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There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

bbc.com

81–90 of 166 posts

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#81

"if you set off a rube goldberg type death trap to kill someone, if its a long enough machine, it ceases to become your fault if somebody dies at the end."

Not a great analogy. It doesn't matter how big the rube goldberg machine is if there was only one input to begin with, it would still trace back to that input. The problem with climate is that there are billions of inputs spanning centuries. Trying to assign blame is a waste of time anyway, time that we don't have.

It's a great analogy for what they were pointing out. The point is not that these issues are traceable and thus inarguably someone's fault. The point is many times people don't have to take responsibility for these issues because they are indirect. The more indirect (the larger the Rube Goldberg Machine) the higher chance of avoiding responsibility.

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#82
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If solar is cheaper why aren't you building solar plants in China and India right now, you'd make millions undercutting the coal plants they are currently building. I guess everyone involved in energy there is a idiot?

If I had the money I would. But don't worry other people (idiots apperently) are. China and India are both some of the leading countries in added solar and wind capacity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country

Also coal and that lead is expanding, why?

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#83
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the boiled frog, perhaps we have not even realized that we are already cooked/doomed.

I don't know, I feel like it's already pretty obvious that we're "cooked/doomed", with some caveats: 1. Even in the worst case I haven't seen any level-headed scientists argue that the Earth will be uninhabitable a la Venus. We'll get a hotter planner, sea levels will rise considerably inundating coastal areas, the current anthropocene extinction event will accelerate, storms will be a lot more intense, etc. Obviousl…

It seems pretty optimistic to say it's "stabilized over the past decade".

If I'm reading correctly, between 2011 and 2021 (the last year in the graph) there was an increase of 5 billion tons, and that was certainly helped by the big drop during the pandemic...

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the GOP, its an entire economic system, defended at nuclear gunpoint, by the one of the world’s largest carbon emitters, who both parties reward with ever-expanding, fraud-ridden budgets, while their citizens starve and die on the streets, go bankrupt from illnesses, etc. I’m sorry to tell you, but there is no one in the halls of US power steering the ship away from the worst outcomes of climate change becau…

> I’m sorry to tell you, but there is no one in the halls of US power steering the ship away from the worst outcomes of climate change The folks who went hard on globalism since the 1990s certainly are. There were (and still are) a lot of politicians on both sides who support unchecked globalization, the ecological and human consequences be damned. This is the cause of Climate Change, not the US, which is ramping dow…

At what point should we start to optimize more for climate robust infrastructure than carbon reduction. There’s less willingness to invest in the robustness power grid than to get people into electric cars.

Robustness of infrastructure could also be aided by lifestyle changes, driving less…

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#85
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I feel like it's already pretty obvious that we're "cooked/doomed", with some caveats: 1. Even in the worst case I haven't seen any level-headed scientists argue that the Earth will be uninhabitable a la Venus. We'll get a hotter planner, sea levels will rise considerably inundating coastal areas, the current anthropocene extinction event will accelerate, storms will be a lot more intense, etc. Obviousl…

Agreed .. A lot of people will die as places become uninhabitable for a very very long time .. Access to clean water will become a major issue and the poor will lose (even more than they already are) .. Humans are a greedy species and this planet just can't support 8B+ (and counting of us) .. I don't know what it can support but we'll soon find out .. We are still decades away from near zero fossil fuels globally and…

> Humans are a greedy species and this planet just can't support 8B+

This seems like a pretty bold statement.

Let’s assume the only constraints on population are energy, water, and space. If you do a back of the napkin calculation on much Uranium exists on Earth, how much power we could produce by fissioning it, then how much water is in the oceans, and then assume everything else is an engineering problem?

I think the number wouldn’t be 8 Billion, but much more. That’s not even getting into mining asteroids, space-based energy, vertical hydroponics, living underground or in the oceans. I think the limits could be extraordinarily high

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a great analogy. It doesn't matter how big the rube goldberg machine is if there was only one input to begin with, it would still trace back to that input. The problem with climate is that there are billions of inputs spanning centuries. Trying to assign blame is a waste of time anyway, time that we don't have.

It's a great analogy for what they were pointing out. The point is not that these issues are traceable and thus inarguably someone's fault. The point is many times people don't have to take responsibility for these issues because they are indirect. The more indirect (the larger the Rube Goldberg Machine) the higher chance of avoiding responsibility.

Then perhaps we need to reframe the issue from one of "taking responsibility" to one of "this is what we need to change in order to survive".

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#87

We are going through a very active solar cycle reaching the probable maximum. The sun is pumping out a lot more energy than normal. To ignore the sun as a relevant factor for warmer summers seems just bad science. Initially, peak activity was forecast to begin in July 2025. Now, experts believe the cyclical peak is more likely to take place in mid- to late 2024. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/14/world/solar-maximum-…

I don't think the sun's influence is being ignored.

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#88
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great analogy for what they were pointing out. The point is not that these issues are traceable and thus inarguably someone's fault. The point is many times people don't have to take responsibility for these issues because they are indirect. The more indirect (the larger the Rube Goldberg Machine) the higher chance of avoiding responsibility.

Then perhaps we need to reframe the issue from one of "taking responsibility" to one of "this is what we need to change in order to survive".

That's a much harder problem :)

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#89

The last month I've thought about this clip at least twice a week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SYpUSjSgFg

"Once and for all!" I think of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNYp6oc37ds

This is the clip that got me to watch the show. Let's be honest, the premise was pretty boring.

So glad I did. Some great acting and really clever writing.

Re: There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried

#90
post #87

We are going through a very active solar cycle reaching the probable maximum. The sun is pumping out a lot more energy than normal. To ignore the sun as a relevant factor for warmer summers seems just bad science. Initially, peak activity was forecast to begin in July 2025. Now, experts believe the cyclical peak is more likely to take place in mid- to late 2024. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/14/world/solar-maximum-…

I don't think the sun's influence is being ignored.

Sure it does, just read the article from the BBC, not a single place does it mention the current solar maximum.
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