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The concurrence of three climatic events

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Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#371

Post by nocoiner »

deanCommie wrote: post #285
no_wizard wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take on it is that "well presented doomers" [0], if you will, serve to balance the "well presented optimists" [1] in that they are needed in society so we can have some take on how things could actually go wrong and sound warnings for potentially catastrophic failures. Its important though, that I think it needs moderating, like not everything "Doomers" say needs to be taken at face value, its important that other…

"Everything will go wrong whether we do anything or not!!" No, it won't. Because we will act. "Everything will turn out fine, we don't need to worry about anything!!" No, it won't. We need to act. Honestly, both extreme reactions paralyze humans and nations into inactivity. We fixed the hole in the Ozone. We fixed Acid Rain. We stopped the whales from going extinct. We did this through concerted human and governmenta…

I truthfully don’t get climate doomerism at all. Does the whole climate picture seem decidedly not great? It does. Seem not great.

But hectoring and chiding and unhealthy amounts of stress aren’t going to muster sufficient resources and capabilities to put a handle on this problem.

You know what will? Good old fashioned human ingenuity and optimism. This isn’t to lessen the inevitable losses. Humans will die. Species will be lost forever. Island nations will sink beneath the waves (and not just the UK this time).

Things are gonna get worse before they get better, but like the apocryphal Americans, you can always trust humanity to do the right thing after they’ve exhausted every other option.

We’ve got this. Shaming someone for throwing out a USB mini cable ain’t gonna get us there.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#372

Post by ratg13 »

fps wrote: post #227
ratg13 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the only part of the post that I wasn’t relating to. I’m just coming back from a trip to the Caribbean where during my trip the sky was hazy for some days and all of the locals were claiming the weather effect to be the Sahara dust. I’m not a local so I don’t know if it is more or less than usual, but my personal experience makes me take issue with the “never come” part.

The eastern islands of the Caribbean are currently getting hit with smoke from Canadian wildfires: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/smoke-maps-canad... . Smoke is covering everything from Puerto Rico to Barbados.

This was about 3 weeks ago, prior to the wildfires.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#373

Post by e44858 »

idlewords wrote: post #313
e44858 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sulfur dioxide + water + oxygen = sulfuric acid, which is not something you want in the atmosphere where rain clouds form.

Rain clouds don't form in the stratosphere, and there's very little water there.

Thunderstorms can actually push water into the stratosphere: https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-powerful-thunderstorm...

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#374

Post by murphyslab »

diydsp wrote: post #262
dj_gitmo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

very poor taste IMO.

It's been suggested to state things in terms of 9/11/2001 for Americans who don't understand the distaste in such discussions. E.g. each "Hiroshima" would be worth 65 "9/11/2001"s. The scale of the graph's Y-axis would run from 195 to 585 "9/11/2001"s. Derivation: Hiroshima: 129,000–226,000 deaths. E(death_Hiroshima) ~= 180k. 9/11/2011, NYC: 2,753 people died. 180k/2753 ~= 65.

The author is using this as a unit of thermal energy being absorbed, not as a measure of deaths:

> As of March, 2023, on an annualized basis, the EEI was 1.61 Watts per square meter. That might not sound like a lot, but on a global basis it is about equal to the energy released from 13 Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs exploding every second.

That "1.61 Watts per square meter" figure does sound low to someone who thinks in terms of 60 Watt light bulbs. Thinking of it on the scale of nuclear bombs being dropped may give people pause to reflect on the magnitude of the rate of energy being absorbed.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#375

Post by phtrivier »

Daishiman wrote: post #25
phtrivier wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As of January 1, 2020, the International Maritime Organization put a limit on the sulfur content in shipping fuels, reducing the global upper limit on sulfur content from 3.50% to 0.50%. Here is a link to an article describing this change. This reduced limit was mandatory and led to over a 75% drop in sulfur oxides. While great for the environment in many respects (e.g. less acid rain and ocean acidification), ther…

Regulation of CFCs was successful at helping to recover the ozone layer. Likewise the Clean Air Act. Regulation works remarkably well in many spaces. Skepticism is warranted as usual but the cynics that claim it almost never works usually have a hidden agenda.

I don't know about the clean air act.

My understanding of the Montreal protocol is not that corporations decided to follow regulations from their good hearts, but that they managed to play the clock long enough to have better and cheaper alternatives anyway [1].)

That being said, of course I do believe regulation help - but, slowly, reluctantly, and with every interest fighting tooth and nails.

Therefore, I'm still shocked that a regulation would be _that_ successful (75% reduction of anything in two years is unbelievable.)

However, if insurers are more powerful than activist, that should give some ideas. How can you make premiums for fossil fuels plants get so high that no insurer would touch them ?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol?wprov=sfla1

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#376

Post by phtrivier »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #31
phtrivier wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As of January 1, 2020, the International Maritime Organization put a limit on the sulfur content in shipping fuels, reducing the global upper limit on sulfur content from 3.50% to 0.50%. Here is a link to an article describing this change. This reduced limit was mandatory and led to over a 75% drop in sulfur oxides. While great for the environment in many respects (e.g. less acid rain and ocean acidification), ther…

Just curious really, but sources on China being particularly uncooperative with this kind of stuff? Totally take your word for it, of course. I'm mainly just surprised I hadn't heard this particular point before in the various and constant Bad-China discourse.

That was a bit tongue in cheek. ("Notorious" as "that's everyone is saying". Ironically, the first source of this I can find is from the US state department, but it's from the trump era so maybe to be taken with a huge grain of salt : https://2017-2021.state.gov/chinas-environmental-abuses/inde...)

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#377

Post by LatteLazy »

colechristensen wrote: post #245
LatteLazy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This baffles me too but it is the way of things. Smart people refuse to support action unless they're 100% sure no one will dislike it. Meanwhile morons wreck things without pause or consequence. I don't know what it is but I think it will doom our species. You see the same thing from climate change to deficits to wars.

This isn't really the case. The people who study climate are having to censor themselves from the loud idiots who took the bait and turned a scientific concern into a creed. In the 21st century if you have to frame your solution as a fight against something, you're part of the problem not part of the solution. "Fighting" is now a bigger problem than the contested topic. Idiots fight and the bigger the idiot, the bigg…

Right now, the discussion is all fake. One side insist it is not real, the other that it is and that we will do something then don't. The science is in, and we are basically entering the "find out" stage of "fuck around and find out". I wonder what will happen then? We've had the same basic problem (extreme polarisation) for 100 similar issues in the english speaking world (I'd list housing, inequality, lack of opportunity, over regulation for a start). Maybe we will enter a generation of renewal, or maybe we will sink into obscurity...

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#378

Post by stefek99 »

> "pandemic that is still ongoing but mostly ignored by global media"

That is good right? Watch the PART 2: https://plandemicseries.com/ (Event 201)

Putin captured media headlines. Speaking of Putin, Russia is probably the only country that benefits from melting Arctic - opening Northwest Passage - figured it out after debating with a bunch of climate change deniers on Twitter.

(I enjoy debating, I had fun doing it, at some point they were quitting, if they were like me they would continue debating)

In all seriousness, I'm working on Metacrisis - a new term reaching mainstream consciousness:

— Runaway climate change + food system + global hunger

— Economic inequality + compound interest + exponential growth on finite planet

— Nuclear proliferation + pandemics + lost trust in media + lost trust in government

— Regulation of AI + polarisation and engagement metrics + mental health

Problem well defined is problem half solved

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#379

Post by iso1631 »

lynx23 wrote: post #103
iso1631 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of migrants seems a massivly optimistic view. I suspect it will be well over a billion in 10 years.

Well, this is when the military budget of many countries will be put to a test, for real this time. After all, the reason to keep investing into military force is to be able to defend sovereignty. It is a harsh thought, no question, but we have to admit that we always prepared for this case. Sure, the left is trying to make it a humanitarian thing, but in the end, available space and resources will determine how much…

You're downvoted, but you're also right. The world is not going to be a nice place by the time Millennials get to retirement age.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#380

Post by Timon3 »

nocoiner wrote: post #371
deanCommie wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything will go wrong whether we do anything or not!!" No, it won't. Because we will act. "Everything will turn out fine, we don't need to worry about anything!!" No, it won't. We need to act. Honestly, both extreme reactions paralyze humans and nations into inactivity. We fixed the hole in the Ozone. We fixed Acid Rain. We stopped the whales from going extinct. We did this through concerted human and governmenta…

I truthfully don’t get climate doomerism at all. Does the whole climate picture seem decidedly not great? It does. Seem not great. But hectoring and chiding and unhealthy amounts of stress aren’t going to muster sufficient resources and capabilities to put a handle on this problem. You know what will? Good old fashioned human ingenuity and optimism. This isn’t to lessen the inevitable losses. Humans will die. Species…

There is some dissonance in your comment. On the one hand you acknowledge that things will get bad, but you don't want people to dread how abd it will get, because some will survive?

Reminds me of this quote: "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make"

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