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We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

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Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#111

Post by toyg »

snarf21 wrote: post #105
toyg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, I strongly doubt anybody would be seriously impacted by that aquifer outside of North America. This said, anything that turns Americans angrier is a security risk for the rest of the world.

The US contributes almost 15% of the global wheat exports and 60% of US soybeans go to China. I'm not saying it will end the world but I can't see how it won't have an impact.

One of those stats is not like the other, but regardless, 15% is the sort of impact that rises prices, increasing the search for alternatives, rather than leading to “mass starvation”.

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#112

Post by KirinDave »

charlieflowers wrote: post #42
dagss wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations on wild predictions in past not being correct?

I'm not GP, but there are plenty of examples of doomsday prophets predicting the tribulation, or the rapture, or some other form of the end of the world.

Okay, but what reasonable level of evidence and plausibility hasn't been passed for global warming? At this point, what else would it take a reasonable person to see the danger of the situation we're in?

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#113

Post by mcv »

challenger22 wrote: post #98
mcv wrote: post #84

The title is very misleading. There is no hard deadline to save ourselves from climate change, or if there is, we already passed it. We're currently at the point were every year we continue doing nothing, means it takes multiple years (decades? centuries?) to recover from the accumulated effects. Permanent ice is already melting, climate is already changing. Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we…

>Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we can't), there would still be too much CO2 in the atmosphere for some time, leading to further heating and longer melting Do you have any data on this? If you look at how quickly things cool off at night, Earth's biosphere reaches steady-state thermal equilibrium over the course of a few days. Your claim is essentially that we've already set off an albedo fo…

Well, the CO2 in our atmosphere is too high, and it's been built up over the course of more than a century. It won't immediately drop back to normal levels even if we did somehow manage to stop producing any CO2 at all.

At night the temperature drops not due to a lack of CO2, but due to a lack of sunlight. If we were to be able to partially block the sun, or reflect significantly more sunlight back into space, we would indeed be able to lose heat more more quickly, but that would require engineering on a scale we've never done before.

So sure, paint the entire Earth white, but how? Or build a giant solar screen in space, but again: how? Besides, blocking sunlight will also have many negative repercussions.

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#114

Post by mcv »

timw4mail wrote: post #18

...the Maldives are under water, and half of Florida doesn't exist any more. Oh, wait, that's not the case. Assuming that assertion is true, though, 4 or 5 years is not enough time for anything to realistically be done. I assert that in 20 years we'll still not see the supposed effects though.

There's a massive difference between time to act, and time until we see the effects. By the time we do see the effects of global worming, it will be far too late to do anything about it.

(And we're already seeing some effects.)

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#115

Post by Mithriil »

challenger22 wrote: post #98
mcv wrote: post #84

The title is very misleading. There is no hard deadline to save ourselves from climate change, or if there is, we already passed it. We're currently at the point were every year we continue doing nothing, means it takes multiple years (decades? centuries?) to recover from the accumulated effects. Permanent ice is already melting, climate is already changing. Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we…

>Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we can't), there would still be too much CO2 in the atmosphere for some time, leading to further heating and longer melting Do you have any data on this? If you look at how quickly things cool off at night, Earth's biosphere reaches steady-state thermal equilibrium over the course of a few days. Your claim is essentially that we've already set off an albedo fo…

I do remember a paper from Pr. Jem Bendell, from the Institute of Leadership and Sustainability, who did a nice litterature review on the subject:

www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#116

Post by mcv »

_red wrote: post #36
artimaeis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of Earth's history made it a completely uninhabitable place for humans. Seems like it would be in our combined best interest to prevent it from becoming that way again.

+2.5C increase will render earth uninhabitable? Or will it upset insurance coverage of high dollar coast lines?

Have you ever watched the news and heard about a refugee crisis? Imagine that but a thousand time worse.

Most of the world's major population centers are near the coast. With significant sea level rise, those people will move. We're not merely talking about millions of refugees here, but possibly a billion. Put your mind to work and imagine what that will do.

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#117

Post by toyg »

mcv wrote: post #109
toyg wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale is different, and when it comes to societal acceptance, scale is everything. “We need to stop all industry tomorrow or ice will melt!” Vs “Ice will melt. We need to close a few of the worst-impacting plants so it melts a bit slower and gives us time to figure out where we might need dams. Everybody else, as you were.” The first proposition has no chance whatsoever to be taken seriously. I understand Overton…

The problem is: the second one is not going to be enough. Closing a few plants won't do it. We need to dramatically change how we generate our energy. Figuring out where we might need dams may be enough for the next couple decades, but if ice caps continue to melt, dams are never going to be able to stop 60 m of sea level rise. Melting slower is not enough. And at the moment, it's only going to melt faster because we…

> Melting slower is not enough.

Well, we've already accepted that it's the only realistic option, because 4 years is not enough to do anything else.

If you really think that, then you should just buy a canoe today.

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#118

Post by mcv »

toyg wrote: post #117
mcv wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is: the second one is not going to be enough. Closing a few plants won't do it. We need to dramatically change how we generate our energy. Figuring out where we might need dams may be enough for the next couple decades, but if ice caps continue to melt, dams are never going to be able to stop 60 m of sea level rise. Melting slower is not enough. And at the moment, it's only going to melt faster because we…

> Melting slower is not enough. Well, we've already accepted that it's the only realistic option, because 4 years is not enough to do anything else. If you really think that, then you should just buy a canoe today.

A canoe won't do you much good.

And even getting it to melt slower than it's currently doing requires more effort than we're currently putting into this. We can and should do way more than is currently happening.

I am utterly disgusted by this literal "apres moi le deluge" attitude.

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#119

Post by Kaiyou »

mcv wrote: post #109
toyg wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale is different, and when it comes to societal acceptance, scale is everything. “We need to stop all industry tomorrow or ice will melt!” Vs “Ice will melt. We need to close a few of the worst-impacting plants so it melts a bit slower and gives us time to figure out where we might need dams. Everybody else, as you were.” The first proposition has no chance whatsoever to be taken seriously. I understand Overton…

The problem is: the second one is not going to be enough. Closing a few plants won't do it. We need to dramatically change how we generate our energy. Figuring out where we might need dams may be enough for the next couple decades, but if ice caps continue to melt, dams are never going to be able to stop 60 m of sea level rise. Melting slower is not enough. And at the moment, it's only going to melt faster because we…

How do you propose to fix this problem?

Re: We Have Four Years to Save Ourselves from Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

#120

Post by hashberry »

challenger22 wrote: post #98
mcv wrote: post #84

The title is very misleading. There is no hard deadline to save ourselves from climate change, or if there is, we already passed it. We're currently at the point were every year we continue doing nothing, means it takes multiple years (decades? centuries?) to recover from the accumulated effects. Permanent ice is already melting, climate is already changing. Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we…

>Even if we completely stop emitting CO2 right now (which we can't), there would still be too much CO2 in the atmosphere for some time, leading to further heating and longer melting Do you have any data on this? If you look at how quickly things cool off at night, Earth's biosphere reaches steady-state thermal equilibrium over the course of a few days. Your claim is essentially that we've already set off an albedo fo…

https://climate.nasa.gov/ has lots of data.

"Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, global warming would continue to happen for at least several more decades, if not centuries. That’s because it takes a while for the planet (for example, the oceans) to respond, and because carbon dioxide – the predominant heat-trapping gas – lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years."[0]

[0] https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/16/is-it-too-late-to-prevent-cl...

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