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Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

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Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#111

Post by TeMPOraL »

grishka wrote: post #100

In the US, at least, air conditioning is somewhat common from what I know. It was as hot as +35 in northwest part of Russia last week, for several days, with sun barely coming down at night, and that felt like a torture at times. Some historical records were broken.

Whoever is building and selling ACs these days, I think these companies are a good investment right now. Summers in Europe are on track to become unlivable without air conditioners in individual homes; I give it few more years before everyone and their dog will want to buy one.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#112

Post by beders »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #88
neaanopri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People dying in Algeria won't realistically get the US, French, or Chinese governments to significantly cut fossil fuels supplied to their citizens.

USA and France are actually doing well on renewables and nuclear even. Whereas China is still building a shit-ton of new coal plants. https://ieefa.org/france-boosts-renewable-energy-spending-to... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/climate/coronavirus-coal-... https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissi...

About China:

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/how-china-can-achieve-...

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#113

Post by AngryData »

petre wrote: post #54
neaanopri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People dying in Algeria won't realistically get the US, French, or Chinese governments to significantly cut fossil fuels supplied to their citizens.

Guess what Algeria's first three main export products are? Crude petroleum, petroleum gas and refined petroleum. They're trying to diversify but it's too litlle, too late.

Plastics and polymers certainly aren't going away anytime soon so its not like a renewable energy world would just kill them. I don't expect plastic production to actually contract until long after we have made the grid renewable/sustainable and have extra energy for active carbon sequestering. Disposable plastic from grocery bags and simple wrappers are easy to reduce and eliminate but how many consumer devices are made of just metal or wood now and aren't 95% plastic? Plastic is still replacing tons of metal piping and ducts and on cars and everything else. When is the last time anyone has seen a wooden handled screwdriver for sale?

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#114

Post by fragbait65 »

nxc18 wrote: post #63
fragbait65 wrote: post #39

Honestly, why bother? The earth isn't dying, the earth will be fine, it will recover over time, humanity on the other hand needs to be reduced. If it isn't climate change, an epidemic or something else, then it will be war over resources some time in the future. On the other hand, climate change will probably lead to war anyway, since resources like water and places to live will decrease from that, so war is probably…

The Chinese have not been successful in getting people to have more children. Recent news is that they may be covering up for the early stages of population decline. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-report-first-popul... Beyond that, the consensus is that population will naturally plateau in the near future, no need for killing people you don’t like. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-po…

I agree with what you say. I didn't mean to say that the the population growing is the actual problem. I mean to say that lack of resources is the problem. (Too lazy to create a link) https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state...

We would still consume too much resources even with population decline.

Sure, lets say we fix climate change. I think the only viable way to actually do that is for everybody agree to live as people did a few hundred years ago.

People seems to believe that we can solve climate change with technology. I think that's a pipe dream.

I also think that it's a pipe dream thinking that the world will band together and "solve" the climate crisis together. I think Covid-19 has showed us that humanity does not band together in a crisis, each country and even each individual will use the crisis to make moves to benefit them.

And it doesn't matter what you do as a individual, most resources are consumed by large corporations anyway.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#115

Post by cryptoz »

grishka wrote: post #100

In the US, at least, air conditioning is somewhat common from what I know. It was as hot as +35 in northwest part of Russia last week, for several days, with sun barely coming down at night, and that felt like a torture at times. Some historical records were broken.

> In the US, at least, air conditioning is somewhat common from what I know.

I think you are misinformed. Some areas have it for sure, but in some very large population areas like the Pacific Northwest (say, 20M people), it is very rare. I know that 0 of the houses in my neighborhood have AC originally. [1] Any AC that someone has now was purchased in the last few days, and many people cannot afford to purchase a window unit or portable unit.

[1] This is knowable because nighttime sound has skyrcoketed. It used to much quieter at night here, but now, after 8pm or so when the car noise is less, you can hear the blasting of everyone's new window unit as it struggled to keep up.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#116

Post by _rpd »

Arrath wrote: post #73
nradov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most desalination plants do just pump the brine back into the ocean. That isn't ideal from a marine conservation standpoint but if the outflow pipe runs out deep enough then it's not too bad.

If it's not ideal right now, how well does it scale if more and more desalination plants come online to meet freshwater demands, and dispose of their brine in the same manner?

The “brine” at the outlet pipe is just 2-3% saltier than the ocean water at the intake pipe. The impact is not zero, but it is very low if done right.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#117

Post by julienb_sea »

AngryData wrote: post #89
kiloreux wrote: post #6

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

It isn't technology that holds back water desalination, it is energy availability/cost. Even the most promising desalination tech is only a small efficiency boost over simpler established methods. Yeah efficiency gains certain help over the long term, but the overall energy costs are still enormous and nearly require dedicated power plant for any significant amount of clean water. The best bet in actually desalinatin…

This isn't technically accurate, we have access to abundant long term (multi-century) reserves of natural gas which can be used to provide power needed for desalinization. Nuclear is in no way a "blocker". Certainly, cost is a substantial barrier especially in less wealthy nations.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#118

Post by nradov »

AngryData wrote: post #89
kiloreux wrote: post #6

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

It isn't technology that holds back water desalination, it is energy availability/cost. Even the most promising desalination tech is only a small efficiency boost over simpler established methods. Yeah efficiency gains certain help over the long term, but the overall energy costs are still enormous and nearly require dedicated power plant for any significant amount of clean water. The best bet in actually desalinatin…

That's true from an engineering standpoint, but many of the places which are short of fresh water also lack the capital and industrial infrastructure to support large nuclear plants. Solar power seems more realistic from an economic and political standpoint, even if less efficient.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#119

Post by pope_meat »

danenania wrote: post #53
Taek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an individual, there isn't really anything you can do. Going vegetarian doesn't help. Recycling doesn't help. Using your shower for 5 minutes doesn't help. As a society, we've chosen to manage resources via capitalism. If you use less water, what that means is water is cheaper so some corporation can afford another few acres of almond trees. If consumers cut their waste in half, the slack would be picked up at the…

Wars are not exactly beneficial to the planet. And it would be a nice joke if your righteous war to save the planet from climate change ends up leading us into a nuclear winter. Neither violence or authoritarianism are necessary to solve the problem. We who live in democracies "just" have to elect governments sufficiently not corrupt that they will impose the required environmental restrictions on industry, and use s…

I can't believe we forgot to try that.

Just vote, people.

Heavy sarcasm

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#120

Post by xyzelement »

tomcooks wrote: post #94

Everytime you take your car think about the discomfort you felt by reading the headline.

If you are trying to persuade people to your point of view, I don't think this method works.

First, skimming the article for the causes of "heat dome" I am not seeing connections to climate change. Maybe I didn't read carefully enough so let me know but this could just be a "thing".

But more importantly, short of that connection it looks like you are trying to appeal to guilt and fear and that's just not something that attracts mentally healthy people. Nobody is interested in that emotion so if it's warranted you have to work much harder to make a case.

Besides our cars have good AC.

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