Environmental Econ: Crash Course Economics #22
Vložit
- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- So, if economics is about choices and how we use our resources, econ probably has a lot to say about the environment, right? Right! In simple terms, pollution is just a market failure. The market is producing more pollution than society wants. This week, Adriene and Jacob focus on the environment, and how economics can be used to control and reduce pollution and emissions. You'll learn about supply and demand, incentives, and how government intervention influences the environment.
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at / crashcourse
Thanks to the following Patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever:
Mark, Eric Kitchen, Jessica Wode, Jeffrey Thompson, Steve Marshall, Moritz Schmidt, Robert Kunz, Tim Curwick, Jason A Saslow, SR Foxley, Elliot Beter, Jacob Ash, Christian, Jan Schmid, Jirat, Christy Huddleston, Daniel Baulig, Chris Peters, Anna-Ester Volozh, Ian Dundore, Caleb Weeks
--
Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook - / youtubecrashcourse
Twitter - / thecrashcourse
Tumblr - / thecrashcourse
Support Crash Course on Patreon: / crashcourse
CC Kids: / crashcoursekids
Here are some notes, hope they are helpful:
Economic solutions:
1. Identify the sources of the most air pollution (factories that burn fossil fuels for energy; industries that use oil and coal to produce things; vehicles with internal combustion engines)
2. Decrease the supply of these technologies and products or decrease the demand for them
There is a certain imbalance that comes with this. Some counties will harm the environment as there is no way to police every country, already established resources will be hard to demolish as people already got used to them and they are cheaper. That is until a new technology comes that is both effective and cheap. Or manipulating the markets with government subsidies, taxes, and regulations.
Pollution represents a market failure - a situation where markets fail to produce the amount the society wants.
Government interventions are advised. Another way to encourage people to pollute less is by providing price incentives (taxes, subsidies). Those incentives can encourage individuals to make choices that are better for the environment.
Permit market - Setting a limit how much firms can pollute and allowing those firms to buy and sell pollution permits (Cap and Trade)
Alternative energy sources usage is growing, but for the most part, they aren’t cheap enough yet, so the majority of our energy is likely to continue to come from non-renewable sources, at least for now.
Since there is no time, efficiency with the usage of fossils is advised, but still unsure. The rebound effect says the benefits of energy efficiency might be reduced as people change their behavior. Leading to more usage and more pollution.
There is still hope as there are constant ongoing discussions about this matter. Private companies and governments are also funding research into green technology. In the U.S. the American recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 allocated billions to fund renewable energy. China is also participating, being among the leading countries in renewable energy investments.
Companies, as well as consumers, need to be mindful to reach an effective solution.
This is why I wasn't 100% sold on the 5p charge for supermarket plastic bags. They ARE a way to reduce our impact on the environment, but this policy is being used merely as a political strategy: one year after the legislation was effective, politicians can point at graphs showing a huge decline in the use of plastic bags, which is a good thing. What they might not show you is the tiny dent this has made on the country's environmental impact. Reducing the use of supermarket plastic bags is a good thing, but when you are a government, with the power to make policies that will have a very large positive impact, shifting the brunt of the burden to consumers seems like the safest and least effective course of action.
Though there are examples of industries and government using "green washing" policies and marketing (ex: clean coal), let's not discredit moves to lower environmental impact we can. The City of San Jose California did an Environmental Impact Report (as required under CEQA) and did a formal study of the results of the policy change and have found significant improvements in the local bodies of water and water ways (One of the main objectives the city initially sought to accomplish). Though it may not have created a significant impact on CO2 emissions, it's has improve the quality locally scarce resource: water.
+E “Anonymous Nerdfighter” Hernandez Don't forget that it a makes people feel that they are entitled to use the bag as they paid for it and they perceive that the 5cents pay for dealing with the environmental impacts (despite it not)..
Environmental economics - how do we best deal with our natural resources?
I. what can the government do?
1. enforce specific rules outside the market (just limit how much firms can pollute)
2. influence the market through price incentives
a. add tax on products that cause pollution. (gasoline)
b. subsidize products that reduce pollution (electric cars, renewable energy)
1 and 2 example: permit market such as cap and trade which set limits on how much firms can pollute and allow them to buy and sell permits (money goes from heavy polluters to lighter polluters)
II. how can technology help?
-since our current technology doesn't provide cheaper renewable energy, we can maximize the use of non renewable energy (energy-efficient cars)
- hindrances:
rebound effect - efforts to increase energy efficiency creates more available energy that only gets spent into something MORE and MORE.
III. what actions are the world taking?
1. International treatys in which countries commit on reducing greenhouse gases emission. (UN negotiations)
2. funding "green" research into renewable energy.
3. changes can be brought by individual consumers, along with changes by the government and producers. (turn the lights off when not in use! and other small things).
I just finished off a dual masters program in environmental policy and environmental science out of IU and I just wanted to say awesome job! This was my focus in grad school and you nailed it. The only thing I would have added was a discussion on discount rates. I now have something fun I can show my family when they asked what I did in grad school.
For anyone actually interested in this topic I recommend reading an article in ecological economics (2015) “In Markets We Trust? Setting the Boundaries of Market-Based Instruments in Ecosystem Services Governance” by Erik Gómez-Baggethum and Roldan Muradian
I would look into alternative ways of producing meat, since agriculture is one of the biggest culprits in regards to climate change. The fossil fuel industry needs to go to.
Or eat no meat at all
William Shanks I like meat.
+Christian Neihart it's not a good enough justification when you don't need it at all
William Shanks I will still eat it though.
+William “will” Shanks meet is needed. Vegan diets are much harder for the body and more expensive (for the lower classes who cannot afford it. Hence they buy Mcdonalds and other shit)
What's wrong with nuclear energy??? I think the best case scenario is to switch to nuclear short term, and have a long term plan to switch to renewable energy(solar, wind, hydro, wave, etc.)
Nuclear energy isn't really usable for vehicles. And even that is a moot point. Someone mentioned that most of our emissions come from the meat industry. I don't know if that's strictly true but well, the meat industry isn't going to disappear. Ever.
its not true. coal and natural gas are the most important to replace so nuclear energy would be valuable in the fight.
lol... I just saw your show yesterday. The old one, not the new one
@@feynstein1004 if cultured meat technology becomes possible, companies will be incentivized to switch to cultured meat because its cheaper, more expandable.
@Parasitic Angel I guess that is true. Lol this comment thread is so old I have no idea what your comment is a reply to. I mean, I have read my comment but I don't see its point.
CrashCourse is the best channel on youtube. How I learn a lot in less than 10 minutes amazes me. Vielen Dank
Renewables not cheap enough is a half truth. In countries such as Chile and India, solar out competes coal/natgas. Areas such as Texas see wind power far cheaper than fossil fuels. Even the German government just said a few days ago that renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. It's just a matter of internalizing the externalities to such a point where the *real* cost of fossil fuels is fully realized in the price.
As the price of renewables continues to drop and the price of fossil fuel regulations increase, more and more places around the world will see renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels. 2014/15 was the time when renewables started being cost effective in select markets. Soon, it will be all markets.
+Nolan Thiessen
It's pretty damned cheap, if I'm being entirely honest. You can find solar panels that cost roughly 1 dollar per watt rating, which at the texas average of 0.11 dollars per kilowatt hour, that's about 1 to 2 years for it to pay back its cost, depending on how you calculate it. And those same solar panels often have double digit years of warranties - as in guarantees by the company that if they stop working, or produce dramatically less than stated, they will replace it.
That's kinda an incredible, easy, and safe return on investment, even if it's slow. And then if you want to make your own solar panels, you can find a 10 watts per dollar solar cells. You don't get the same type of warranties, and it takes a bunch of time to make the panel yourself, but it's incredibly cost efficient.
Diana, the Inorganic Vegan I am generally in favour of nuclear, but new nuclear plants such as Hinkley C shows that the economics are just not there.
+Nolan Thiessen once the appropriate systems are set up, it's cheaper, but i imagine that the reason we're not seeing a rush towards renewable energy right now is that building and installing the equipment to generate and use renewable energy is a hefty initial costs. sure, once they're set up, people will be saving money, but corporations have quite visibly shown that they prioritise short-term gains over long-term ...anything (see: the housing market crash), and most sociologists will be quick to point out that the majority of individuals have that shortcoming, too.
Diana, the Inorganic Vegan Oh, I agree. I even wrote quite the dull paper on overregulation of the nuclear industry in university.
The economics are a little more favourable in countries like India where there is less regulation, but even there new nuclear is quite expensive.
David L. Yeah. But there are quite a few financing options available for microgeneration, including simply leasing it out from someone else. Sure you don't own it directly, but the leases are virtually universally less than what you are saving, and there's no upfront cost.
So, from there, calculate how much your panel is saving you minus the cost of the loan and just toss the amount you save every [time interval] in to a jar (a savings account would technically give you a tiny bit of interest, but it takes more effort). By the time the lease is up, you'd have enough in your jar to just straight up buy your own generators.
This lines up perfectly as i'm starting my globalisation and sustainability class, cheering.
Thankyou.
Great contribution to Crash Course you guys! But on the subject of environmental economics and externalities, I was sort of hoping to hear a little about value engineering and planned obsolescence.
Also, I imagine it may be a little controversial to mention much about human rights violations as a tactic used by some large companies to exploit resources in developing nations and to discourage protesting by indigenous people. But those instances are very real and a major part of globalization and the growing economic inequalities you mention in some of the earlier episodes, which sadly do not often get enough media attention for most people to ever hear or even believe they are happening.
Crash Course isn't exactly the news though, and even though it is part of the modern world's economic challenge, it would be pretty hard for you guys to cover something like that without getting sucked into some pretty heavy ideological debate.
Either way, you're both doing a great job, and btw I dig the AC/DC belt buckles.
Hello Adriene and Jacob! I’ve been watching the entire course. Everything totally awesome! I own a permaculture farming business. I would love to hear your thoughts on this concept and the multiplier effect it could have:
In climate change there are two sides: pollution, and the degeneration of the biological systems that act as buffers, filters, and fertility regenerators.
Focus could be drawn to:
1. The potential of carbon sequestration through permaculture style grazing and no till farming as a means to lower CO2. (Adds valuable externalities like nutritious food and fertile soil and less disease)
2. Small local waste treatment for biological residues and add value through compost and/or insect farm (adds value through organic fertilizers and insects for animal feeds) mainly to prevent water pollution
3. If polluting company serves a social goal (i.e: fossil fuels for energy), maybe taxing only the company for all the externalities isnt the best choice. We could debate cases in which the expense is passed to the consumer in the form of taxes so the company doesnt need to raise prices for their goods, yet the externalities were accounted for.
4. Government organized transition plan with support and subsidies for farmers transitioning away from chemical conventional farming.
I really enjoy your course and am aching of doing thought bubbles too 🙂
Thank you, and looking forward for more economics classes...
The best part of this videos was Hank dancing! LOL
We started exactly with this topic in school today, very helpful video!
Yay! Glad they partially covered environmental economics. Next step, Ecological Economics! Hopefully..
Nice topic. On the side note, the animation of John, Craig, Stan and Hank on a vacation is pretty funny :)
YES! I've been waiting for environmental topics since I requested it on video 1.
+Nolan Thiessen Hey, Nolan, it might be out of the blue, but, if I may ask, what do you think about capitalism as an economic system in general?
William Freeman Capitalism in its purest form is a fairly good idea. Problem is that there can never be a truly perfect market because a perfect free market assumes things such as perfect knowledge (consumers know that their iPhones are built using blood minerals from the DRC, etc), no externalities, etc. When there is a market failure, government must step in to regulate the market. At the end of the day, big business is just as, if not more, dangerous as big government and it needs to be kept in check.
Nolan Thiessen What about systemic inefficiencies and contradictions?
Nolan Thiessen Maybe I shall clarify my point. Are you up for a further discussion on the subject?
William Freeman Yeah, sure. Just know that I have a Bachelor of Environmental Science and Bachelor of Science in Geography, so I come at the discussion from a very environment/human health point of view rather than a pure value=money POV.
Top notch animations for this one. I particularly enjoy all the hula dancing and cartoony cameos from other CC personalities. Hula on, Hank Green.
Thank for the economics series ❤️
if Hank and John would sell their homes, I guess there would be less green' houses (gases)
I see what you did there.
You should feel bad.
+Twan de Graaf ba-dum-tssh
i laughed
thanks.
oh god
you have no idea how happy i got when he said trinidad and tobago :'(
I am subscribing this video. It is really good! I am learning really much.
nice job tackling such a sensitive topic and educate people. We can not develop policies to combat environmental challenges without considering economics.
There's finally a crash course video on me, Captain Planet! Remember, the Power is Yours!!
omg Hank at 6:10 had me dead ! Amazing work 😂😂
I really want to see an updated version of this episode.
YES - IT WAS ADOPTED! Now lets all make this happen ^_^
are you guys planning to cover geographical, urban and regional economics anytime soon? because those are highly neglected parts of economics though have amazing insight into development and institutions.
also it will help me get through my course
OMG I COULD NOT TAKE HIM SERIUSLY WITH THAT AC DC BELT
On the contrary, I found him to be even more awesome *because* of that AC/DC belt.
Ir was a joke
i- Lemuel Oh. My bad. Sorry.
Picking CO2 wasn't a great example. Should have stuck with SO2 emissions and the Clear Air Act since there have been a lot of economic analysis of it done.
+Nolan Thiessen Here's a nice little paper on the topic: www.rff.org/files/sharepoint/WorkImages/Download/RFF-DP-98-28-REV.pdf
+Nolan Thiessen SO2? sulfur dioxide? is that i thing? or was it a miss spelling?
Collin Bruce Yes. It's a byproduct of fossil fuel burning (fossil fuels have sulphur impurities) and a major component of acid rain.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain
+Nolan Thiessen
They mentioned the acid rain part 2 vids ago (#21) at the 10min mark.
"Kick over a barrel of oil and light it on fire"
I like the incentives approach
Tennessee Valley Authority making me proud of my state in a little way.
wow amazing material!
The primary cause of high greenhouse gases isn't factories or oil usage, it's the byproducts of animal agriculture. Not only is it responsible for air pollution, but it's also the cause of desertification, deforestation, and water pollution.
glad that you mentioned how it isn't just up to the individual, but also markets and governments to solve this, as I've been saying this for awhile. Vegetarians, for example, are always trying to convert everyone to their diet and acting like they're saving the world (or at least, the animals), but the truth is, as far as I'm concerned, it's not necessary to go to such lengths when what we should be focusing on is how those markets are run.
I have been very impressed with this crash course so far but I often find myself frustrated with the lack of updates. I hope this will improve this year.
+R. NG apparently their production is not exempt from the rules they are teaching about.
I'm experiencing UNNATURAL cold climates in my home country, it never went below 26 degrees Celsius before, although i do love it~ but now i fear for summer.
Hella informative thanks a ton
Thanks a lot!!! it's cool.
"I'll just ignore this entire video."
-Both Trump and AOC
And how exactly AOC?
@@kartik5001 Trump ignores the Environmental Part, AOC ignores the Economics part.
@@connorplankey5392 How exactly does she ignore the economics part?
@@professional_silent_trumpe1540 In the green new deal she calls for "retrofitting every building in America, with state of the art energy efficient." "EVERY BUILDING" "Eliminating 99% combustion engines" in cars, trucks, boats, and building electric car "charging stations everywhere." But never states where those power plants are supposed to get the funds to do that. Completely eliminate Nuclear energy which is relatively affordable and cheap and provides almost 19% of all American energy and completely eliminating Fossil Fuels energy, the lifeblood of the American Industry, both within 12 years. Entirely eliminating the the Airline industry and replacing it with railways, like the California HS Railway System which is $106 billion dollars in debt or the Amtrak which has never turned a profit in a fiscal year. But you never know about that because of course trains that run on fossil fuels will have to be scrapped as well. And all those people who lost their jobs because of this "massive" overhaul, (massive was used in the bill 13 times!) They don't have to worry because the federal government will magically pull jobs out of thin air to give to which will be entirely funded by what little the private sector has left. And if they can't find you a job they will provide "economic security" for anyone "unable or unwilling to work."
I am all for protecting our environmental, I even see it as one of the few places capitalism really falls short and we need some regulation. But this ain't it.
Connor Plankey multiple points: the GND doesn’t say where the funds come from because that isn’t the point of the GND. It’s not concrete legislation, but instead is a guideline that shows the goals that they want achieve (passing it was never going to be truly possible, it was just putting their goals down in writing). They planned on making up the lost jobs in the new markets created by the expansion into new technology and renewable energy. Amtrak doesn’t need to turn a profit, it’s a government institution, which really shouldn’t be profiting. Also, fossil fuels are a terrible “lifeblood of the economy”, seeing as the US government spends about $20 billion on direct subsidies for fossil fuels each year, which is even more when considering indirect subsidies through things like Last In, First Out Accounting, in order to prop it up.
@5:42 That harmful emission though. :D
ThoughtBubble! I saw what you did there.
Thanks for the video. Hank's hips don't lie!
Dude's AC⚡️DC belt buckle for the win.
Nice vid. The only feedback I'd like to give is: the ACDC belt buckle came off a little strong.
6:45 Errrr, December 2015 has passed already....
+Lumamaster I guess this shows that the episodes of each CrashCourse series were recorded in advance; that's probably more efficient than, say, asking Hill and Clifford to travel all the way to the Emigholz studio every week.
+James Lewis and in turn, it's also environmentally friendlier!
Yes!
One of the things that need to be addressed the most is cities. Cities are planned and build around the idea that everyone owns a car, and thus everyone must own a car in order to get around because the distribution of essential services and workplaces is made for cars. We build everything important within the downtown area where few homes are available, but lots of stores and offices, and then we spread the homes in a 20-30 km circle around this downtown area. That's way too huge. Cities need more common transportation services and more cellular layouts. In the ideal city, everything you need in order to live should be available to you within a 15 minute walk away from your home. So instead of having one big downtown for every city, we have 20 micro downtowns surrounded by homes and everyone can just walk to their neighborhood's centralized service and work area.
This would alleviate the need for vehicles in our everyday life. You would still need a car every now a then to go see your parents that live in the next city, but that can be easily solved by renting one. Or you could still own a car but just not use it as much. I've made the relatively annoying sacrifice of not wanting a car in my life. That means I have to use the bus, the only common transport available in my city, to get around. That means when I go grocery shopping, I can't hop between 5 different grocery stores to get the best deals. I just have to go to the nearest one (30 minute away by foot) and go back with a light enough haul to carry by hand (30 minutes back uphill with food bags, great exercise actually.) And when I need to go all the way to the end of town to visit a friend or get an item from a store that's not available anywhere else, I have to plan around the idea of spending 1-4 hours just moving towards and back from those places. Distances matter.
Not having a car sucks a lot, but I save a lot on the costs of owning one and my conscience is cleaner. It wouldn't be as annoying if the city I live in had a more thoughtful distribution of services and my employer didn't build the freaking building where I work 5 mins outside of the actual limits of the city (by car, which would take me 1 and half hour to reach on foot, thankfully there's one bus line that goes there.) The assumption that everyone has access, by means and choice, to a motorized vehicle makes it REALLY HARD to backpedal to a day an age where such luxuries wouldn't feel mandatory, but we somehow HAVE to.
Also we need to eat less meat and look at alternative means of producing it that pollutes less and we need to rely as much as humanly possible on local economies. Global markets require global transportation of shit tons of stuff. Again, distances matter and moving all this around is incredibly wasteful. Yet we are still, to this day, pushing the markets into that direction. Because cheap labor is awesome for profits and consumers! Yay for suicidal capitalism philosophy!
Haha big up to Trinidad and Tobago! That made my day!
ya'll should talk about marginal propensity to consume, and similar topics :)
Make your move, world! Here in Brazil we are already 85% on renewable energy :P
Apareçam BR's!!!
You're also burning down the Amazon where the world gets 20% of our oxygen
Nuclear power + electric vehicles = saving our planet
Let's talk about lessening demand. What are the biggest polluters. Industry, oil production. What are the biggest demands, cars. What schooling do people receive while in school, STEM. So people go into these fields. Why do people need cars. The nonavailability of the things they need where they are. Local economy. Drive to work, then drive to grocery store, drive to clothing retailer, and then home. Drive to the bank to pay mortgage, and taxes. In all of that gasoline is used. Huge demand. In all of that no one could work on their own land growing a portion of the food they use. Or start sustainable agriculture to produce clothing where they are. Much of the clothing that is sold is made out of country, and is synthetic (made from oil), and out of country(no accountability on what is produced). Need to get people back to farming, producing what is needed where it's needed. Start new businesses that produce sustainable products. Get away from cheap fashion.
I know that you have the best intentions, but what about agriculture? It's known that agriculture has one of the biggest effects on greenhouse gases emissions. Thanks Crash Course.
The environmental police that punishes countries who pollute more might come from developed countries like US, Canada & UK. They might impose trade barriers or other obstructions to countries that don't take measures to reduce their pollution.
I like how fast they talk
In my opinion Public Transportation is the best way to combat car emissions. Get rid of urban sprawl, build up, all that stuff
Kindly, make the crash course of Financial Accounting and Business Management.
Scotland just recently hit 98% of its electricity consumption is renewable energy from wind farms, demand is 1.85 TWh and wind farms generate 1.82TWh. It’s aim is 100% by 2020 smashing its target in comparison to its British counterparts
Hula Hank is now my favorite thing.
I know this is an economic series, but it would have been nice to mention nuclear energy in the mix of alternative energy sources. Getting that idea out there is a step in getting us off fossil fuels completely in a reasonable time frame.
Yeah, look at what France has done. But now they are getting off it. Dammit you had a good thing going France!
Cowspiracy is a very thought-provoking documentary about agriculture and its environmental impact.
+HoldDaRoot It's also wrong. Cowspiracy used inflated numbers for methane and double/tripple counting certain emissions. Here is the accepted values: tcktcktck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/World-GHG-Emissions-Ecofys-2013.jpg
That chart is from 2010. Is there an updated version available?
HoldDaRoot Not that I can find. The EPA website is as current as 2015 but still uses a lot of 2010 data. It takes a lot of effort to put these sorts of global accounting, so they aren't done often.
www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html
Nolan Thiessen Gotcha, thanks for the info!
I was just listening to green funds topic, it is a good program once implemented , but I think we have to be quick to give out resources to rural communities because they are among the people who are most affected by climate change. It is too much of negotiations without action.
thanks
you should watch "the venus project " get some new and fresh ideas!
animal farming is responsible for twice the carbon emission than fossil fuel here in the US. In CA, agriculture also uses up to 80% of its water supply. While greenhouse gas from cars and factories is a problem, the way we produce food is a bigger one.
Yall keep flashbanging me with that white background
Please, consider doing a video on stock market
No mention of public transportation? There are things like buses and even newer model electric trains that can cut down on pollution by allowing people to use the same vehicle and put less pollution into the atmosphere. As we switch to electric solutions and make our electricity generators cleaner, everyone benefits.
Is this the last episode? I only want to binge watch when it is finished.
+Jurij Fedorov No, weekly releases are still ongoing.
yewskriimskoop Do you know how many episodes there will be all in all?
Jurij Fedorov
No, sorry.
Short term solution nuclear energy. Long term solution innovation and technological advancement to make fuel use (nuclear, solar, wind, water) as efficient as possible
I think the idea that the world should have internationally environmental police in charge of monitoring factoriies' activities of discharging waste and punishing them if there's a problem emerging is really interesting. The United Nations could make the idea into action.
good educated video
That belt :)
There is one big thing consumers can do: Don't fly! Flying is one of the environmentally worst things one can do. Sadly, it's subsidised, which is why it's so cheap. But if we care about the environment, we'll still try to find other ways or have our holidays somewhere nearby.
I'm a little sad you didn't mention this, it's such an important thing and few people know about it.
I'm optimistic about geothermal energy.
Nice
Stop the destruction of rainforest... Everyone seem to forgot that. Less Pollution won't be enough
We all agree the trash islands, smog cities and toxic waters are an issue, yet not everyone agrees on climate change (even scientists and supporters of/on both sides can disagree on details or misunderstand each other or misrepresent their own view); so, focusing on overall environmental concerns (which climate change also is based on anyway) is ideal. Rather than have mediocre change, or no changes at all, by focusing on the hot-topic / trigger-word / controversial term [climate change], we can simply focus on the overall environmental concerns, so we can accomplish more than the mediocre change, or no change at all, that a schismatic approach yields. The reasonable people among those who support, are unsure and/or are against climate change, all three groups, should work together on a general environment focus, where we all agree, and then we'll all accomplish mutual goals (primarily the betterment of the entire environment).
You mentioned Trinidad 😊 🇹🇹
You in the USA could easily put more taxes on fossil fules or gas. It's not like it costs much right now. Other countrys could do the same.(the USA was only an example, couse of the cheap gas prices.)
How about an energy inefficiency tax on houses which gets added to your council rates? The more efficient your house, the lower the tax.
while having one person bring a reusable bag to the grocery store doesn't make much of an effect having MILLIONS of people bring reusable bags that makes a difference. A good reusable bag can save the use of 3 plastic / 2 paper bags (coming from experience). I think encouraging consumers to make small adjustments can have a big impact.
You forgot the # 1 REASON FOR POLLUTION...ANIMAL AGRICULTURE
5:41 Where's Phil?!?! And Adrienne and Mr. Clifford?!
I'm calling fowl on 1:13 the nuclear emissions coming out from the top is steam not smoke. Other than that good video.
+Nash Winston (Nashwins) That's a coal plant. Cooling towers are found on all thermal plants, including both coal and nuclear. You can tell from the adjacent smoke stacks that it's a coal plant.
The video suggests carbon dioxide emissions = carbon dioxide pollution, however that doesn't seem to be accurate.
Merriam-Webster online: 'the action or process of making land, water, air, etc., dirty and not safe or suitable to use'
Cambridge online: 'damage caused to water, air, etc. by harmful substances or waste '
Oxford Learners online: 'the process of making air, water, soil, etc. dirty; the state of being dirty"
+Coookiejar Pollution is also commonly considered increasing the concentration of naturally occurring substances to unnatural or harmful levels. Which is how something like 'heat pollution' can be a thing in an environment over 0K.
15% of energy consumption being renewable energy in 2040 is a gross underestimate - as is often the case, we largely underestimate what can happen in the next 10 years. Not to mention that 2040 is more than 20 years away, and solar energy just this year is almost catching up to fossil fuels in cost efficiency...
Also with hybrid cars, that's the problem with the waste in both the old and new car. Electric cars result in batteries that are hard to recycle (after they permanently die).
the guy is such a rebel with ACDC belt in the beggining
make a series on the stock market
The problem with solar/wind is not whether or not it's cheap or not. Its that you cannot save any of the energy in a meaningful way and therefor your would only have energy if there is daylight and/or wind.
+DaJan1509 There are storage solutions available. Also, grid tied systems allow you to use electricity from other sources such as hydro when your PV isn't working. On the grid scale, over 70% penetration by PV/wind is possible without backup.
+Nolan Thiessen
Hi Nolan,
Yes there are some possibilities, but the costs of storage are either astromically high (lithium batteries, pump water storage systems) or the storage is cheap but the re-conversion factoris super ineffectice (25%-30% on methane storage). If you are working with 70% penetration, you need a complete second back up grid for the same amount of energy produced by renewable energy sources, that can jump in when the power availability hits near 0% (at night with low winds).
We are trying 80% until 2050 here in Germany as the world leading government for renewable technology and are currently failing on every conveivable threshold because we're trying to shut down nuclear power at the same time ("Energiewende"). At the current projection, Germanys energy consumers have already spent over 500 billion EURO into the Energiewende (approx. 10 times the German economic damage that was done in WW2 when adjusting for inflation.) We are completely overproducing Energy on some days and have to import heavily on others. No solution in sight and the German Center for Air and Space (DLR) is predicting heavy Energy shortages starting 2021.
In addition, due to the above mentioned back up grid, we are now spewing more CO2 Equivalent than before.
None of the Government officials did the math correctly and no economists or nuclear experts were asked.
The Energiewende is a product of mass hysteria and misinformation.
Very sad :(
It'd suck if those renewable grocery bags ended up causing more pollution than the regular cheap grocery bags, but when has recycling EVER backfired on us? :^)
that belt buckle though
Hm, it seems no matter how you try to hold the beast down, it finds a way to squirm away. Economical nihilism seems more attractive everyday.
Good video ! However please consider using something else than pictures of nuclear power plant when mentionning CO2 emissions (@1'10) since what's coming out of the huge tower is water vapor. Those facilities pollutes via solid radioactiv waste, but there's no CO2 emissions there.
Doing this helps spreading wrong idea about the type of pollution involved :/
I think you CrashCourse guys need to watch a documentary on netflix called 'Cowspiracy' - there is a very strong case for cattle agriculture resulting in far more pollution than any of this.
+Elizabeth Crowe Cowspiracy got a LOT wrong including using inflated numbers for methane and double/tripple counting certain emissions. Here is the accepted values: tcktcktck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/World-GHG-Emissions-Ecofys-2013.jpg
+Nolan Thiessen Wow, interesting. I was skeptical about cowspiracy though. Thank you for providing that link.
Nolan Thiessen Thanks! Still pretty scary though - especially about the ocean dead zones, activist murders and lobbying power. Its still a massive issue even with the exaggeration - I don't think most of it is bogus
Nice course. I would have a remark though, I dont think its proper used the phrase "save the planet" since the planet was just fine before humans were here and will probably be as fine after we get extinct (there is quite a difference in the life spawn of a planet and of a single specie). But going back I would better use "save humankind" because we are the ones who suffer if the climate on this planet will change, not the planet itself.
thorium reactors seem to be good, and hydro electric, solar&wind(to a lesser extent, hopefully) could also help. and for industries like mining, logging, and farming they can use bio-diesel&motorsport vehicles can be the only source of carbon until batteries are powerful&light enough to naturally replace gas. I also hope we'll invest in quality mass-transit, cause I personally don't enjoy driving, and bullet trains are awesome.
yes we need nuclear because the extent of ecological destruction correlates to the size of the economy and the size of the economy corrolates to the EROEI of the energy sources use by said economy, and because ecological destruction isn't currently risking rendering large chunks of this planet uninhabitable within 50 years (not to mention wars, genocide and famine at scales not before seen), we need higher EROEI.
Stevie Wonder I totally agree. When I tell people usually they just don't believe it. It's like it literally doesn't compute.