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Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

economist.com

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Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#11

Post by mugdho »

jamesblonde wrote: post #3

The canary in the coalmine for global warming is Arctic sea ice. It is melting at an alarming rate, and we can expect an ice-free (>1m sq km of sea ice) Arctic in the summer within a decade or two (or 3-4 years if recent trends continue!). There's a small active community who follow this. We tend to hang out here - a HN level of polite discussion goes on: http://neven1.typepad.com/

So what happens to the indigenous population of animals (polar bears are the first that come to my mind) when this happens? Do they just die out or are there groups trying to get them to safety?

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#12

Post by yellow_postit »

mugdho wrote: post #11
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

The canary in the coalmine for global warming is Arctic sea ice. It is melting at an alarming rate, and we can expect an ice-free (>1m sq km of sea ice) Arctic in the summer within a decade or two (or 3-4 years if recent trends continue!). There's a small active community who follow this. We tend to hang out here - a HN level of polite discussion goes on: http://neven1.typepad.com/

So what happens to the indigenous population of animals (polar bears are the first that come to my mind) when this happens? Do they just die out or are there groups trying to get them to safety?

Outside of captivity, where would it be safe for arctic animals?

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#13

Post by papercrane »

strictnein wrote: post #8
papercrane wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is convinced.[1] The American public is convinced, although not as much as they probably should be.[2][3][4] The problem here is to convince world leaders to actually do something. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-16/china-tell... [2] http://climatepublicopinion.stanford.edu/sample-page/opinion... [3] https://environment.yale.edu/poe/v2014/ [4] http://www.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-…

China is convinced? Then China should tell China to stop building coal power plants. They burn slightly more coal than the rest of the world combined. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environmen...

> China is convinced? Then China should tell China to stop building coal power plants.

You realise you're source says they're doing exactly that?

"In guidelines released on Monday, China halted plans for new coal-fired power stations in many parts of the country, and construction of some approved plants will be postponed until at least 2018."

They've also gone all in on solar, having more installed capacity than any other nation. They're far from perfect, but they've started to acknowledge the problem at least.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#14

Post by leereeves »

strictnein wrote: post #10
jameskilton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused with this statement but I'll try to clear up something you seem to be missing. 1) China is already convinced. It's in the article. They are the world-leading user of solar power and are pushing harder than anyone to get away from dirty power. 2) Trump wants to push and invest in dirty power. He wants to significantly increase the production of coal and gas. The very stuff that causes global warming. Conv…

> are pushing harder than anyone to get away from dirty power. Where do you gather that from? They use more coal than the entirety of the rest of the world combined. Their coal usage has more than doubled over the past ~15 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environmen...

This is from your link:

> Now Beijing is trying to slow things down.

> In guidelines released on Monday, China halted plans for new coal-fired power stations in many parts of the country, and construction of some approved plants will be postponed until at least 2018.

Whether this will amount to anything, who can say?

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#16

Post by yellow_postit »

strictnein wrote: post #8
papercrane wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is convinced.[1] The American public is convinced, although not as much as they probably should be.[2][3][4] The problem here is to convince world leaders to actually do something. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-16/china-tell... [2] http://climatepublicopinion.stanford.edu/sample-page/opinion... [3] https://environment.yale.edu/poe/v2014/ [4] http://www.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-…

China is convinced? Then China should tell China to stop building coal power plants. They burn slightly more coal than the rest of the world combined. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environmen...

Despite setbacks China is also actively building up more nuclear capacity, something I wish was taken more seriously in the US http://energypost.eu/china-2016-year-nuclear-power/

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#17

Post by problems »

papercrane wrote: post #13
strictnein wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is convinced? Then China should tell China to stop building coal power plants. They burn slightly more coal than the rest of the world combined. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environmen...

> China is convinced? Then China should tell China to stop building coal power plants. You realise you're source says they're doing exactly that? "In guidelines released on Monday, China halted plans for new coal-fired power stations in many parts of the country, and construction of some approved plants will be postponed until at least 2018." They've also gone all in on solar, having more installed capacity than any…

Not only that, but they've taken all these steps while they're bringing hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty doing sustenance farming and into cities. Cities where they want things like electricity and cars. Look at the history of the world, development like that is usually fueled by burning as many hydrocarbons as possible. It's very good to see a country able now to at least start to break away from that. The rapidly dropping price of solar, thanks in large part to China plays a big role in that.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#18

Post by nyolfen »

strictnein wrote: post #10
jameskilton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused with this statement but I'll try to clear up something you seem to be missing. 1) China is already convinced. It's in the article. They are the world-leading user of solar power and are pushing harder than anyone to get away from dirty power. 2) Trump wants to push and invest in dirty power. He wants to significantly increase the production of coal and gas. The very stuff that causes global warming. Conv…

> are pushing harder than anyone to get away from dirty power. Where do you gather that from? They use more coal than the entirety of the rest of the world combined. Their coal usage has more than doubled over the past ~15 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/26/business/energy-environmen...

china's coal use peaked by 2014: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/20...

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#19

Post by mugdho »

yellow_postit wrote: post #12
mugdho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens to the indigenous population of animals (polar bears are the first that come to my mind) when this happens? Do they just die out or are there groups trying to get them to safety?

Outside of captivity, where would it be safe for arctic animals?

Probably nowhere. But the alternative to captivity is that we will just see entire species of animals go extinct.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#20

Post by maxxxxx »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #7
buckbova wrote: post #2

> According to research published last year, spending a day in Beijing is currently akin to smoking almost 40 cigarettes. Decoupling emissions from economic growth thus helps both people and planet. Convincing Mr Trump of this fact is now an urgent and daunting challenge. How is convincing Trump here the answer? Isn't convincing China more important? How about convincing the American people? Do this and politicians w…

We (the US) are in a good position to lead the renewables industry, and part of that is dogfooding what we make. But that dogfooding is harder if our domestic nonrenewable prices are low. Yes that means that, for now, those products aren't fully competitive. But they could get there with scale, and we get that scale by rolling them out domestically. It helps us build this industry in the long term. China is also jump…

The US would be in great position to take the lead here. For example, I don't understand why not every house in Southern California is covered with solar panels. Instead Trump's program seems to be to burn as much coal and oil as possible.
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