Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#171

Post by pmichaud » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC

Acebulf wrote: post #133

slibhb wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However the problem with that is that the overwhelming majority of observations and models, many of which are far from simple and use large amounts of data, point to climate change being real, unusually rapid and anthropogenic I think climate change is a problem (not a crisis) but it's important to note that if a scientist questions climate science, he becomes a pariah. In such an environment, it's hard to know how…

> I think climate change is a problem (not a crisis) but it's important to note that if a scientist questions climate science, he becomes a pariah. People who have never done science really like this idea of the general scientific community being some sort of secret society that agrees to support eachothers ideas. If you put 5 scientists in a room, you can't get them to agree on >anything<. The idea that disagreement…

This is a pretty serious misunderstanding of the claim you're responding to. It's not that scientists in general agree about everything in general. It's that certain hot button issues become politicized in such a way that prevents real scientific skepticism / decent on those subjects in particular.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#172

Post by WastingMyTime89 » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:22 PM UTC

revelio wrote: post #169

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> World population has grown at exactly the same rate for the last 70 years Did you actually look at what you linked? The main graph is only China and India and already shows a net inflection for China in the past few years. It will keep slowing. Read about population-lag effect. The second graph nicely confirms that contrary to what you pretend population growth has started slowing globally. There is no consensus ab…

Did you bother changing the graph to show world population instead of just looking at the default selection? Here is the link to assist you in this: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/population-and-demograp... It is a straight upwards line. But as I said, they don't care about population, only CO2 levels, which also go up in a straight line. It would indeed be a waste of time for you to argue further, because you…

I was serious when I said you should learn about the population-lag effect. The global population has been steadily declining since 1990 as even a cursory search would have shown you. So that eventual other readers haven’t entirely wasted their time, here is a link to the relevant UN source: https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/MostUsed/

I’m not going to bother answering the rest of your comment.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#173

Post by Aachen » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:22 PM UTC

bleuchase wrote: post #115

Loquebantur wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason your comment is bad isn't you pointing out some "truth". The reason is your comment being misleading. You pretend, the accuracy of climate models was insufficient for any relevant conclusions to be made. That is just nonsense. The interesting part is people clinging onto anything calling that impending climate catastrophe (or its human cause) into question. Individual subjective short-term benefits outweig…

Well, Climategate happened. So there is legitimate reason to be skeptical of dire claims. And yes, I’m aware all of those involved in the scandal were cleared of wrongdoing. That’s like the FBI investigating itself and finding nothing wrong. Anyways, the fundamental assumption of most models—-that humans are behind climate change—-has not been sufficiently evaluated or tested. I find starting with that assumption uns…

I don't know whether you're being genuine or just trolling/flame baiting. If you are serious, maybe start by reading what those emails you're referring to actually said.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#174

Post by Aachen » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

kagakuninja wrote: post #139

shrubble wrote: post #40

This is exactly what the "deniers" have been saying - that the mathematical model is not fleshed out enough, and the data is not present in sufficiently accurate quantity, for the climate models to be accurate. This research shows that the mechanism of action was misunderstood all this time. What else hasn't been researched enough and has simplistic assumptions baked into the climate models? That shockingly simplisti…

The fossil fuel industry has also grossly underestimated the amount of methane leaking from wells and fracking sites. Researchers got some things right, other things wrong. What we have seen historically is that the pessimistic estimates of scientists have matched reality better than the optimistic estimates. Scientists have actually under estimated the effects of climate change.

> What we have seen historically is that the pessimistic estimates of scientists have matched reality better than the optimistic estimates.

I wasn't aware of this, but it also sounds hard to prove so I'd be very interested in such a study having been done. Or do you mean for climate change specifically? (That seems much more manageable to meta-analyse)

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#175

Post by myshpa » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #151

myshpa wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How exactly do you propose to heat the average person's home when all fossil fuels are no longer available Atom & renewable sources. 256x256 km of solar panels is enough for whole world. > And any derivative products of fossil fuels such as plastics You mean trash (99% of plastics produced)? Stop producing it. > fertilizers Use regenerative agriculture. Agriculture can perfectly well function without fossil fuel in…

> Atom & renewable sources. 256x256 km of solar panels is enough for whole world. > Electric tractors. Should have been here decades ago. Those sound like great ideas. How about we roll them out first, and only stop using fossil fuels once they're able to totally replace them with no downside, instead of giving up heat and tractors indefinitely in the meantime?

So ... business as usual?

We have to decide to stop using the bad stuff first, set the deadlines, or new stuff will never materialize.

Have you noticed how Tesla started electric cars, everybody laughed, and now they're the only way forward?

It will be the same with this ... sooner or later. And the change of focus will bring innovation we can't even imagine now.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#176

Post by phpisthebest » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:29 PM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #161

phpisthebest wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Different activists have different goals. Assuming societal death is a goal is extremely uncharitable and wrong for the majority of activists. For example, I believe that carbon emissions and the resulting climate change is the biggest climate issue we face. I live in California, many people here are against damming because it will damage the natural environment where the reservoirs form. I think the reservoir damage…

>>Different activists have different goals.

while that is true, that is minority, I see ALOT of activists that actibly hold contradictory positions.

For example I have seen, ALOT of people (and I know you are not one of them) "I dont drink dairy milk because it is bad for the earth, instead I drink Almond Milk"..... ehhhhhh

Supplanting Almond Milk for Cow milk is a good position if you are doing it for animal ethics, but do claim you are saving the earth by doing it is non-sense.

>> I think recycling is good, but I would prefer lower greenhouse emissions over lower trash

This is not a contradictory position, it is sad the recycling movement has lost its way soo much..

The movement is/was REDUCE>REUSE>RECYCLE... is not just recycling. Some how we have skipped the first 2 and just worry about the last one. Part of that is need for the economy for always be consuming... so there is incentives by both government and corporations to get people to buy less durable less fixable goods.

This is why right to repair is critical to the environmental movement, but here again I have seen alot of climate activists posting from their iPhone how it is dangerous to allow people to fix their property..

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#177

Post by verdverm » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

eastof wrote: post #159

verdverm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are nutrients and amino acids only found in meat. Where do you get the replacement for this, what does that process look like, are they even metabolically equivalent?

> nutrients [...] only found in meat Nutritional yeast is tasty and naturally has b12, and most cereals/grains are fortified with it. > amino acids [...] only found in meat This just isn't true, you can get all amino acids from plant-based sources like soybeans, lentils, and peanuts. Source: I have been vegan for 5 years and I still have a healthy 6 minute mile, 25 consecutive pullups, V5-V7 range boulder problem cli…

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-nutrients-you-cant-ge... is just one example

Most dietary deficiencies take many decades to play out. Vegans require many artificial supplements to fill the gaps. My questions is mainly, are these sufficient or are natural sources better?

I'd recommend checking out this Huberman podcast for a set of protocols for assessing your strength, endurance, and more. https://youtu.be/CyDLbrZK75U

tl;dr if you focus on one type of athletic ability, you are not optimizing correctly. For example, endurance athletes will have issues with bones and balance loss reactions later in life

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#178

Post by Aachen » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

revelio wrote: post #148

kagakuninja wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fossil fuel industry has also grossly underestimated the amount of methane leaking from wells and fracking sites. Researchers got some things right, other things wrong. What we have seen historically is that the pessimistic estimates of scientists have matched reality better than the optimistic estimates. Scientists have actually under estimated the effects of climate change.

Scientists overestimated climate change and frequently still do by their own telling. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01192-2 Climate simulations: recognize the ‘hot model’ problem Users beware: a subset of the newest generation of models are ‘too hot’ and project climate warming in response to carbon dioxide emissions that might be larger than that supported by other evidence. In recent studies, the “hot…

The second link is not an unpaywalled copy, it's "climate change isn't real" content that you're portraying as having been posted to Nature. This is not a constructive way to talk about the topic at hand (methane being the equivalent of 20x CO2 instead of 28x, at least if the submission isn't in error).

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#179

Post by fortysixdegrees » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:38 PM UTC

stametseater wrote: post #170

culopatin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the claim is that meat industry is extracting as much Co2 as they contribute?

Specifically with respect to the methane cow farts, yes. That carbon comes from their plant diet (be it grass in a field or grain in a feeding lot), and the carbon in those plants came from the atmosphere. This isn't counting the fossil fuels the industry also burns, or the carbon released during the production of fertilizers used when growing that feed. But the carbon in the feed itself all comes from the atmosphere…

Yea but grass doesn't grown on methane

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#180

Post by Aachen » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 8:39 PM UTC

replygirl wrote: post #38

azan_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate deniers are not people who discuss whether methane is 28x or 20x as strong as CO2, but rather people that do not believe in global warming (or our responsibility for it) at all; that's not skepticism, that's blind faith.

Relative to what things looked like 10-20 years ago, is there still a meaningful contingent of climate change deniers? As far as I can tell, most of those people have accepted the reality but disagree on how we should approach it. Even in the most extreme case--looking at Republicans in the US Congress, steeped in fossil propaganda and owing many of their elections to gerrymandering--and using a broad definition of c…

That was my impression as well, but unfortunately this comment is lower on the page than at least a pair of them, so now I'm less sure :/