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US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

theguardian.com

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Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#121

Post by pmoriarty »

Lutger wrote: post #66
mrpopo wrote: post #51

Reminder: what is happening now is the result of past emissions and will keep happening year after year no matter what. After humanity finally stops emitting greenhouse gases, it will not get better, it will just stop getting worse. The earlier we act the less bad the consequences.

Whether that is true depends on your sense of scale. After we move to zero emissions, it will take only a couple of decades before CO2 will start to drop again, as the biosphere starts absorbing the greenhouse gases. There's some latency in temperature, much more in sealevel rise, but generally it isn't as bad as frequently depicted. I only learned this recently, I used to think we are unavoidably messed up for centu…

There's also the possibility of trying geoengineering projects like dumping a lot of iron powder in to the oceans.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#122

Post by baybal2 »

thirsty-coucal wrote: post #113
baybal2 wrote: post #103

Why America is getting so hot, but there is still no rainfall?

Is your premise true? https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series/110/pcp/1...

So, are the precipitation levels are going up over the years after all?

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#123

Post by llampx »

tobias3 wrote: post #106
arcturus17 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking at how we handled the pandemic, I don't think we'll manage. Amidst the chaos, humanity has been able develop a wide range of therapeutics and public healthcare prevention protocols, research and deploy vaccines at global scale in under a year, all while avoiding total economic collapse. What outcome would've given you hope in humans' ability to solve complex and chaotic crises?

Sure, if a technological solution like a vaccine gets developed I'd be optimistic (cold fusion?). But I currently estimate the probability of that really low. What made me pessimistic about climate change w.r.t. COVID-19 was that most countries only did something once the population was sufficiently affected, even when the consequences of doing nothing were perfectly clear and immediate. W.r.t. climate change most co…

I think most countries only did something when the populace was affected because it is extremely hard to get buy-in from people when they don't see any negative effects of continuing as they are.

However I also see the role of the government as educating the population about the negative effects the population is not seeing yet so I don't use that to excuse the government.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#124

Post by thirsty-coucal »

baybal2 wrote: post #122
thirsty-coucal wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your premise true? https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series/110/pcp/1...

So, are the precipitation levels are going up over the years after all?

Doesn't seem like we're experiencing a general super drought, does it.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#125

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

mrpopo wrote: post #51

Reminder: what is happening now is the result of past emissions and will keep happening year after year no matter what. After humanity finally stops emitting greenhouse gases, it will not get better, it will just stop getting worse. The earlier we act the less bad the consequences.

Sadly this kind of message will just result in apathy [in the US]. We've seen from the pandemic that just telling people they're going to die unless they take the most basic health precautions isn't enough to create action. We need a massive campaign of manipulation tactics by trusted peers or they're not going to act to save themselves.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#126

Post by mrpopo »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #109
Gys wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU ‘proposes to raise the EU's ambition on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030’. At the moment that part of the world is the most ambitious part. > after we move to zero emissions I wonder if that will happen on a planet scale even in your sons lifetime

Last night, I watched NGC's "Before the flood". At one point, a director for a local climate action institute in India was interviewed by Leo DiCaprio. She pretty much pointed out that climate change is a social issue in no uncertain terms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia5fMomBXbE As an EU citizen, I applaud the ambitions, but I feel apprehensive at the same time. Regardless how you spin this, affordability is an…

Western living standards (especially American) are stupidly high. Just talk to average people.

Just today, I heard one person say they keep the AC on 18C all day because they don't like sweating, one person bought a bigger car to give more space for their dog, one person said she keeps the hot water on in the sink to reduce the hot water flow and regulate the shower temperature more easily.

People in the West need to reconnect with reality, and people in developing countries need to look up to more meaningful ways of life.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#127

Post by nicbou »

ben_w wrote: post #80
nicbou wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really hard pill to swallow. It will require expenses and sacrifices far beyond those that covid required, and for far longer. I have zero hope of it happening. People won't stop driving, flying or eating meat. They won't even drive smaller cars. As I understand it, that would just be the start. Looking at how we handled the pandemic, I don't think we'll manage.

I’m a lot more optimistic. The American idea of a compact car is the British idea of a big car (judging by labelled parking spaces in Davis CA), so that’s culture or fashion, and those can shift fast. And all the big companies are shifting to electric now, so even big isn’t as important. Vat meat is starting to get on the market, and while we’ll have to wait and see if this is a iPhone moment or a Sinclair C5 moment,…

But culture is heading the other direction in America. Cars get larger every year. Culture won't get us decent public transportation.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#128

Post by nicbou »

arcturus17 wrote: post #86
nicbou wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really hard pill to swallow. It will require expenses and sacrifices far beyond those that covid required, and for far longer. I have zero hope of it happening. People won't stop driving, flying or eating meat. They won't even drive smaller cars. As I understand it, that would just be the start. Looking at how we handled the pandemic, I don't think we'll manage.

> Looking at how we handled the pandemic, I don't think we'll manage. Amidst the chaos, humanity has been able develop a wide range of therapeutics and public healthcare prevention protocols, research and deploy vaccines at global scale in under a year, all while avoiding total economic collapse. What outcome would've given you hope in humans' ability to solve complex and chaotic crises?

It showed us that most people are unwilling to accept even the slightest inconvenience to save lives and help an unpleasant situation pass faster.

Yes, the scientific community has done the impossible, but us laymen have failed to do even the possible, even when it was easy.

We can solve problems, no doubts, but perhaps we aren't so good at collective, sustained efforts. Climate change will not come to pass like the pandemic. It will last generations if we're lucky.

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#129

Post by sitkack »

emerged wrote: post #120
michaelt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pandemic showed us making and using a silver bullet in record time - when a silver bullet is possible. But the pandemic also showed us a large % of the American population are reluctant to make even minor, temporary sacrifices to protect their country. And that a decent fraction of American political leadership are happy to close their eyes to factual reality.

Protecting your country is a considerably more complex and nuanced goal than “save as many lives as possible no matter what” especially since secondary effects of lockdown also cause deaths. Long term economic effects for example, and the ability to remain globally competitive economically and in other ways.

Pharma CEOs got billions richer as folks in the developing world die. The pandemic is far from over while variants mutate against vaccinated people.

The first world response against the vaccine is selfish and short sighted in the same ways that make solving global warming incredibly difficult socially.

The vaccine recipes should be free, the raw materials should be coordinated so that vaccine production is maximized. Just like global warming, no one is safe until everyone is, we are from it yet have the capability to do so. Yet we do not, we finagle to ensure profit over life.

Our collective COVID response is exactly why the climate crisis is so hard.

Our problems are not technological.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/21/business/covid-vaccine-billio...

Re: US set for punishing temperatures as ‘heat dome’ to settle over country

#130

Post by sitkack »

b112 wrote: post #56
antonvs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Global warming" involves extremes of temperature on both ends of the scale, and "coldest winters" are not inconsistent with that. Think about a pot of hot water vs. one that's boiling. The surface of the water in the boiling pot is not smooth, it has peaks and troughs. The level of some of those troughs will be lower than the level of the water in a less energetic pot. The situation with global warming is similar, a…

It is more than this, too. It is called climate change for other reasons, and that is because while the global, overall, average temperature will rise, local temps could drop, or even stay the same! Say we have a 3C temp rise, global average. Some places could have a 10C increase, others a -5C decrease average! Look at coastal areas, like British Columbia, while inland the temps drop quickly. Or the British isles. Oc…

It is called climate change because the oil industry PR people created a new word that defanged Global Warming.

Change is good right? Could be bad, could be good but times are changing.

*edit, boosted an existing phrase, Frank Luntz RNC Propagandist

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.c...

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/21/1870021...

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/in...

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