Gunnar on protest CO2 emissions

[_EAllusion]

The protests almost certainly are occurring in lieu of activities that create greater carbon emissions, so this is like several layers of stupid. It's basically a variant of the "If global warming is such a problem, why don't you kill yourself" argument that only very dumb people think is clever.

[_EAllusion]

COVID did cause a drastic slow down in carbon emitting behavior globally that only put a mild dent in carbon emissions. It was a an interesting real-world experiment in the limits of conservationist approaches given present day technology use patterns. It makes for a very strong argument that there needs to be a to-scale technological realignment.

[_Some Schmo]

There's a part of me that wishes I could stop expressing my ajax disdain. He's really just symbolic of what I think is wrong with the extreme right wing in this country. faqs and subs are easy to leave alone; they seem clearly antagonistic and insane. Sometimes ajax appears to make a slight effort; I suspect what looks like dishonesty is often him having been misinformed. I also suspect he's representative of a greater number of people than the faqs and subs of this country.

In that part of me is the tiniest suspicion that ajax could be a decent person crying to be let out of the belief-induced ideas shackling his ability to evaluate the truth. Maybe he's exorcising demons on this board, and feeling the pain of the exorcism. Some people need more time to be talked out of their crap than others. I mean, seriously... why does he keep coming back for more? If it's to antagonize, well... he's not that good at it.

I have no idea where that glimmer of optimism comes from, given the reams of countering evidence and the length of time we've known him, but I can't deny it's in there.

[_Res Ipsa]

I know important anthropogenic global warming is to you. It's an urgent crisis, correct? Have the experts in your field come up with any studies on the net increase of the carbon footprint for burning cars and buildings.

A few years ago, if I recall rightly, a Republican member of congress suggested that rising sea levels might be the result of 'rocks falling off cliffs into the sea", or words to that effect. It was not difficult to show that the order of magnitude of any such effect would be far too small to be measurable.

Similar considerations apply here. Ever day about 390 million gallons of gasoline are burned in the US. Each gallon weighs about 6.3 pounds. So that makes a weight of about 2.5 billion pounds of combustible matter burned every day, just in running automobiles and so on.

Now the entire Empire State building weighs 365,000 tons, or 730 million pounds, 0.73 billion pounds. I think you would agree that the total of combustible matter burned by some protesters in recent events is not likely to amount to more than a fraction of that - say at the very outside 1%, which would be 0.0073 billion pounds.

2.5/0.0073 = 340, to two significant figures.

So at the very, very outside, the total contribution of recent protests to global warming might amount to 1/340 of the contribution made by US automobiles every single day. It's likely to be a lot, lot less than that.

But math is hard!!!!

Thanks, Chap, for an excellent example of how to think through and identify ridiculous claims.

[_Res Ipsa]

COVID did cause a drastic slow down in carbon emitting behavior globally that only put a mild dent in carbon emissions. It was a an interesting real-world experiment in the limits of conservationist approaches given present day technology use patterns. It makes for a very strong argument that there needs to be a to-scale technological realignment.

Yup. We need to get back to the wedges.