Half of World's CO2 Emissions Come From Just 32 Fossil Fuel Firms, Study Shows (theguardian.com) 104
Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed. The Guardian: Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of "sabotaging climate action" and "being on the wrong side of history" but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.
State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.
State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.
And we all use their products (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: And we all use their products (Score:1)
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I don't understand your argument or why you're criticizing GoTeam's.
> It is UNNATURAL they they have been sequestered for a few hundred million years, and whether we did it or not, they will return.
It seems to me the sequestration was natural, though I'm not sure how or why you're using the word natural.
> The concern is that we are returning them fast.
Yes, because we are burning fossil fuels at a very high rate we are also transferring CO2 at a very high rate into the atmosphere.
> As an example it
We all suffer as infected. (Score:3)
If you could somehow convince 100 million humans to actively pursue a 100% carbon-neutral, organic balanced life within their own existence to ensure the planet does not suffer, the impact would be..what again?
What happens when even the efforts of those who aren't pretending at all, become completely irrelevant? Do we even still have the original problem to solve, or do we simply have the same old problem of human ignorance that ends the same way, every time?
Find a cure for the Disease of Greed that has in
Re:And we all use their products (Score:5, Insightful)
They lobby hard and spew misinformation to ensure that we keep using their products. They don't invest their profits in developing ways to stop using their products.
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I get what you're saying, but it's not like there are lots of ready alternatives to the products we all need and use daily that we can switch to tomorrow, EVs, solar, wind, and nuclear notwithstanding. Until we make changes to our societies and develop more new technologies, we are still dependent on oil and will be fore some years yet, even as we advance quickly in renewables (and many oil companies are invested in renewables too).
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Imagine the world we would be living in if we had focused on clean energy decades ago. Why didn't we invent lithium batteries 100 years ago? Because burning fossil fuels was easier and cheaper than developing batteries. Interestingly enough, Exxon made an attempt to commercialize lithium batteries in the 1970's but they abandoned the effort, because the technology was not good enough. Couldn't they pay for the R&D to develop the technology?
Re:And we all use their products (Score:5, Insightful)
I get what you're saying, but it's not like there are lots of ready alternatives to the products we all need and use daily that we can switch to tomorrow,
Right. It doesn't happen tomorrow. Or next year. It takes time.
This is a flaw in modern thinking; if we can't do something immediately, right this very minute, it's not worth doing.
It will take time. Let's start.
Re: And we all use their products (Score:4, Insightful)
No, we definitely do things that will take time to accomplish. Look at the current AI bubble. It will likely never pay off but we are throwing all our money and resources at it. So we definitely can) will do it. The main difference is that fixing fossil fuels doesn't generate the concentrated wealth that petroleum currently does or AI development currently does (with promises that the final product will).
If it was possible to have a monopoly on solar panels or windmills, we would be all about it. But there is tons of competition and no room for monopoly, and if there is one thing that capitalism hates it is competition.
How about the car manufacturers? (Score:2)
Exactly, people use the products that are available.
But it's not only the fossil fuel producers that do this, but also intermediate industries.
Car Manufacturers have all but killed alternative ways of transportation, bicycles, trains, trams. In most cities people are afraid to use a bicycle for transportation, because they might be killed by a car. Car manufacturers have used the lethality of the car to sell bigger, supposedly "safer" cars, that are even more lethal for people who are not in cars. Cities
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They don't invest their profits in developing ways to stop using their products.
Actually quite a few of them tried this really hard, and it resulted in them taking billions in write downs when it turns out that ultimately the market didn't have any appetite to adopt their products. Virtually all investments in alternate forms of energy with the exception of charging systems has had to be written off by the industry. Airlines were never going to pay for SAF. Heavy industry was never going to pay for hydrogen. Wind and Solar has truly pathetic ROI and has in many places been vilified (b
Re:And we all use their products (Score:4, Informative)
>> The electricity that lights our homes. The fuel that moves our cars
Relatively little oil is used for producing electricity, roughly 2-3% of global electricity generation. Electric vehicles accounted for about 25% of global new car sales in 2025.
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since I indirectly fund their operations I should get a vote on how they move forward, since they are using common property (atmosphere) in their business.
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What you wrote is accurate, but I think it's also important to note that change should be global. Encouraging change on individual, local, and country levels is probably helpful, but until everybody agrees to change together (probably with incentives like carbon taxation and), there will be a coordination problem where each country feels it will fall behind if it implements controls or incentives.
The upshot is that we should encourage our politicians to cooperate globally on this, and vote accordingly.
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And do not walk anywhere, in footwear, until you acquire those leather-soled boots you recognize as the preferred style of the elites. Handsewn and all...
The emissions happen when the fuel is burned. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes it's not very clear if this includes the emissions from people using their product, or is just the emissions from the manufacture of their product (and leaks, I guess). It *could* be just the second which is a good deal more interesting and kind of damning.
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It is kind of hand-woven but it sounds like they are counting the carbon produced by people using the products. So kind of a pointless statistic. They are not the only ones making a profit by encouraging consumption of fossil fuels, for instance people give car manufacturers more money for a machine that burns the fuel than they give for the fuel itself.
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It is kind of hand-woven but it sounds like they are counting the carbon produced by people using the products.
Nope.
It is the CO2 they produce/emit with their own business operations.
That is why it is so mind boggeling.
Fuel companies do not have to buy the fuel. They make it. So it has no fuel tax. So they burn like hell, as it is only a fraction of the stuff they sell.
A oil or gas pipeline has pumps every few (dozen?) miles/km. Those pumps (in case of gas, turbines) are fed from the transported fuel.
That i
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Unfortunately it sounds like the statistics include the CO2 produced by users of the fuel. Amount directly produced to create, transport, and leak the product would be more interesting and I think oil companies may be pretty high up there anyway, but not at 50% of all emissions (since you said that 70% manages to survive the production process). If you counted it this way then construction companies would be responsible for CO2 emitted by mixing/pouring/curing concrete, not the people digging up concrete.
It
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It *could* be just the second which is a good deal more interesting and kind of damning.
It's not. Despite how bad some of the leaks are the main emissions from fossil fuel production is the methane, and even comparing it in carbon equivalent numbers (methane is far more potent of a greenhouse gas), the production lifecycle of fuel even in dirty countries is orders of magnitude less damaging than end users setting the product on fire on purpose, especially in small inefficient engines.
There's a good reason every oil company lobbied heavily (and in my opinion completely rightfully) to have scope
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Well, that is why Germany has a CO2 tax.
The guy producing the CO2, is paying it ...
Same principle as with smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol, however the concrete way is a bit more complicated as the vendors have to foot the tax and get it back from clients.
Re: The emissions happen when the fuel is burned. (Score:1, Troll)
Most people can't afford to make those changes, so you're blaming victims. A slashdot pastime!
Re: The emissions happen when the fuel is burned. (Score:2)
And cancel culture is another one...
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And how will forcing the oil companies out of business help with that?
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There's going to be a phase-out period no matter what. The logical thing to do is to nationalize them. They knew what they were doing, they lied about it and did it anyway, and they can be held accountable like the tobacco companies were held accountable. It requires only the will. Perhaps the silver lining to the orange shitgibbon's rule is that it is causing some nations to pull together like never before. Unfortunately for some of US, the backlash is going to suck. Also, I don't particularly want to be o
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Yet how many weigh 250+lbs and drive 6 litre 3+ ton trucks to work every day. Face it the average joe doesn't give a hoot and the big oil companies will happily sell them all that premium gas for their lardmobile
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Yet how many weigh 250+lbs
Extremely irrelevant to mileage. Vehicle weight itself matters a lot less than you think in general. We have a bus that weighs 10 tons. It gets about the same mileage as a dually pickup, as long as we don't go over 65. The tire choice is way more significant. Put hard, skinny tires on that big lump and it will get much better mileage. We used to do this before people expected pickups to drive like cars.
and drive 6 litre 3+ ton trucks to work every day.
Yeah, engine displacement matters. And frontal area matters, and the nut behind the wheel overusing the ac
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This does not speak for your bus.
But against your PickUp.
20mpg, aka 14l/100km, that is in our times an ridiculous amount of fuel, for a car that is supposedly just a fancy passenger car.
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20mpg, aka 14l/100km, that is in our times an ridiculous amount of fuel, for a car that is supposedly just a fancy passenger car.
I was using the pickup for real pickup things like hauling wood. It was a 3/4 ton model with 4WD and it was capable of doing things which cars can not do, and I was also doing those things. So no, in absolutely no way was it "just a fancy passenger car".
At the time I worked at home, and these days I work from home 4 days, but in between I was commuting 30 minutes to and from work, so I now own a Versa.
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For most people it is a "fancy passenger car", they do not use it the way you did/said.
If the car is empty, there is no conceivable reason why it would use so much fuel!
Re:The emissions happen when the fuel is burned. (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would be drill (including moving lots of equipment around), pump, transport (probably several times), then refine ... then lots more "work" before the results make it somewhere to be used. Each stage creates emissions (including waste ones), usually from power generation required to run it.
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Pumping do in many cases also cause CO2 emissions. Oil wells contain more or less of natural gas as well as crude oil, and that gas is often considered unprofitable to collect or to pump back into the ground.
This "waste gas", consisting of mostly methane is typically burned to produce CO2 ("flaring" [wikipedia.org]), which has lower climate impact than just letting it out, but the latter happens too much too often. It also happens that flaring can malfunction, leading to incomplete combustion and unwanted emissions.
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If the nukes would have been better at that time, and the waste problem had a solution: they had not opposed it ...
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if you paid someone to pump it out of the ground, then perhaps you should pay for someone to pump it back in when you're done using it.
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And no, you donâ(TM)t need to drive to Costco for the 3rd time this week. ...
At least not with that wasteful car
Shocking (Score:5, Insightful)
All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December
Wild! You're saying that 17 countries with economies based in large part on fossil fuels didn't agree to sabotage their own economies??!!
We may not like that they won't ruin their economies to save the planet, but it shouldn't be surprising.
Re:Shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
sabotage their own economies
You're begging the question in a short sighted way. One of the biggest winners of the future is going to be the countries that control and have the expertise to do a needed transition. China has positioned itself as such and people are already bitching and moaning that they are going to dominate EVs, and solar panels.
You can start a transition and have an industry capable of supporting it, or you can fade in irrelevance and then proceed to send lots of money to the economies of others to help you transition at a later date.
Graphics Cards all over the world ... (Score:3, Interesting)
... use chips made by just 3 companies.
EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!
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EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!
Can do!
We're all GOING TO DIE!!!!
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There was a time when there was a bunch of companies making graphics chipsets - 3Dfx!, S3, Chips & Technologies, 3dlabs,.... and some more making graphics cards - ATI, Diamond Multimedia, Matrox, Number Nine,.... All that consolidated to the point that we just have 3 companies now that makes graphics cards/GPUs. Btw, isn't it 4 - since Apple uses their own GPU in their Macbooks?
Some consolidation was inevitable, but people at the FTC were asleep at the wheel, allowing all sorts of mergers that got
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There are many proprietary iGPU cores.
Off the top of my head....
Apple, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Arm, Broadcom, Qualcomm, PowerVR. There are more.
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Calling it a "crisis" is apt, because we can still do something about it.
The next step is "catastrophe".
Stupid logic (Score:5, Insightful)
But this is some boneheaded fucking logic.
Saying that the producer of the fuel is the one responsible for the emissions when it is burnt is just a weak fucking attempt at reducing the web of responsibility to someone easier to target, when the real culprit is staring at you in the mirror.
"Re:Stupid logic" but it works in court (Score:3)
They're just setting the stage for extended lawfare. They're trying to do the same thing as asbestos and lead paint etc. It's depraved, but it's worked before.
Just wait until they go after Nvidia. just think how much energy would be saved if only Nvidia stopped making chips!
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While that is true, you are missing the point.
These few companies have incredible power and influence plus an enormous financial incentive to lie and do precisely the wrong things. THOSE actions are, in a very direct way, responsible for the emissions even if they don't emit all the CO2 themselves.
And how are these companies and countries "easier to target"? I'd say quite the opposite.
"I'm not a climate denier- not even a tiny little bit."
But you support climate deniers, you praise them, promote them and
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While that is true, you are missing the point.
No, I'm not. I'm doing a more nuanced analysis of the problem than they/you are.
These few companies have incredible power and influence plus an enormous financial incentive to lie and do precisely the wrong things. THOSE actions are, in a very direct way, responsible for the emissions even if they don't emit all the CO2 themselves.
Those companies aren't responsible for shit.
At the end of the day, JoeBob's car still needs gasoline. Someone has to pump it for him.
It's not JoeBob's fault that his car needs gasoline, or this system that basically requires him to have that car exists- but it's also not the fault of those supplying him the gas to keep it running.
Dumbass Dimwit over in Appalachia isn't rolling coal and driving a truck 7x larger than he needs
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If you don't want people to think that you're an illiterate partisan fuckwaffle, then read before you reply.
I never used the word "lawfare".
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You are why we lose elections. You're just as fucking dumb as the deplorables.
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You're pathetic.
Embrace your low IQ. Own it. Denying it is just sad, man.
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I suggest to read up what an "ad hominem" is ...
You weren't "ad hominemed", moron, you got insulted.
That is something completely different. And you deserved the insult, moron.
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As an aside, they're also correct.
An insult is not ad hominem argumentation. Educate yourself. It's not too late for you to stop being stupid.
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Here's some constructive feedback: if you don't want people to automatically assume your a lunatic maga moron don't use the work "lawfare".
Hi. it was me who used it and i think it's a perfectly cromulent word and it's not exactly partisan.
I certainly bacame aware of it after what was going on with Trump in and after his first term, but it at least equally applies to what Trump is doing now with regard to Comey, Powell, etc.
But if you have other shorthand for it, lmk.
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Rational people will not mistake someone who uses that was as a "MAGA [sic] cultist."
Also, they probably know the difference between "your" and "you're" [slashdot.org], and that "en mass" [sic] is "en masse."
You know why I hate Trump the most? Because he disabused me of the idea that liberals were simply smarter than conservatives. In fact, we have as many fucking morons on our side as they do. You're proof of that.
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What has to happen in your life to make someone like trump your entire identity?
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Your argument is that if someone uses the word "lawfare", then they risk being identified as a member of MAGA.
This is probably true of very unintelligent people such as yourself. I merely pointed that out.
MAGA does not own the word "lawfare".
What's funny is that you're now trying to accuse me of being MAGA/A Trump Supporter, which is absurd.
I voted for Kamala Harris. I have never voted for Trump, and nor would I. The man is simply too fucking stupid to hold the office.
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These few companies have incredible power and influence plus an enormous financial incentive to lie and do precisely the wrong things.
No they don't. Say Shell shuts down a refinery and a couple of wells. Will you not drive as a result? Of course not, that would be truly dumb logic. The only people who won't drive are the former now unemployed Shell workers. You have no power or influence in the market of a truly fungible asset which both oil and refined oil products are.
right if the person in mirror choice (Score:2)
The real culprit are not in the mirror. They are linked the one warping the pol
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But you seek to deflect your culpability to those you elect to lead you.
Willie Sutton unavailable for comment (Score:2)
Why did he rob banks? Cuz that's where the money is. Same thing is going on here. Set up the big hydrocarbon companies as the bad guy and the trial lawyers will have a field day. Never mind that everybody uses hydrocarbons and there's no way humanity will ever be able to do without them. What you need to do is torpedo the lawyers.
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That's an utterly unscientific view. Humanity needs energy. It does not need extracyclical carbon.
I do, however, agree with you that those supplying the need are not the problem.
The current overall system's and peoples' reliance on hydrocarbons is the problem. It is changing.
Hydrocarbon demand is believed by many people who can read such chicken bones as peaking sometime around 2030.
No, only 15%. The rest are the consumer. (Score:4, Informative)
See https://www.iea.org/reports/em... [iea.org]
"Today, oil and gas operations account for around 15% of total energy-related emissions globally, the equivalent of 5.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions."
The 50% number is like claiming that Taco Bell is responsible for the water use of people flushing the toilet after eating a taco.
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Would Taco Bell be responsible if it enriched its tacos with laxatives? If it lobbied governments to prevent all competition for its tacos? If laws were passed requiring taco consumption?
It's easy to make stupid analogies when you don't have to face what these companies actually do.
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Would Taco Bell be responsible if it enriched its tacos with laxatives?
Non Sequitur. Oil companies haven't enriched their products in any way beyond what the customer demands, nor made them addictive. You are burning the oil, not them. There are no laws requiring consumption of oil (quite the opposite in many places). And every company lobbies for their industry (including those against oil).
Yes I agree with you it's easy to make stupid analogies, especially ones that are irrelevant to the discussion.
They needed a study? (Score:4, Insightful)
32 firms happen to produce most of the world's oil. If they went away tomorrow, some other firms would take their place or there would be a global energy crisis. All of that oil is collectively burned (directly or indirectly) by basically everyone on earth.
This article is saying nothing. (Score:1)
So basically the people who purchase our products emitted CO2. I don't get the point of the article. Blame the marketing team at Saudi Aramco convincing people to buy their products?
"Saudi Aramco was responsible for 1.7bn tonnes of CO2, much of it from exported oil."
Blame where it's due, yep (Score:1)
That's okay. Keep blaming a dude driving his 20-year old car to his shit job that he'll never escape, (and eventually lose), as the problem.
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Blaming the people pumping it is as dumb as blaming the dude and his car.
The people are pumping it because the dude and his car need it.
We should indeed be going after people who are wasting the shit. Engineering sectors to find alternative energy sources where possible, and penalizing those using fossil sources because they save
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To expand on your point, oil companies are in the business of producing oil. Some have done a little work on other forms of energy like solar, but they're not very good at it. Let other companies follow that path. Some have done work on making IC engines more efficient, but again they're not very good at it and companies like Toyota are dedicated to making automobiles more efficient. Oil companies produce oil to fill a genuine human need, let them do it. If they stopped, billions would die.
Oil companies try
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This is a story about wealth consolidation more (Score:3)
than carbon emissions.
Destroy them (Score:2)
I don't care how, and I don't care by who. Any and all consequences be damned. Destroy their plants. Destroy their HQs. Destroy the people that would attempt to rebuild it.
Re:Destroy them (Score:4, Interesting)
It would help if you could be more specific about who you want destroyed. If you read the detail of the report and look at the tables (which the Guardian fails to give much information about) you will find that most of the emitting is being done by entities which are
(a) outside the West
(b) doing something other than oil extraction and sale.
So are you urging people to get out there and destroy Chinese cement plants and the HQs of the Chinese cement producers? What about the Chinese coal extraction companies, do you want to head up a delegation which goes over there and destroys them? Good luck with that! Or do you want to try persuasion? Join the club, the West has been trying to persuade China and India etc to stop or slow down for the last 20+ years, with absolutely no results.
The key entities are the nation states. That is the only place you will ever get action on curbing emissions. China, for instance, is emitting over one third of global emissions. China is using and extracting more coal than the rest of the world put together. They could stop tomorrow if they wanted to. Which entities are doing this within China is immaterial, they all have such close ties to government that they can be considered extensions of government.
Slashdot should really stop linking to the Guardian. As in this report its disconnected hysterical alarmist rants put together by literature grad. Nothing wrong with being a literature grad. But keep them away from science and engineering topics. All you will get is vague rants, like this one.
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So are you urging people to get out there and destroy Chinese cement plants and the HQs of the Chinese cement producers?
If they are one of the leading producers of CO2 emissions...yes. I seriously do not give a fuck.
What about the Chinese coal extraction companies, do you want to head up a delegation which goes over there and destroys them?
Sure, I don't care. As you have pointed out, persuasion clearly doesn't work.
that they can be considered extensions of government.
Don't care either way.
I'm tired of the back and forth about climate change. I'm tired of all the people talking about what should happen or what will happen if we don't do something. Well, I say that something, at this point, might as well be straight up eco-centric vigilantism against these organizations/governments. Fucking blow up Exx
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By the word "planet" I assume you mean animals. Damaging the earth can't even be meaningfully defined if by "planet" you mean the main mass of it, which is magma, crust, and water. Similarly, damaging plants has little meaning; plants can't feel pain and their best purpose is to feed animals.
So, we should be interested in animals, with everything else considered only in its role of supporting animals. Since the only reasonable scale of worth is some measure of mental activity, we could just set the cutoff p
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Holy shitty rant made by shitty AI that is waaaay off base.
This is so obvious! (Score:2)
We just cut those 24 companies ability to generate oil products and all the worlds problems are solved! Why didn't I think of that!
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You kids just haven't been to college yet, but just you wait!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts... [youtube.com] (SouthPark clip) (sorry for the "short")
It's food! (Score:2)
Plants love CO2 emissions! It's food for them. Now if we were just plants...
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One problem with that argument is that there are limits to how much CO2 plants can absorb.
And the majority of CO2 that gets absorbed is actually absorbed by algae in the ocean. And there are limits there as well.
Too much CO2 leads to ocean acidification, which harm life in the ocean.
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The other issue is that the CO2 is mainly produced in urban areas, factories and on highways, where cars drive. Not a lot of plants there: the bulk of plants are in the forest, where aside from the animals there who exhale CO2, there really isn't that much CO2 production
There is also an issue of a CO2 shortage in the aerated drinks market
And ... (Score:2)
Thanks, Exxon (Score:2)
Thanks for making our standard of living the highest in human history. Thanks for keeping my house warm and lit. Thank you for helping cook my food. Thank you for helping me to get from point A to point B. Thank you for natural gas derived fertilizer, which helps provide the food I eat. Thank you for lubricating oils (the whales thank you for this one too). Thank you for plastics, in all their various and sundry uses. And thank you for combating the hair-shirting environmentalists who would have me f
Excellent! (Score:2)
Thank you for the raw data needed to fuel my outrage. My target of choice is those pesky, polluting Canadians, so load me up with ammunition! Where do they make their first appearance on the list? Must be in the top 5, top 10 at the outside.
Wait... 76th? Hmm... that's not useful to me.
I'll catch the next dataset.
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Blame Canada!
How many more need to die before... (Score:2)
Ignores distributed activity (Score:2)
Unless the article is talking about emissions from fuel delivery trucks and the like, this is ridiculous. The emissions happen when the fuel is burned, and each individual is responsible for however much he or she puts out. The CO2 coming out of my car's tailpipe is my fault, not Chevron's or whomever's. You could just as easily assign blame to the government for paving the roads, or my employer for paying me so that I can buy gas, or my ISP for providing me with a connection so that I can do the work for w
Eye off the ball (Score:2)
I study greenhouse gases and emissions for a living, but I'm always bothered by the attribution of emissions to the fossil fuel companies, because it takes our eye off the ball. We live in a capitalist economy where companies will provide a supply if there is demand. If we want the emissions to go down, we need end users to stop using the fuel. Dry up the demand and the supply will go down. Whether 32 or 3200 companies are responsible for the oil supply is irrelevant - we are the ones that burn it. We can