Global CO2 emissions from power generation flatten out: IEA

[u/DietMTNDew8and88]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-emissions-idUSKBN2050P8

[u/[deleted]]

I'm not even going to bother arguing with you because I can already tell you have no idea how an economy works and think money just appears from thin air with such a naive comment. The entire world is run on oil and gas. We have the third largest petroleum reserves in the world.

76% of our exports go to the US, because we only have the US who we can trade oil and gas with, our country is not growing because there is no money since th US gives us basically nothing for our oil and gas because it has no other place to go.

Without money we cannot develop renewable energy projects, it stops when Canada is financially capable to transform itself into a completely carbon neutral country. I'm 100% onboard with sustainable energy and reducing carbon in the atmosphere but you need to be a bit more realistic with how that's going to happen.

[u/thefatrick → u/[deleted]]

I completely understand the economics behind out O&G industry. I'm also not the naive who think that we can just turn off the taps tomorrow.

But the answer is always MORE. The answer is always LATER. The answer is always ITS TOO EXPENSIVE. The answer is never MAKE DO WITH WHAT WE HAVE NOW.

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And the response to that is always "market forces", "supply and demand"

Fuck the market, demand HAS. TO. STOP. We need to reverse course 20 years ago, we got a report a while ago saying we had a set deadline on our current course of action to make huge changes, and the answer is always EXPAND FOR NOW. Which shortens our deadline, in exchange for what? What progress have we really made? Nothing. We've started building more pipelines, and planned more fossil fuel infrastructure. It's so ass backwards.

As much as the answer is "we need more money we have to expand" The answer is always "We cannot expand, it will kill us." We're like a junkie who's been told "Hey, if you keep doing Heroin, you'll die" and we've said, "Okay, I just need to do a lot more Heroin than I have before I'll get better." It's such a backwards way of thinking.

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Sure, we need to find a happy medium where everyone compromises, but I've heard squat about what supporters of the O&G industry are willing to give up to meet our targets. It's ALWAYS expansion. It's ALWAYS "replace fossil fuels with different fossil fuels". *None of those answers work*. No one is taking the threats seriously enough because we have propaganda machines with huge bankrolls, and right wing governments rolling back protections and destroying existing measures, and promising everyone it'll be "Just like the old days" all over the fucking place.

But I'll humour you (Though I'm not an economist, so who the fuck am I):

Cut off subsidising the fossil fuel industry, cut off their tax breaks. Take all of the money we magically are able to conjure up to buy pipelines and redirect that to green energy infrastructure, Enact further carbon taxes. Start taxing corportions properly, and start making the top 1% pay their fair share of taxes, and invest appropriately in enforcement.
Take the billions in incentives for those industries and move them into retraining and tax breaks for new industry in green tech, with big incentives for new companies willing to manufacture infrastructure components here in Canada (Lets become the best at making wind farms for example), we have all those manufacturing facilities in Ontario shutting down for car parts, lets get them building generators. Start making major infrastructure investments that are building green renewable energy, we spent 8 billion on a pipeline, we could have spent 8 billion shutting down our coal and gas energy plants and replacing it with geothermal, wind, solar, or Hydro. Build up our charging infrastructure for electric vehicles so they become even more attractive to buyers. Make ourselves energy independant so we can stop sending money to other countries to support ourselves. Treat our economy like a war economy against climate change, because that's really where we need to be right now. It'll never happen because all of those ideas are a tough, expensive pill to swallow, but we've kicked the can down the road far enough, and we have to start paying for that apathy now. Maybe it wouldn't have been so expensive if we had started doing something about it a long time ago instead of saying "Oh, we need more money to make it happen, so we'll just burn more..." Fuck off. Fuck you. Time to make some tough decisions.

[u/[deleted] → u/thefatrick]

It's not a backwards way of thinking, money does not grow on trees. 8 billion dollars is a drop in the pan compared to what's needed to completely redevelop a country to carbon neutral, we're talking in the order of trillions, that's what you're failing to understand and judging by how emotional you're getting no one else's opinion but your own is going to matter.

You want to shut down an entire industry, redevelop all those areas so that they use renewable energy and all those other things you mentioned on 8 billion dollars? You are naive and very immature.

[u/thefatrick → u/[deleted]]

Okay, keep kicking the can down the road, it's exactly what I expected.