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The concurrence of three climatic events

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Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#2
I read the whole article. I looked at all the graphs and charts. I still don't understand the near term significance, even with the detailed explanations.

Assuming I'm exactly average, that means 50% of the population won't understand it either. Of that 50%, how many will actually care? Nothing will happen until it is too late.

His final words weren't encouraging and I can't say I feel any better either.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#5
post #2

I read the whole article. I looked at all the graphs and charts. I still don't understand the near term significance, even with the detailed explanations. Assuming I'm exactly average, that means 50% of the population won't understand it either. Of that 50%, how many will actually care? Nothing will happen until it is too late. His final words weren't encouraging and I can't say I feel any better either.

> Assuming I'm exactly average, that means 50% of the population won't understand it either. Of that 50%, how many will actually care? Nothing will happen until it is too late.

That’s the crux of the dilemma. It’s too hard. Nothing in our daily experience gives us an intuition for it.

For instance, the media often says “solving climate change requires lowering emissions”. Which gives the impression that if we lower emissions we solve it.

But lowering admissions merely slows the speed at which the problem worsens. To solve the problem we would need to go to zero and then actually suck extra co2 from the atmosphere.

And total global emissions, the only number which matters, are at a record high.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#7
post #2

I read the whole article. I looked at all the graphs and charts. I still don't understand the near term significance, even with the detailed explanations. Assuming I'm exactly average, that means 50% of the population won't understand it either. Of that 50%, how many will actually care? Nothing will happen until it is too late. His final words weren't encouraging and I can't say I feel any better either.

Third paragraph from the bottom. Seems pretty clear in layman's terms to me.

> As we enter Northern hemisphere summer, large regions of the planet will experience record heatwaves, fires, storms and flooding. These events will set records in intensity, duration and frequency. The planet’s overall temperature will spike to new highs for the modern era, with 1.5°C in sight for 2024. Antarctic polar sea-ice will continue its retreat from “normal”, exposing more open ocean to incoming solar radiation and heating. Crops will fail. Infrastructure will break beyond repair. Climate migration will spike. And all of this is already happening.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#10
Interesting that removing sulphur emissions may have resulted in more solar radiation being absorbed by the oceans. Wonder if cargo ships could purposely emit some benign material that would reflect away sunlight. Although I suspect there could be unintended consequences.
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