Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia

Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by nomercy400 on Thursday January 02, 2020 @05:18AM (#21934180)

It's a bit strange to use the population density of Australia to make a point, as the population density of Australia is one of the lowest in the world (3).

You're basically saying we should tackle Australia's 481 before China's 3523 or India's 716 or US' 702. Maybe we should tackle China first, as it is producing 45% of the world's coal, compared to 6% of Australia.

Now if you were to say that Australia is the 5th biggest producer of coal in the world, that'd be a more convincing argument.

I'm also surprised by Indonesia (6th). And the fact that Germany and Poland contribute 60% of the EU's (4th) coal production.

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by perilunar on Thursday January 02, 2020 @08:14AM (#21935072)

> Maybe we should tackle China first, as it is producing 45% of the world's coal, compared to 6% of Australia.

Who is 'we', and how do you suggest 'we' tackle China first?

Each country has to take care of its own emissions — we can’t wait for China to act first.

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by pjc50 on Thursday January 02, 2020 @05:50AM (#21934363)

Much of Australia's coal is burned in China.

Germany is a literal "black spot" in that the coal industry still has political muscle there, despite Germany's otherwise relatively strong (but still very much minority) green movement.

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by daemin on Thursday January 02, 2020 @06:08AM (#21934446)

They [Germany] got rid of their environmentally friendly nuclear reactors in favour of burning more coal after Fukishima. They're doing a bit of solar but are burning ever more and more coal.

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by cygx on Thursday January 02, 2020 @08:11AM (#21935053)

[Germans] are burning ever more and more coal

We've missed our reduction goals, but reducton did happen (about 20% over the last 15 years, and the decrease has even been monotonic since 2013).

I keep having to correct this on hackernews specifically. I have to wonder, is there some sort of concerted effort to lie about this?

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by nl on Thursday January 02, 2020 @08:51AM (#21935307)

is there some sort of concerted effort to lie about this?

Yeah, there is a strong pro-nuclear group on HN who believe it has unfairly been targeted.

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by daemin on Friday January 03, 2020 @07:13AM (#21945237)

It would still be more now than if the reactors had not been shut down right?

I guess I should not throw stones since both countries I live in are worse than this. Specifically they dig out more and more coal every year without stopping.

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by bjourne on Thursday January 02, 2020 @08:04AM (#21935016)

Germany is burning LESS coal. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coal-consumption-per-capi...

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Re:Wildfires Are Raging Outside Every Major City in Australia by pjc50 on Thursday January 02, 2020 @06:43AM (#21934592)

Yeah, this was in my opinion an overreaction. The calculus for building a new reactor (expensive, time consuming) versus keeping an existing one going is very different.

On the other hand, Germany had already experienced the Chernobyl cloud.

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