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/sci/ - Science & Math


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16192022 No.16192022 [Reply] [Original]

How did environmentalism get hijacked by energy tycoons so all everyone ever talks about is CO2 emissions and climate change, but everybody conveniently forgot about deforestation, ocean pollution and light pollution?

>> No.16192038

>>16192022
more lobbying money in national politics. the other issues are local politics, those problems only exist in red states

>> No.16192054
File: 162 KB, 846x1074, 1571488694201352.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16192054

>> No.16192166

>>16192022
It got hijacked because "climate" seems genuinely important (even though it isn't), and because it's much easier to scale-up advocacy that pertains to climate, for the following reason:
If you talk about climate, you don't need to talk about protecting a certain forest. Your branch in New York can easily duplicate and propagate the findings of the branch in London, but if the same branch in London advocated to protect some old-growth forest in Scotland, it would not transfer to advocacy work in New York. The same is true for other such mechanisms, like training/education or convincing/petitioning politicians and other decisionmakers.

Naturally, the reason I just outlined also makes it easier to justify your work regardless of local circumstances, and thus streamlines the funding/donation part of the operation. I.e. it's more effective as a grift, whereas traditional nature and animal advocacy is absolutely terrible as a grift.

>> No.16192223

>>16192166
Man what the fuck.

Ok then. Why is it easier for a rich fuck to waste his money in some bogus mars expedition for no reason, or feeding niggers in Africa despite unsustainable living conditions, than to be concerned by some local animal population?

>> No.16192235
File: 1.08 MB, 1024x768, Fossil-for-Renewables.002.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16192235

>>16192022

In the 1950s and 1960s, conservationists were pro-nuclear. They understood that nuclear plants would produce pollution-free electricity on a tiny fraction of the land required for coal mining, hydro-electric dams, and oil and gas drilling.

At the time, California’s utilities were heavily regulated and had an obligation to the public to keep electricity prices low. They proposed to build nuclear plants to eliminate the state’s reliance on oil and natural gas.

In the mid-1960s, the Sierra Club supported the building of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant to replace fossil fuels. “Nuclear power is one of the chief long-term hopes for conservation,” argued Sierra Club President Will Siri in 1966.

“Cheap energy in unlimited quantities is one of the chief factors allowing a large, rapidly growing population to set aside wildlands, open space and lands of high-scenic value,” added Siri, who was a biophysicist, mountaineer, and veteran of the Manhattan Project.

Not everyone thought cheap energy was a good thing. “If a doubling of the state’s population in the next 20 years is encouraged by providing the power resources for this growth,” countered Club Executive Director, David Brower, California’s “scenic character will be destroyed.”

After weighing the arguments, the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors voted nine-to-one to support the building of Diablo Canyon.

In response, Brower quit and started a new group, Friends of the Earth (FOE). “There’s no more important issue in my life,” said Brower, than to “see that Friends of the Earth does everything it can, here and abroad, to stop the nuclear experiment.”

Would you be shocked to learn that the founding donor of FOE was oilman Robert Anderson, owner of Atlantic Richfield? He gave FOE the equivalent of $500,000 in 2019 dollars.

>> No.16192237

>>16192235


“What was David Brower doing accepting money from an oilman?” his biographer wondered. The answer is that he was developing the environmental movement’s strategy of promoting renewables as a way to greenwash the killing of nuclear plants and the expanded use of fossil fuels.

At the exact same time, California’s former governor, Edmund “Pat” Brown, was raising $100 billion (in 2019 dollars) from U.S. banks for Indonesia’s state oil company. In exchange, he received exclusive rights to sell Indonesian oil in California and a $360,000 (in 2019 dollars) donation to his son Jerry’s campaign for governor.

After he won, Gov. Jerry Brown’s aides took actions to defend the family’s oil monopoly. One of them, acting as an air pollution regulator, killed a refinery being built by Chevron, which would have competed directly with the Brown oil business, while another worked to kill nuclear plants.

By 1976, activists who feared that cheap nuclear energy would fuel overpopulation had taken over the Sierra Club. The organization’s new executive director proposed a strategy to foment hysteria about nuclear in order to impose regulations to make nuclear expensive.

"Our campaign stressing the hazards of nuclear power will supply a rationale for increasing regulation,” he explained, “add to the cost of the industry, and render its economics less attractive.”

Along with groups like Union of Concerned Scientists and NRDC, Sierra Club claimed that the clean if slightly warmer water that comes out of nuclear plants was a kind of “thermal pollution,” and demanded unnecessary and expensive measures to mitigate the non-problem.

Working together, Brown and the Sierra Club killed so many nuclear power plants between 1976 and 1979 that, had they been built, California would today be generating all of its electricity from zero-emissions sources.

>> No.16192240

>>16192237

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) also got its start in California in the 1960s and 1970s. It created detailed energy forecasts purporting to prove that California didn’t need to build nuclear plants because it could simply reduce electricity consumption. California couldn’t, and massively expanded its use of natural gas, instead.

In the 1980s, EDF made an alliance with Wall Street and natural gas companies to deregulate electricity markets. Along with the lack of nuclear power, deregulation resulted in the 2000 energy crisis, which allowed natural gas investors to fleece California ratepayers out of billions of dollars.

NRDC, too, advocated deregulation and even helped natural gas giant Enron, distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to environmental groups. “On environmental stewardship, our experience is that you can trust Enron,” buzzed NRDC’s Ralph Cavanagh. Enron executives at the time were defrauding investors of billions of dollars in an epic criminal conspiracy.

From 2009 to 2011, lawyers and lobbyists with EDF and NRDC advocated for and helped write mind-bogglingly complex cap-and-trade climate legislation that would have created, and allowed its Wall Street donors to take advantage of, a carbon-trading market worth upwards of $1 trillion.

>> No.16192242

>>16192240

Today, EDF works with the world’s largest multinational oil and gas companies to demand changes to regulations in ways that benefit highly-capitalized firms and undercut smaller, less-capitalized competitors.

In recent years the work of hiding outlandish assumptions about renewables and efficiency has fallen to Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson. By simply entering numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, Jacobson managed to convince many politicians, journalists, and activists that we can power the world on 100% renewables.

In an email, Jacobson says that he uses "a three-dimensional global weather prediction, climate, and air pollution model and a time-dependent grid integration model to show that it is possible to match supply with demand every 30 seconds for five and six years, respectively.”

Jacobson is a Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy, which was founded by Jay Precourt, an oil and gas magnate and board member of Halliburton, the oil and gas services firm. The board of the Institute is a who’s who of oil, gas, and renewables investors.

>> No.16192245

>>16192242

Today, the Sierra Club, EDF, and NRDC together take in more than half a billion dollars each year from donors that include billionaire coal, natural gas, and renewables investors like Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg.

Sierra Club and EDF have received a minimum of $136 million and $60 million, respectively, from oil, gas, & renewables investors, and are currently working alongside the American Petroleum Institute to kill nuclear plants in California, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

NRDC, for its part, has a minimum of $70 million directly invested in oil and gas and renewable energy companies that stand to profit from the closure of nuclear plants. It, too, is working to kill nuclear plants in California, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Even smaller groups, like WISE International and Environmental Law and Policy Center, take money from natural gas and renewables companies while fighting to replace nuclear plants with natural gas and renewables.

Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace — which rakes in $350 million annually, crashes drones into nuclear plants, and recently declared, “Sabotaging nuclear is a vital part of saving the climate” — both keep their donors secret.

EDF, NRDC, and Sierra Club know perfectly well that solar and wind require the expansion of fossil fuels. How could they not? They’ve been killing nuclear plants and watching air pollution rise, as a result, for a half-century.

>> No.16192385

>>16192245
>muh "green nuclear"
How about seriously lobbying for a reduction of consumption, reduction of population instead? All you end up doing boiling water to move a turbine.

>> No.16193301

>>16192385
why don't you kill yourself if you want reduced population?

>> No.16193325
File: 1.25 MB, 1200x800, 1904-Standard-Oil-octopus-cartoon-1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16193325

>>16192022
Just so you understand how systemic the problem is, this political cartoon wad made in 1904. That's 120 years ago!!!
It is nothing new. You will inherit this problem, just as we inherited it, and our grandfathers and great grandfathers did too.

>>16192054
They want you fighting each other, so you aren't fighting them.

>> No.16193335

>>16192022
Money
/thread

>> No.16193729
File: 1.06 MB, 272x480, shut it down comando.webm [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16193729

>>16193325
>the octopus meme
antisemitic

>> No.16193733

>>16192054
/thread

>> No.16193745
File: 15 KB, 191x205, jpepe.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16193745

>>16193729
Fuel is too expensive you know.

>> No.16194829
File: 89 KB, 1116x687, GOeDCzeXEAA3rCW.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16194829

>>16193745
It was far less than half of what it currently costs just 4 years ago

>> No.16194947
File: 628 KB, 1544x1239, war on fish.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16194947

>>16192022
>everybody conveniently forgot about deforestation, ocean pollution and light pollution
We did not, but those aren't the priority: those problems affect discrete ecosystems, but global warming affects ALL ecosystems.
It's a war against nature, and we're winning, unfortunately.
Pic relevant, but already much outdated

>> No.16194949

>>16194829
racist image eh? Noted

>> No.16194960
File: 265 KB, 3618x1807, Global-forest-loss-since-ice-age.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16194960

>>16192022
>hijacked by energy tycoons
you mean how Exon's own scientists warned Exon about global warming but Exon instead pushed it all under the rug and actively promoted global warming denialist propaganda? Yeah, those tycoons.

>> No.16194988
File: 1.66 MB, 1058x1802, ExxonTigerTimeline1058px_final.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16194988

>>16194960
>Exxon
relevant pic is relevant

>> No.16194994
File: 24 KB, 448x296, conspiracy theorist.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16194994

>>16194960
>I trust exxon when they say global warming is real.
nice confirmation bias. anytime exxon says anything else you screech about conspiracy theories, so how come you trust exxon when they say global warming is real?

>> No.16195002
File: 279 KB, 859x713, 16843256613521488.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16195002

>>16194988
Exxon's science on global warming changed between 1977 and the 1990s. They thought global warming was real and then they realized that they were wrong about it.
Science changes, its called learning. How come you're too dumb to evolve mentally the way the scientists at Exxon can? Why do you still believe in disproved 50 year old theories?

>> No.16195563

>>16195002
>>16194994
Retard takes

>> No.16196328

>>16192245
>that solar and wind require the expansion of fossil fuels
what?

>> No.16196346

>>16196328

Because they couldn't keep up with demand and batteries suck even today.

>> No.16196356 [DELETED] 

>>16196346
Retard take

>> No.16196365

>>16196356

Just see the increase in fossil fuel power plants and associated contamination resulting from phasing out nuclear power plants in Germany.

>> No.16197176 [DELETED] 

>>16192235
>Would you be shocked to learn that the founding donor of FOE was oilman Robert Anderson, owner of Atlantic Richfield?
No, the surprising part is that Anderson isn't a typical jewish surname.

>> No.16198261
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16198261

>>16193325

>> No.16198382

lol right? They barely care about that stuff anymore. Parking lots are fine because they don't emit CO2!

>> No.16198398

>>16192022
Whataboutism to the highest degree

>> No.16198409

>>16194994
Exxon has no reason to deny climate change though? They know people, and they know climate concern is a facade.

If they say climate change is real they can at least pretend like they're on the side of public/scientific consensus, but they know that when push comes to shove nobody will willingly give up their air conditioning, vehicles that dont suck, their yearly flight to Cancun, etc. It's like how politicians fly their private jets halfway across the planet every year to meet up and pretend like they care about the climate.

>> No.16198418

>>16192022
>>>16192022
>schizo poltard thinks he understands climate science better than actual scientists and climate experts.


Go back to your containment board, incel.

>> No.16198562

>>16194947
>those aren't the priority
>species lost irreversibly for some jew's McMansion is not a priority
>Light pollution, an obvious problem caused by the early adoption of a recent practice, is not a priority (it will become more priority when it's so widespread adopted it won't be feasible to change back)
>Some bogus "climate change" that is so slow species end up adapting to it and even speciate thanks to it is priority

>> No.16198567

>>16198418
>gets triggered by 4 day old thread

>> No.16198686

>>16192022
Because CO2 is created in combustion reactions while methane ( A more potent GHG) is not.

Oxygen concentrations are going down.

>> No.16198692

>>16194947
>I am the savior of planet Earth
>I am the protector of Mother Nature
you are mentally ill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_complex

>> No.16199440

>>16194994
>I trust exxon when they say global warming is real.
If only Exxon had actually said that, but instead they did the opposite.

>> No.16199443
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16199443

>>16198692
>I am the savior of planet Earth
>I am the protector of Mother Nature
I don't give a shit about any of that, lol. I give a shit about us getting fucked by ourselves.

>> No.16199515

>>16199443
you are mentally ill

>> No.16200144
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16200144

>>16198261
She is very antisemitic and racist

>> No.16200314

>>16192022
Because so much of academic funding gets fed to Israel that we have to swallow measuring it with CO2 emissions otherwise it's antisemitism

>> No.16200366
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16200366

>>16199515
and you are ignorant

>> No.16201380
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16201380

>>16200144
based

>> No.16202077

>>16199443
so you're saying you've decided that its your job to save humanity from itself, or in other words you have a messiah complex

>> No.16202268
File: 204 KB, 220x220, nsi.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16202268

>>16202077
>caring for the nature that provides for your existence is a messiah complex

>> No.16202892

>>16202268
you are mentally ill

>> No.16202911

>>16198692
>Everyone bears responsibility for caring for planet Earth
>But role I personally play in protecting Mother Nature is very tiny because it's diminished by all other human being
But all humans are mentally ill. When everyone in the world is insane except you, everyone will just assume you're the insane one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

>> No.16202954

Deforestation is good, have you noticed how much it is raining already?

>> No.16203798
File: 189 KB, 580x430, LAI-Change-Global.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16203798

>>16202954
>Deforestation
thats not whats happening at all though

>> No.16203890
File: 35 KB, 612x346, you.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16203890

>>16202892
anon...

>> No.16204163

>>16203798
>He thinks leaves are forests
>Literally can't see the forest for the leaves
NGMI

>> No.16205264

>>16204163
why does it upset you that adding co2 to the atmosphere makes our planet healthier? why do you want everything to be getting worse?

>> No.16206748

>>16205264
People who have created a fake identity for themselves by pretending to be environmentalists would lose their fake identity if they were to admit that CO2 only enhances the natural world. The don't care about nature or animals or anything like that, they only care about themselves

>> No.16206750

>>16192054
this

>> No.16207368

>>16200366
you only think that because of your delusional insane mental state

>> No.16207938

>>16205264
>>16206748
Based on how good corn fields are doing? NGMI

>> No.16208005

>>16205264
>healthier
subjective, no such thing exists outside of our minds
The planet is neither healthier, nor sick. It's just changing. What matters is how it affects out own future prospects. If we will be left without enough resources, we're fucked, if not, I guess we'll be alright.
Just because the planet is greening, it doesn't mean that ecosystems won't collapse, they simply might not be able to shift northwards with the rising temperatures, for example. What if all that greening is due to the proliferation of a few plant species that can adapt well, and outgrowing all other native species?
It's so fucking complicated, you can't make generalizations like that.

>> No.16208196

>>16207938
why does it upset you that plants like CO2? why do you hate plants?

>> No.16208311

>>16208196
Why can't you form a cogent rebuttal? Why do you spam this every time you lose an argument? Why do you have science?

>> No.16208491

>>16207368
>you only think that because of your delusional insane mental state
ad hominem

>> No.16208513

>>16198418
>schizo thinks he understands existence of Gods better than actual theologians and priests.
Go back to your containment cell, you heathen.

>> No.16208515

If you can read acronyms are useless

>> No.16209178
File: 76 KB, 1280x500, life by mass.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16209178

>>16208005
>subjective
no it isn't
all the statistics on this pic scale proportionally with atmospheric CO2.

>> No.16209260

>>16208311
Your copiums don't work
>why do u hate le hecking science!?!?!?!

>> No.16209608

Few people seem, to recognise the oil-market is already widespread and we'll established in modern markets, It's a fact of life. If campaigners are, as it seems, strongly motivated, for a move to a nuclear power industry, they should be striving for independent environmental safety regulations or at the very least, a lay understanding, of nuclear safety and the laws and rights that should and do exist to serve and protect regular citizens from the risks of nuclear energy or even of those environmental risks posed by the petroleum market itself

>> No.16209623

>>16209260
Cope harder, retard.

>>16209178
No they do not.

>> No.16210699
File: 1.81 MB, 352x240, 3864lgI.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16210699

>>16209178
As CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase the amount of farmland needed to produce food for everyone decreases because the farm acreage becomes more productive per acre, so that means there will be ever more land left over for wilderness and wildlife. So not only will nature benefit from the CO2 on a per acre basis, but it will also get more acres. Food will also get cheaper because the marginally productive lands will no longer be profitable to farm and only the most efficient farms will be able to survive, bad news for farmland owners, but good for everyone else

>> No.16210840

>>16203798
Yes it is. Brazil and Indonesia especially are very intent on cutting down all the old growth rainforests that house most of the biodiversity on land

>> No.16210855

>>16192022
What do you mea by light pollution exactly?

The thing that doesn't allow you to see the starts or affects some birds?

>> No.16210862

>>16210699
Lol no.

>> No.16211323
File: 20 KB, 509x448, popper.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16211323

>>16210699
>no quantitative predictions
>no source
Into the trash it goes.

>> No.16212160

>>16210699
Bill Gates is going to lose all his money on his farmland investment and eventually go broke and die poor

>> No.16213230

>>16210840
its their countries and they can do with it as they please. what have you ever done to preserve biodiversity in your part of the world? nothing? so you don't care about it as much as you claim to, if at all. its just an affection for you

>> No.16218163

>>16192054
2pbp

>> No.16220085

>>16209623
yes they do

>> No.16220173

>>16192022
Geologist here. A lot of this is related, plus some of these are less important than others. I'll make this simple. Let's create a danger-o-meter. How many people will be affected and how much damage will be sustained, scale of 1-100.

I think we can all agree that a star going supernova nearby and flooding the Earth with gamma rays would be worst case scenario. All life ends. 100 out of 100. Likelihood 0. So let's give it a total of 0 out of 100 because anything times 0 is 0.
Yellowstone supervolcano erupts. Mass devastation around the planet. Nuclear winter, half the population of the US dies. 50 out of 100. Likelihood 1 in 10,000. That's assuming it will erupt in the next 10,000 years, which is a stretch. so 0.005 out of 100.
Deforestation. This directly results in climate change but let's make it separate. Loss of species, monocultures have problems with sustainability, soil depletion. From a purely selfish humans only lens it adds food insecurity but that's about it. Since in the US we throw away 40% of all our food and globally the average is 30% I think we can give this a 0 out of 100. Likelihood 100 out of 100. So let's give that a 0 out of 100.
Ocean pollution. Chokes out sea life. Kills sea birds. Destroys beach habitats. Almost half our food comes from the ocean but the ocean isn't in danger of dying anytime soon and once again we throw away 30% of all our food. So let's give that a 0 out of 100. Likelihood 100 out of 100. So let's average that out to 0 out of 100.
Light pollution. Makes it harder to see the stars I guess. Some species become confused and have trouble mating. Let's give that a 0 out of 100. Likelihood, light pollution is strictly limited to cities. Let's give it a 20 out of 100. For a total average again of 0 out of 100.

>> No.16220174

>>16220173
Finally climate change. An estimated 5 million people die a year from climate change already.
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/07/climate_change_heat_related_deaths/index.html
It's already killing people and the problem will grow worse. Much of this is due to water insecurity, drought, heat related illnesses, increased weather events like hurricanes, landslides due to increased rain, and floods. Let's give that a 20 out of 100. Likelihood 100 out of 100 for a total average of 60 out of 100.

Which problem do you want to solve?

>> No.16221300

>>16220173
>Almost half our food comes from the ocean
you're off by a couple thousand percent, stick to your specialty.

>> No.16221364

>>16192054
God I miss early 2010s liberitarianism

>> No.16222446

This thread was moved to >>>/pol/470554945