51–60 of 242 posts
"Convincing Mr Trump of this fact is now an urgent and daunting challenge." By appointing Myron Ebell to lead the transition at the EPA, Mr Trump has made it clear he's made up his mind. Personnel is policy.
"Convincing Mr Trump of this fact is now an urgent and daunting challenge." By appointing Myron Ebell to lead the transition at the EPA, Mr Trump has made it clear he's made up his mind. Personnel is policy.
It comes down to the DOD having a serious talk with Trump. They have been taking it just as seriously as the EPA.
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/
well fortunately the Antarctic is gaining mass, so things happen. We are still only 12k years out an ice age and learning as we go. Natural variability is quite boring so it doesn't make headlines as much as it should. the real reality is that the Paris agreement is a horrid piece of do nothing legislation that lets the major developing powers do what they want all the while getting the nod of acceptance from the UN…
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-o...
> But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years -- I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”
> “The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”
It was gaining mass for a long, long time and that trend is reversing and it ultimately doesn't change the fact the sea level rise is still occurring despite the mass gain.
That isn't a 'so things happen' situation. It is a "Well, traditionally Antarctica gains X each year. The rate of this gain is offsetting the Y in losses for now but the rate of loss is accelerating and overall we are still losing ground regardless'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes trees are a perfect solution. They've optimized this process through millions of years of evolution. However, we're still removing more trees than adding them per year. Quite impressively so, even. It takes time for forests to grow. A lot of its carbon sink properties are because of soil succession, which takes decades to mature.
Who is "we"? I think the US is about equalized because industries like the the US paper industry plant about as many trees as we cut. If "we" is the world the lots of poor countries are unsustainably slash and burning. Starving people want to not die today so they make places to plant crops. If we is people afraid of the expanding growth of the Sahara southward then things like the great green wall are interesting: h…
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...
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JX41K2UK6Io/WCvyXQ6CFvI/AAAAAAAAW...
More info:
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/
well fortunately the Antarctic is gaining mass, so things happen. We are still only 12k years out an ice age and learning as we go. Natural variability is quite boring so it doesn't make headlines as much as it should. the real reality is that the Paris agreement is a horrid piece of do nothing legislation that lets the major developing powers do what they want all the while getting the nod of acceptance from the UN…
Some of us are learning more than others. Some of us have noticed that the Milankovich cycles, in particular the precession of the earth's perihelion versus the solstices, is right now COOLING the earth because it is favoring the southern hemisphere which has less mass.
"Convincing Mr Trump of this fact is now an urgent and daunting challenge." By appointing Myron Ebell to lead the transition at the EPA, Mr Trump has made it clear he's made up his mind. Personnel is policy.
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/
well fortunately the Antarctic is gaining mass, so things happen. We are still only 12k years out an ice age and learning as we go. Natural variability is quite boring so it doesn't make headlines as much as it should. the real reality is that the Paris agreement is a horrid piece of do nothing legislation that lets the major developing powers do what they want all the while getting the nod of acceptance from the UN…
Furthermore, neither surface area nor mass are a complete enough picture from which to draw conclusions due to the complex physics of calving and cliff collapse.
http://www.nature.com/news/antarctic-model-raises-prospect-o...
What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do?
He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to keep out southern populations fleeing extreme heat. But he'd keep the border with Canada open, so Americans can flee there if they need to. The oceans will protect us from the rest of the world.
He'd disentangle us from overseas treaty obligations that might draw us into wars we wouldn't otherwise want to fight. And he'd focus international relations on the few biggest countries who are most likely to secure and defend their own societies.
He'd incentivize U.S. companies to manufacture domestically: long supply chains are a risk.
He'd ramp up infrastructure spending--particularly on the coasts--to be ready to build sea walls and other mitigating structures.
He'd strengthen law enforcement to deal with internal unrest.
Like I said, I don't actually believe this...
EDIT: Another (and perhaps more likely) way to look at this is that Trump and his posse are just paranoid nuts, but by ignoring global warming, they will inadvertently bring about the global calamity that they fear.
