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Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

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Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that your friend lives 10 miles away and you don’t have adequate public transportation, not that life without cars is impossible.

Public transportation still requires you to go to the bus stop in the rain. I'm also unsure what the proposed solution to Bob being 10 miles away is. Should I only make friends with people who work at the same place?

> Public transportation still requires you to go to the bus stop in the rain.

“But my quality of life!”

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think CO2 would go down naturally after some time. But maybe we actually need to actively remove it, which is way harder.

> I think CO2 would go down naturally after some time. How? Where does the carbon go?

Eaten by plants, turned into coal. Atmospheric CO2 will indeed go down, after… some time.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#333
post #226

The enthusiasm with geoengineering among the HN community is worrisome. Not sure which computing analogy would drive home the complete recklessness of this mentality but the Earth is not something you can reboot to the last working state once you harebrained patch implodes. It is true that we have been slowly geoengineering for ages (initially unwittingly, recently with eyes wide open) and it is also true that our mo…

It is very uncomplicated in fact: Most people here on HN are rationally capable of understanding the challenges humanity faces right now. What many aren't capable of is accepting the conclusion that we all have to change the way we live and quite possibly even the way we organize society in order to mitigate the irreperable problems our way of living has already caused. Deep down they might suspect this is necessary,…

Plenty of people I know talk the talk but understand that they’re a special case and need say incandescent flood light in the kitchen.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#334
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very uncomplicated in fact: Most people here on HN are rationally capable of understanding the challenges humanity faces right now. What many aren't capable of is accepting the conclusion that we all have to change the way we live and quite possibly even the way we organize society in order to mitigate the irreperable problems our way of living has already caused. Deep down they might suspect this is necessary,…

>That is why discussions around such technological silver bullets are always toxic: people want to believe. On the flip side, some people reject technological solutions on principle because for them, it's not about solving problems, it's about atoning for the sins of humanity. What does the alternative future look like where we solve the climate crisis by changing the way we live and organize society? Personally, I w…

> while putting a substantial portion of GDP into building nuclear reactors and removing carbon from the atmosphere.

The first thing takes years and we still don’t have feasible technology for the second. Not to mention that we would still have a lot of emissions from transport, manufacture, and meat consumption.

A technological silver bullet would be cool but the reality is that we don’t have one and there’s nothing in the near future. But reducing our consumption is something we can start doing now.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#335
post #233

Meanwhile, in Tonga: "Tonga experiences unusual cold during El Nino alert" [1] > Tonga's Meteorology Department said on Friday that the Pacific island country is experiencing unusually cold weather, with cool days and cooler nights, and climate is leaning towards El Nino conditions. > According to the Matangi Tonga news website, a low of 9.3 degrees Celsius, recorded at the end of July in Tongatapu island where the c…

Do you intentionally ignore advice that's constantly posted here and elsewhere to NEVER take local events that go against the trends as evidence against the trends, or you're just new here and on any discussion of this topic and just didn't know that? Even parts of Antartica are currently cooling down, that's very well known and even expected according to climate models. But no, that's not evidence against global war…

> NEVER take local events

No-one was commenting that when the news piece about record high temps in the Andes was posted in here recently, I could ask myself rethorically why did that happen but we both know the answer.

Either way, I’m sure going to copy-paste your suggestion on all such future discussions related to “local events” that will only help fuel the hysteria. It won’t do any help, as the recent pandemic has shown that there’s no real remedy against localized hysteria, but I can try.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is that your point isn't based in reality. How is changing my lifestyle going to fix the problem when most of my power consumption is fueled by renewables, while most of the carbon emissions over the next 50 years are going to come from India and China? I'm not saying keep going as if nothing is happening. I'm saying the climate crisis is a real emergency, and the solution is to build more renewable energ…

Because while your "power" consumption is mostly renewables (again, you arguing against something slightly different than what I write), it's a small part of your total consumption. What about all the power China uses to build the things we in the west consume? That's on your budget.

Oh, I'm all for reducing consumption of useless crap. Personally I don't buy many things, most of my spending goes toward food and books.

I thought we were talking about energy "consumption", not consumption of material goods. However, I'm still not sure how much reducing that kind of consumption is going to help in the overall picture of the climate crisis. It's also not realistic to expect that everybody is just going to stop buying things in the next 10 years.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem right. Most of the world's new carbon emissions are coming from developing countries. On the other hand, the HN crowd is much more likely to live in dense cities (which are more climate friendly), have access to public transportation, drive electric cars, and can afford to pay for carbon offsets. The only thing unsustainable about the first world lifestyle is the fact that we don't have the politica…

CO2 emissions per capita (tons/person/year): Canada 18.72 United States 15.32 China 7.44 Brazil 2.24 Indonesia 2.02 India 1.89

I’m sure Canada is driven by heating load.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transportation still requires you to go to the bus stop in the rain. I'm also unsure what the proposed solution to Bob being 10 miles away is. Should I only make friends with people who work at the same place?

The solution is that Bob isn’t 10 miles away because the town is more dense. And carrying an umbrella to the tram or train stop 3 blocks away is easy

10 miles is fine, you can have friends everywhere and you can’t expect everyone you know to live in the same urban sprawl.

Use public transport, take a cab if you need to or use a car club (shared vehicles use less resources than owning a car), ride a bike, walk the 10 miles. Infrastructure helps to reduce personal car use.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#339
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very uncomplicated in fact: Most people here on HN are rationally capable of understanding the challenges humanity faces right now. What many aren't capable of is accepting the conclusion that we all have to change the way we live and quite possibly even the way we organize society in order to mitigate the irreperable problems our way of living has already caused. Deep down they might suspect this is necessary,…

>That is why discussions around such technological silver bullets are always toxic: people want to believe. On the flip side, some people reject technological solutions on principle because for them, it's not about solving problems, it's about atoning for the sins of humanity. What does the alternative future look like where we solve the climate crisis by changing the way we live and organize society? Personally, I w…

It's not about religion, but about empathy and justice. Some people actually think that other forms of life on this planet have a right to exist, and there's no question at all that human life has been catastrophically bad for virtually every other form of life on this Earth. You can't just apply an energy patch and presto-reverso the carbon content in the atmosphere; we've managed to seriously disrupt global ecosystems and going nuclear doesn't fix that. We're gobbling this planet up, and there's just frankly too many of us to keep living at the standard of living we are.

> Personally, I would prefer to continue having electricity, heat, running water, sewage treatment, shipping, transportation, and the internet.

Incredibly tone deaf, frankly, when most past humans had none of those things and yet dealt with it, living actual full lives. We've basically forgotten what we are, what we came from, and believe we deserve Saturday morning cartoons.

Re: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is why discussions around such technological silver bullets are always toxic: people want to believe. On the flip side, some people reject technological solutions on principle because for them, it's not about solving problems, it's about atoning for the sins of humanity. What does the alternative future look like where we solve the climate crisis by changing the way we live and organize society? Personally, I w…

Bluntly: far fewer people, sustainability built into every process, no more oil, very high cost for transportation unless it is by ship, personal transport will be very costly and you won't do it unless you really have to. Think '1850' but with transistors.

>far fewer people

Also bluntly: how would we do that ethically without severely restricting reproductive rights or "cleansing" populations?

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