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It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

noaa.gov

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Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#571

Post by jrslv »

jokoon wrote: post #563
linuxhansl wrote: post #303

Imagine an asteroid would be on trajectory to collide with earth in (say) 2025. Possible order of hypothetical events: 1. Scientist discover the asteroid. Calculate risk of collision. 2. Asteroid comes closer, probability of impact is calculated as high. 3. People will start saying that we cannot let our economy be controlled by the specter of an asteroid. 4. The asteroid becomes visible. You can see it with your bar…

I don't like this analogy. You can show a picture of an asteroid, but you can't really explain the greenhouse effect to consumers and voters. It's easy to take action against an asteroid, but fighting CO2 emissions is far trickier.

I believe you could explain greenhouse effect to consumers and voters. The basics are elementary/highschool physics and chemistry. And there are useful analogies too. The issue is that schools in too many countries don't seem to try to explain mechanisms of climate change to pupils.

> It's easy to take action against an asteroid, but fighting CO2 emissions is far trickier.

Really?

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#572

Post by bena »

User23 wrote: post #570
bena wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As demonstrated by your demonstrated inability" I made a simple typo. You can choose to focus on that rather than any substance. It only continues to highlight your unwillingness to engage in good faith. You apparently think saying a lot of words means you're saying a lot. Just like your obsession with the word "interlocutor". Always use the five dollar word when possible, I guess. I don't think it's a magic I win b…

> gamma posturing I’ll own my erroneous correction. Its only fair to recognize the exceptional, for you, achievement of making a valid constructive criticism, however trivial. However your reasoning is otherwise so fallacious I don’t think it’s worth trying to go through the errors. Suffice to say that what you are claiming are inferences are actually, charitably construed, at best enthymemes with a dishonest unstate…

It's still an inference, even if it were wrong. You go on about dictionaries, but apparently the only book gifted to you was a thesaurus.

Also, I like how an error on your part is "trivial", while an error on mine is reason enough to discard anything I might say.

You "don't think it's worth" the time because you just can't. You've never actually tried to rebut anything anyone says. You just condescendingly call them wrong and the proceed to brag about how logical and smart you are and how you're just cutting down all of your perceived opponents.

But you never actually put in the work.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#573

Post by bena »

imoverclocked wrote: post #565
bena wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he originally assigned his viewpoint to politicians and when people pointed out the flaw in his reasoning, he shifted. But once again, his reasoning is suspect. He claims scientists are of a certain political bent. His reason for believing they are of a political bent is the alarm they are raising over climate. Which he doesn't trust because of some politicians making an issue of it. Don't you see how that's circ…

I think all three of us see this in hindsight. Ultimately, Exxon influenced politics to keep its business model. Politicians then amplified pieces of rhetoric (eg: the piece I pointed out) for their own gain. I would bet that very few people (especially the general public) read that original report in its entirety. What's more important to me personally in this thread is not “a single person was not always thinking t…

To keep it short, people think he's lying about where he says he went wrong. Because his reasons aren't internally consistent.

He either used a piece information to justify his already held stance. "I don't believe in climate change. This politician says it. Politicians lie. I can continue not believing in it."

Or he allowed certain affiliations of his to dictate which groups he should dismiss despite any actual evidence. "I work in oil and gas/I am a Republican. This would be bad for my industry/Democrats are mostly in support. I shouldn't support it."

Neither of those are good processes. And no one wants to admit to either of them because they are bad. So if something like the above is the reason, it's best to try and claim another.

But enough people are savvy enough to put two and two together.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#574

Post by bjoli »

bjoli wrote: post #551
whall6 wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> projected a 1–29% cereal price increase in 2050 I agree that everything in this article could and probably will happen. However, how could even a 29% increase in cereal prices lead to a societal collapse? I didn’t see anything that would lead to societal collapse. Humans adapt. They always have. Is it not possible that we could perhaps be made better as a species because of climate change?

30% is not much for us, but for countries where agriculture is 60% of GDP amore capricious weather might devestate the economy. For those people climate change is a threat multiplier. Everything gets worse and more insecure in those regions. Big climate in short times has historically been very bad for the ecosystem in the short term. Something like the Triassic-jurassic climate shift (due to, presumably, volcanic ac…

to continue on this: the late triassic had a temperature about 3°c above modern temperatures. The rise into the jurassic period is believed to be somewhere between 3-7°C.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#575

Post by adam_arthur »

Ma8ee wrote: post #544
adam_arthur wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly as I said, studies have been done. So where is that bubbling into discourse? Saying wildfires and floods, in a hand-wavey sense, makes you sound quite uninformed and doesn't inspire much call to action. You have to connect the direct costs and benefits to the individual if you ever want to persuade somebody. So can you explain to the voter in Michigan why raising gas by 50 cents is worth policy X? Just as an…

Here you go about specifics about Michigan: https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-climate-crisi... Took me all 20 seconds to find. I’m sorry that we in advance can’t tell you exactly how many orphans will die in the fire and how many will be saved. Most of us thinks it is a good idea to try to extinguish the fire before the exact outcome is known. We know enough about fires. And maybe this is what you just d…

Dropping links with 0 analysis or critical thought coming from you.

Very compelling!

I'm sorry, but no point engaging with you. You use 0 logic or quantifiable statements to support your view. Just hand-wavey and vague statements, exemplifying exactly what I stated.

Dropping links with no supporting analysis is not a discussion at all.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#576

Post by Ma8ee »

adam_arthur wrote: post #575
Ma8ee wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go about specifics about Michigan: https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-climate-crisi... Took me all 20 seconds to find. I’m sorry that we in advance can’t tell you exactly how many orphans will die in the fire and how many will be saved. Most of us thinks it is a good idea to try to extinguish the fire before the exact outcome is known. We know enough about fires. And maybe this is what you just d…

Dropping links with 0 analysis or critical thought coming from you. Very compelling! I'm sorry, but no point engaging with you. You use 0 logic or quantifiable statements to support your view. Just hand-wavey and vague statements, exemplifying exactly what I stated. Dropping links with no supporting analysis is not a discussion at all.

But no analysis is needed. You say, A and B don't exist. I say, here it is! That you don't get that just are proved wrong won't any analysis in the world help with.

And no, there's no point in engaging. I've learned that people that still don't get it are using all their mental capacity to wilfully not get it. And at this point I don't care what ideological mental locks that prevent people like you to see what is clear and obvious.

If thousands of scientific studies and decades of dire warnings from scientists won't convince you, there's just nothing that will.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#577

Post by csense »

ptkd wrote: post #403
csense wrote: post #273

Shouldn't climate change have both negative and positive effects? For example, people don't want to live in the Rust Belt because the winters are too cold. Could the region's economic viability increase if winters get milder? In some places, climate change makes things worse for growing crops, makes people need to move out, or increases the probability of disasters. Everyone is talking about this. In other places, cl…

Okay, I will give you a genuine answer: it will have almost unequivocally negative effects. First, I'll address your asymmetry comment, with a couple of example points. > crops This is a common misunderstanding I see. Crops aren't solely viable because of climate -- a large portion of crop-viability is due to soil quality, which is built up over many many years. As areas that have traditionally been extremely cold be…

> Crops aren't solely viable because of climate -- a large portion of crop-viability is due to soil quality, which is built up over many many years.

I live in a rather less urban area than most HN readers, but I actually don't know all that much about farming.

I'm fascinated about some of the implications of your comments.

Having seen potting soil and fertilizer for sale in greenhouses and garden centers, I've always assumed soil fertility is a portable, manufacturable commodity. That is, if you want to start a farm in a place with the correct climate but unsuitable soil, you can simply buy healthy soil from somewhere else to get started, and then after a while your crops will establish themselves and create a somewhat self-sustaining ecosystem on your fields that only requires input of sunlight, water and nutrients that are commodity chemicals (nitrates and phosphates that can be mined or chemically manufactured).

Where does the bought soil come from? Established farms. Presumably crops have some capability to create soil from barren earth over time, so you can safely harvest and export 5% of your soil a year, or something. Or you can use dedicated compost piles which produce soil from crop / livestock waste. Perhaps occasionally importing rocky / sandy / clay soil to replenish the base mass.

You seem to disagree with this view; your comment instead implies that soil fertility is more fixed, not fungible. I find this interesting, and want to learn more.

Re: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

#578

Post by IncRnd »

orf wrote: post #37
gruez wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as this is (anti?) virtue-signaling, it's not really a contributor to global warming. Idling the engine for a minute or two probably causes more co2 emissions. The main concern is the particulate emissions.

It’s not the act itself, it’s the fact that there is a segment of the population that will spend thousands of dollars to modify their cars to pollute more, so that they can try and humiliate people driving hybrid and electric cars. That’s a symptom of a much, much deeper problem.

It seems somewhat off-center to think that people who roll-coal are motivated by a desire to humiliate drivers of hyrid or electric cars.
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