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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

#181

Post by crpatino »

rybosome wrote: post #167
mike10010100 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Not really for humanity directly...perhaps another Great Dying, though. It seems hard to believe that such a drastic shock to our planet won't trigger panic and resource wars which have the potential to finish us off.

A great decrease in population, yes. That is different from extintion.

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

#182

Post by flukus »

ced wrote: post #89
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…

recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects I see this sentiment a lot on HN these days. What's the reasoning behind it? If the temperature in my room increases, I'll go from feeling uncomfortable, to sweating profusely, to fainting, to death. Is there any scientific reason to believe that, say, a 4C increase gives us horrible outcomes, but a 8C increase will be "not much worse"?

It's a sentiment that I'm unfortunately starting to accept. I don't think we are in a position as a society to act properly on climate change.

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

#183

Post by hnsucks2 »

DennisP wrote: post #107
sqeaky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon sequestering is not as hard as it would seem. We have several technologies, but we can also just plant trees.

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 say that like we couldn't just let them starve. If their descendants are going to be wiped out by global warming anyway what's the difference?

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

#184

Post by flukus »

spacehacker wrote: post #109
dharma1 wrote: post #56

This graph of global sea ice area is kind of alarming: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JX41K2UK6Io/WCvyXQ6CFvI/AAAAAAAAW... More info: http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/

Fortunately, sea ice does not contribute much to the sea level because it displaces about the same volume it will add when melted.

Depends on where it's coming from. Some of those increases are because of on land glaciers thinning and spreading over the ocean.

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

#185

Post by crpatino »

blueprint wrote: post #108
ced wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects I see this sentiment a lot on HN these days. What's the reasoning behind it? If the temperature in my room increases, I'll go from feeling uncomfortable, to sweating profusely, to fainting, to death. Is there any scientific reason to believe that, say, a 4C increase gives us horrible outcomes, but a 8C increase will be "not much worse"?

The answer lies in the fact that the amount of heat to get the surface of the Earth from 1 -> 3°C is not so huge, but when the amounts of heat to get the surface temperature to 4-6° exists in the Earth there will be tremendous tectonic activity.

Not sure about tectonic activity, but definitively more extreme weather events. Each 1°C increase does not mean that the whole atmosphere goes a little up uniformly, but that in general there's much more energy available to make stronger storms, more tornadoes, etc, and mess up with established climatic patterns.

Not Global Warming, but Global Weirding.

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

#186

Post by [deleted] »

hnsucks2 wrote: post #183
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 say that like we couldn't just let them starve. If their descendants are going to be wiped out by global warming anyway what's the difference?

[deleted]

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

#187

Post by maxerickson »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #112
mordocai wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Representative Democracy yeah. The people voted in Trump who now gets to appoint those positions.

>The people voted in Trump Well no. The people voted in Clinton, and the Electoral College upweighted some votes and downweighted others in a way that favors Trump. The EC once had a distinct purpose, but right now just seems to give Republicans a structural advantage, to the ultimate detriment of Democrats and Democrat-leaners in small or rural states.

A whole bunch of states turned on a few hundred thousand votes. It's hard to sell that as a structural advantage. The Republicans have probably paid more attention to the dynamics of it.

I agree that it is not healthy that ~10-12 states have higher importance in the presidential election, but it would be rather similar in a straight popular election.

An intermediate step would be to increase the size of the House of Representatives.

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

#188

Post by colemickens »

blondie9x wrote: post #132
colemickens wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that would go over any better though? It's not like any of his cabinet picks have been surprising to anyone paying attention to his rhetoric and stances during the election.

I don't think climate was discussed in any of the presidential debates. It was a topic that was hardly even addressed. Most of discussion focused on ad hominem you did this or that. Most Americans want action on climate by a pretty wide margin. I double this person would be elected if it was put to a vote.

He has explicitly and repeatedly said it's a Chinese hoax...

And he wants to dismantle the Paris Agreement.

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

#189

Post by pas »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #158
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Eating less meat or a carbon tax (i.e taxing the working poor) is not a solution. The poor emit disproportionately little CO2. A carbon tax mostly taxes industry.

> A carbon tax mostly taxes industry. And the poor never purchase anything that was made by using industry, so they certainly wouldn't have the costs passed on to them or anything.

Thus the poor will change what they buy. Substitution works.

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

#190

Post by pas »

EdSharkey wrote: post #177
mzw_mzw wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Or, you know, that things are getting dire. We shall see who was right though.
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