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Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

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Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#101

Post by tremon »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #64
Scarblac wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you yourself start talking about "the last decade", and now one or two centuries isn't long enough. You also say you think the last decade seemed colder, the reply you got was that 16 of the 17 hottest years since recording began were after 2000. But you ignore that part of the reply. You are working for the forces that want to stop our mitigation of the problem, you are the enemy.

Telling people "you are the enemy" certainly isn't going to win them over to your side.

True, but clearly labeling people as "the enemy" might help others decide who to believe.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#102

Post by 0xffff2 »

peeters wrote: post #93
Eurongreyjoy wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After moving to Europe I am completely on board with the simplicity of the metric system, however I do prefer the Fahrenheit scale for exactly the reason you described above. A human will face winter weather conditions from 0-32F which converts to negative values on the Celsius scale (not practical). On the other end of the spectrum for summer time conditions, there is a wider range of values to ascribe to changes in…

> there is a wider range of values to ascribe to changes in temperature from 60F-100F or approx 16-38C And why is that important? Are our bodies so finely tuned that it's important to know the difference between 104 and 105 F? Even in the less granular celsius, unless it's just about bragging rights everything is about brackets anyway. 30+: wear shorts and hydrate 20-30: comfortable in short sleeves 10-20: bring a li…

Am I missing something, or are we just adapted for very different climates? Freezing is "wear a sweater" to you? I don't own a winter coat, but if I did it would come out of the closet somewhere in the 5-10C range.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#103

Post by fallingfrog »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #49
fallingfrog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "global cooling" thing is just throwing sand in our eyes- and you know it. Everything you've heard about global warming has been true the whole time, and you haven't been listening. I keep trying to wrap my head around the worldview of someone whose commitment to ideology is so powerful that they are willing to condemn their grandchildren to such suffering. It has to be some kind of religious thing.

Everyone who said during the 1970s that we should be afraid of global cooling are the same people who now demand that we believe them on global warming. Oceanic thermocline: explain the data we have and the mathematical model we have to cover this phenomenon. You can't, because you don't actually know. You just blindly believe it, don't you?

Let me try another tack: I want you to examine your own beliefs. Let me guess, and tell me if I'm wrong. Doubtless I'm not 100% right about all this stuff, but think about these points honestly. This is based on my conversations with other climate change deniers.

-You believe that climate change is part of some global conspiracy to create a world government, or redistribute resources to countries where brown skinned people live.

-You believe that God promised Noah that He would never again flood the Earth, so rising seas can't happen.

-You believe that people who protest against industry actions are just rabble rousers who are trying to take power for themselves.

-You believe that the real motivation for talking about climate change is to destroy our traditional way of life.

Am I close?

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#104

Post by singularity2001 »

m_mueller wrote: post #27

I'm worried that this could be just 'the tip of the iceberg' [1]. I have a suspicion that even J. Hansen is still underestimating the issue. Just looking at [2] the variability of current estimates of stored methane is enormous - going from 10E2 to 5x10E4 Gigatonnes! Methane does greenhouse forcing 20-25x as strong as CO2 over 100 years, or as much as ~160x if you only count 10 years. Depending on how fast methane ge…

To end on an up note: if temperatures rise, the atmosphere will become (much) wetter, probably turning the Sahara into a fertile greenhouse again.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#105

Post by ajmurmann »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #78
glhaynes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people I know (Texas) couldn't live a productive life without a car. Some people certainly could but not most. Meat, though, they could definitely do without—and for most of them it'd be healthier.

Strange, I'd heard it was refined carbs and sugar giving America diabetes and heart disease. Are you saying it's meat now?

Red meat is known to increase risk of heart diseases.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#106

Post by avar »

adrianhel wrote: post #94
akuji1993 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As positive as we should paint this, when somebody does this, it doesn't at all solve the problem. Corporations and Governments need to be kept at a level that stops climate change, to make a difference. Citizens need a reeducation regarding meat, regarding travel, regarding transportation of goods and what the globalization does to the environment. The biggest change can only be triggered by either overthrowing the…

We need artificial meat. Research and production should be funded by meat taxation. We need environmentally friendly travel. Research and manufacturing should be funded by fossil fuel taxation. These tasks should be implemented using the boiling frog principle. Increase taxes and funding by ~1.5% per year until we have met a goal of 50/50% meat/artificial meat consumption and 50/50% fossil fuel/renewable fuel. At whi…

There shouldn't be any specific meat taxation, there should be a generic tax on carbon emissions, which would both the externalities of meat production, as well as other products.

If you just say tax meat by the kg you end up with stupid policies like discouraging UK customers from eating beef from New Zealand over domestic produce, even though importing it from abroad is more environmentally efficient (also counting for transport)[1].

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15506220

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#107

Post by ripsawridge »

mywittyname wrote: post #75
Shoh3pif wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, as a concerned citizen can do nothing against the corporations ruling our society Defenestrations, torches and pitchforks have been traditional solutions to rulers not acting in the interest of the populace. Of course more peaceful means are preferable but the option needs to be kept on the table to remember why we have and want democratic solutions in the first place.

This will happen. It's actually already happening in developing countries. The disruption of food supplies has been causing annual riots all over the world. The US has remained insulated from these effects by virtue of being relatively rich and relying on over-priced, highly processed foods that have enough margin to buffer against price shocks. But this is clearly an untenable situation. Shit goes south really fast…

I actually think this huge block of gun owners in America share a particular mindset with each other that means they'll become the local arm of the government in the hinterland.

Just as you always see affinity between police forces and right-wing activists, you'll see the government put on a face friendly to rural gun culture, and that group will be installed as enforcers.

So I don't buy this argument that the wide availability of guns in America in any way ensures a "Freedman's Paradise." It ensures more oppression, as the (expensive) arm of Federal power recedes.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#108

Post by m_mueller »

fallingfrog wrote: post #76
m_mueller wrote: post #27

I'm worried that this could be just 'the tip of the iceberg' [1]. I have a suspicion that even J. Hansen is still underestimating the issue. Just looking at [2] the variability of current estimates of stored methane is enormous - going from 10E2 to 5x10E4 Gigatonnes! Methane does greenhouse forcing 20-25x as strong as CO2 over 100 years, or as much as ~160x if you only count 10 years. Depending on how fast methane ge…

This is indeed worrisome, but the evidence I've heard suggests that it won't be as bad as +12C. Also the Earth was at +14C with respect to today at it's hottest point during the PETM, which was very bad for the earth, but life survived. The earth will one day reach a true runaway greenhouse when the sun brightens by 10% in about 1.1 billion years. But according to J. Hansen in 2013 a complete greenhouse runaway can't…

Didn’t Hansen state that burning all coal and oil sand would do it? I‘m always wondering how much methane is assumed to be mixed in, as the amount of methane to be released is poorly understood as pointed out above.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#109

Post by fallingfrog »

m_mueller wrote: post #108
fallingfrog wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed worrisome, but the evidence I've heard suggests that it won't be as bad as +12C. Also the Earth was at +14C with respect to today at it's hottest point during the PETM, which was very bad for the earth, but life survived. The earth will one day reach a true runaway greenhouse when the sun brightens by 10% in about 1.1 billion years. But according to J. Hansen in 2013 a complete greenhouse runaway can't…

Didn’t Hansen state that burning all coal and oil sand would do it? I‘m always wondering how much methane is assumed to be mixed in, as the amount of methane to be released is poorly understood as pointed out above.

Sorry, I should clarify: Hansen's paper indicated that burning all fossil fuels would create a 16 degree C warming, which would definitely be the end of the line for us, for reasons of heatstroke if nothing else, but in the same paper he does say that the temperature can't go up to Venus levels. So nature would eventually recover.

Re: Earth at risk of becoming 'hothouse' if tipping point reached, report warns

#110

Post by patrickg_zill »

PaulAJ wrote: post #57
patrickg_zill wrote: post #29

I have been hearing this since the mid 1980s. I wouldn't have heard of it before, because before then scientists were telling us that the climate was going to get a lot cooler...

Back in the 70s there was indeed a concern (no stronger than that) that we might have been heading for a new ice age over the next few centuries. That concern was based on the fact that we are in an interglacial period and ought to start thinking about how and when it might end, and what we might do about it. Ice ages and interglacials are caused by variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt, and calculations suggested…

Only a "concern"? This "concern" seems rather definitive and is on official letterhead.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DkAo-sWUwAAmZa7.jpg

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