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Oil prices are so high that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are dropping (www.scientificamerican.com)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
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The U.S. war with Iran has raised fossil fuel prices so much that the resulting drop in oil demand has put the world on track to see a rare dip in carbon emissions from these sources in 2026.

Between 2019 and 2025, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels grew by about 0.8 percent annually, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change. But 2026 is set to buck that trend: high oil prices, as well as the continued rise of green technology—solar power, wind and electric cars—will cause a “short-term” 0.4 percent drop, according to the study.

“The high petrol prices following the war in Iran are reducing oil use and keeping emissions low,” says the study’s lead author Corinne Le Quéré, a professor of climate change science at the University of East Anglia in England. “But that’s not the whole story: The expansion of renewable energy has progressed a lot in recent years, led by China. And [along with electric vehicles], this is offsetting two thirds of the growing demand for energy.”

With all sources of carbon considered, including deforestation, total global CO2 emissions are set to continue increasing.

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[–] 1 point 2 days ago* (4 children)

The northeast has many more densely populated places with great walkability, but in general, look for place built out before cars drove sprawl.

And many of these places are also the most desirable. The places people most want to live.

You got us on the “rich people” though. We definitely have a real problem with high cost of living. My state’s population has long been stable to shrinking, predominantly because people just can’t afford to live here.

We lost ballot question 7 to override minimum lot sizes across the state to a mere 5,000 sq ft, by only 32,000 votes and many of these opponents thought it wouldn’t have been enough. The breakdown was exactly as you’d expect with urban areas agreeing and sprawling suburbs disaagreeing

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

    You can only take so many job opportunities and if your career you paid to go to college to master or even took advantage of a free college initiative (like Massachusetts has), isn't near your areas then you're settling to a lifestyle so you can chain yourself down to living in apartments fuckin' doing a career you hate and most likely will never get out of debt.

    Like Boston is mainly coders and medical field . If you're doing anything at just above minimum wage you're living with 4 other strangers.

    In Boston the train works well, outside of it, good fuckin' luck with the cr and bus services out of the mbta's reach meaning no Charlie card access. Worcester WRTA has Charlie card access but I don't know of anything further on other sides. I'm guessing it's the same.......

    It's fucked but if you want to live cheap you need to live out of the city. There's nice places out of the city, you just need a vehicle.

    Personally I think there needs to be an absolute cap of 450k$ that an individual can sell a home for. I think that there needs to be an alternative fuel cell that's not purely batteries but an actual liquid fuel. I think that it's criminal that people charge homes for a mil and up. The market changing and affordability would assure homeowners. Also the criminal aprs for home purchasing loans is beyond unreasonable. If the aprs for mortgages crashed we'd all be doing a little better not fully okay but a lot better. You'd still have to find an affordable home you can put a mortgage on that's most likely in the 450k$ range.

    Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky have a decent real estate but you're gonna be near nothing and will need car to get to your jobs. That's everywhere. That's not, "the rich," that's just the average US economic infrastructure. The only upper hand,"the rich," have is they get to sit in traffic for less getting to work in the inner cities because they're closer.

    Let's all concede and never drive gas cars or buy houses...... Awesome attitude for the public.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

    I don’t think caps on house prices would be practical since there’s always supply and demand. Boston is a great example where things would be expensive anyway but we’re tens of thousands of housing units behind demand. There’s no quick answer but the MBTA communities zoning law should encourage more apartments and condos near transit over time. Overriding minimum lot size would have done similar for suburbs. At least potentially. Catching supply up to demand is part of the answer. And it won’t be fast. But it’s a start

    Let’s all concede and never drive gas cars or buy houses

    I completely disagree that this needs to be “conceding”. It can be a valid choice and we need to turn it into a good choice for ever more people.

    • Many years ago I lived for a year in Boston without a car. It was very freeing, was a fantastic improvement in my life, many things were much more convenient, and I saved so much money. The major downside was that not everyone lived in Boston, but this is an opportunity to build on. This can be a valid, cheaper, and better choice for many people. It’s already true for millions in New York City and we can do the same. Let’s build a city where people find this a better life!
    • I no longer drive a gas car and this is a good solution for at least a quarter of the us. That portion will continue to grow as we build out more charging solutions and will actually be affordable if we can end tariffs and protectionism
    • MBTA needs to adjust to the reality that we no longer commute to Boston for work. Scheduling and frequency changes could make commuter rail useful for a lot more errands, and there are many proposals to build out service
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  • [–] 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

    My goal is to own a house. I hate renting. When you rent you're locked in to so many stipulations and regulations it's not living it's surviving. If you want to live you need your own place, if you want to survive, you rent.

    Maybe that's just Boston but I plan on buying a house ont he outskirts Boston or outer areas like Woburn or potentially even int he western Massachusetts areas cause they're notoriously a bit cheaper but again one county away, you need a car because the cr comes two hours max away and that's a two hour wait.

    They're building like crazy near me and..... Who's affording these places?

    I'd rather the revolving issues of owning a house, than pay 21,600$ a year, 1,800$/MO.

    That's such a waste of you actually play the medical field or coding though because then you're better off a mortgage.

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  • [–] 1 point 21 hours ago

    Again they already are building like fucking crazy. The question is, who can afford them, sorry it just pisses me off thinking keep building dense apartment communities being the answer. If there's supply and demand then maybe the demand shouldn't be able to hit over certain amount in price. Like fuck man there's a housing crisis , saying supply and demand for who? ??????????? If you have over 650k$ and get lucky.

    Capping the housing market, though would have the downfall of making it so people would hold until laws would change so they could sell for higher so the revolving issue of affordability vs area vs job market I guess is just a thing.

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