Thread for discussing climate change

[Gunnar]

Solar Panels Plus Farming? Agrivoltaics Explained

Solar panels plus farming? Agrivoltaics explained. Could combining solar panels plus farming be a viable solution to the growing demand for food production and energy demand? Let’s take a closer look at electrifying our crops (not literally electrifying crops) … well, adding solar to our farm land as well as some of the side benefits and challenges it creates.

[Chap]

I try not to get too involved in the 'All about Greta' stuff: her role is not as an expert on climate science (she is not and would not claim to be), but as a very able advocate for the indignation of young people at the world their elders seem all too ready to condemn them to live in (when the elders are past caring, of course).

Nevertheless, her name crops up in this article about how a huge international company is putting its money where its mouth is on climate change (and where many other mouths are too, yummy!):

‘Greta is right’: climate pledges must be matched by action, say Mars executives
The company will tie executive pay to emissions reduction and eliminate deforestation through its supply chain

The chief executive of Mars, one of the world’s largest consumer products companies, has warned that “all too often” corporate commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions fall short and threaten to undermine their credibility and necessary change on climate action.

Grant Reid’s comments, and those of Mars’s chief sustainability and procurement officer, Barry Parkin, come after the climate activist Greta Thunberg condemned many of the climate actions promised by global leaders as so much “blah, blah, blah”.

“We all heard Greta,” Parkin told the Guardian. “Greta is right. It’s not about the target, it’s about the progress and it’s the actions that matter.”

On Tuesday Mars, whose products include M&Ms, Twix, Royal Canin pet food and Wrigley’s chewing gum, set out new science-based climate targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its business by 2050, including all those created by its suppliers and emissions from consumers using its brands.

The company also pledged to:

Eliminate deforestation in its supply chain
Link executive pay to cutting greenhouse gas emission
Challenge its 20,000+ suppliers to take climate action and set meaningful targets.
In an op-ed for the Guardian, Reid said too many corporations were making “net zero” promises that do not cover the whole of their emissions and this state of affairs threatened to undermine the concept of net zero – which he believes is vital if the world is to deal with climate change.

“All too often key components are missing, and that will create a meaningful shortfall in our collective effort to prevent the worst impacts of climate change,” wrote Reid. “The old ways of doing business will not deliver the changes required.

“Failing to fill the gaps that exist in some current net zero commitments will undermine their credibility, and even more importantly, the climate action movement. We can’t allow that to happen.”

Parkin said Mars was seeing the impact of climate change across its business – droughts in west Africa, for example, affecting cocoa production.

“We are all starting to see the beginnings of this,” he said. “Whether in our personal lives through extreme weather events or in our business.

“We are starting to see changes in rainfall, changes in temperature which are impacting where crops can grow and impacting the lives, and that’s probably the more important thing, of those farmers.”

Parkin said it was vital for companies to start setting short-term goals as well as long-term ones, to push suppliers to tackle emissions and to be as transparent as possible about progress.

“We still have time to divert this if everybody gets on with this,” he said. “That means all countries, all governments and all companies.”

Mars has been criticized by some environmental groups for failing to reach its own climate goals. In 2020 Rainforest Action Network accused the company of “greenwashing”, arguing plans to stop deforestation by palm oil suppliers were failing and ignored the rights of indigenous people.

Other non-governmental organisations including Oxfam and the World Wildlife Fund have praised the company’s efforts. Parkin said Mars was “absolutely committed that there is zero deforestation in our supply chain by 2025”.

Mars has also committed to freezing its land footprint, expanding its business using only land it uses already.

Parkin said there was no underestimating the scale of the challenge ahead.

“The scientific consensus is that it will be very hard to get to net zero in agriculture. Perhaps the hardest sector,” he said. “You have got to revolutionize farming practices and that’s about one farmer at a time.”

A Mars survey of the company’s top 200 suppliers found that only 10% set science-based targets a year ago.

“That’s indicative of the world, of our challenge, we need every company to step up,” he said. He added that Mars was working with other companies and its suppliers to speed up that process.

Parkin said he hoped the forthcoming Cop26 United Nations climate talks in Glasgow would add impetus to the drive for coordinated change.

“There are hundreds if not thousands of companies that have made net zero commitments. We need millions of companies,” he said. “Ultimately the planet doesn’t care about the commitment, it cares about the action.”

[doubtingthomas]

A lot of people might just worry about climate change because it's trendy, but some of us actually understand the issues more deeply than that. For instance I'm a physics professor. I don't just have a PhD: I create them. And the sad truth about human-driven climate change is that it is indeed true. I was skeptical myself—in the early 1990s. Debate has been over for decades. Denialism is crap.

If someone makes a mistaken scientific criticism I'll try to straighten them out, but if people just rant about "the cult of Greta" or something then I just ignore them the way I'd ignore a loud drunk. That stuff can only sound clever if you have absolutely no grasp of the subject, and the irony of ignorance complaining that other people are ignorant was only cute the first time. By now it too is banal.

Read it and weep.

Your post deserves its own thread.

[Atlanticmike]

Oh no oh no I don't know what I'm going to do! Do you think I care? Does it seem like I care? I pray to God I'm not taken seriously here! Seriously!

So what are you doing with your life?

Well, right now I'm building a boat in my backyard because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said ""the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change"". I think that was three years ago, so basically we have 9 years til we all die, correct? I mean, she's a PROGRESSIVE Democrat socialist Marxist which means she's really really smart. I would be a dumb dumb not to listen to her. So I bought 200 plastic 55 gallon drums and I'm duct taping them together and building a house on top of them, it's our doomsday houseboat. Then in nine years when the water level rises above the trees in my yard, we're going to sail up to the Appalachian Mountains in central Virginia in our house boat. When I crash into the mountains, I'm going to jump off the boat, kill all the zombies and start a new life with a few select people that my wife and I chose to take with us. We're taking applications, do you want to reserve a spot on our house boat? If you send me your resume along with a check for $10,000 I'll reserve a spot for you! It's non refundable though.

So what are you doin with your life? Anything as exciting as I'm doing?

PS. Have you ever killed a zombie? That's one of the requirements by the way.

[Res Ipsa]

So what are you doing with your life?

Well, right now I'm building a boat in my backyard because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said ""the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change"". I think that was three years ago, so basically we have 9 years til we all die, correct? I mean, she's a PROGRESSIVE Democrat socialist Marxist which means she's really really smart. I would be a dumb dumb not to listen to her. So I bought 200 plastic 55 gallon drums and I'm duct taping them together and building a house on top of them, it's our doomsday houseboat. Then in nine years when the water level rises above the trees in my yard, we're going to sail up to the Appalachian Mountains in central Virginia in our house boat. When I crash into the mountains, I'm going to jump off the boat, kill all the zombies and start a new life with a few select people that my wife and I chose to take with us. We're taking applications, do you want to reserve a spot on our house boat? If you send me your resume along with a check for $10,000 I'll reserve a spot for you! It's non refundable though.

So what are you doin with your life? Anything as exciting as I'm doing?

PS. Have you ever killed a zombie? That's one of the requirements by the way.

Can you provide the quote of what she actually said?

[Atlanticmike]

Well, right now I'm building a boat in my backyard because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said ""the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change"". I think that was three years ago, so basically we have 9 years til we all die, correct? I mean, she's a PROGRESSIVE Democrat socialist Marxist which means she's really really smart. I would be a dumb dumb not to listen to her. So I bought 200 plastic 55 gallon drums and I'm duct taping them together and building a house on top of them, it's our doomsday houseboat. Then in nine years when the water level rises above the trees in my yard, we're going to sail up to the Appalachian Mountains in central Virginia in our house boat. When I crash into the mountains, I'm going to jump off the boat, kill all the zombies and start a new life with a few select people that my wife and I chose to take with us. We're taking applications, do you want to reserve a spot on our house boat? If you send me your resume along with a check for $10,000 I'll reserve a spot for you! It's non refundable though.

So what are you doin with your life? Anything as exciting as I'm doing?

PS. Have you ever killed a zombie? That's one of the requirements by the way.

Can you provide the quote of what she actually said?

https://youtu.be/oHk8nn0nw18

[ceeboo]

Well, right now I'm building a boat in my backyard because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said ""the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change"

AM - I know you said you are building a boat but if you ever need to build an ark, let me know because I Noah guy.

[Chap]

Why am I supposed to care what some knucklehead Rep from NY says? Granted, she graduated from BU and pulled off one of the most stunning Congressional seat wins in recent memory, which was impressive, but beyond that why is she my spokesperson? This is who she represents:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yor ... _2013).tif

- Doc

You have to agree with her because everybody who is not a Republican thinks exactly the same way.

[Chap]

Maybe we could get back on topic by Ceeboo, at last, telling us some reasonable ways to deal with climate change.

[Res Ipsa]

Thanks, Mike.

LOL, what a stupid gaffe. Luckily, I don’t get my climate science from politicians.