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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

#81

Post by pjc50 »

kodroid wrote: post #66

So, what can be done? I posted this question on Reddit ages ago with no replys, would be interesting to hear anyone on heres opinion on it... > Hi all, Im sure there are many reasons why this would not work but thought would be good to get some input. I came across this article about creating carbon fibre from atmospheric carbon https://www.technologyreview.com/s/540706/researcher-demonst... and as carbon fibre utili…

Money? There isn't currently a market for this product, there may never be, and it requires a big upfront investment.

Scaling? "given an area less than 10 percent of the size of the Sahara Desert" does nobody have any idea how large that is? If he'd said "an area the size of Texas and California combined" it might look less feasible.

But really it needs millions in altruistic funding to even get a pilot plant going. It's a lot like Tesla's plan to get everyone driving electric cars: no technical barrier, but the financial one is huge and it takes a while to scale even if it's successful.

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

#82

Post by colordrops »

r_smart wrote: post #60
pmyjavec wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word hippy and the negative connotations associated with it are fascinating to me, it's amazing how western societies have created a negative connotation to describe a person who is probably more caring, conscious and alternate thinking than your average citizen. Basically a hippy is someone guilty of 'thought crime'. It's an amazing device.

I used to hold an opinion of hippies similar to yours. Then 1. I watched the documentary on Woodstock and saw the disaster they made out of that place and 2. Spent a lot of time around my cousin and her friends when she was in art school. My conclusion was that hippies aren't any better or worse than other people. They suffer the same flaws as everyone else. The downside is that they seem to put forward this air of h…

There are hippies and there are trend following hedonists. You are talking about the latter.

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

#83

Post by supercarrot »

redwood wrote: post #71
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.washi…

Fossil fuel extraction leakage isn't that significant, although they seem to get the blame quite often.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35659947

This "giant" leak isn't even close to the amount of cow methane farts of this world annually.

When it comes to methane, our desire for flesh is to blame.

Greenhouse emissions are larger in the animal agriculture sector than in all transportation combined.

Transitioning to a plant-based world culture would give us a bit more time. But eventually just the heating and transportation could be enough to blame.

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

#84

Post by tomatsu »

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…

> pretentious yet barely discomforting lifestyle changes

I do most of my commuting with an ebike, because it's fun. It really is very enjoyable and I also get some light cardio exercise at the same time. It's also extremely cheap. A full charge only costs a few cents. Surprisingly, it's pretty fast, too. Using a more optimal route and not having to stop everywhere, I'm faster than the bus - even if I ignore the 10 minutes of walking to/from the bus stop.

An ebike is something you really should try for completely selfish reasons. It's good for your health, your wallet, and your quality of life.

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

#85

Post by jackmott »

gaius wrote: post #64
yequalsx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Making the "save the world for my kids " argument particularly ironic.

save the world for my kid.

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

#86

Post by jackmott »

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…

The easiest solution politically is help advance the state of the art in solar, wind, and nuclear power, so that these naturally become adopted by the horrible sorts of people that run big corporations and do whatever makes them money no matter the consequences.

And somehow encourage people to have less kids.

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

#87

Post by Scarblac »

corecoder wrote: post #42
mikekchar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I said that apples were the cause of global warming and that to avoid catastrophe you had to avoid eating apples it wouldn't worry you nearly as much, would it? I mean apples are delicious, but they aren't worth the misery that extreme weather will inflict on us. There are also a lot of people who depend on apple production to make a living. We would have to find some way for them to transition to something else f…

The problem is that most of your neighbours and friends would see you as the hippy idealist guy who gave up apples in vain, because while you don't use apples anymore, airplanes full of apples keep flying, apples factories and farms keep producing and consuming apples, and apples provider ads keep showing how cheap apples are. There's a sense of helplessness (learned helplessness, some would say), due to the percepti…

Which is why we need government action, it's the only way.

Unfortunately, many of the world's large countries are democracies, and it's hard to, say, ration meat consumption in them. It's too easy for power-seeking populist politicians to gather votes from people who like meat by telling them that sort of thing is nonsense and a left-wing conspiracy.

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

#88

Post by jsingleton »

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…

You can do a lot in your own life that will also save you money. I won't go into too much detail because, as you note, this has a small effect unless lots of people do it. But some simple ideas that are cheap and boring.

- Eat less meat or cut it out fully (or at least not every day)

- Fly less and use long distance trains where you can

- Insulate your property to reduce energy use

- Ride a bicycle and take public transport rather than drive (or get an EV)

- Install solar power / battery storage / heat pumps

- Switch energy supplier to a green provider

However, to be effective beyond that you need to do things that scale and have a multiplying effect or bootstrap/kickstart a virtuous circle. This should be a familiar principle for the startup crowd on HN. Some simple ideas:

- Write about your experiences in green living online

- Get a job in a green industry (lots of them need developers)

- Help others get jobs in green industries

- Invest in green companies (crowd funding etc.)

- Divest from fossil fuel (pension choices etc.)

- Join a community group and donate your time / skills

For example, I help run a community group called Cleanweb UK and we have a free jobs site (https://cleanwebjobs.com) that tries to get tech workers into jobs that help fight climate change. Friends of the Earth often run hackathons.

You could also make tools to help people who are trying to reduce their carbon impact. For example, I built https://shutdownscanner.com to help office managers measure how many computers are left on when not in use. There are many opportunities to build tools that assist in demand shifting and other green data based systems.

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

#89

Post by thatfrenchguy »

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…

Buy less stuff ? I'm surprised no-one here has say here that the growth-at-all-cost way of doing business is one of the major reason behind global warming.

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

#90

Post by Cybiote »

the_gastropod wrote: post #55
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…

There's a third that I'm familiar with, and find compelling: construction. Building a new nuclear power plant costs tens of billions of dollars (usually requiring government funding) and ~10 years from start to finish. The efficiency of wind and solar power is increasing rapidly, and in 10 years will likely be a better investment than a nuclear plant.

"The world construction rate peaked at 30 GW of nuclear power per year in 1984"

...

"The rate of new build was biggest in 1984, and had a value of (drum-roll please...) about 30 GW per year – about 30 1-GW reactors."

https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_171.shtml

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