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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#521
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were a study done in Sweden a few years ago that looked at the question about an individuals actions and the corresponding CO2 production. No car > skipping flight > buy green energy > Get a electric car > diet. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/four-lifestyle-choi...

The highest bar in the chart says "have one fewer child". It actually exceeds any others by extremely large margin [0]. How is that even considered as the option? One child less means halving population after every generation. Eliminate the population and problem solved? [0] https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/drimage/1120/630/4832/fourc...

One child less means halving population after every generation.

Only if you assume the average is two children per couple and a replacement reproduction rate, which doesn't fit the reality I know. We have a huge population in the billions precisely because that's not what is going on.

If we drop to something below exponential growth rates, this is not a tragedy.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#522
post #466
post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Interestingly, covid seems to have taught me the opposite. When covid hit, the time-to-market of a new vaccine was 10-15 years. The collective action of governments divided this number literally by ten. Despite all the bad words we've heard about bad policies and mistakes done by governments, I think we should be proud of what humankind has achieved during covid (granted, some governments have done and still do very…

This is what corporations have done to the society at large. They raped the idea of critical thought.

When you see large corporations putting money into something, it is 100% a for profit venture. Capitalism has taught them so.

No, the world did not come together, not with trump shouting the virus is "fake" at the top of his voice.

Corporations saw an opportunity, grabbed it. The opportunity is lax regulations in the hurry to get out the vaccine.

Also, this specific type of virus was being researched and vaccine formulations were being done at the time of the outbreak.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#524

> Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' What almost alarms me more than the thought of a climate apocalypse is that I don't think this (a UN report) is going to have any effect on the opinions of 40% of the public who see climate change as some kind of job destroying conspiracy. Nothing short of Florida disappearing under the sea is going to make any difference, perhaps we (as a species) don't deserv…

Are these simulations public? Can I run see and run the code? Are all aspects taken into account that can affect the outcome, such as, Earth's magnetic field strength, activity of the Sun, shifting of magnetic poles?

As far as I know, the code is secret and the data that it runs on is secret, i.e., it is not science, and it is not really even attempting to appear to be science to anyone who knows what science is. Not reproducible even in theory due to secrecy means it cannot be science. It's not even wrong.

Besides being secret and likely buggy, any simulation of the climate necessarily incomplete, i.e. it omits quite a lot of phenomena. Complex systems are fundamentally non-amenable to simulation, but in this case, the results of the "simulation" are garbage squared, because they're "simulations" of some system that doesn't even exist.

This is the kind of stuff being passed off as science these days.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#525
post #447
post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

We have decreased ours and they have increased theirs but we are still buying more and more shit from them - their emissions are our emissions - while the demand side exists the supply will too - it will just be supplied from somewhere else...

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#526
post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

> The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia Developed nations have polluted the planet for decades, with highest rates of energy consumption per capita. They have failed to build systems and processess that enables sustainable living. They have lived their excess and now lecture the world that their "90% of emissions are from consumption" One g…

It seems like western countries are penalized for having birthrates and population under control when the "per capita" emissions numbers are used, vs absolute output (which is declining in West).

China and soon India are the two countries that make me feel hopeless about controlling CO2. I get that's not "fair", but the planet doesn't care about fairness.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#527
post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

We already have an ideal carbon capture technology optimized by Nature Inc. through a state of the art evolutionary algorithm running trillions of parallel processes for billions of years. It's called Trees (TM). With Trees (TM) the CO2 emissions problem has a simple two step solution that anyone can accomplish with ease:

1) Stop cutting down Trees

2) Plant more Trees

That's it. The end. Problem solved.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#528
post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Isn’t Musk the climate change guy you are looking for. He’s done more to advance the cause of sustainable energy than perhaps anyone.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#529
post #447
post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

Believe it or not, western countries have reduced carbon emissions over the last ~15 years, in both absolute and per capita terms (despite a growing population). The only countries that are growing their carbon emissions are developing countries; mainly China, India and Russia. China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emiss…

> China is particularly troubling since they make up 28% of all emissions (US is 15%) and they have both a growing population and growing emissions per capita.

That is just providing proof that we cannot eradicate poverty on the planet without destroying it in the process with 8 billion human beings. And this is just CO2 emissions but the issue is with consumption of resources in general: What is happening is simply that consumption of resources increases when people are lifted out of poverty (quite obviously since that's pretty much poverty means).

The only sustainable way for human development is to bring global population down at the same time at global standard of living increases.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#530
post #360

If there is anything covid has taught me its that collective action isn't something we can rely on and is a lot more wishful thinking about the state of humanity rather than a sober look at the reality. Governments need to tax CO2 emissions on the business side and pour the money into carbon capture technology in the private space through investment and perhaps some sort of bounty program (you get $x for each ton you…

We already have an ideal carbon capture technology optimized by Nature Inc. through a state of the art evolutionary algorithm running trillions of parallel processes for billions of years. It's called Trees (TM). With Trees (TM) the CO2 emissions problem has a simple two step solution that anyone can accomplish with ease: 1) Stop cutting down Trees 2) Plant more Trees That's it. The end. Problem solved.

If you want to get extra fancy, there's a different step 1.

1a) Cut down lots of trees 1b) Turn them into charcoal 1c) Bury the charcoal in agricultural land, sequestering the carbon and increasing yields

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