UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C • Hacker News Board

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#231

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #53

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, There is an exothermic reaction that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, the formation of carbonates from weathering of silicate rocks. As this is naturally very slow, there is currently ongoing research into multiple different ways to speed it up.

That doesn't change anything. You need a huge amount of energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere because CO2 is a tiny constituent part of Air (~400ppm) - that means one has to move a million molecules of air across a collector (whatever that is) to remove 400 molecules of CO2. You can't do that without huge amounts of energy and a huge surface area for your collector ... on any human timescale.

Oh man. Somebody always gets a way to make problems out of the entropy of diffusion. It increases with the log of the concentration, so whatever problem you estimate to happen, it can be worked around.

On the case of silicates, a trivial work around is to just spread them around and let the same diffusion bring the CO2 into them.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#232

Post by Faaak » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #109

Let me just leave a Unicode ‘degree’ symbol here for anyone who needs one: ° (on iOS and possibly MacOS you can get one of these by pressing and holding ‘zero’ until the alternate characters appear)

Alternatively, we can also use Kelvins as it shares the same scale as degrees Celsius; however the Kelvin notation doesn't use the degree symbol: 2.5K

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#233

Post by togs » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

Imagine the Kardashians going full influencer for climate change

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#234

Post by googlryas » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #219

rowanG077 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh I thought the world has more trees now then ever before.

I don’t know, but they could both be true. How many 5yo pine trees does it take to equal the surface area of one giant redwood?

It's really about growth rate rather than size.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#235

Post by alexvoda » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

SnowHill9902 wrote: post #220

mellosouls wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's gonna believe 1.5 thousand, and plenty would read it that way. Nobody outside some science niches (technical or not) uses K for temperature.

The correct format is 1.5 K and in my opinion is unambiguous written that way. 1.5k is definitely 1,500 while 1.5K in the middle is ambiguous and depends on context.

Then 1.5Ki should be 1536.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#236

Post by googlryas » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

mjhay wrote: post #217

Schroedingersat wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mass of air that moves past the existing fleet of wind turbines in a year is roughly a fifth of the mass of the atmosphere. It is a civilisation sized project that will take a lifetime, but it is achievable.

Or we could just stop burning coal.

That would be very easy if we didn't benefit greatly from burning coal

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#237

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

el_nahual wrote: post #125

Yizahi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that the key problem - all current "green" or "zero" tech is simply a trick, with shuffling emissions to other countries, selling-buying quotas, maybe reducing emissions a little in the best case. Until we have a working industrial scale CO2 sequestration factories we are essentially doing nothing, or close to nothing.

A lot of replies to this comment are saying a version of "how is solar/wind/etc a trick?" And the answer is that no, they are not a trick...they legitimately produce energy. But the goal isn't "make more clean energy", the goal is "keep coal and oil and gas underground"! And yet coal(!!) production is at basically all time highs, with oil not far behind. Unless we start making oil, coal and gas artificially expensive…

Yes, the Russia aggression threw a wrench into every replacement project out there.

But there are always two options to speed-up the process, you can make fossil fuels artificially expensive, or renewables artificially cheap.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#238

Post by colpabar » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

w0de0 wrote: post #222

timr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the article: > The estimate stands in sharp contrast to optimistic forecasts published last week that suggested heating could be held to 1.9C or 1.8C, thanks to commitments announced at the talks, now in their second week and scheduled to end this weekend. > Those estim…

It’s sad, but we will simply never get past the point of rearranging the furniture while we argue about the accuracy of estimates of the iceberg’s size. Why is this the font of your passion, rather than the desperate situation of our planet?

What are they supposed to do? They said they don't trust the guardian for scientific news because they have read the actual scientific literature and noticed that the guardian engages in clickbait and hyperbole. They seem to understand the situation, they just don't like this particular outlet because in their experience it doesn't do a good job. Should they be typing in all caps about how we're all going to die instead?

Like it or not, a lot of people have lost trust in mainstream media outlets because they have seen said outlets engage in hyperbolic clickbait bullshit.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#239

Post by timr » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

w0de0 wrote: post #222

timr wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. Other projections differ. Per the (non-headline) part of the article: > The estimate stands in sharp contrast to optimistic forecasts published last week that suggested heating could be held to 1.9C or 1.8C, thanks to commitments announced at the talks, now in their second week and scheduled to end this weekend. > Those estim…

It’s sad, but we will simply never get past the point of rearranging the furniture while we argue about the accuracy of estimates of the iceberg’s size. Why is this the font of your passion, rather than the desperate situation of our planet?

Indeed, why bother with ensuring our predictions are reasonable at all? Let's just assume the absolute worst, all the time.

If we stop being objective and surrender ourselves to emotion and panic, then it stops being science, and all authority is lost.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#240

Post by chimprich » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #210

chimprich wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's be perfectly clear: the projection you are citing is on the extreme end of a spectrum. It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. > After the past three years and watching their coverage of Covid (an area of science I know well, and in which I read the primary literature) That's little more than an app…

> It's worth pointing out that "on the extreme end of a spectrum" is some rather blatant editorializing. There is simply no way that's an objective fact. It's a fact reported by the very same article (but buried). I didn't make it up. > Would you like to cite some projections you think are more accurate? All projections are theoretical, but one needs only go to the IPCC to see that the range of reputable predictions…

> Most recent IPCC commentary on predictions to underscore that current estimates land in a range, and that the Guardian-cited source is not in the middle of it

Could you quote which part you are referring to?

If you look at the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, it predicts for Shared Socioeconomic Pathway SSP2-4.5 (the middle of the options presented, "CO2 emissions around current levels until 2050, then falling but not reaching net zero by 2100") warming of 2.7C by 2100.

2.9C is not an extreme prediction at all.