Record breaking June temperatures have been deadly in Europe as the mercury soared past 40 degrees in several locations. The heat was hard to handle in Paris, London and Berlin, but our expert says we need to get used to it. But, how fast can we adapt to a scorching new-normal?
The coronavirus pandemic showed us that global survival is possible with significantly lower CO2 emissions; that was an extreme case, of course, but finding a middle ground between that and the extreme we call “normal life” is absolutely feasible and achievable.
There is no middle ground, we ignored this problem for far too long for us to not have to do something extreme to try and solve it.
Yeah, the pandemic revealed a quick and easy way to drastically cut CO2 emissions. Humanity really doesn’t need to travel as much as we do, at least not by plane. A lot, and I really mean a lot, of air traffic is for stuff which should be solved with online meetings. I see this at work too, everything got solved online during the pandemic. But, as soon as restrictions were lifted people absolutely HAD to travel by plane somewhere for a meeting and then return home on a plane, often doing both trips in the same day. Sure some of the air traffic is for leisure, sightseeing and so on. I don’t like travelling far myself so I’m a bit biased, but do we really need to fly around the world 5 times a year? We survived the pandemic by staying at home, surely we can cut down on some air traffic to save the world?
Not just that, but making people commute to an office to do what they can easily do at home is fucking stupid
you can buy a cheap trinket from China and have it delivered to your door for like $2.
10-15% is not significant.
Even 0.00001 % can be significant depending on context. You can not just say “nah my gut tells me that’s not a large number and therefore it’s not significant”. Missing the context of the data can lead to unfaithful and wrong interpretations. Just look at physicists how crazy they can get when they’ve made a 10^-7 more accurate measurement of a universal constant. Furthermore, we also have mathematical methods to investigate the significance of statistical measurements.
But enough ranting, getting to the context now:
First the numbers: depending on source, the estimate of the temporary reduction in CO2 emissions varies, but all agree that it dropped sharply. For example, the IEA estimates about 5,8 % reduction in energy related emissions IEA and notes:
Now the context to answer: was it significant?
Looking at various data:
Furthermore, emissions rebound quickly.
We can pull out even more. But to keep it short:
No. It was indeed not significant and in this case you’re right.
However, it also highlighted other things: the reduction in total emissions and emission rates dropped sharply, showing that if we would’ve wanted to, we could have done more to fight climate change long ago. (Although the emissions were still rising overall, despite the drop.) We still can.
Secondly, numerous reports revealed significant improvements in air quality in the short amount of time. So at least in this regard, it was indeed a significant change.
Overall it wasn’t totally meaningless. Although it didn’t really do anything against climate change, it revealed our potential for long term impacts.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Wdym by “if we wanted to”?? We as a species have always been able to turn shit off what are you talking about?
It’s not significant meaning it’s not a good solution. Covid didn’t see reductions in emissions from its largest source: power generation.
Covid isn’t a good example on how to reduce emissions. It is a good example on how carbon-dependent our economy is.
Wont somebody think of the profits??