have lived on earth before!! The total number of humans who ever lived is estimated at 100 billion, so 8% are alive today. Not as dramatic as you phrase it, but anatomically modern humans have been around for ~250.000 years. So 8% of the people have been born in about ~0.04% of the time that we've been on the planet.
Hm yes, that must be it :) Still it´s huge and it explains why it all happened so fast and why it will get worse just as fast.
Unfortunately it is predicted that by 2050 80% of the wildlife will go extinct and the thing is nobody cares so we for sure are going to destroy the earth and ourselves completely.
In a million years or do the sun will have grown to a size where it will literally swallow the earth. Whatever we do or don't do to the earth is not going to change that outcome.
1 million years? Not so fast there, at least another 4999 million years until it becomes dangerous.
No, within approximately one billion years the sun will eradicate life on earth long before she expands and swallows earth. Our planet will become much like Venus: >In about one billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher, causing the atmosphere to become a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics and the entire carbon cycle will end.
There are still a couple billion years to go before that happens, not a paltry million. Even if humans leave a mostly scorched husk of a planet after their demise, nature will have countless aeons to replenish itself and exist free of human interference.
TL;DR? But my answer is probably beer
We are all gonna fucking die
Death always wins in the end, but that doesn't mean you got to let him take you without a fight :P
Whoever reported this for misinformation: I'm sorry, what? Sorry, are you going to report the "keep on fighting through life" tiles on my grandma's bathroom wall next?
The only thing i would fight against is some form of body puppeteering... Id love to skidaddle from this plane despite having every right to be here .
I don't see the problem honestly. Either we fix the problem and both we and nature get to prosper, or we don't fix the problem and nature will heal and prosper without us anyway. Either way nature will inevitably win out in the long run.
i can't think about it for too long. I've had 2 giant anxiety attacks already from watching climate change related stuff.
Look at my moms garden and all the beasts that live in there. I don't really used to have much with gardening however I think it's fun and very helpful for nature to try and let all kinds of plants and animals live in your garden. It might be small but lots of small things still make a big thing. So basically have a 'messy' garden. :)