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Oil Executives Are Getting Refreshingly Honest These Days (newrepublic.com)
30 points by nsainsbury 6 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 19 comments



That’s not honest at all. That’s just a different set of talking points.

“while society wants to see emissions reduced, nobody wants to pay for it.” Yeah, right, oil is cheaper, of course.


Cheaper because they don't pay for the externalities.

It's their own profits they are talking about, amazing people fall for this.


They?

What about us?

What's stopping us from passing punitive and progressive taxes on their scope 3 GHG emissions?


That’s what the fight is about and why industry pays big bucks to spread lies and distract us in fabricated culture wars.

Eventually everyone will come to their senses and tax externalities. The question is how much damage will have been done until then.


Australia had a world leading emissions trading scheme about 15 years ago (??), it was destoyed the minute the business conservatives won the election.

You might be right but there is a lot of opposition against stuff like this.


The fact that we are not passing the laws, elected representatives are. There is a tremendous firewall between us and our representatives, and lobby systems are past the firewall.


The argument stands.

Forget O&G.

Nobody wants to pay for full electrification, despite having readily available tech. You can't argue the opposite with a straight face.

FWIW, the author conflates CO2 storage as enhanced oil recovery applications only.


The argument says “emissions reduced”, not “full electrification.” And reducing emissions is cheaper than destroying the world we live in.


How much do you want to pay for zero/negative emissions?


reducing emissions is cheaper than destroying the world we live in.


LOL. Don't get offended.

You know that's not my question, and you also know I represented the author accurately (See "forget o&g")


He’s right in the sense that people, in today’s set up, don’t want to pay. But can we imagine a different choice architecture where people don’t mind giving up the black stuff?


This is just more talking points to confuse.

The architecture that economists and climate scientists both agree will move the needle on this is a revenue neutral carbon tax. A revenue neutral carbon tax taxes carbon, and then returns 100% of that tax money back to people equally. Anyone who uses less than the average amount of carbon - which is a majority of the population - since the top users use so much, get paid in this scheme.

People might not want to pay, but they don't have to. Excessive users, the non-majority, pay. People, on average, don't pay - they get paid.

The architecture already exists, it's already law in certain countries, and anyone ignoring this fundamental reality is not being serious.


Long story short. Move toward the poles. High ground and water supplies and nearby farmers.


If you're lucky, you don't even need to move, the jetstream moves the pole to you and you get -40 degrees every winter!


Or a heat dome when the jet stream slows. It makes loops up and down where pockets of extreme heat or cold form


Unlikely unless you live in the southern hemisphere. Nodal lock is now rare in the northern hemisphere because Arctic sea ice is very low, which is required to stabilize the polar jet stream and keep the cold in the north. This causes weather/climate to become highly variable in the northern hemisphere.

Long term, I would look to areas like southern Chile and Tasmania because Arctic and Subarctic areas will increasingly experience forest fires, tundra collapse, and highly variable temperatures.


Boy, do I have bad news for you about Tasmania if you don't like forest fires.


Good. Now jail 'em for 10 years.




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