It seems that global methane levels have been increasing drastically in the past decade, I wish more discussion of global warming focused on the effects of fracking and use of natural gas.
Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
161–170 of 251 posts
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not going to change my mind just because of mindless downvotes. If you want to show that global warming could cause the end of the human race, you have to give some plausible argument.
I think there's a difference in what people consider "bad" - millions or billions dying from disaster or their regions becoming uninhabitable isn't the extinction the human race, but for me it's at the threshold of "bad" that I'd like to do something about it. Am I worried about all the human race being eradicated? No, we're cockroaches. But I'd rather untold numbers don't have to suffer.
When this thread started it was about existential threats. Few people would argue that ten degrees celsius isn't likely to be a huge disaster.
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#163Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…
There is much debate in this thread about which approach is best for combating global warming. It is plainly obvious that large scale policy efforts will need to happen at some point. This is the “top down” approach delivered by collective political action.
But there also ought to be a bottoms up culture change which encourages humans to recognize and self-limit their own impact. The world is too populous that our own actions won’t impact others at the new scale humanity exists. We won’t have political action without some parts or hopefully all of the culture embracing limits on our behavior. I don’t think these two approaches are mutually exclusive.
To address the parent comment here: Calling strangers bad people is very seldom a fruitful rhetorical approach, and I would advise against it. But individual action will end up being required someday; might as well start practicing today.
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#164It's already too late. It's unfortunate that we didn't understand what was happening 100 years ago, if we did we might have been able to do something about it, but as it stands right now, we can't even slow down what's already been set into motion. The earth is now changing, it's not just the climate, and the earth changes will drive the climate, the feedback loop has started.
Unless someone can invent a technology in the next 5 years to pull the excess greenhouse gases from the upper atmosphere and take us back to pre-1825 levels and keep us there going forward, this is a lost game.
It's like standing on top of the Empire State building and watching a balling ball go over the edge, we are at the point where the majority of the ball's mass has gone past the balancing point. We are close enough to recognize that it's happening but too far away to stop it from falling.
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#165Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…
A carbon tax, with pay-out for carbon sequestration, will put the very machine that currently drives us towards extinction straight in reverse. Here are the most impactful things you can do as an individual in a democracy: 1. Convince as many people as you can of voting for anyone who supports carbon tax. 2. Vote for anyone who supports a carbon tax. 3. There is no 3. We need to internalise this negative externality…
A carbon tax is probably the worst thing you can do.
First of all, it will seriously destabilise a large economy where democracy still plays an influential role. This will place more economic power at the hands of non-democratic nations, allowing them to produce more CO_2 at will.
Secondly, the taxed CO_2 will just circulate back to the government, to be spend again. On what? Due to the strong relationship of the dollar with oil, each dollar spend by the government will involve burning oil and producing CO_2.
Third, how will you check the CO_2 emissions of your products? How do you prevent fraud? How do you make sure the system is not gamed by shifting the CO_2 burden to other countries?
No, if you want to make a dent, vote for those who want to invest heavily in renewables R&D (solar, hydro, wind, thermal).
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#166It's already too late. It's unfortunate that we didn't understand what was happening 100 years ago, if we did we might have been able to do something about it, but as it stands right now, we can't even slow down what's already been set into motion. The earth is now changing, it's not just the climate, and the earth changes will drive the climate, the feedback loop has started. Unless someone can invent a technology i…
>It's already too late.
The next stage of climate denialism is climate nihilism.
It is not too late to mitigate some of the effects on our societies.
At the very minimum we need the political will to reallocate resources so that we stop accelerating the process and start structuring safety nets for vulnerable communities.
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is somebody doing an incompetent summary of IPCC's Special Report "Global Warming of 1.5 °C -- an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels" https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ Published 2018. Just to quote the few actual lines from the report summary: "A.1 Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with…
I don't think it's an inaccurate summary at all. You're objecting to the use of dramatic language, but the content is accurate: Watts: "Only 350 million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought and “deadly heat” events. Only 130-140 million will be inundated." https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15... "Limiting global warming to 1.5°C instead of 2°C could result in around 420 millio…
The actual quote from IPCC text about hundreds of millions people affected is:
"Liu et al. (2018) studied the changes in population exposure to severe droughts in 27 regions around the globe for 1.5°C and 2°C of warming using the SSP1 population scenario compared to the baseline period of 1986–2005 based on the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). They concluded that the drought exposure of urban populations in most regions would be decreased at 1.5°C (350.2 ± 158.8 million people) compared to 2°C (410.7 ± 213.5 million people)."
So it says: in case of 1.5 deg 350 million, in case of 2 deg 410 million. So it doesn't support your "Watts" quote of:
"Only 350 million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought"
It's just a clear and inaccurate distortion of the original text, so distorted that it's wrong.
And we also know why it's so wrong and distorted: because these "commenters" just want to confuse people and muddy the waters, they aren't interested in the truth or accurately discussing the actual scientific work.
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. Three non sequiturs in three sentences. There are sites that suggest any number of things. Unspecified "sites" have little bearing on the actual facts. I'm not sure that Milankovitch Cycles imply the dumping of CO2. > Hopefully we can find a way to turn that into fuel. This is the silliest and most thermodynamically backward thing I've read in a year. CO2 is burnt carbon. It's burnt. Burnt stuff ain't fuel; it's…
Co2 into fuel [1] [1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/07/carbon-engineering-and-harva...
So we are turning the CO2 back into (expensive) fuel, which can be burnt again and the CO2 released? But you're in luck, thanks to global warming the thawing permafrost and the warming oceans will release large quantities of methane (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions), which is an excellent fuel, and a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, so burning it would actually be good for the climate. Good luck with capturing it, however...
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#169It's already too late. It's unfortunate that we didn't understand what was happening 100 years ago, if we did we might have been able to do something about it, but as it stands right now, we can't even slow down what's already been set into motion. The earth is now changing, it's not just the climate, and the earth changes will drive the climate, the feedback loop has started. Unless someone can invent a technology i…
>It's already too late. The next stage of climate denialism is climate nihilism. It is not too late to mitigate some of the effects on our societies. At the very minimum we need the political will to reallocate resources so that we stop accelerating the process and start structuring safety nets for vulnerable communities.
People want to be ever more comfortable. Bigger houses. Faster cars. Newer phones.
We've known this was coming since someone wrote a story about Adam and Eve over-consuming.
Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good point, the solar energy is not created. My point is that CO2 can be removed while creating useful energy (in this case, converting a transient source to a durable one). I thought parent was being overly dramatic, even simplistic, in making CO2 sound like some unusable waste product ("burnt carbon. It's burnt. Burnt stuff ain't fuel; it's burnt.").
> My point is that CO2 can be removed while creating useful energy You have to pick one. CO2 removal or creating energy. If you remove it, it must remain sequestered. If you create fuel from it, the CO2 will not have been removed. I'm not against the idea of sourcing fuels from atmospheric CO2. It's a good way to get energy-dense fuel without adding new carbon to the atmosphere (assuming a carbon-free source of energ…
Alge based fuels do exactly this.
The problem isn't technology, the technology for genetically modifying alge or bacteria to consume CO2 and produce oil has been around for quite some time.
The problem is our powerstructures and our economic investments. It takes tremendous energy to move such a massive Goliath of a ship.
Our economy which brought us prosperity simply cannot move quickly enough to prevent our demise. Ironic and perhaps poetic really