Global warming strikes again...

I am not sure how you work out that the UK is to blame for gas leaks in Turmenistan.
If you are buying gas you are supporting the global gas price. I am not sure how much it matters exactly where any individual bit of gas comes from.
 
If the global gas price is higher, then Turkmenistan is losing more value (in escaping gas) and ought
to earn more money (from selling that gas which doesn't escape) to pay to better control the leaks.

The UK has been diversifying away from fossil fuels, including natural gas, for some time now.

Of course telling people off for flaring gas (easily detected) may have encouraged them to leak instead,
but UK culpability would require evidence that the Turmenistanis pay attention to UK environmentalists.
 

Welcome to Nusantara​

The audacious project to build a green and walkable capital city from the ground up.

BEFORE HE LED the world’s fourth most populous country, the president of Indonesia was consumed by an even more challenging mission: saving Jakarta.

For two years, Joko Widodo served as the governor of a capital city that seemed to teeter on the brink of ruin. Since Indonesia’s independence in 1945, Jakarta had expanded from less than a million people to roughly 30 million. It had grown tall with skyscrapers built with fortunes made from timber, palm oil, natural gas, gold, copper, tin. But the capital had run out of space. It grew thick with traffic and pollution. Most of all, Jakarta was sinking, as thirsty residents drained its marshy aquifers and rising sea waters lapped its shores. Forty percent of the Indonesian capital now lies below sea level.


Likely paywalled, but you might find info elsewhere too.
 
Global warming set to break key 1.5C limit for first time
Also the World Meteorological Organisation needs to learn about how to ramp up web server capacity when they make announcements, their site is not loading for me.

Our overheating world is likely to break a key temperature limit for the first time over the next few years, scientists predict.

Researchers say there's now a 66% chance we will pass the 1.5C global warming threshold between now and 2027.

Hitting the threshold would mean the world is 1.5C warmer than it was during the second half of the 19th Century, before fossil fuel emissions from industrialisation really began to ramp up.

The 1.5C figure has become a symbol of global climate change negotiations. Countries agreed to "pursue efforts" to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C under the 2015 Paris agreement.

Going over 1.5C every year for a decade or two would see far greater impacts of warming, such as longer heatwaves, more intense storms and wildfires.

But passing the level in one of the next few years would not mean that the Paris limit had been broken. Scientists say there is still time to restrict global warming by cutting emissions sharply.

Since 2020 the World Meteorological Organisation has been giving an estimate of the chances of the world breaking the 1.5C threshold in any one year.

Back then they predicted there was less than a 20% chance of breaking 1.5C in the five years ahead.

By last year this had increased to 50%, and now it's jumped to 66%, which the scientists say means it's "more likely than not."
*yea actually horrified screams here*

If the global gas price is higher, then Turkmenistan is losing more value (in escaping gas) and ought
to earn more money (from selling that gas which doesn't escape) to pay to better control the leaks.

The UK has been diversifying away from fossil fuels, including natural gas, for some time now.

Of course telling people off for flaring gas (easily detected) may have encouraged them to leak instead,
but UK culpability would require evidence that the Turmenistanis pay attention to UK environmentalists.
you're using gas. if you want to not get blame for using gas, don't use gas.

whether you're only partially using gas, whether other people are selling you gas, whether whatever, distracts you from the point. you're using gas. if you don't want to, stop. if you want to, don't waffle ;)
 
*yea actually horrified screams here*


you're using gas. if you want to not get blame for using gas, don't use gas.

whether you're only partially using gas, whether other people are selling you gas, whether whatever, distracts you from the point. you're using gas. if you don't want to, stop. if you want to, don't waffle ;)

None of this substantiates the statement that the gas leaks in Turkmenistan are part of the UK's emissions.
 
None of this substantiates the statement that the gas leaks in Turkmenistan are part of the UK's emissions.
It is part of the UK's responsibility. Whether it is gas, gold or bitcoin buying some increase the price of all and so incentivises its extraction.
 
The way I see it the leakage is a result of incompetent extraction and/or indifference to environmental issues in Turkmenistan.

The UK is neither responsible for incompetence in gas extraction nor indifference to environmental issues in Turkmenistan.

That is a matter for the Turkmenistani government and the Turkmenistanis.
 
If the alternative to isolationism is the UK trying to impose its will on Turmenistan to end gas leaks or whatever, then isolationism may be better.

The Taleban is direspecting of human rights, yet trying to impose them by foreign occupation was counter-productive.

In my opinion the UK government ought to better concentrate on issues and problems within the UK.
 
If the alternative to isolationism is the UK trying to impose its will on Turmenistan to end gas leaks or whatever, then isolationism may be better.

The Taleban is direspecting of human rights, yet trying to impose them by foreign occupation was counter-productive.

In my opinion the UK government ought to better concentrate on issues and problems within the UK.

Padme.jpg
So you'd support massive investments in renewable energy to make the UK independent of natural gas supplies, right?
 
But it doesn't incentivise its leakage.
you can buy gas several ways.
for cheap, then stuff like this will happen more often.
for expensive, then stuff like this will happen less often.
(it's also god damn turkmenistan who you're trading with, which is up there with the worst dictatorships, but rarely heard about, because it's turkmenistan.)
but yea, leaking the gas. it just happens, y'know. and the severity of an accident just scales with the severity of an industry.
if you don't want gas to leak, don't buy gas.
you may find that unfair, but the similar logic works elsewhere:
if you don't want car accidents, don't use cars.
if you don't want windmills to break, don't buy wind.
if you don't want coverage outage, don't use phones.
etc etc etc.
some things are more harmless than others here, mind you. a phone losing internet access can be disastrous in a few ways, but it's not literally putting denmark underwater. it's always a balance of utility.
because yes things are always accident prone. so if you don't want dangerous accidents, organize your consumption so the accidents from your consumption are less dangerous. the best way to do this is to switch to less dangerous products.
 
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When the UK is burning so much methane these leaks are part of our emissions.
No, they are not part of the UK emissions.

There are plenty of other countries burning methane, so why is it the UK's fault ?

Padme.jpg
So you'd support massive investments in renewable energy to make the UK independent of natural gas supplies, right?

The UK has already made massive investments in wind power.

if you don't want gas to leak, don't buy gas.

Gas fields leak even when no one is buying the gas.

There is clearly a problem in Turkmenistan and it would be in the world's best interest
to reduce such leakage, but that requires the cooperation of (a) Turmenistan and (b) the world.

The UK has no power in itself to stop the leaks, and cannot therefore be held responsible.

If the UK was to end its own gas usage tomorrow and China/India for example did not
increase their purchases, all that would happen is that other e.g. third world countries that
are currently largely priced out of the international gas market would start to buy or buy more until
cumulatively they would be in total consuming the equivalence of the ceased UK's gas usage.

All the UK could do is support international e.g. UN activity to manage the extraction with less leaks.
 
you can buy gas several ways.
for cheap, then stuff like this will happen more often.
for expensive, then stuff like this will happen less often.
(it's also god damn turkmenistan who you're trading with, which is up there with the worst dictatorships, but rarely heard about, because it's turkmenistan.)

The UK doesn't buy gas from Turkmenistan.

The above discussion relies on the questionable logic that anyone using natural gas for power generation is responsible for leaks from any natural gas producer, even if it's one they don't buy from. A problematic approach since it inherently means that if if something can be done responsibly, you are apparently still to blame if anyone else is doing it irresponsibly.

By this same logic you could argue that using electricity means you are responsible for coal plant emissions, even if your actual power is coming from a solar panel on your roof.

It is part of the UK's responsibility. Whether it is gas, gold or bitcoin buying some increase the price of all and so incentivises its extraction.

This argument is non-sensical. Increasing the price reduces the incentive for wasting the increasingly valuable commodity by simply leaking it into the atmosphere. Buying gold does not increase the amount of people dumping it in landfills.
 
This argument is non-sensical. Increasing the price reduces the incentive for wasting the increasingly valuable commodity by simply leaking it into the atmosphere. Buying gold does not increase the amount of people dumping it in landfills.
Buying gold increases the amount of environmental damage done by gold mining. Just because in this case the damage comes from carelessness about releasing the product rather releasing mercury or whatever do not make the logic any different. Had everyone switched to renewables rather than gas this release would not be occurring.

Exactly how you assign harm is difficult, as it is with monero, but if you are putting money into the system you have to take some responsibility for the outcomes of that system.
 
The UK has already made massive investments in wind power.

Not massive enough given that somewhere between a third and half your electricity still comes from gas.

Increasing the price reduces the incentive for wasting the increasingly valuable commodity by simply leaking it into the atmosphere.

This is actually a nonsensical argument because while this is true ceteris paribus it's easily possible for the effect to be overwhelmed in the real world. There are other examples of commodities sufficiently lucrative that high rates of wastage are accepted as a cost of doing business. One example I have in mind is the Atlantic slave trade, where increases in the price of slaves certainly led to more transatlantic voyages and thus more slaves dying on the ships, because they were valuable enough that half of them dying on the voyage still made for a profitable venture.

My guess is it is similar with natural gas, at least to some degree. Price increases are going to lead to more extraction and thus more leakage.

Edit: from what I can tell the real incentive to reduce leakage is twofold: regulatory, or when you run through the easily exploitable gas and have to start doing expensive things like fracking to get more.
 
Buying gold increases the amount of environmental damage done by gold mining. Just because in this case the damage comes from carelessness about releasing the product rather releasing mercury or whatever do not make the logic any different. Had everyone switched to renewables rather than gas this release would not be occurring.

To be equivalent, this requires releasing to be an inevitable part of the extraction process, and to be similar for all natural gas producers. I'm not seeing anything to indicate leaks on anywhere near this order of magnitude from countries the UK actually buys from.

Not massive enough given that somewhere between a third and half your electricity still comes from gas.

Just a reminder - by the tortuous logic this thread is running on, even if it all came from renewable sources, you'd still be to blame for every grubby coal power plant even if you're not buying from them. ;)
 
Just a reminder - by the tortuous logic this thread is running on, even if it all came from renewable sources, you'd still be to blame for every grubby coal power plant even if you're not buying from them. ;)

Not really because this is based on a false equivalence. If you're buying electricity generated from coal, then in a sense you're kinda to blame.

But imo these attempts to deflect blame from the UK for this are sort of misguided. It doesn't really matter whether you're culpable in Turkmenistan's leaks, the UK needs to stop burning gas like every other country does.
 
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