8 ms·

Norwegian youth win climate court case against the Norwegian State

136 points by velmu 3y ago

Luc 3y ago
Isn't Greenpeace's ideology aligned with degrowth nowadays? I remember reading how they were against carbon capture (and, of course, geo-engineering).
- pretendgeneer 3y ago
  Being against Carbon Capture and geo-engineering is just following the science. Carbon capture has constantly been shown to just not work at any scale. and geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - madsbuch 3y ago
    can you make a scientific argument that carbon capture and geo engineering will not work at scale. if not, then you are just littering with words.
    - hnbad 3y ago
      Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture if you account for the resource use for production and construction. Even when they do slightly better than breaking even the margin is so low that scaling it up is not a meaningful contribution relative to the amount of emissions we would need to counteract. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Geo engineering to the degree necessary to revert climate change is bad sci-fi, not science, no matter what billionaires selling personal EVs are telling you. On the other hand we know that we are seeing an immense problem of overproduction which is incentivized by the economic system and impossible to tackle by blaming consumers for bad choices and asking the industry nicely to reduce waste or letting them get away with greenwashing by planting trees and raising honey bees. We could change that but it would require significant market intervention, which we (most Western nations at least) have been ideologically opposed to for decades.
      - madsbuch 3y ago
        > Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture No, this statement only work under a certain set of assumptions (eg. source of energy). As I wrote to the sibling comment: Let's not mix up beliefs and scientific reasoning.
    - stubish 3y ago
      It takes orders of magnitude more power to capture the carbon from the atmosphere than was gained putting it there in the first place. It requires sucking in and processing inconceivable quantities of air requiring inconceivable amounts of land for the facilities, because the carbon we need to capture has been released and distributed into the earths atmosphere. The engineering required to scale out any existing or envisioned technology to put a meaningful dent just on our yearly emissions is more than simply replacing the worlds energy production with zero emissions generation and storage.
      - madsbuch 3y ago
        Whether you can conceive the amounts of air and energy it requires is not really scientific arguments. A scientific argument transcends personal beliefs. You might believe that such a feat is inconceivable, but lets agree not to pollute the language any more by using the word "scientific" when we mean "believe".
  - newsclues 3y ago
    You understand “following the science” arguments are stupid right?
    - codetrotter 3y ago
      No. Why?
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        Because science just updates our beliefs, it doesn’t produce ‘truths’ that we can follow. See the Problem of Induction or the Duhem–Quine thesis.
        hnbad 3y ago
        What do you think truth is other than confident beliefs? Nothing can produce "truths". If you want absolute truths, pick a holy text and decide for yourself what absolute truth you can pin on it.
        brutusborn 3y ago
        You summarised my point nicely. What we call ‘truth’ is just the beliefs we think are most accurate. ‘Just follow the science’ is silly because it essentially means following beliefs on faith without questioning whether they are the best theory. In many cases the better theory goes against the consensus. E.g. mothers who ‘just followed the science’ and took Thalidomide caused their children untold suffering. They could have been skeptical but instead they had faith in science, which was unfortunately done badly.
      - newsclues 3y ago
        It’s a process not an end state. “Follow science” and ‘follow “the” science’ are two different things, and we just need to go back in history to understand that humans did some horrible stuff because of “the” science.
        3y ago
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Ideologues won’t accept it because they are waiting for a technology solution and these are the best they’ve seen offered so far. Their optimism is predicated on market driven technology solutions saving us quickly enough. Negativity toward their favorite technology solutions is interpreted as pessimism toward their ideology.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. It’s in its infancy, but so were solar panels decades ago, and we didn’t give up on them. We don’t have enough data on geoengineering to judge yet, there is no real science to follow. Also I don’t understand this attitude of rejecting potential solutions outright. Science doesn’t “prove” things, we can’t ‘follow’ it due to the problem of induction. So we should stay open minded and support all potential solutions, not just those we like best.
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      Without a massive amount of renewable energy we won’t be able use CCS at scale.
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        Why not? If we burn gas using CCS and develop a lot of nuclear, we wouldn’t even need renewable energy. I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it’s not essential (and may actually be a distraction in e.g. Germany where it has displaced nuclear development and resulted in coal plants being reopened).
        barbazoo 3y ago
        I should have said "clean energy", you are obviously right about nuclear power.
    - bertil 3y ago
      > Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. [Citation needed]
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        If I must spoon feed you… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_storage_projects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_s...
  - legitster 3y ago
    > geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point. This doesn't sound like a terribly scientific assessment. Climate change is either an environmental disaster and geoengineering would be a huge risk - or climate change is an existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose. Which is it?
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
      >existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose Being under threat doesn't justify making things worst. I know I'll die some day but that's not a reason to be suicidal.
      - brutusborn 3y ago
        Existential threat means things can’t get worse (you just stop existing). Ignoring the potential of geoengineering implies you are sure that we have a better solution which will work. I hope we don’t have to use geoengineering but I am certain the status quo of hoping renewables and batteries in the 1st world will save us is not going to work.
        IlliOnato 3y ago
        Threat is not certainty. If somebody is out there to kill you, you are under an existential threat, until they are caught. It's not a reason to start playing Russian roulette, saying "I'm already in danger, cannot get worse than that!"
        brutusborn 3y ago
        The same logic applies to shutting down oil and gas production: if we are not certain, then why risk the downsides? I’m not saying this is a good way to think, just that it shows the fault in your logic.
        3y ago
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?CCPAOptOut=true&campaign_id=54&free_trial=0&instance_id=112863&nl=climate-forward&paid_regi=1&segment_id=155689&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F8db1b143-cb3f-5bff-b3c9-a57600403119 https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/ren... The rich love using future carbon capture to justify present day inaction.
  - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
    Trying to capture carbon out of the air makes zero sense besides as anti climate change propaganda. Why wouldn't you capture the carbon at the source of the emission where it is much more concentrated? I'll tell you why, because then the cost is born by the emitter but they'd rather shift that cost onto society as a whole.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- IshKebab 3y ago
  I have no idea what Greenpeace's position on carbon capture is, but it's definitely isn't anti-growth to oppose carbon capture. And when I say "carbon capture" I of course mean "pinning our hopes on carbon capture". If actual, working, viable carbon capture existed then nobody would be against doing it, but that's a pipe dream. It's always going to be more economic to not burn stuff than to burn it and then unburn it. Kind of like carbon credits. If they were real they'd be a pretty decent idea, but they're basically full scam.
  - IlliOnato 3y ago
    Well, one more condition is needed: scalable. An actual, working, viable carbon capture exists: growing trees and then cutting down and carbonizing them. Unfortunately, this does not scale to offset enough of CO2 in time.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  >Isn't Greenpeace's ideology The only thing that's ideological is advocating for a technology that uses virtually as much energy to put carbon back into the ground than the carbon yielded in the first place, when the alternative is to simply not take it out of the ground to begin with. Carbon capture is like trying to cool your room by leaving the fridge door open or running on the treadmill while eating fast food. Trying to delegitimize efforts just by labelling them 'degrowth' as if that is an actual argument, needs to stop. It's the pro-growth cult that causes us to constantly have to invent solutions for problems that we could avoid in the first place.
whatever1 3y ago
Cool cool will the youth also return the money in their oil pension funds?
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  Step one of securing a “pension” is making sure that the world is livable half a century from now. On that account their priorities are correct.
  - whatever1 3y ago
    Their pension needs to be liquidated to pay for reparations and the externalities that oil production caused. At least this is the Greenpeace standard for businesses.
    - avgcorrection 3y ago
      Okay then. Then that’s what their next plan of action is. I thought you were going for some kind of burn.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
  "We should improve society somewhat - Yet you participate in society. Curious!" revisited
- thendrill 3y ago
  The pension fund money is not real and will never be seen by the population, it is all controlled by private hedge funds. Retirement age in Norway is 70... And there are some rumors about going to 72. Also there is talks of increasing taxes on the pensionsts... So what is the point of having a pensions fund if you are never going to retire...
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    There is no retirement age in Norway. You may start drawing your pension at the age of 62 (unless you haven't contributed enough) but you are not required or even expected to retire. The 70 year limit is the one beyond which your employer can force you to leave without cause.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Related: https://apnews.com/article/youth-climate-lawsuit-montana-supreme-court-7a40821843d5dffca98ec83e2d11c4b4 https://apnews.com/article/youth-climate-lawsuit-montana-sup... ("AP: Montana Supreme Court upholds landmark climate ruling that said emissions can’t be ignored")
Gys 3y ago
> rendering the approvals of three oil and gas fields in the North Sea invalid
- xenospn 3y ago
  Norwegian GDP just took a hit
  - voisin 3y ago
    It boggles my mind that we allow GDP to not account for externalities to the environment. Like burning a wick, we cheer the flame with no consideration for the dynamite at the other end.
    - nathancahill 3y ago
      For a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
    - legitster 3y ago
      It's gross domestic product, not net. The problem is that anytime someone attempts to quantify the cost of climate change, no one is happy with the numbers.
    - diob 3y ago
      Reminds me of the mindset of the species in Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. They basically accepted that they would die fast due to toxins / radiation / disasters for "progress" / "efficiency", and instead just focused on trucking forward and breeding like mad.
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      GDP is just a measure, and it doesn’t include externalities. Any state or person is free to make up their own metric that includes it. Call it GDP_E and put it in every government report! Saying it should include externalities is like saying that the scales at the butchers should include nutrition information with weight: that would be cool but that’s not what scales/weight measures are for.
spraveenitpro 3y ago
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bethekind 3y ago
Is this really a win? You need a strong economy to shift to a Green future. Norway was a small country before oil and gas, now they've made the best use of it out of any country in the world. Shouldnt they keep their foot on the pedal a little longer? Making new battery technology isn't cheap.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  If a house was on fire, what would you consider a win to put it out? Or would you do everything possible to put it out? As the climate continues to rapidly change, the tolerance for extraordinary measures would rise I would imagine (especially amongst youth cohorts who will inherit the cleanup over the next ~100 years). Shareholder value had a cost (industrialization in general [1]), and now it must be paid back. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    Bad analogy. If your house is on fire, there is no opportunity cost to putting it out and there is no uncertainty. You have nothing to lose. If an asteroid was headed for earth you would be on the money, but climate change isn’t like that. It is a relatively gradual change with a lot of uncertainty about the final magnitudes of warming and the actual risk involved. Bad policy to reduce emissions have opportunity costs. E.g. biofuels policy exacerbating starvation in the 3rd world. Read Bjorn Lomborg, he suggests the best policies as well as other problems we should prioritise above climate change. Then read Judith Curry to better understand the risks involved. It’s not black and white and choosing solutions is hard but random countries turning off their fossil fuels is not an effective policy.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Fossil fuels will need to be left in the ground [1] [2], it's as simple as that. The value of those reserves and assets on books, if not naturally declining to zero, must be forced to zero. If nations or corporations act self interested and don't leave them in the ground [3], what do you expect to be done as the world burns? Nothing? That's not an option. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/climate-majority-of-fossil-fuels-need-to-stay-underground-study-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/climate-majority-of-fossil-f... ("The vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have even a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.") [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8 ("Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial times1. However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5 °C (refs. 2,3,4,5,6,7). Here we use a global energy systems model8 to assess the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be left in the ground, regionally and globally, to allow for a 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. By 2050, we find that nearly 60 per cent of oil and fossil methane gas, and 90 per cent of coal must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5 °C carbon budget. This is a large increase in the unextractable estimates for a 2 °C carbon budget9, particularly for oil, for which an additional 25 per cent of reserves must remain unextracted. Furthermore, we estimate that oil and gas production must decline globally by 3 per cent each year until 2050. This implies that most regions must reach peak production now or during the next decade, rendering many operational and planned fossil fuel projects unviable. We probably present an underestimate of the production changes required, because a greater than 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C requires more carbon to stay in the ground and because of uncertainties around the timely deployment of negative emission technologies at scale.") [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38506585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38506585 ("HN: Cop28 president says 'no science' behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels")
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
I'm not an expert on the Norwegian court system, but they seem to have a Supreme Court, so I assume this can be appealed. And, since it's a completely novel[1] ruling, and the state has a large amount of money they could receive if this were overturned, I expect it will be appealed. [1] "Novel" meaning "without precedent in Norwegian rulings". I did not mean "without foundation" or "unreasonable".
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Seems to be District Court. Seems to be somewhat similar to Finnish system. Where district court basically deliver most random and weird decisions. Then they generally get appealed to court of appeals. Which is more logical place. Likely this will be overturned there. And then end in supreme court...
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    It was Oslo Tingrett, This is the lowest level ordinary court (there are 23 of them), above is the Lagmannsrett (6 of them) with handles appeals from the Tingrett. Above the Lagmannsrett is the Høyesterett (High Court) which again handles appeals from lower courts. As far as I know cases cannot be brought directly in the high court but must progress through the lower courts first. Both tingrett and lagmannsrett are district courts in the sense that the cover specific geographical areas (kretser, circuits). https://www.domstol.no/no/om-rettssystemet/de-alminnelige-domstolene/ https://www.domstol.no/no/om-rettssystemet/de-alminnelige-do...
legitster 3y ago
Are there now grounds to start shutting down existing oil fields? Something like 20% of the government budget comes from oil revenue, and the entire pension system (to my understanding) comes from oil funds.
- beepbooptheory 3y ago
  Its funny how things always seem to be set up like that... Oh, sure, you want the state to stop doing bad environmental things? Well, ok, as long as you pay for it!
- Deprecate9151 3y ago
  It does not seem so, the artcile indicates the court focused on procedural issues related to the impact assessment required for the permits to build the new oil locations. The issues seems to be focused on the fact they weren't done, or were incomplete. I would imagine only pump locations with similar deficiencies would be in trouble.
  - legitster 3y ago
    > combustion emissions [from] petroleum extraction are such a significant and particularly characteristic consequence of such projects that they must clearly be considered indirect climate impacts within the meaning of the (EU) Project Directive It didn't seem particular to the locations. Under this ruling, if the oil gets shipped to India and burned there they would now need to include it in the local impact assessment. Maybe they just need to resubmit with a new impact assessment? But it does seem like the precedent they are trying to set is to reject all projects based on emissions.
    - Deprecate9151 3y ago
      It may functionally stop all new projects (although I doubt that it will get that far). I don't see anything implying that existing projects approved under the old framework would need to be re-assessed and shutdown though. That was my main point.
onyxringer 3y ago
Putin approves. Emissions will stay the same, but you'll by the oil from Russia.
- fallingknife 3y ago
  Correct. Demand is all that matters. This BS is just supply side economics for liberals.
  - pxeger1 3y ago
    Decreasing the supply increases the price, so demand will decrease. Although it's hard to apply classical economics to the oil market when it's so far from a free market (OPEC etc.)
545342dd 3y ago
[flagged]
xiphias2 3y ago
I would strongly support focusing on getting rid of wood / coal burning first instead of going for much more efficient gas. An import tax on coal burning countries (especially China) would push the incentives in the right direction instead of outsourcing the climate externalities to them.
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  Norway has the most heat pumps per capita and coal is 3% of their energy supply, so what prompted this comment?
  - ImJamal 3y ago
    What does that have to do with outsourcing to China and others?
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "China is the world's leader in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over triple the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States. China's renewable energy sector is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China There are many things you can say about china, but they do take climate change serious (maybe because they have already problems with desertification).
  - jahnu 3y ago
    Indeed! “ The International Energy Agency estimates that China more than doubled its solar generation capacity and added two-thirds to its wind generation capacity in 2023.” https://archive.is/b0qif https://archive.is/b0qif
  - hcurtiss 3y ago
    How can you say that when they are simultaneously radically increasing coal power generation, as highlighted in the article? It appears to me they have an "all of the above" strategy driven by their desire for prosperity.
545342dd 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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sepisoad 3y ago
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burkaman 3y ago
Title is a little misleading (for me at least), this is not one of the many cases where a group of young people sued their government for a broad violation of their rights. This is a more narrow case where the plaintiffs said the government is supposed to consider emissions impact when approving oil and gas projects, and did not. There aren't really any youth directly involved. The court didn't say Norway can't drill anymore, just that when you're doing an environmental impact assessment of a new oil field (which is required in Norway) you obviously have to assess the impact of burning the oil. I don't think this is very controversial.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  Natur og Ungdom is a youth group so I don't know why you say youth aren't involved.
  - burkaman 3y ago
    Yes sorry you're right, I don't know what I was looking at. Members of that group are 13-25.
- bertil 3y ago
  > new oil field I was surprised because I assumed Norway wouldn’t open new oil fields. I’d say it’s “interesting,” but what I actually mean isn’t publishable.
  - belval 3y ago
    Hot take, but I feel like Norway gets greenwashed a lot as better than everywhere else, when they are basically a northern Saudi Arabia in terms of exports with over 70% of their exports being oil and gas.
    - Invictus0 3y ago
      Norway is a beautiful modern liberal democracy, Saudi Arabia is a theocratic desert dictatorship hellhole.
frank_bb 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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petre 3y ago
I usually discover after years that these climate action movements were actually sponsored by Russia. It has already happened with the fracking. But then it's too late because they've already produced effects.
- burkaman 3y ago
  Can you link to some times this has happened in the past? I searched and found some opinion pieces and quotes, but no evidence yet.
  - petre 3y ago
    Here you go, an ten years old article from the Guardian, a leftie news outlet that always supports climate action campaigns. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-secretly-working-with-environmentalists-to-oppose-fracking https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-s... I remember the fracking hysteria quite well when it happened in Eastern Europe because I too fell for it, to then find out it was a Russian psyop. https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/20/russias-quiet-war-against-european-fracking https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/20/russias-quiet-war-again...
    - burkaman 3y ago
      Yes I actually found that first one myself, you'll note that there is explicitly no evidence. "I have met allies who can report [...] He declined to give details [...] Nato's press office said the remarks were Rasmussen's personal views, not official policy [...] geology, rather than political concerns, was likely to be the main obstacle". So this guy says the environmental groups have been compromised, they say they haven't been, he declines to give even the vaguest semblance of evidence. Your second article starts with the exact same quotes from the same guy. It at least tries to outline some circumstantial evidence, but the author doesn't seem to find it very convincing and I don't either. There were a number of articles in 2014 spurred by a single quote from this one person, and absolutely nothing since then. I think the circumstantial evidence against these claims is equally strong: anti-fracking activism was increasing worldwide around this time, including in countries like South Africa and Tunisia that are not particularly hostile towards Russia. You can see a good list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_by_country. Fracking is simply unpopular almost everywhere. I don't doubt that Russia viewed fracking as an economic threat, but I will need even the tiniest bit of evidence before I seriously consider the possibility that actually fracking is very popular and people only protested because they were getting paid.

136 points by velmu 3y ago

Luc 3y ago

Isn't Greenpeace's ideology aligned with degrowth nowadays? I remember reading how they were against carbon capture (and, of course, geo-engineering).

pretendgeneer 3y ago
Being against Carbon Capture and geo-engineering is just following the science. Carbon capture has constantly been shown to just not work at any scale. and geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- madsbuch 3y ago
  can you make a scientific argument that carbon capture and geo engineering will not work at scale. if not, then you are just littering with words.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture if you account for the resource use for production and construction. Even when they do slightly better than breaking even the margin is so low that scaling it up is not a meaningful contribution relative to the amount of emissions we would need to counteract. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Geo engineering to the degree necessary to revert climate change is bad sci-fi, not science, no matter what billionaires selling personal EVs are telling you. On the other hand we know that we are seeing an immense problem of overproduction which is incentivized by the economic system and impossible to tackle by blaming consumers for bad choices and asking the industry nicely to reduce waste or letting them get away with greenwashing by planting trees and raising honey bees. We could change that but it would require significant market intervention, which we (most Western nations at least) have been ideologically opposed to for decades.
    - madsbuch 3y ago
      > Carbon capture technologies produce more carbon emissions than they can capture No, this statement only work under a certain set of assumptions (eg. source of energy). As I wrote to the sibling comment: Let's not mix up beliefs and scientific reasoning.
  - stubish 3y ago
    It takes orders of magnitude more power to capture the carbon from the atmosphere than was gained putting it there in the first place. It requires sucking in and processing inconceivable quantities of air requiring inconceivable amounts of land for the facilities, because the carbon we need to capture has been released and distributed into the earths atmosphere. The engineering required to scale out any existing or envisioned technology to put a meaningful dent just on our yearly emissions is more than simply replacing the worlds energy production with zero emissions generation and storage.
    - madsbuch 3y ago
      Whether you can conceive the amounts of air and energy it requires is not really scientific arguments. A scientific argument transcends personal beliefs. You might believe that such a feat is inconceivable, but lets agree not to pollute the language any more by using the word "scientific" when we mean "believe".
- newsclues 3y ago
  You understand “following the science” arguments are stupid right?
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    No. Why?
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      Because science just updates our beliefs, it doesn’t produce ‘truths’ that we can follow. See the Problem of Induction or the Duhem–Quine thesis.
      - hnbad 3y ago
        What do you think truth is other than confident beliefs? Nothing can produce "truths". If you want absolute truths, pick a holy text and decide for yourself what absolute truth you can pin on it.
        brutusborn 3y ago
        You summarised my point nicely. What we call ‘truth’ is just the beliefs we think are most accurate. ‘Just follow the science’ is silly because it essentially means following beliefs on faith without questioning whether they are the best theory. In many cases the better theory goes against the consensus. E.g. mothers who ‘just followed the science’ and took Thalidomide caused their children untold suffering. They could have been skeptical but instead they had faith in science, which was unfortunately done badly.
    - newsclues 3y ago
      It’s a process not an end state. “Follow science” and ‘follow “the” science’ are two different things, and we just need to go back in history to understand that humans did some horrible stuff because of “the” science.
      - 3y ago
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Ideologues won’t accept it because they are waiting for a technology solution and these are the best they’ve seen offered so far. Their optimism is predicated on market driven technology solutions saving us quickly enough. Negativity toward their favorite technology solutions is interpreted as pessimism toward their ideology.
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. It’s in its infancy, but so were solar panels decades ago, and we didn’t give up on them. We don’t have enough data on geoengineering to judge yet, there is no real science to follow. Also I don’t understand this attitude of rejecting potential solutions outright. Science doesn’t “prove” things, we can’t ‘follow’ it due to the problem of induction. So we should stay open minded and support all potential solutions, not just those we like best.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    Without a massive amount of renewable energy we won’t be able use CCS at scale.
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      Why not? If we burn gas using CCS and develop a lot of nuclear, we wouldn’t even need renewable energy. I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it’s not essential (and may actually be a distraction in e.g. Germany where it has displaced nuclear development and resulted in coal plants being reopened).
      - barbazoo 3y ago
        I should have said "clean energy", you are obviously right about nuclear power.
  - bertil 3y ago
    > Carbon capture is being successfully used all around the world. [Citation needed]
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      If I must spoon feed you… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_storage_projects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carbon_capture_and_s...
- legitster 3y ago
  > geo-engineering causes so many extra problems and will absolutely lead to termination shock at some point. This doesn't sound like a terribly scientific assessment. Climate change is either an environmental disaster and geoengineering would be a huge risk - or climate change is an existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose. Which is it?
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
    >existential threat to humanity in which case we have nothing to lose Being under threat doesn't justify making things worst. I know I'll die some day but that's not a reason to be suicidal.
    - brutusborn 3y ago
      Existential threat means things can’t get worse (you just stop existing). Ignoring the potential of geoengineering implies you are sure that we have a better solution which will work. I hope we don’t have to use geoengineering but I am certain the status quo of hoping renewables and batteries in the 1st world will save us is not going to work.
      - IlliOnato 3y ago
        Threat is not certainty. If somebody is out there to kill you, you are under an existential threat, until they are caught. It's not a reason to start playing Russian roulette, saying "I'm already in danger, cannot get worse than that!"
        brutusborn 3y ago
        The same logic applies to shutting down oil and gas production: if we are not certain, then why risk the downsides? I’m not saying this is a good way to think, just that it shows the fault in your logic.
        3y ago
- barbazoo 3y ago
  https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?CCPAOptOut=true&campaign_id=54&free_trial=0&instance_id=112863&nl=climate-forward&paid_regi=1&segment_id=155689&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F8db1b143-cb3f-5bff-b3c9-a57600403119 https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/ren... The rich love using future carbon capture to justify present day inaction.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  Trying to capture carbon out of the air makes zero sense besides as anti climate change propaganda. Why wouldn't you capture the carbon at the source of the emission where it is much more concentrated? I'll tell you why, because then the cost is born by the emitter but they'd rather shift that cost onto society as a whole.
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IshKebab 3y ago
I have no idea what Greenpeace's position on carbon capture is, but it's definitely isn't anti-growth to oppose carbon capture. And when I say "carbon capture" I of course mean "pinning our hopes on carbon capture". If actual, working, viable carbon capture existed then nobody would be against doing it, but that's a pipe dream. It's always going to be more economic to not burn stuff than to burn it and then unburn it. Kind of like carbon credits. If they were real they'd be a pretty decent idea, but they're basically full scam.
- IlliOnato 3y ago
  Well, one more condition is needed: scalable. An actual, working, viable carbon capture exists: growing trees and then cutting down and carbonizing them. Unfortunately, this does not scale to offset enough of CO2 in time.
Barrin92 3y ago
>Isn't Greenpeace's ideology The only thing that's ideological is advocating for a technology that uses virtually as much energy to put carbon back into the ground than the carbon yielded in the first place, when the alternative is to simply not take it out of the ground to begin with. Carbon capture is like trying to cool your room by leaving the fridge door open or running on the treadmill while eating fast food. Trying to delegitimize efforts just by labelling them 'degrowth' as if that is an actual argument, needs to stop. It's the pro-growth cult that causes us to constantly have to invent solutions for problems that we could avoid in the first place.

whatever1 3y ago

Cool cool will the youth also return the money in their oil pension funds?

avgcorrection 3y ago
Step one of securing a “pension” is making sure that the world is livable half a century from now. On that account their priorities are correct.
- whatever1 3y ago
  Their pension needs to be liquidated to pay for reparations and the externalities that oil production caused. At least this is the Greenpeace standard for businesses.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    Okay then. Then that’s what their next plan of action is. I thought you were going for some kind of burn.
rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
"We should improve society somewhat - Yet you participate in society. Curious!" revisited
thendrill 3y ago
The pension fund money is not real and will never be seen by the population, it is all controlled by private hedge funds. Retirement age in Norway is 70... And there are some rumors about going to 72. Also there is talks of increasing taxes on the pensionsts... So what is the point of having a pensions fund if you are never going to retire...
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  There is no retirement age in Norway. You may start drawing your pension at the age of 62 (unless you haven't contributed enough) but you are not required or even expected to retire. The 70 year limit is the one beyond which your employer can force you to leave without cause.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Related: https://apnews.com/article/youth-climate-lawsuit-montana-supreme-court-7a40821843d5dffca98ec83e2d11c4b4 https://apnews.com/article/youth-climate-lawsuit-montana-sup... ("AP: Montana Supreme Court upholds landmark climate ruling that said emissions can’t be ignored")

Gys 3y ago

> rendering the approvals of three oil and gas fields in the North Sea invalid

xenospn 3y ago
Norwegian GDP just took a hit
- voisin 3y ago
  It boggles my mind that we allow GDP to not account for externalities to the environment. Like burning a wick, we cheer the flame with no consideration for the dynamite at the other end.
  - nathancahill 3y ago
    For a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
  - legitster 3y ago
    It's gross domestic product, not net. The problem is that anytime someone attempts to quantify the cost of climate change, no one is happy with the numbers.
  - diob 3y ago
    Reminds me of the mindset of the species in Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. They basically accepted that they would die fast due to toxins / radiation / disasters for "progress" / "efficiency", and instead just focused on trucking forward and breeding like mad.
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    GDP is just a measure, and it doesn’t include externalities. Any state or person is free to make up their own metric that includes it. Call it GDP_E and put it in every government report! Saying it should include externalities is like saying that the scales at the butchers should include nutrition information with weight: that would be cool but that’s not what scales/weight measures are for.

spraveenitpro 3y ago

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bethekind 3y ago

Is this really a win? You need a strong economy to shift to a Green future. Norway was a small country before oil and gas, now they've made the best use of it out of any country in the world. Shouldnt they keep their foot on the pedal a little longer? Making new battery technology isn't cheap.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
If a house was on fire, what would you consider a win to put it out? Or would you do everything possible to put it out? As the climate continues to rapidly change, the tolerance for extraordinary measures would rise I would imagine (especially amongst youth cohorts who will inherit the cleanup over the next ~100 years). Shareholder value had a cost (industrialization in general [1]), and now it must be paid back. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Bad analogy. If your house is on fire, there is no opportunity cost to putting it out and there is no uncertainty. You have nothing to lose. If an asteroid was headed for earth you would be on the money, but climate change isn’t like that. It is a relatively gradual change with a lot of uncertainty about the final magnitudes of warming and the actual risk involved. Bad policy to reduce emissions have opportunity costs. E.g. biofuels policy exacerbating starvation in the 3rd world. Read Bjorn Lomborg, he suggests the best policies as well as other problems we should prioritise above climate change. Then read Judith Curry to better understand the risks involved. It’s not black and white and choosing solutions is hard but random countries turning off their fossil fuels is not an effective policy.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Fossil fuels will need to be left in the ground [1] [2], it's as simple as that. The value of those reserves and assets on books, if not naturally declining to zero, must be forced to zero. If nations or corporations act self interested and don't leave them in the ground [3], what do you expect to be done as the world burns? Nothing? That's not an option. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/climate-majority-of-fossil-fuels-need-to-stay-underground-study-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/climate-majority-of-fossil-f... ("The vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have even a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.") [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8 ("Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C relative to pre-industrial times1. However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5 °C (refs. 2,3,4,5,6,7). Here we use a global energy systems model8 to assess the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be left in the ground, regionally and globally, to allow for a 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. By 2050, we find that nearly 60 per cent of oil and fossil methane gas, and 90 per cent of coal must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5 °C carbon budget. This is a large increase in the unextractable estimates for a 2 °C carbon budget9, particularly for oil, for which an additional 25 per cent of reserves must remain unextracted. Furthermore, we estimate that oil and gas production must decline globally by 3 per cent each year until 2050. This implies that most regions must reach peak production now or during the next decade, rendering many operational and planned fossil fuel projects unviable. We probably present an underestimate of the production changes required, because a greater than 50 per cent probability of limiting warming to 1.5 °C requires more carbon to stay in the ground and because of uncertainties around the timely deployment of negative emission technologies at scale.") [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38506585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38506585 ("HN: Cop28 president says 'no science' behind demands for phase-out of fossil fuels")

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

I'm not an expert on the Norwegian court system, but they seem to have a Supreme Court, so I assume this can be appealed. And, since it's a completely novel[1] ruling, and the state has a large amount of money they could receive if this were overturned, I expect it will be appealed. [1] "Novel" meaning "without precedent in Norwegian rulings". I did not mean "without foundation" or "unreasonable".

Ekaros 3y ago
Seems to be District Court. Seems to be somewhat similar to Finnish system. Where district court basically deliver most random and weird decisions. Then they generally get appealed to court of appeals. Which is more logical place. Likely this will be overturned there. And then end in supreme court...
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  It was Oslo Tingrett, This is the lowest level ordinary court (there are 23 of them), above is the Lagmannsrett (6 of them) with handles appeals from the Tingrett. Above the Lagmannsrett is the Høyesterett (High Court) which again handles appeals from lower courts. As far as I know cases cannot be brought directly in the high court but must progress through the lower courts first. Both tingrett and lagmannsrett are district courts in the sense that the cover specific geographical areas (kretser, circuits). https://www.domstol.no/no/om-rettssystemet/de-alminnelige-domstolene/ https://www.domstol.no/no/om-rettssystemet/de-alminnelige-do...

legitster 3y ago

Are there now grounds to start shutting down existing oil fields? Something like 20% of the government budget comes from oil revenue, and the entire pension system (to my understanding) comes from oil funds.

beepbooptheory 3y ago
Its funny how things always seem to be set up like that... Oh, sure, you want the state to stop doing bad environmental things? Well, ok, as long as you pay for it!
Deprecate9151 3y ago
It does not seem so, the artcile indicates the court focused on procedural issues related to the impact assessment required for the permits to build the new oil locations. The issues seems to be focused on the fact they weren't done, or were incomplete. I would imagine only pump locations with similar deficiencies would be in trouble.
- legitster 3y ago
  > combustion emissions [from] petroleum extraction are such a significant and particularly characteristic consequence of such projects that they must clearly be considered indirect climate impacts within the meaning of the (EU) Project Directive It didn't seem particular to the locations. Under this ruling, if the oil gets shipped to India and burned there they would now need to include it in the local impact assessment. Maybe they just need to resubmit with a new impact assessment? But it does seem like the precedent they are trying to set is to reject all projects based on emissions.
  - Deprecate9151 3y ago
    It may functionally stop all new projects (although I doubt that it will get that far). I don't see anything implying that existing projects approved under the old framework would need to be re-assessed and shutdown though. That was my main point.

onyxringer 3y ago

Putin approves. Emissions will stay the same, but you'll by the oil from Russia.

fallingknife 3y ago
Correct. Demand is all that matters. This BS is just supply side economics for liberals.
- pxeger1 3y ago
  Decreasing the supply increases the price, so demand will decrease. Although it's hard to apply classical economics to the oil market when it's so far from a free market (OPEC etc.)

545342dd 3y ago

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xiphias2 3y ago

I would strongly support focusing on getting rid of wood / coal burning first instead of going for much more efficient gas. An import tax on coal burning countries (especially China) would push the incentives in the right direction instead of outsourcing the climate externalities to them.

iknowstuff 3y ago
Norway has the most heat pumps per capita and coal is 3% of their energy supply, so what prompted this comment?
- ImJamal 3y ago
  What does that have to do with outsourcing to China and others?
hutzlibu 3y ago
"China is the world's leader in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over triple the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States. China's renewable energy sector is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China There are many things you can say about china, but they do take climate change serious (maybe because they have already problems with desertification).
- jahnu 3y ago
  Indeed! “ The International Energy Agency estimates that China more than doubled its solar generation capacity and added two-thirds to its wind generation capacity in 2023.” https://archive.is/b0qif https://archive.is/b0qif
- hcurtiss 3y ago
  How can you say that when they are simultaneously radically increasing coal power generation, as highlighted in the article? It appears to me they have an "all of the above" strategy driven by their desire for prosperity.

545342dd 3y ago

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sepisoad 3y ago

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burkaman 3y ago

Title is a little misleading (for me at least), this is not one of the many cases where a group of young people sued their government for a broad violation of their rights. This is a more narrow case where the plaintiffs said the government is supposed to consider emissions impact when approving oil and gas projects, and did not. There aren't really any youth directly involved. The court didn't say Norway can't drill anymore, just that when you're doing an environmental impact assessment of a new oil field (which is required in Norway) you obviously have to assess the impact of burning the oil. I don't think this is very controversial.

downWidOutaFite 3y ago
Natur og Ungdom is a youth group so I don't know why you say youth aren't involved.
- burkaman 3y ago
  Yes sorry you're right, I don't know what I was looking at. Members of that group are 13-25.
bertil 3y ago
> new oil field I was surprised because I assumed Norway wouldn’t open new oil fields. I’d say it’s “interesting,” but what I actually mean isn’t publishable.
- belval 3y ago
  Hot take, but I feel like Norway gets greenwashed a lot as better than everywhere else, when they are basically a northern Saudi Arabia in terms of exports with over 70% of their exports being oil and gas.
  - Invictus0 3y ago
    Norway is a beautiful modern liberal democracy, Saudi Arabia is a theocratic desert dictatorship hellhole.

frank_bb 3y ago

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petre 3y ago

I usually discover after years that these climate action movements were actually sponsored by Russia. It has already happened with the fracking. But then it's too late because they've already produced effects.

burkaman 3y ago
Can you link to some times this has happened in the past? I searched and found some opinion pieces and quotes, but no evidence yet.
- petre 3y ago
  Here you go, an ten years old article from the Guardian, a leftie news outlet that always supports climate action campaigns. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-secretly-working-with-environmentalists-to-oppose-fracking https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-s... I remember the fracking hysteria quite well when it happened in Eastern Europe because I too fell for it, to then find out it was a Russian psyop. https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/20/russias-quiet-war-against-european-fracking https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/20/russias-quiet-war-again...
  - burkaman 3y ago
    Yes I actually found that first one myself, you'll note that there is explicitly no evidence. "I have met allies who can report [...] He declined to give details [...] Nato's press office said the remarks were Rasmussen's personal views, not official policy [...] geology, rather than political concerns, was likely to be the main obstacle". So this guy says the environmental groups have been compromised, they say they haven't been, he declines to give even the vaguest semblance of evidence. Your second article starts with the exact same quotes from the same guy. It at least tries to outline some circumstantial evidence, but the author doesn't seem to find it very convincing and I don't either. There were a number of articles in 2014 spurred by a single quote from this one person, and absolutely nothing since then. I think the circumstantial evidence against these claims is equally strong: anti-fracking activism was increasing worldwide around this time, including in countries like South Africa and Tunisia that are not particularly hostile towards Russia. You can see a good list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_by_country. Fracking is simply unpopular almost everywhere. I don't doubt that Russia viewed fracking as an economic threat, but I will need even the tiniest bit of evidence before I seriously consider the possibility that actually fracking is very popular and people only protested because they were getting paid.