Greta Thunberg

Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,214
Absolute BS you are writing.

China is still and will remain very polluted because its primary energy source is coal!

Air pollution in China back to pre-Covid levels and Europe may follow | Air pollution | The Guardian


Your link does not support your statement at all, it just says pollution is back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels and doesn’t even mention coal. You don’t need to be a scientist to work out that once a lock down ends, activity returns to previous levels.

Nox and Pm2.5 in cities isn’t from coal power stations out in the sticks, it’s from transport and space heating. The COVID drop is primarily from transport as people stopped moving around socially, spaces for the most part still needed to be heated…

C02 emissions =/= air quality in cities. The biggest issue with urban areas in Asian counties is little motorbikes, while they are cheap and don’t use a lot of fuel individually, they and no emissions controls and collectively they are horrific.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Feb 2009
Posts
3,213
Location
Sunny Fife
Two years too late with that meme :)

This one is a bit more up to date

gretascotland.jpg

You can tell she isn't a local, she isn't pushing a pram.
 
Permabanned
Joined
2 Sep 2017
Posts
10,490
Your link does not support your statement at all, it just says pollution is back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels and doesn’t even mention coal.

Oh, really? :confused:

"
“The rapid rebound in air pollution and coal consumption levels across China is an early warning of what a smokestack industry-led rebound could look like,” said Crea’s lead analyst, Lauri Myllyvirta. “Highly polluting industries have been faster to recover from the crisis than the rest of the economy. It is essential for policymakers to prioritise clean energy.”
"
Air pollution in China back to pre-Covid levels and Europe may follow | Air pollution | The Guardian

It's an article from mid last year.
Things haven't improved since then, that's for sure..
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,214
Oh, really? :confused:

"
“The rapid rebound in air pollution and coal consumption levels across China is an early warning of what a smokestack industry-led rebound could look like,” said Crea’s lead analyst, Lauri Myllyvirta. “Highly polluting industries have been faster to recover from the crisis than the rest of the economy. It is essential for policymakers to prioritise clean energy.”
"
Air pollution in China back to pre-Covid levels and Europe may follow | Air pollution | The Guardian

It's an article from mid last year.
Things haven't improved since then, that's for sure..

And it still doesn’t change the fact that per person, china’s emissions are a fraction higher than ours. We also outsource a huge amount of our manufacturing to them. Take that away and add it to our own and the pendulum very much swings in the other direction.

You main point is that China has high levels of pollution. The article you linked doesn’t support that, it just says pollution has returned to pre pandemics levels, as it has done in the U.K. It does nothing to counter the above and in reality the average Chinese citizen consumes far less than the average U.K. one.

I’m literally looking at my desk right now and every single thing on it and including the desk was made in China or Taiwan (almost all in China though) and consumed on the U.K. The emissions for producing all this stuff is attributed to China (or Taiwan) and yet its consumption has nothing to do with them.


The ‘but China’ rhetoric is a complete and utter nonsense. The USA puts out over double the emissions per person than China.
 
Permabanned
Joined
2 Sep 2017
Posts
10,490
And it still doesn’t change the fact that per person, china’s emissions are a fraction higher than ours. We also outsource a huge amount of our manufacturing to them. Take that away and add it to our own and the pendulum very much swings in the other direction.

You main point is that China has high levels of pollution. The article you linked doesn’t support that, it just says pollution has returned to pre pandemics levels, as it has done in the U.K. It does nothing to counter the above and in reality the average Chinese citizen consumes far less than the average U.K. one.

I’m literally looking at my desk right now and every single thing on it and including the desk was made in China or Taiwan (almost all in China though) and consumed on the U.K. The emissions for producing all this stuff is attributed to China (or Taiwan) and yet its consumption has nothing to do with them.


The ‘but China’ rhetoric is a complete and utter nonsense. The USA puts out over double the emissions per person than China.

China is quite polluted:


World's Most Polluted Countries in 2020 - PM2.5 Ranking | AirVisual (iqair.com)
 
Associate
Joined
1 Mar 2004
Posts
1,987
Location
Warwickshire
Indeed. According to Grid Watch it's doing 3.19% of our energy today - 1.22 GW.

Good point actually - right now ~20GW of electricity (over 50% of demand) is coming from gas turbines.
There is a clear push to stop burning gas/wood to heat houses & use electric alternatives such as heat pumps. This extra demand (I can't find the figures for UK domestic daily gas consumption in KWh but it's fair to assume it's significant), combined with electric car charging, inevitably means a significant increase in demand - the 'easy wins' of energy efficiency - LED bulbs, insulation etc, are all pretty much spent.

There's just no way this can be covered with wind turbines/solar & a mythical grid battery storage system. Have any serious proposals been put forward on how to plug this gap with clean generation?? quick maths suggests 20+ new nuclear plants will be needed...
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,214
Localised pollution, particularly particulate matter doesn’t equal CO2 and other emissions which is the whole issue we are discussing and the point of COP26.

I don’t deny China has some air quality issues which impact on human and other health but it’s straying well off topic and doesn’t support the ‘we can’t do anything cuz China’ mantra often spouted on here. In reality the pace of change in China isn’t seen elsewhere and the USA is positively glacial when it comes to climate policy.

We are slightly ahead of the curve due to our reliance on gas which is a lot cleaner than other fossil fuels and all the efficiency gains we have made on our consumption but we are about to be left behind in reality as we dither with nonsense policies.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Apr 2013
Posts
12,399
Location
La France
I can’t remember the PM2.5 rating being below 100 at any point during the 2 weeks I was there in 2015.

Had a couple of 400+ days where the air was a sulphurous soup and you couldn’t see across the road.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 May 2003
Posts
8,845
There's just no way this can be covered with wind turbines/solar & a mythical grid battery storage system. Have any serious proposals been put forward on how to plug this gap with clean generation?? quick maths suggests 20+ new nuclear plants will be needed...

I would feel a lot more disposed towards the crusade if this solution was actually on the table. It suddenly makes energy independence and a low cost energy economy more plausible.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Jul 2003
Posts
9,595
I was wondering what source of power generation we are expecting these countries to switch to once they close the coal power stations.

Renewables aren't a reliable source for 24/7 generation (wind, solar) so they will either need a way to store energy or a different answer like nuclear. We haven't even worked this out ourselves yet so how can we expect poorer countries to change.

Only saw a bit of the climate debate on bbc1 last night but one of the panel seemed to have all their eggs in carbon capture to allow them to keep using coal.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Mar 2010
Posts
21,891
Bezos's I've been into space COP speech,


I just want to know why the COP croissant crossed the road

51649841586_1d078ef913_w_d.jpg


I wouldn't pay 3.50 for a vegan croissant, it's footprint - maybe it was cooked&travelled from France, but they prefer butter ones.
maybe they just miscalculated , interesting to see what you should include in the calculation
tonnes waste per tonne croissants 0.2 Internal survey data: 20% of croissants thrown away
 
Permabanned
Joined
2 Sep 2017
Posts
10,490
Greta is right :(

"Europe could see near 50C heat every year by the end of the century if urgent action is not taken to slash greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Met Office analysis.

This summer’s deadly European heatwave – named Lucifer – which saw a new temperature record of 48.8C set in Sicily, would have been impossible without the climate crisis, the analysis found.

Such heat in Europe can now be expected once every three years as a result of the global warming that Earth has already endured, it added. Unless drastic action is taken, the risk of record-breaking heat will continue to climb in the coming decades."
Europe to see near 50C heatwaves every year by end of century without urgent emissions cuts | The Independent
 
Back
Top Bottom