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Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

reuters.com

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Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#71

Post by redwood »

blondie9x wrote: post #69

We all know by now CO2 and CH4 leads to a warmer planet. We also know what's driving greenhouse gas levels to rise across Earth. Contributors are deforestation, intensive animal farming, and primarily the combustion of carbon fossil fuels like coal, tar sands, oil, natural gas etc. But here is the underlying problem, despite us knowing how bad things are, (97+% of scientists who study this field agree we are causing…

One more key contributor (since CH4 aka natural gas is so much worse as a green house gas compared with CO2 when released than burned or kept in the ground):

Human activity, ranging from fossil fuel extraction, to natural gas usage, has massively led to a large amount of natural gas leakage across the network. All this leaking adds up and is an "unseen" but incremental accelerant on these problems (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...)

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#73

Post by uhtred »

staticelf wrote: post #41
cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

I no longer eat meat and a big reason of why is it sucks for the climate. :)

Good on you. I've drastically reduced the amount of meat I eat to about once a week, for many reasons including environmental. I feel western society almost worships meat (especially in America - bacon, anyone?) and links it to masculinity. I think most people would rather watch the world burn than give up meat.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#74

Post by vacri »

gst wrote: post #40
cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

IMO the problem is that most sides in the discussion don't propose any viable solutions: On one side there are the climate change deniers (and the people who don't care about it). They are fine to continue business as usual. On the other side there are the people who are concerned about climate change. But instead of agreeing to effective solutions (compromises) that allow us to somewhat mitigate global warming (such…

It's not a fear of nuclear power plants that's creating the Brown Clouds of asia.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#75

Post by TimJRobinson »

cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

If you have a little extra money one super easy thing you can do is buy a carbon offset for the carbon you produce each year. There's plenty of websites that can do this if you google for something like "offset my carbon emissions".

They will then invest this money in companies that will plant trees, build alternate power or something similar to permanently remove the CO2 you produced ensuring you are carbon neutral for the year.

Also my electricity company has a program where you can pay 10% more and all the electricity will be sourced from renewable sources that are carbon neutral. I switched many years ago and barely noticed the increase.

These are all basically enacting a carbon tax on yourself, and if enough people do it it will encourage the polluters to invest in more renewable forms of energy (as their profits will continually drop) and lead to a better world.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#76

Post by adrianN »

yequalsx wrote: post #63
gst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the problem is that most sides in the discussion don't propose any viable solutions: On one side there are the climate change deniers (and the people who don't care about it). They are fine to continue business as usual. On the other side there are the people who are concerned about climate change. But instead of agreeing to effective solutions (compromises) that allow us to somewhat mitigate global warming (such…

The only viable, realistic solution is for people to stop having as many children as they currently do. The population of the planet is beyond carrying capacity at current levels of consumption.

That is too slow. We have a little more than twenty years at current production levels to stop producing GHGs [1]. Reducing the population (to 0?) takes a lot longer.

[1] http://www.trillionthtonne.org/

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#77

Post by Brakenshire »

gst wrote: post #40
cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

IMO the problem is that most sides in the discussion don't propose any viable solutions: On one side there are the climate change deniers (and the people who don't care about it). They are fine to continue business as usual. On the other side there are the people who are concerned about climate change. But instead of agreeing to effective solutions (compromises) that allow us to somewhat mitigate global warming (such…

I don't think the two sides you describe are correct, at least globally. In the UK, 70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and the Green party (who have the kind of position you're describing) only get 5% of the vote. You're presenting everyone who thinks that action needs to be taken as part of a much smaller, unrepresentative group.

Also, I agree that flat blocking of nuclear is unreasonable. But in my opinion disagreement on the issue is a relatively marginal issue in the general sweep of tackling climate change. Again, in the UK, we're just at the end of an open commissioning process for new nuclear, led by the centre right party, with agreement across all major parties.

Despite that level of political support, and a complete lack of protectionism (to the extent that one of the leading bids is funded by a Chinese state-owned energy company!) it is still going to be very expensive, and has a very long development and construction time.

Undoubtedly it's sensible for baseline demand (i.e. continuous 24hr demand which doesn't require scaling up or down), but to me it's not going to be a make or break solution either way. It's not sensible to completely tie yourself in to an expensive, monolithic technology to come online in 20 years, and operate for 50 years thereafter. It's an important hedge which we should definitely take up, but it's not the total solution which people present.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#78

Post by nabla9 »

Brakenshire wrote: post #50
nabla9 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making adjustments into your own life helps if it changes cultural norms. If not, you are just making it cheaper for others to consume C2O. Pushing for carbon tax and carbon trade is the best overall option. Devil is in the details, of course. Carbon tax should be significant and carbon trade shouldn't have loopholes. It should prevent exporting carbon production to other countries (carbon tax for imported products).…

> Economic estimates of the cost of effective measures vary, but typical estimate is 0.5 - 1% reduction into world GDP. This is something we don't have political will to do and mentioning negatives is a taboo. Rational people just flatly refuse to acknowledge that it's possible that reducing carbon emissions might be net negative for economy next 20-40 years. I think it is genuinely difficult to say that with any cer…

>I think it is genuinely difficult

Yes. It's difficult to say, but you can make estimates and they have been done. Estimates made by economists are better than wishful thinking.

>You could see 40 years of extraordinary technological and economic progres

We don't have time. We have used our carbon budget. Doing things in hurry is what increases the cost.

To stop global warming below 2 C requires that our emissions are cut into fraction of current levels within 15 years. That's incredibly short time. We should be shutting down coal plants already and companies should write off their investments. There is no time for smooth transition.

Major estimates agree that that avoiding climate change is affordable can can be done, but time has run out (not running out, has run out). U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the cost would be 13 trillion trough 2030 using idealized scenarios. It would reduce GDP just 0.1%. Big task but clearly affordable. The bad new is that there is no sign that there is will to invest even close that much. There is no political will to do that. IEA estimates say that the cost is around $30 trillion.

Things like GOP's "clean carbon" policy take out the possible and all idealized scenarios. There is no change in hell that GOP ruled House does anything significant to make "perfectly possible" happen. 4 years from now cost has increased again.

>I think ultimately we just have to do our best to price in the externalized costs and to a certain extent to set the hard limits of the amount of damage we are willing to inflict, and let the economy adjust to the reality of the situation.

Yes. I think 4 degrees is what is going to happen. Horrible cost for humanity and nature. Show your kids coral reefs when they are still there.

Re: Scientists caught off-guard by record temperatures linked to climate change

#80

Post by supercarrot »

hiou wrote: post #54
cconcepts wrote: post #9

I have no doubt that climate change is a problem. I have kids, I dont want to give them a hospital pass. I've tried to stop living such a carbon dependant lifestyle but I look outside and my efforts feel futile. How do I REALLY do something about this other than a few pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes and the odd empassioned few sentences at dinner parties? Start pushing for a carbon tax? Start a…

Stop or significantly reduce animal consumption. Stop or significantly reduce driving. Stop or reduce flying. That's all there is to it. A quarter of the US does that and we meet all our targets. Stop being a wimp and suck it up and do what's right. It's very obvious and doable.

Heating and cooling is a significant energy factor, too.

Your guidelines are spot on.

One can do a lot.

But it isn't enough to do just that, one has to point out the superiority of the life culture.

If I reduce my consumption but don't teach my kids to do the same, the reasons why I'm doing it, it's all for nothing.

Similar issues arise with others outside of family.

If I do not eat meat, and not show them why eating meat is wrong for the environment and other moral issues, then nothing can change.

As long as the business-as-usual culture is the dominant one, the silent protestor isn't doing very much.

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