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We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

scientificamerican.com

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Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#191

Post by DiThi »

alphapapa wrote: post #168
losteric wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infiltration? Espionage? lol seriously? The Republicans shamelessly flaunt their positions and policies. Dishonesty and deception? Again, lolwut. Parties are collections of people, they do not stand for specific ideas. Anyone that gets on the Republican membership list is, by definition, a Republican. Example A: Trump. Signing up to a different party sounds exactly like what you're describing. Open the door to intell…

I don't know how you expect me to take you seriously with "lolwut." But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt once. > The Republicans shamelessly flaunt their positions and policies. What is the point of this statement? Do you mean to say that Democrats don't do that? Or is it okay that they do, because you agree with them? In which case it's entirely hypocritical to say that, criticizing your opponents for doing ex…

> What is the point of this statement?

I think he means that it's not spying or infiltration when the data is already there for everyone to see. It's about influence on one area that will affect the whole human species, not just one country, and people (esp politicians) are still very misinformed about the issue. It's about informing everyone, just the opposite of spying.

> am I participating honestly in the political process?

You make it sound bad, but it's a much better proposition than what it is actually happening: People don't discuss politics, they fight it. It's not treated as a complex set of opinions that have to be reasoned over, but as a sport teams [0].

Furthermore, the way the voting system is designed, there won't be true parties in a specific position, but they're always reduced to two catch-all options with a very wide and overlapping set of opinions among their members, basically resulting in everybody be unsatisfied with the result [1].

And the point of the parent is that, since politics are broken, one can contribute to work around it from within. In fact parties evolve this way. The party of Obama was white supremacist related to KKK, and the party of Trump was Lincoln's which freed the slaves of the south. That sounds backwards, doesn't it? It's as if politics wasn't made of two opposing opinions, but of hundreds. (edit: snowwrestler above said it better, parties are not elected, are not part of the constitution and there's nothing inherently wrong or dishonest in trying to change them from within)

Climate change is not inherently anti-republican or anti-capitalist. The debate is whether to believe it or not, and it is absurd because there is a lot of evidence that it is happening. Humans heavily relied on a stable climate for ~15,000 years to create civilization and still relies on it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pS4x8hXQ5c

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#192

Post by yongjik »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #185
yongjik wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get to say "The Earth will be fine" in one thread and then commiserate with a Bangladeshi peasant in another thread just because you find it convenient. Choose your pick.

1. What makes you think that "the Earth" and "human beings" are synonymous? 2. You don't get to advocate the end of fossil fuels by spreading disaster scenarios while ignoring the very real human costs that would result from what you are advocating.

1. They are not, hence your stance is disingenuous. The death of millions would be a statistical blip in geological timescale. By saying "The Earth will be fine," you are saying you don't find millions of deaths and suffering to be important enough to warrant a solution. And then when someone proposes a solution, because you don't like it, you bring out your hypothetical Bangladeshi farmer.

2. If you want to talk about "real human costs" of climate policy, you might want to pick a country that is not built upon a coastal flood plain that is routinely flooded[1]: Bangladesh is going to be among the countries hit hardest by climate change[2].

It makes me suspect that you don't care about human costs at all. On the other hand it did help me writing this rebuttal, so I guess all is well after all.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Bangladesh

> In 1998, over 75% of the total area of the country was flooded, including half of the capital city Dhaka. ... 30 million people were made homeless and the death toll reached over a thousand.

[2] Same page

> The difference between historical and projected average temperatures each season throughout the world has revealed that harvests from major staple crops could drop by 40 percent by the end of the 21st century due to high temperatures in the growing seasons.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#193

Post by PakG1 »

epistasis wrote: post #123
gooserock wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone have ideas on how a mid-career software developer can switch gears into the clean energy/climate change industry, to do something to help It's easy. - Stop flying. - Eat less meat. - Buy less stuff. - Use less energy.

This is not a personal responsibility problem, it's a societal priority problem. Living "virtuously" only changes your own impact. We need to change impact globally. We need to make jets that run on biofuels or synthetic fuels. We need to change our energy systems to be carbon neutral. We need to help the developing start using carbon neutral technologies directly, without going through a fossil fuel phase. These are…

We need to make jets that run on biofuels or synthetic fuels.

That's an issue of sustainability, not climate change. Those subjects are related but not interchangeable. I don't have the latest data, but I do recall various biofuels having a greater carbon impact than various fossil fuels a few years ago. If the situation has changed, great. But we need to remember that sustainable resources and climate friendly resources are not necessarily the same thing.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#194

Post by bjelkeman-again »

dirtyaura wrote: post #134
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I co-founded a SaaS data startup ten years ago, focused on international development. Most of our work is currently climate mitigation related (water, agriculture, poverty reduction) but also used in sustainable energy, like tracking small scale biogas production. The whole international development field is a USD 130 Bn/year industry, and there may be another USD 100 Bn coming in climate mitigation/renewables. They…

How did you contact customers, learn more about the field? Did you have prior experience in the field?

A couple of the co-founders worked in the sector already and had a broad network which we tapped into. I didn't have prior experience, but I did take a break before this and studied for a degree in environmental science, which is also how I found those co-founders. Went to a policy conference a few times which deals with water issues and was frustrated about how primitive the IT use was, expressed it during a Q&A session and met one of the co-founders as a result.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#195

Post by Turing_Machine »

yongjik wrote: post #192
Turing_Machine wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. What makes you think that "the Earth" and "human beings" are synonymous? 2. You don't get to advocate the end of fossil fuels by spreading disaster scenarios while ignoring the very real human costs that would result from what you are advocating.

1. They are not, hence your stance is disingenuous. The death of millions would be a statistical blip in geological timescale. By saying "The Earth will be fine," you are saying you don't find millions of deaths and suffering to be important enough to warrant a solution. And then when someone proposes a solution, because you don't like it, you bring out your hypothetical Bangladeshi farmer. 2. If you want to talk abo…

"The death of millions would be a statistical blip in geological timescale."

Well, I actually do care about people. So, there's that.

"In 1998, over 75% of the total area of the country was flooded, including half of the capital city Dhaka. ... 30 million people were made homeless and the death toll reached over a thousand."

That's sad, all right. How many routinely died in famines before the advent of modern, high-energy, mechanized agriculture?

Hint: a lot more than a thousand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bengal_famine_of_1770

Try ten million. And that was just one such event. They were routine in the days before mechanized agriculture and mechanized food transport. Happened all the time. Note that the article tries to blame this on the British (and they do appear to have been rather callous), but the primary cause was the failure of the monsoon. Nowadays if a monsoon fails you can truck in food from somewhere else. You can't do that without fossil fuels or some equivalent. Not to any real degree.

"It makes me suspect that you don't care about human costs at all. "

I'm not the one who wants to sentence the bulk of the human race to a preindustrial scenario involving periodic mass starvation. So, no.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#197

Post by Turing_Machine »

mark-r wrote: post #190
Turing_Machine wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans don't start to show negative effects until the CO2 level in air reaches at least 2,000 ppm (and some won't show any effects until about 5,000 ppm). That's around 4 times the "threshold" that the article is concerned about. Humans will also be fine.

Yes, we'll be safe from the direct effects of CO2 increases. But the indirect effects could be much more severe. That's the interesting part of the problem, we don't have accurate models of all the side effects. Ecosystems are complicated and fragile.

"But the indirect effects could be much more severe."

Or they could make things better.

"That's the interesting part of the problem, we don't have accurate models of all the side effects."

In fact, we do know that the CO2 level of the earth's atmosphere has been much higher in the past, and that this didn't produce anything like the "all life on earth dies" scenario that the doomsayers keep touting.

"Ecosystems are complicated and fragile."

The ecosystem survived the Chicxulub event, dude. It's not going to be knocked out by 410 ppm of CO2.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#198

Post by PakG1 »

mark-r wrote: post #186
Turing_Machine wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that is universally ignored in this type of hysteria-promoting article is that all of the carbon in fossil fuels used to be in the atmosphere. Every atom of it. That's why they're called "fossil fuels". Guess what? The earth was just fine.

And the Earth will be just fine after us humans have ceased to exist. As humans I think we should be concerned just a little.

Let's be honest. Climate science also needs to decide if it will be anthropocentric or not. As harsh as it sounds, if science is not supposed to be anthropocentric, then it doesn't matter to science if humanity becomes extinct or suffers. By definition. So if climate science is going to make human suffering or survival the key important issue, it should completely discard any language that it's about the earth and environment, and discard any pretense that it's not trying to be anthropocentric.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#199

Post by snowwrestler »

alphapapa wrote: post #143
tzs wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If in the US I'd suggest getting politically active. It will take long enough even according to the pessimistic models (assuming we don't hit some doomsday scenario like the clathrate gun) for things to actually get noticeably bad [1] that a lot of people will choose short term profit over long term fixing the climate. That means that to seriously get things done soon is going to require government action, and that m…

Just to be clear, you're advocating dishonesty and deception--essentially, infiltration, a tactic used in espionage. This lies in stark contrast to the idea that progress comes by openly researching, and debating, and convincing one's opponents with reasoned arguments and evidence. If you have to deceive people to win, are you really "on the right side"? Or is everyone else just so stupid that you have no choice? You…

There is nothing deceptive about trying to take over a political party. It is in fact exactly how political parties work. The Tea Party accomplished a partial takeover of the GOP in 2010, and Bernie Sanders is working on the Democrats still.

Political parties belong to whoever tries the hardest to run them.

Re: We Just Breached the 410 PPM Threshold for CO2

#200

Post by snowwrestler »

alphapapa wrote: post #168
losteric wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infiltration? Espionage? lol seriously? The Republicans shamelessly flaunt their positions and policies. Dishonesty and deception? Again, lolwut. Parties are collections of people, they do not stand for specific ideas. Anyone that gets on the Republican membership list is, by definition, a Republican. Example A: Trump. Signing up to a different party sounds exactly like what you're describing. Open the door to intell…

I don't know how you expect me to take you seriously with "lolwut." But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt once. > The Republicans shamelessly flaunt their positions and policies. What is the point of this statement? Do you mean to say that Democrats don't do that? Or is it okay that they do, because you agree with them? In which case it's entirely hypocritical to say that, criticizing your opponents for doing ex…

> If I, as a citizen, register as a member of Party A, and vote in their primaries for candidates that lean toward my preferences--and then, come election time, go to the polls and vote for the candidate of Party B, as I intended to from the beginning--am I participating honestly in the political process? Or am I pretending to be a member of Party A so I can influence Party A to reduce the difference between the parties?

Political parties do not exist in the governing structure of the U.S. As proof, I'll ask you to please go read the Constitution, then come back and point out the parts about political parties. No rush; I'll wait.

Back? Ok, so now hopefully you realize that in the U.S., we elect people, not parties. Partisan primaries, as elections funded by the government, should not even exist at all--they are a corruption of the system.

So hand-wringing about how people vote in primaries and interact with political parties is silly. Political parties can't be corrupted. There is nothing pure to preserve.

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