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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

#171

Post by grzm »

codecamper wrote: post #170
grzm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be cynical and view his clean tech investments as a capitalist assessing the market, independent of his beliefs in global warming. If enough people want clean tech for whatever reason (including false beliefs in climate change), investing in clean tech can be a smart move. That said, I did find a quote that indicates he cares about the environment. Thiel told the TechCrunch Disrupt crowd that "one potential r…

Thanks for posting this. I guess I was wrong to think he believes in global warming. He has made investments into clean tech along with Vinod Khosla however & did found that personal payments thing along with Elon. So. Maybe there is a chance for discussion? I'm hoping.

Me, too.

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

#172

Post by DennisP »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #161
DennisP wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First we'd have to stop the massive deforestation that's happening right now. A lot of that is for agriculture, so we'd have to find another way to feed those people. We might also want to stop clearcutting vast forests in the Southeastern U.S. to ship wood pellets to Europe, which burns them. Then we'd have to save the rest of our existing forests, many of which are struggling due to various effects of climate chang…

> First we'd have to stop the massive deforestation that's happening right now. A lot of that is for agriculture, so we'd have to find another way to feed those people. You speak about deforestation in the US, but there are more forests in the United States now than there were at the time of the Revolutionary War.

Overall, and in the part you quoted, I mean globally.

I did mention the southeastern U.S., because burning wood for fuel doesn't help the global situation, no matter where it's done, even if there's more forest elsewhere in the particular country where it's harvested.

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

#173

Post by stouset »

mike10010100 wrote: post #96
stouset wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4˙C is already reaching an extinction-level event for humanity.

Not really for humanity directly. We'd survive. But the plants and animals we depend on probably wouldn't have a very good time, and our biodiversity as a planet would significantly decrease. Not quite extinction level, perhaps another Great Dying, though.

> We'd survive. But the plants and animals we depend on probably wouldn't have a very good time...

I'm not sure how you can reconcile these two adjacent statements.

Yes, some humans would undoubtedly exist somewhere. But only a tiny fraction of our current world population.

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

#174

Post by mmel »

tzs wrote: post #154
mzw_mzw wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post spammy messages like this on HN.

In a discussion of climate change, on a subdiscussion about whether or not the DoD can convince Trump that it is real, how exactly is posting a list of a large number of Trump's tweets on climate change "spammy"?

I think 5 of the most egregious tweets would have been sufficient.

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

#175

Post by JimboOmega »

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/

There's a spin-off forum neven moderates (well, sometimes): forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/board,3.0.html

It's a bit slow in the freezing season, even this completely out of control one, and can often degenerate into ridiculous arguments between a few posters.

But just in case... if there's any Sea Ice geeks in SF, I'd love to talk about it in person!

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

#176

Post by mmel »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #118
snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: 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…

No, Trump is not the God-Emperor of Mankind and does not possess century-level prescience. You can totally make a decent science fiction novel out of this, though.

There is already fanfiction depicting Donald Trump as Warhammer 40,000's Emperor of The Imperium of Man.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=donald+trump+warham...

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

#177

Post by EdSharkey »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #157
snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: 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…

> But he'd keep the border with Canada open, so Americans can flee there if they need to. See, this kind of loopy apocalypse-mongering is why you guys are having such a hard time persuading average voters that your cause is legit. Under what possible worst-case scenario are Americans going to need to "flee" to Canada? Is that one-foot ocean rise over the next hundred years going to flood the United States all the way…

I believe "stop pollution" was always the goal and they had to crank the message to alarmist levels to get any traction.

As technology progresses and we get better at keeping our local environments clean, I predict their predictions will become increasingly dire. These doomsday warnings are just a sign that we're improving.

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

#178

Post by jacobolus »

enraged_camel wrote: post #121
NumberCruncher wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral is a human construct and as such it is subjective. Anyhow, I said that the life on earth survived a couple of disastrous events and still flourishes. Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. There were times when there wasn't any coast at all, or it was somewhere else. And does it really make a difference? You won't see anything of the war of resources except you live for 200 years. You may ta…

>>Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. Life may flourish, but many lives won't. >>And does it really make a difference? It does make a huge difference to the 44 percent of humanity that lives on coastal areas.

I think the point is that after the extinction of humans and a large proportion of existing species on earth, life itself will continue and the next few million years will result in speciation to adapt to new niches on a planet with radically different climate.

I don’t understand how anyone finds this comforting, however.

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

#179

Post by flukus »

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?

The antarctic maybe. Though interfering with native ecosystems has never ended well.

On the plus side, we get bi-polar bears.

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

#180

Post by flukus »

cool_look wrote: post #101
jackmott wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is an Antarctic ice sheet that is gaining mass. As a whole, Antarctica is losing ice mass. As is the case for global ice mass balance. Chart of satellite gravity measurements for Antarctica: http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Antarctica_Ice_Mass.g...

so that chart is from 2003 - 2009 ... and that is evidence of what exactly? 6 samples of a multi century phenomenon and you are ringing an alarm bell ! the chart smacks more of searching around for a chart that shows a decline to prop up the "ice is in trouble narrative". ice extent ( recovered from 2008/12 ) , ice age ( recovered again from 2012 ), ice thickness ( recovered ), ice refreeze date ( recovered ), polar…

Can you provide a citations that Antarctica as a whole is gaining ice mass?
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