The Carbon Thread

[sufi]

The 90 companies that fucked our environment

Responsible for 40-50% of damage apparently (presumably the rest is a long tail all the way down to you & I)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-017-1978-0#Sec10 & http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/9...limate-crisis-they-should-pay-for-it-20170913

Yes! They should Pay

Summary:

First, many of them knew what damage they were causing. According to the report, more than half of the carbon emissions produced since the industrial revolution were emitted since 1986, when the dangers of global warming were well-known. But these companies buried their own research findings and doubled down on fossil fuel extraction.

Second, many of these companies spend vast sums promoting climate denial and undermining support for renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other responses to the climate crisis. Industry lobbyists and think tanks, flush with money from fossil fuel companies and their executives, distort our democracy, making government accountable to their interests rather than to We the People.

Third, by doing these things, these companies prevented action during the brief window of time between climate science becoming clear and it becoming too late to avert disaster.

The shit list (a few states in there too):

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Alpha Natural Resources, USA
Anadarko, USA
Anglo American, UK
Apache, USA
Arch Coal Company, USA
Bahrain Petroleum Corporation
BG Group (British Gas) UK
BHP Billiton, Australia
BP, UK
British Coal Corporation, UK
Canadian Natural Resources, Canada
Cemex, Mexico
Chevron, USA
China, Peoples Rep. (coal & cement only)
CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Co.)
Coal India, India
ConocoPhillips, USA
CONSOL Energy, USA
Cyprus Amax, USA
Czech Republic
Czechoslovakia
Devon Energy, USA
Ecopetrol, Colombia
Egyptian General Petroleum, Egypt
EnCana, Canada
ENI, Italy
ExxonMobil, USA
FSU (Former Soviet Union)
Gazprom, Russia
HeidelbergCement, Germany
Hess, USA
Holcim, Switzerland
Husky, Canada
Iraq National Oil Company, Iraq
Italcementi
Kazakhstan
Kiewit Mining Group, USA
Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Kuwait
Lafarge, France
Libya National Oil Corp., Libya
Lukoil, Russia
Luminant / TXU, USA
Marathon, USA
Massey Energy Corporation, US
Murphy Oil, USA
Murray Coal Corporation, USA
National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Iran
Nexen, Canada
Nigerian National Petroleum, Nigeria
North American Coal, US
North Korea
Occidental, USA
Oil and Gas Corp India, India
OMV Group, Austria
Peabody Energy
Pertamina, Indonesia
PetroChina, China
Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras), Brazil
Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuela
Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico
Petroleum Development Oman, Oman
Petronas, Malaysia
Poland
Polish Oil & Gas Co.
Qatar Petroleum, Qatar
Repsol, Spain
Rio Tinto, UK
Rosneft, Russian Federation
Royal Dutch Shell, The Netherlands
Ruhrkohle AG (RAG), Germany
Russian Federation (not including FSU)
RWE, Germany
Sasol, South Africa
Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia
Singareni Collieries Company, India
Sinopec, China
Sonangol, Angola
Sonatrach, Algeria
Statoil, Norway
Suncor, Canada
Syrian Petroleum, Syria
Taiheiyo, Japan
Talisman, Canada
Total, France
UK Coal, UK
Ukraine
Westmoreland Mining, USA
Xstrata, Switzerland
Yukos, Russia

 

[Mr. Tea]

Reviving this thread because this post isn't directly XR-related:

This TV show about Chernobyl is by all accounts very well made and engaging, but I wonder if it could have possibly come at a worse time. Friend of mine was on Facebook earlier with:

"Watch the new mini-series Chernobyl; the message is immediately clear.... why the FUCKKKK are we still gambling with nuclear power."

I pointed out that the absolute upper limit on estimates of premature deaths caused by all nuclear accidents that have ever happened is about the same as the monthly premature death toll due to coal-burning power stations, and that that's just from respiratory illnesses caused by particulates and smog, before you even take into account the climatic effects. He responded:

"Seriously, I would take burning coal again over the the horrendously outdated nuclear plants currently dotted all over the globe. Ticking time bombs in my opinion."

People have this incredibly strong emotional reaction to anything with the word 'nuclear' in it which is not at all backed up by the science and statistics, which is a huge problem because it's the only realistic option for supplying the bulk of our energy needs in the near future, other than continued reliance on fossil fuels.

 

[other_life]

its ideology

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think it's something more primitive and fundamental than that, really. It's a really visceral, emotional aversion. Like people who totally freak out over spiders. And of course there are some very dangerous spiders, but some people freak out over any spider, no matter how many times you tell them it's just a normal garden spider and totally harmless if you're not an insect.

 

[luka]

I'm old enough to remember lying awake at night 'knowing' the Russians could nuke us. The sky incandescent, body smashed to smithereens, evaporated. This was THE nightmare of the entire Cold War period

 

[sadmanbarty]

I'm old enough to remember lying awake at night 'knowing' the Russians could nuke us. The sky incandescent, body smashed to smithereens, evaporated. This was THE nightmare of the entire Cold War period

Hardcore was the first music to embrace the aesthetic of oblivion and it coincided with the end of the Cole war. Society was now detached e Pugh from nuclear apocalypse that it could now fathom it for entertainment purposes.

See also the nuclear war dream sequence in terminator 2

 

[luka]

Kaboom!

 

[poetix]

Quoting without attribution: "here's a take so hot i dare not ever say it in public: the way the eco left talks about climate change as if it's proof of the fact that trying to transcend nature with industry is intrinsically unsustainable, rather than a specific problem to do with the specifics of fossil fuels, is genuinely the exact same logic as the right in the '80s talking about aids as proof of the inherent unsustainabiltiy of sexual freedom and non-hetero sex rather than a specific epidemic. the two arguments are equally good"

"Further: the right opposed sex education and condom/clean needle distribution on the grounds that these would encourage people to continue in the bad old ways; the eco left doesn't really want to know how industrial civilisation can be run on clean energy, or that we could scrub carbon from the air, since we'd escape the moral consequences and hence the moral lesson of climate change."

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm old enough to remember lying awake at night 'knowing' the Russians could nuke us. The sky incandescent, body smashed to smithereens, evaporated. This was THE nightmare of the entire Cold War period

Uh, we're talking about civilian nuclear energy, not bombs.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Quoting without attribution: "here's a take so hot i dare not ever say it in public: the way the eco left talks about climate change as if it's proof of the fact that trying to transcend nature with industry is intrinsically unsustainable, rather than a specific problem to do with the specifics of fossil fuels, is genuinely the exact same logic as the right in the '80s talking about aids as proof of the inherent unsustainabiltiy of sexual freedom and non-hetero sex rather than a specific epidemic. the two arguments are equally good"

"Further: the right opposed sex education and condom/clean needle distribution on the grounds that these would encourage people to continue in the bad old ways; the eco left doesn't really want to know how industrial civilisation can be run on clean energy, or that we could scrub carbon from the air, since we'd escape the moral consequences and hence the moral lesson of climate change."

There's something to that argument and I've had similar thoughts myself - the 'punishment for techno hubris' bit, I mean, not the Aids parallel.

 

[luka]

Uh, we're talking about civilian nuclear energy, not bombs.

Uh, yeah, these things get entwined in the unconscious you simpleton

 

[droid]

Quoting without attribution: "here's a take so hot i dare not ever say it in public: the way the eco left talks about climate change as if it's proof of the fact that trying to transcend nature with industry is intrinsically unsustainable, rather than a specific problem to do with the specifics of fossil fuels, is genuinely the exact same logic as the right in the '80s talking about aids as proof of the inherent unsustainabiltiy of sexual freedom and non-hetero sex rather than a specific epidemic. the two arguments are equally good"

"Further: the right opposed sex education and condom/clean needle distribution on the grounds that these would encourage people to continue in the bad old ways; the eco left doesn't really want to know how industrial civilisation can be run on clean energy, or that we could scrub carbon from the air, since we'd escape the moral consequences and hence the moral lesson of climate change."

That would be true if climate was an isolated crisis confined to essentially a technical problem of how to produce energy without emitting carbon dioxide. Unfortunately that's not the case. We face manifold ecological crises related to overconsumption, pollution, biodiversity, extinction, overfishing, deforestation, soil depletion. If all of the carbon from the last 200 years was magically removed from the atmosphere tomorrow we would still have to deal with all of these other critical issues, all of which are related to industry, or more precisely, capitalism and it's founding myth of infinite economic growth within a closed system.

TLDR, the author of that quote is talking absolute bollocks.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Uh, yeah, these things get entwined in the unconscious you simpleton

It sounded like you were genuinely conflating them.

I mean, you've said things as stupid as that before while trying to score points against me.

 

[Mr. Tea]

That would be true if climate was an isolated crisis confined to essentially a technical problem of how to produce energy without emitting carbon dioxide. Unfortunately that's not the case. We face manifold ecological crises related to overconsumption, pollution, biodiversity, extinction, overfishing, deforestation, soil depletion. If all of the carbon from the last 200 years was magically removed from the atmosphere tomorrow we would still have to deal with all of these other critical issues, all of which are related to industry, or more precisely, capitalism and it's founding myth of infinite economic growth within a closed system.

TLDR, the author of that quote is talking absolute bollocks.

About half of all GHG emissions are associated with fossil fuels. If a clean, safe and economical alternative to that could be found, the rate of climate change would be halved. On top of that, it would solve all the problems associated with FF extraction and use - oil spills, smog, acid rain, everything. Are you seriously saying that this would not be desirable in itself?

I think many people on the left have a knee-jerk antipathy towards technological solutions because technology is inextricably linked with capitalism. To be honest I get the impression you'd be really disappointed if a commercial company announced tomorrow that it had cracked economically viable fusion energy.

 

[Turns out HMG was right!]

Chernobyl's starkest warning is about the white-hot, reality-denying stupidity of authoritarian, hierarchical socialism, not nuclear fission.


Cheers for the warning, lads. Cunts.

It's ironic that combustion of carbon graphite reactor core made Chernobyl such a bitch of an accident to deal with.

This photo is interesting. That blob is part of the melted core that made its way down to the basement. The optical artefacts in the photo are caused by the radiation it's kicking out. The dude in the hardhat is lighting his fag off it, TEN YEARS after the accident.

 

[droid]

Chernobyl's starkest warning is about the white-hot, reality-denying stupidity

The history of nuclear accidents demonstrates that this phenomenon was equally common in the West.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The history of nuclear accidents demonstrates that this phenomenon was equally common in the West.

The fact remains that, of the three accidents in the two most serious categories, two happened in the USSR (and the other in Japan):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale

Of course Three Mile Island and Windscale/Sellafield were pretty bad too, but nothing like the scale of the really big ones.

The point is that it's possible to learn from mistakes and take action to ensure similar accidents don't happen in future, or at least to greatly mitigate the risk. Whereas the harm caused by coal-burning power plants, at both a local and global level, isn't a "risk"; it's an unavoidable feature of their day-to-day operation.

 

[nilprenia]

Earth Had Life From Its Infancy

Canadian rocks that are almost 4 billion years old contain clues that organisms were already around on the young planet.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[polystyle]

Carbonations

" Geoengineering, carbon credits and carbon taxation, the Paris Agreement, divestment, voting in people of good conscience and voting out the people without any — yes, all of these are important and useful, but none of them alone can save the future. The Ministry for the Future needs a black ops division, too. What passes for hope here is thus a very particular, very narrow trail somewhere between reform, revolution, and revenge. "

Of Course They Would: On Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future” | Los Angeles Review of Books

Gerry Canavan reviews Kim Stanley Robinson's new book, "The Ministry for the Future."

lareviewofbooks.org

 

[glasshand]

Carbonations

" Geoengineering, carbon credits and carbon taxation, the Paris Agreement, divestment, voting in people of good conscience and voting out the people without any — yes, all of these are important and useful, but none of them alone can save the future. The Ministry for the Future needs a black ops division, too. What passes for hope here is thus a very particular, very narrow trail somewhere between reform, revolution, and revenge. "

Of Course They Would: On Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future” | Los Angeles Review of Books

Gerry Canavan reviews Kim Stanley Robinson's new book, "The Ministry for the Future."

lareviewofbooks.org

I read this recently, it did make me feel a bit more optimistic for a brief period. less of a novel, more of a vehicle to get across climate-saving ideas that are mostly already on the table or sort of feasible. although it's also got a fair share of disaster predictions too.

the black ops division seems to be a pretty popular thought at the moment

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

The science on climate change has been clear for a very long time now. Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emission levels, and a rising temperature. With...

www.versobooks.com

Sabotage caused Washington oil-train disaster, rail union says

The oil train came apart on the snowy tracks north of Bellingham shortly after the locomotive engineer got the mile-long chain of petroleum tanks on wheels under way.

www.kuow.org