[Tikib]

Does anyone else wonder why climate change became a bigger deal than peak oil?

Because to me the complete destruction of our high energy civilization always seemed a bigger deal than it being hotter and their being some flooding.

[basil_hayden]

It's a new potential revenue source that will go on infinitely, that's why.

[ROCKMAN]

Tiki – Obviously no single cause. One factor would be the public constantly hearing about surging US oil production. Which is IMHO some of the strongest evidence of the PO path we’re on.

Now what I’m about to offer might make me sound like a climate change denier. I’m not. In fact I was probably more tuned into that potential aspect 40 years more than many thanks to my studies of the earth’s geologic history. But there has always been a segment of society that greatly disliked the industrial side of our world. And not just oil/NG production but most industries. You’re probably not old enough to remember this but in the 70’s the big threat offered by many environmentalists was global COOLING…not warming. There was also the period where the infusion of carcinogens into the environment was the hot topic. Again, not that it shouldn’t have been, but it was another vehicle to be exploited. Just as the so called Arab embargo of the 70’s was exploited by the oil patch to push its cause.

Coincidentally I found the below this morning and was trying to figure out where it should get posted. This looks like a good spot thanks to your astute question:

Rift Widens Among Greens Over Burying Carbon As Climate Fix

Reuters - A rift is widening among the world's biggest environmental groups over a little-tested technology for burying carbon that might help cut the cost of fighting climate change. A report by the U.N.'s panel of climate scientists last month dismayed some greens by showing that action to slow climate change could cost 138 percent more this century if governments do not use carbon capture and storage (CCS). Many environmental groups have long denounced CCS - by which carbon could be extracted from the exhaust fumes of factories and power plants and then buried - as a distraction from a shift to clean energies such as solar or wind. "There's no reason to go for CCS," Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace, which wants to phase out fossil fuels, said talks this month in Lima among 190 nations working on a U.N. climate deal due to be agreed in Paris in a year's time. "It is a lifeline for fossil fuels, not a solution," he said.

{Do you see the beginning of the point I’m making: it sounds as if Mr. Keiser is more anti-oil company then he is pro climate protection}

Others favor investment in CCS as a stepping stone to a greener future, arguing that coal-fired power plants from the United States to China will simply not shut down overnight. "You should not dump all your eggs in one basket. We don't think you can take any viable option off the table," said Jake Schmidt, a director of the U.S. National Resources Defense Council, which is more favorable to CCS. Frederic Hauge, head of the Norwegian environmental group Bellona, which favors CCS, said greens should accept last month's findings by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and not "cherry pick" science.

"Greenpeace and others opposed to CCS aren't taking global warming seriously," he said. The IPCC projects that rising penalties on greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades will make CCS viable, despite current high costs. The IPCC report indicates the world will have to cut net greenhouse gas emissions to zero in the second half of the century to limit mounting risks of floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. Global emissions are now rising fast. To get to zero, IPCC scenarios indicate the world may have to extract carbon from nature, for instance by using CCS at power plants burning wood, or more simply by planting forests that absorb carbon dioxide from the air as they grow.

The United Nations urged a re-think of CCS. "I do think we need to refresh our view on carbon capture use and storage," Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. She said there were many legitimate concerns, including costs and risks of leaks from underground storage, but that the practice may be needed. Twenty-two industrial CCS projects are being built or operating way worldwide, according to the Global CCS Institute, whose members include governments and companies, far fewer than expected only a few years ago.

{But below again: more anti fossil fuels then pro climate? As is often the case no mention the effect on the population by the potential loss of industrial activity with decreased fossil fuel consumption}

"CCS cannot be a get-out-of jail card for the fossil fuel industry," said Samantha Smith of the WWF conservation group. She said the WWF was not opposed to CCS in principle but did "oppose using precious time and money on a technology that may never deliver." Figueres said CCS would not be much of a lifeline for coal and oil. "About three-quarters of fossil fuel reserves will have to stay safely underground, even with CCS," she said. "We just can't afford to burn them," she added, under a goal set by governments in 2010 to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius.

{And thus IMHO why it’s going to be very difficult to ever develop any sort of compromise that sufficiently satisfies both of the extreme sides of the debate. The sides that seem to controlling most of the discussions and public attention.}

[Tikib]

Yea theirs certainly some truth in that one side was blind to the faults of fossil fuels whilst the other was hostile to all industry and the opposition between them made the other side more extreme.

As a kid the global warming problem was pumped into my brain religiously at school and yet no one mentioned peak oil. Even though running out of something which is finite is inevitable.

[Shaved Monkey]

Even carbon storage is finite
Its pretty hard to store the carbon from anything thats moving let alone stationary if its in the wrong geological location.

and

Consider just one hidden externality: air pollution. It kills about seven to eight million people worldwide each year.
The health costs of air pollution amount to some 4 per cent of the GDP of most countries, and 10 per cent of China's GDP.
Do fossil fuel companies pay for these costs? No.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... pic=latest

[Lore]

It's pretty fundamental actually, you can have alternatives to fossil fuels, but there is no substitute for a livable climate.

[Newfie]

Does anyone else wonder why climate change became a bigger deal than peak oil?

Because to me the complete destruction of our high energy civilization always seemed a bigger deal than it being hotter and their being some flooding.

The extermination of our species, if not all species above deep Earth residing bacteria, is a bigger deal than the complete destruction of our civilization. While it may or may not be given, it IS a possibility.

Being hotter with some flooding is just the prelude to a three act play.

[Plantagenet]

2014 is turning out to be the warmest year on record, proving that past predictions about global warming were correct and climate change is real and the world is getting hotter.


climate change predictions have proven to be accurate

In contrast we have rising global oil production producing an oil glut and plunging oil prices in 2014, showing that past predictions that peak oil would occur in 2005 followed by oil shortages and high oil prices have turned out to be wrong.


predictions of high oil prices and energy shortages have turned out to be wrong