I find this title highly misleading “peak emission” would be much more accurate.<p>“Peak pollution” sounds like the amount of pollution in the environment will actually _decrease_ going forward.<p>That is simply not true, it will continue to increase, just slightly less fast.<p>Sorry if I don’t feel euphoric right now.
Recently launched MethaneSAT locates anthropogenic ultra-emitter methane plumes to their sources. CH₄ GWP is ~70 in 20 years.<p><i>Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from Russia and US (2022)</i><p><a href="https://archive.ph/eYig4" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/eYig4</a><p><a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/overview" rel="nofollow">https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/over...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...</a> (2022, 400k t)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak</a> (2015-2016, 100k t)
Many will regret being distracted by the world's problems when they could have been building their lives. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYt--CFXK0</a><p>> Looking back, my only Berklee classmates that got successful were the ones who were fiercely focused, determined, and undistractable.<p>> While you’re here, presidents will change, the world will change, and the media will try to convince you how important it all is.<p>> But it’s not. None of it matters to you now.<p><a href="https://sive.rs/berklee" rel="nofollow">https://sive.rs/berklee</a>
Peaking nitrogen oxides has made quite a difference for me personally living near Oxford Street. A decade ago it had some of the highest NO2 levels in the world and I was getting stinging eyes and thinking of moving. It's quite a lot better now mostly down to the vehicles having less polluting power sources.
we still got forever chemicals, industrial accidents, radiation, and microplastics to keep us company for a while yay.<p>edit: how can I leave out space junk, that's always been my fav.
We may not yet have had the war that ends all wars.<p>Whenever I think about protecting the environment, I think about preventing the catastrophes that are wars.
If economic and political capture fail to destroy civilization before climate change does I’ll be glad because we have science for the latter but not the former.<p>Science almost always gives you a fighting chance but there seems to be no motivation let alone research directions on unchecked income inequality.<p>I’m from the United States, a very wealthy country if you use the arithmetic mean to calculate prosperity (which is the devil’s own summary statistic in such matters), but children live in tent encampments even in ostensibly wealthy cities and it goes downhill from there.<p>I <i>hope</i> climate damage becomes a relevant problem because we have ideas for how to tackle that, arguably even credible plans.<p>Income inequality is utterly unchecked and will wreck civilization sooner.
With humans burning and producing waste can nothing be like peak. They will keep on going. I don't understand why people don't understand it's human nature until you don't stop them with fines you squeeze the availability of the fossils, they will keep on going on. What soul awakening scientists expects is possible only in few. Govt have to push people with policies and shift their behaviour.
Reminds me of Fukuyama, and yes I know he wasn’t saying that exactly.<p>Pretty sure this is not true as long as birth rates are declining. What is that saying about assumptions…
Peak pollution (that we're aware of).<p>Given the modus operandi of "manufacture first, find out about carcinogenic / animal-extinction-properties second", it's almost certainly a given that we've not yet passed peak pollution because we keep creating new forms of pollution that are harder and harder to clean up.
Now it’s time to bring pollution back. Without sulfur dioxide warming will accelerate. As many people pointed out it had been accidentally load bearing on warming
It's interesting to revisit the Limits to Growth study [1] in light of these recently-declining exponential curves. Somebody did [2] and found that we're basically on track for the model's bleak predictions.<p>But the <i>way</i> that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, declining fertility, and the rising (opportunity) cost of raising a family. Instead of seeing a collapse in industrial output because of declining resources, we're seeing a collapse in industrial output because of market saturation and a shift toward services and online experiences. Instead of pollution growing unbounded, it's actually declining because of green technology and de-industrialization.<p>The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicates-1972-mit-prediction-that-society-will-collapse-soon" rel="nofollow">https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicat...</a>
2B humans out of 8B are in China. You do not have numbers for China nor, if you manage to get it, can those be trusted anyway. I feel that while the West started the downtrend, China will not offset that but surely pass as how much pollutants it spews. We are not out of the woods until China gets on board too.