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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

#141

Post by mcv »

challenger22 wrote: post #133
hashberry wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.go…

Interesting, thanks. The mechanisms that cause such a delayed temperature response are still opaque though, figure I gotta read more in-depth technical stuff to really understand.

The delayed response is because the temperature rise isn't merely caused by the carbon we've emitted this year, but by all the carbon that has been accumulating in the atmosphere over the past 100 years. Carbon isn't instantly removed from the atmosphere when we stop burning it, so it's going to stay around for a long time. Plants absorb it, but we've been burning more carbon than plants can absorb for a long time.

And for all the time that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere, the atmosphere will continue to trap more heat from the sun, and temperatures will continue to rise.

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

#142

Post by gdubs »

Izkata wrote: post #140
gdubs wrote: post #130

The “we’ve been hearing scare stories for decades” argument is akin to “I’ve been driving drunk without my seatbelt for a decade and people keep saying I’ll die, but I haven’t yet.” For many, many people, the dire warnings have come true. Entire towns were erased by fire in Northern California last year. Severe storms are racking up billions and billions of dollars in damage every year — and entire islands have been…

> The amount of corn planted in the Midwest for the time of year is off the charts, due to freakish weather. Either you found different reports than me, or you're using "off the charts" wrong. It means "too high/too much to measure"; the crop situation is actually lower than normal due to flooding.

Clunky phrasing — I meant off the normal curve. In this case, obviously meaning much lower than what’s typical for this time of year.

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

#143

Post by AstralStorm »

mcv wrote: post #141
challenger22 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks. The mechanisms that cause such a delayed temperature response are still opaque though, figure I gotta read more in-depth technical stuff to really understand.

The delayed response is because the temperature rise isn't merely caused by the carbon we've emitted this year, but by all the carbon that has been accumulating in the atmosphere over the past 100 years. Carbon isn't instantly removed from the atmosphere when we stop burning it, so it's going to stay around for a long time. Plants absorb it, but we've been burning more carbon than plants can absorb for a long time. A…

And that's just CO2. Plants cannot readily absorb methane for example, where you have to rely only on physical processes or our own ingenuity.

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

#144

Post by AstralStorm »

mcv wrote: post #118
toyg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is made worse because it's the ultimate commons problem: nobody is paying, everyone is suffering the costs. At least the people who uttered this stupidity paid for it and dearly, and damage was prevented.

(Albeit a calamity followed.)

This time, the scale and stakes are much bigger, potentially extinction level.

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

#145

Post by AstralStorm »

goatlover wrote: post #106
Frondo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has always been a market for mass-market doomsday prediction material; whether religious or secular. A population bomb leading to famine has never been the result of prolonged scientific discussion, just one guy's theories (published in book form, which is subject to editorial review but not peer review), and saying "this is a prediction that someone made that was false" is true but unhelpful. Anyone can make a…

It's not that nothing is knowable, it's that predicting the future is hard and easy to get wrong, particularly with something as complex as civilization, since humans adapt and civilization changes. The same applies to the biosphere as well. Saying for example that polar bears will go extinct or coral will all die off is ignoring the possibility that some bears and coral will adapt to the warmer world. We can't be su…

Usually the life responds by getting extinct, as seen in so many species lately. What makes you think humans are special? Do you expect speciation for a change that will take less than 100 years? Technological evolution on an unprecedented scale?

Because this is what it is going to take. Not even going underground en masse will work and that is essentially the most extreme social change I can see. (Even more extreme than space travel, cars, internet.)

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

#146

Post by AstralStorm »

foolzcrow wrote: post #5
stackola wrote: post #3

I remember Al Gore saying we got 10 years in 2006. In fact this type of rhetoric has been going on for centuries. [1] [1] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/08/the-ever-receding-cli...

They are an apocalyptic death cult. The end is nigh submit to the elite or forever perish. How is submitting to the 1% going to save earth? They used to say by the end of the century. Year after year their predictions fail and the cult marches on.

Show us where these predictions fail or that's beneficial to elites who actually want status quo.

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

#147

Post by Kaiyou »

KirinDave wrote: post #127
Kaiyou wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any of the predictions in regard to global warming for the last few decades affecting my personal life would have come true, that would have been a start. In reality, nothing much changed the last past decades, so I don't expect change for the coming decades, either. It's also a case where the disease seems easier to live with than the cure.

Several of them are in the process of coming through right now. The Arctic ice is going, and the Antarctic ice is getting smaller consistently. Sea levels are in fact rising although we're in the early phases of this. ocean temperatures are rising and that's leading to widespread climate instability. These were predictions, and they are now coming true. They've been verified via a variety of methodologies. You're ins…

I've heard the same things two decades ago and I didn't notice anything bad happening to me in relation to global warming.

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

#148

Post by Kaiyou »

mcv wrote: post #123
Kaiyou wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose to fix this problem?

Dramatically reduce the amount of CO2 we produce. That's not going to prevent all problems, but if we do enough, it will prevent the worst problems. We really need to aim at zero CO2 production. We will fall short of that goal, but everything will help slow things down, and eventually bring temperatures back to what they were, after natural plant growth has gotten the time needed to remove CO2 from the air again. Onc…

How do you propose we reduce CO2 production to zero?

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

#149

Post by piva00 »

worldsayshi wrote: post #126
stareatgoats wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> global temperatures would slowly revert to normal I share your concern regarding the gravity of the situation, and that a whole battery of efforts need to be made in order to mitigate the effects of current global warming. But I wish intelligent people would refrain from supporting the notion that there is any kind of "normal" regarding the climate. There is no such thing. We have enjoyed a climate favorable to hum…

> But I wish intelligent people would refrain from supporting the notion that there is any kind of "normal" regarding the climate. There is no such thing. While I agree that that is true for a sufficiently long timescale, the rate of change that we force on the world right now does make it look like we're changing the normal.

I believe if we refrain to refer to it as "normal" and use "the current balance" it would be more precise.

And yup, we are changing that fast, not as fast as a supervolcano of the past or an asteroid impact but not so many orders of magnitude away from it, even more considering geological scales.

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

#150

Post by goatlover »

AstralStorm wrote: post #145
goatlover wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that nothing is knowable, it's that predicting the future is hard and easy to get wrong, particularly with something as complex as civilization, since humans adapt and civilization changes. The same applies to the biosphere as well. Saying for example that polar bears will go extinct or coral will all die off is ignoring the possibility that some bears and coral will adapt to the warmer world. We can't be su…

Usually the life responds by getting extinct, as seen in so many species lately. What makes you think humans are special? Do you expect speciation for a change that will take less than 100 years? Technological evolution on an unprecedented scale? Because this is what it is going to take. Not even going underground en masse will work and that is essentially the most extreme social change I can see. (Even more extreme…

> Usually the life responds by getting extinct, as seen in so many species lately.

Do you have a count of how many have gone extinct in the past decade?

> What makes you think humans are special?

Our brains. And yes, technology and science. Humans are extremely adaptable. Our ancestors survived an ice age with stone aged tech and spread around the world to live in all sorts of environments.

> Not even going underground en masse will work

LOL, what? Who is saying that the Earth will become so hot that we won't be able to survive on the surface? You think 3-4°C is going to have that effect?

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