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A 3°C world has no safe place

economist.com

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Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#151

Post by dillon »

wrs wrote: post #120
Applejinx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because climate is a chaotic system and nothing, nowhere, will be 'slightly milder'. You are mistaken. It ain't about a minor shift in baseline plus sea-level changing, though sea-level changing is still a thing. I'm IN the Northeast, not far from Albany. The crazy swings are less and less occasional and that's a trend that continues to escalate. I consider the location pretty much optimal. That's a far cry from…

Seattle is sometimes pointed to as a “climate sanctuary”. A couple of weeks ago it was 108° here in Seattle. Let me repeat that: a hundred and eight degrees. In Seattle. Our reaction as a city: air conditioning installation is booked out for months.

To be fair, Seattle's electric grid has been on all sustainable energy for a while now. Seattle is one of the greenest city in the U.S. On top of that, any person living in King County is able to pay a little bit extra to opt into 100% sustainable energy.

The reaction from Seattle isn't terribly illogical.

EDIT: Should mention the city is NOT carbon neutral by any means. We still have buses running on gas.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#152

Post by wizzwizz4 »

rexpop wrote: post #40
holoduke wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like a little kid making a mess of his room. He or she will never prevent the mess. But the mess will always be fixed. I have good faith that the human species will fix it. One day the entire biosphere will be controlled.

The mess will not "always be fixed," because we have no parents in this analogy. We are the leaders in this world. You are simply taking on the role of an adolescent shirking responsibility.

> You are simply taking on the role of an adolescent shirking responsibility.

Perhaps ironically, the actual adolescents are (among) the ones who aren't.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#153

Post by bellyfullofbac »

noasaservice wrote: post #70
titzer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I look at what I'm actually doing, and I'm at my limit. Smaller house, solar panels, don't drive, don't eat meat, and don't have kids. And don't vote for politicians who are busy spreading nonsense. > I've given up hope that this will be solved. Oh, me too. Now it is about managing your personal guilt, which you realize at some level, judging from your comments. For me, I am likely past my lifetime CO2 budget, due…

> Smaller house, solar panels, don't drive, don't eat meat, and don't have kids. And don't vote for politicians who are busy spreading nonsense. I already live in a trailer. Solar wouldn't make sense since we have 2 big trees over our trailer providing us shade. Cuts down on AC in the hotter months (now veering on March). Not driving has been easy with WfH since last early March. I'm happy with that. I don't like dri…

The kids thing is curious. Maybe I'm just selfish, but I have no kids and my thinking is, well, I'm not that worried about how the earth will be after I die. Meanwhile the folks with kids are the ones who produced giant resource consumers and ironically -- because they want to ensure their kids' wellbeing -- are the ones most worried about the planet's survival.

Obviously the answer is for me to care about society (on a global level), but it's hard to do so without skin in the game. And considering it feels like others don't care or are still very wasteful... why should I be pious?

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#154

Post by danpat »

mrits wrote: post #88
titzer wrote: post #29

Keep in mind that it's 3C average , over the entire globe, over a year. The locale, variance, seasonality all matter. Like, suppose that you are "lucky" in that your region gets only the average of 3C, so your year is 3C warmer on average, but that only happens during 3 months of the year, so you get 12C hotter in summer--basically, el fuego--or you get 12C in winter--basically, no more winter. A warmer winter can be…

Wouldn't it take a short amount of time to kill the beetles? Certainly it doesn't take a whole winter?

It's somewhat complicated - timing of cold weather is important to kill off the beetles:

https://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/fo...

> For example, an under-bark temperature of –37°C will kill 50 per cent of a mountain pine beetle population, even in mid-winter; however, a low temperature of –20°C in the fall, be- fore the beetles are prepared for winter, or in the spring, when beetles are start- ing to become more active, will also kill beetles if it is preceded by temperatures above 0°C. The relatively warmer temper- ature causes the larvae to start to lose its natural antifreeze.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#155

Post by saagarjha »

missedthecue wrote: post #77
ceejayoz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geopolitical reality of, say, a billion people in India becoming climate refugees is likely to have worldwide implications.

India is a big and diverse place. I don't see any realistic scenario where 1 billion Indians become climate refugees.

Ok, several hundred million?

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#156

Post by bcrosby95 »

shawnz wrote: post #63
spoonjim wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could live in 200 square feet. You could bathe with one bucket of room temperature water. You could use no air conditioning whatsoever. You could eat only vegetarian food. Etc etc. You won’t, (and I won’t either) but if it comes down to human survival, forces will find a way to make you do it.

This comment has gone grey but I think it is an important point. Our basic expectancies for what makes a comfortable life are higher than ever. Is that an ethical problem or just a result of more/better technology? I'm not really sure.

I would argue we have the technology to sustainably live as we do, for the most part. What we don't have is the manpower and resources to go through and replace all the old tech with the new tech that would allow us to mostly maintain our standard of living.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#157

Post by [deleted] »

ardit33 wrote: post #3

Canada and northern part of the US will be fine (north of the mason dixon line). Places like Albany, NY, or Minesota, or most of Canada, appart from the occasional crazy swings, are going to be more lovely places to live, with slightly milder winters. The southern part is toast, both from water level rises, and lack of fresh water. In this country, the ones that are going to be the most affected by global warming, se…

[deleted]

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#158

Post by ip26 »

simonh wrote: post #124
ip26 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we could wave a magic wand & cut global energy consumption in half via more public transit & denser living, but still burning fossil fuels... we would have the exact same crisis, perhaps delayed a few years. I'm naturally inclined towards austerity, but this problem cannot be fixed with cutbacks & efficiency alone.

Not at all, reducing global energy consumption by half would massively reduce, as well as delay the total long term impact. It’s true a lot of impact is baked in due to past emissions, but that’s no reason for complacency or fatalism. There still a lot we can do to reduce total impact and mitigate the impact we will suffer.

I don't advocate complacency or fatalism, instead I've come to hold the opinion that rapidly shifting to low/zero carbon technology is our best shot. Just look at how quickly natural gas felled king coal - a matter of years - once it became significantly cheaper. (We can't stop at natural gas, but it does produce half the CO2 as coal)

Similarly, there is a huge market-driven surge in renewables: https://coloradosun.com/2021/01/25/solar-energy-colorado-uni...

A key part of this viewpoint is that strong demand in the market can actually be an accelerator.

Turning back to austerity - even if a 50% drop in demand could save us, it's just never going to happen. Even the global COVID lockdowns made less than a 10% cut in energy consumption. You'd be stunningly successful if you cut even 1% through austerity campaign.

Re: A 3°C world has no safe place

#160

Post by leeoniya »

gruez wrote: post #118
MyKneeGrows wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades. 750,000 tons of toxic waste every year in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuels, pesticides, defoliants, lead and other chemicals. And hey we got the PRC military adding the equivalent of the German Navy, every year, in ships to their roster. No they don't run on solar panels in case you were wondering. So take…

>Fun fact: the US military is the largest polluter in the world and has held the record for decades Source? > So take your three showers a day. Keep your car idling at stop lights. Burn your garbage. I'm not trolling. Your 'foot print' is a drop in the ocean compared to the real behemoths out there. Your footprint is a drop in the ocean because you're one of 8 billion people on earth. Just from that figure alone it's…

it is far too late for individual action. it is major manufacturers and producers that need to act, because there are only tens of thousands of them (which can be regulated, with enough will) and not billions of individuals, who cannot.

holding individuals accountable for ignored environmental externaities of producers is a dead end. people will buy/consume the cheapest thing made available to them.

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