This talk [1] by Dr. Jennifer Francis is a must watch, not the one I was looking for but this one is probably more up to date. She starts to talk about the Gulf Stream about 30 minutes into the talk.
Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
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Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#182Makes me look back at the last 20-30 years of discourse in the United States and let out a deep sigh. Had CFC propellants emerged today, I highly doubt the U.S. would have been a signatory to the Montreal Protocol — just to own the libs or avoid hindering the market by a boogeyman of 0.0001% overhead or some other form of contrarian political identity differentiation.
C’mon, man, be forthright. It’s not a “boogeyman of 0.0001% overhead.” I agree that conservative aversion to addressing climate change is a problem. But the other side isn’t proposing minor tax increases here. A very vocal front sees this as an opportunity to do all the things the socialists and central planners wanted anyway, while spending tens of trillions of dollars. When climate change is tied together with everything from labor laws to racial issues, it’s very hard for conservatives to trust the real motivation behind the measures. And that’s a choice the left makes to do that.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#183After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID I'm convinced that climate change will not receive a meaningful response until it is way too late. It apparently needs to hit the majority of the planet right in the gut (and then preferably the wealthy part) for people to get off their collective asses and do something about it. I'm just about ready to pack it in and hope the next generation is smarter than this one…
> After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID
This is hindsight bias in spades. The global response to Covid-19 is much better than could reasonably have been expected before the event.
We don't have 10% of the world's population dead (partly through war), collapsed major cities due to core services failing, or any disasters at similar scale, and a raging pandemic with 20 or more virulent variants sweeping through repeatedly.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#184After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID I'm convinced that climate change will not receive a meaningful response until it is way too late. It apparently needs to hit the majority of the planet right in the gut (and then preferably the wealthy part) for people to get off their collective asses and do something about it. I'm just about ready to pack it in and hope the next generation is smarter than this one…
Sadly, we might not see meaningful action until we have a "Climate 911" moment; a single event in a wealthy location where thousands of people perish within a short period of time.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#185Nuclear power is needed everywhere. All major grids. And all containerships. Doable in 20-40 years with some serious effort.
Nuclear container ships are such a good idea. It is maddening we haven't done this and only turn war ships into nuclear power.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m frankly less concerned about climate change - in reality we don’t have enough data for super definitive answers. Further, we can and the world can fairly easily adapt. A few degrees over a hundred years is easily manageable. In contrast, insect populations are dropping like a stone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_population... We’re going to have serious problems within the next 5-10 years if t…
>A few degrees over a hundred years is easily manageable. No it's not.
It’s already happened. The last 100 years.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#187Nuclear power is needed everywhere. All major grids. And all containerships. Doable in 20-40 years with some serious effort.
We don’t really have that time. Solar and wind can be built out faster. But we should do new nuclear on the margins and preserve/enhance existing nuclear. Battery-electric (and liquid hydrogen) for container ships works. If someone really tried.
> Solar and wind can be built out faster
The sheer number of wind power plants that is required to replace a single nuclear reactor has significant impact on nature, wild birds and more. One wind power plant isn't much but what happens to wildlife when you need to place 2000 of them? For one reactor, that is.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-933/wind-nuclear-infographi...
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it's the boy who cried wolf on a planet wide scale. But it just so happens that this planet is the only planet we've got and we're doing a piss-poor job of stewardship. Regardless of alarmists that much at least should be obvious to anybody with a normal IQ and up. But it's so convenient to ignore it all and get on with the hunt for that extra buck.
There is something geniuinely unique about this time and place: we're at the middle-end of the greatest golden age in human history. And what we did was give each other a break . Professors gave their students breaks, and judges gave lawyers breaks, parents gave their kids breaks, editors give their journalists breaks, and so on. And what has resulted is a profound erosion of accountability, integrity, and self-restr…
I’m not sure how your comment relates to my earlier comment exactly.
One thing to point out however - EVERY time is a (genuinely!) unique time, and for those in it, there is always the press of things to be concerned about, or tackle things or avoid things or whatever. Our current challenges are definitely unique, but the existential threat of Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War was no less a unique, serious, and pressing matter for those living it than anything going on today. And it could have been an apocalypse. It just happened not to be.
Same with being in Europe pretty much anytime over the last couple hundred years (longer?) with constant wars, disease, plagues, etc.
It’s important to recognize, because it can help give perspective and balance to what can otherwise be a profoundly easy to manipulate state of mind.
Would it make sense to sell all your assets, move the middle of nowhere, and live in a bomb shelter in the 70’s? Well the Soviets didn’t nuke the US, so no, clearly you would have been an idiot. If they had, then you would clearly have been a genius with incredible foresight.
In the end, we do what we can based on the best of our ability to understand the world and our options. Because fundamentally a lot of these things integrate with other people and societies, this also means they influence decisions others make, and can result in huge shifts - or resistance to shifts - and sometimes really unexpected or bizarre behavior.
One thing that may be happening for instance with a lot of the discussions today is people getting overwhelmed and defaulting to their ‘overwhelmed’ state - and not being aware of it.
For instance, common overwhelmed behavior includes running away/avoidance (this isn’t happening), fighting (fuck you, you can’t tell me what to do), or freezing (just ignoring things or locking up).
These can easily escalate over time to full on and very persistent delusion, and the threat to someone if someone starts to challenge their delusion is very real - and they need to defend it.
Trying to deal with someone in this state by treating the way they are acting at face value (oh, this guy is anti mask so I’ll give him facts!) often not only doesn’t work, but causes more resistance because it isn’t really about the mask or the facts.
They are in a messed up emotional place, and doing the best they can to try to keep themselves feeling safe. It just so happens that they picked something that is dangerous to others and there is some facts that could ACTUALLY keep them safer. But they can’t handle that, right now. And trying to tell them that is likely to just make them feel unsafe talking to you, because you’re essentially trying to rip away their safety blanket AND make them feel dumb.
When people feel unsafe around someone, they either avoid them, fight them, don’t do anything and try to pretend they don’t exist.
It’s a hard problem.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#189After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID I'm convinced that climate change will not receive a meaningful response until it is way too late. It apparently needs to hit the majority of the planet right in the gut (and then preferably the wealthy part) for people to get off their collective asses and do something about it. I'm just about ready to pack it in and hope the next generation is smarter than this one…
> After seeing the global chaotic response to COVID This is hindsight bias in spades. The global response to Covid-19 is much better than could reasonably have been expected before the event. We don't have 10% of the world's population dead (partly through war), collapsed major cities due to core services failing, or any disasters at similar scale, and a raging pandemic with 20 or more virulent variants sweeping thro…
> The global response to Covid-19 is much better than could reasonably have been expected before the event.
We're going to have to disagree on that. I read a couple of books on the subject pre-pandemic and I thought we were in good shape because the science was well understood. I had not calculated in politics, my bad.
> We don't have 10% of the world's population dead, collapsed major cities due to core services failing, or any disasters at similar scale, and a raging pandemic with 20 or more virulent variants sweeping through repeatedly.
Well, this is where some hindsight would come in handy, but for that we'll have to wait until this is all over, which so far it isn't. And this is exactly the kind of thinking which makes me believe strongly that we will not be able to effectively address climate change. It takes place on a time scale too slow for people to give a care. The things we're good at are earthquakes, storms, volcanic eruptions and floodings: they are there, immediately and you can do something about it using emergency response. The kind of problem that would effectively require 8 billion people to cooperate for a change is something that we simply have not mastered and my never master.
But thank you for illustrating my point in a very effective way.
Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting billions of people to work together cooperatively to do something was always a complete pipe dream. It’s the fantasy that, this time central planning will work, because this thing is so important. We should have been throwing money at carbon capture technologies decades ago.
It's called 'trees'.
So Bangladesh will not reduce emissions until it hits developed world status. Not one bit. Can trees absorb all of Bangladesh’s growing emissions over the next 50 years? Same for India, Nigeria, etc?