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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

#351

Post by kaba0 »

fasterik wrote: post #305
atoav wrote: 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…

We have enough resources to provide heating and running water for every living person on Earth, it is just not allocated fairly and smartly (e.g. in my country we flush the toilet with very good grade water meant for drinking, because historically we don’t have separate piping for less potable water and we are rich in waters).

But do we really need to be able to order some bullshit plastic shit from China for 2 dollars? I think it is only fair to give up that for local production, even if that costs 10 dollars for the same thing. Similarly, do I have to eat argentine beef in Europe? Sure, make it available for a hefty price for the rare occasion, but it really should not be generally available. Fruit that is local and is out of season? Don’t import it from Peru, simply wait for it to be in season, or buy some product that was made locally when it was in season, like jam. Strengthening local production would already massively decrease the number of ships we need for minimal inconvenience (hell, it might just be beneficial for the local economy). Do I even have to eat meat each day?

Similary, why don’t we ban most kinds of single-use plastics? How often do you buy milk that you plan on drinking while you walk somewhere? Couldn’t it be stored inside a container you have to bring back to the shop the next time, or buy again if not? Hell, most liquids meant for drinking could easily come in a few sizes of these reusable bottles. We have goddamn shops that can auto-subtract your bought items simply by camera imaging, don’t tell me we don’t have the tech to safely and hygienically refill containers, something we had 100 years ago.

As for societal change: do my parents have to live in a separate house with way too much space for them, having them see their grandchildren only occasionally (making parents having to pay for babysitters)? Only so that they can later be cared for by some random person? Sure, not everyone has parents worth living together with, but this tendency that it is somehow a failure to not move out of your parents home is imo very harmful to everyone involved - parent not having enough self-time, grandparents being alone, slowly deteriorating mentally, children not seeing grandparents enough (also, parents having to figure out parenting from zero).

These are not big sacrifices, but we will do them, one way or another. The question is, do we want to do it with self-agency, or let nature run its course?

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

#352

Post by RhysU »

atoav wrote: post #226
nologic01 wrote: post #156

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,…

> ...we all have to change the way we live...

It is negligently irrational to believe the entirety of the human race can be convinced to do, in perpetuity, what you suggest.

The conclusion to accept is the cat's out of the bag. Two weeks won't stop the spread. Nuclear weapons will never be uninvented. Etc etc etc.

And, like, yawn. This has long been obvious. We'll adapt in some manner whatever the horrors. I would bet against a human but not against humanity.

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

#353

Post by fasterik »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #329
fasterik wrote: post #279

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

Yes, and when you multiply per capita by population, you end up with China and India emitting over double what the United States emits.

There is also the delta to take into account. Industrialized countries are decarbonizing and switching to renewables, while industrializing countries are building new coal plants.

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

#354

Post by BasedAnon »

concordDance wrote: post #273
BasedAnon wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. here's one: stop writing random bits to the BIOS hoping it will fix things

That's an awful analogy. The science behind, say, sunshades is much stronger than the science behind climate change itself! Eg. The odds of blocking out the sun not cooling the earth are much lower than the earth's temperature magically stabilising at current levels despite more co2 emissions.

the hidden assumption is that you are dealing with a closed system, you are not. the scientific method has explanatory limits

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

#355

Post by brabel »

krisoft wrote: post #328
brabel wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that’s not an emergency, what is? You know it's an emergency when the status quo is completely unacceptable and the government takes drastic measures (no more cars of any kind on the road, every physically able man/woman forced to work on whatever solution is chosen to help, that kind of thing - nothing close to what we're seeing today) with widespread support of the population. You can't call it an emergency wh…

> You know it's an emergency when the status quo is completely unacceptable and the government takes drastic measures So if we never acknowledge it it is never an emergency? > every physically able man/woman forced to work on whatever solution is chosen to help Doing what? How will the physical power of the masses help us here?

> So if we never acknowledge it it is never an emergency?

Exactly. Do you think an emergency has some objective trigger?? No it does not, it's subjective, the people involved in the event are the ones who deem whether it's an emergency or not, even if they may be wrong about the gravity of the situation (which is why sometimes the rescue service may disagree with you whether you're in an emergency situation or not and refuse to rescue you, for example - that happened to me).

> Doing what?

Think about the Marshall Plan... if we really need to, I am sure we can get every man and woman to work on the manufacture and use of whatever device can collect CO2 from the atmosphere or whatever.

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

#356

Post by Symbiote »

fasterik wrote: post #336
matsemann wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

If you've either taken four long flights in the last year, or drive an SUV a little more than average, you're already above the average carbon footprint for the world, without any consideration of eating meat, electricity, other fuels, etc.

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

#357

Post by peteradio »

concordDance wrote: post #273
BasedAnon wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. here's one: stop writing random bits to the BIOS hoping it will fix things

That's an awful analogy. The science behind, say, sunshades is much stronger than the science behind climate change itself! Eg. The odds of blocking out the sun not cooling the earth are much lower than the earth's temperature magically stabilising at current levels despite more co2 emissions.

Sunshade is like thinking you fixed the bios security issue because your test case can no longer boot.

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

#358

Post by dan-robertson »

nologic01 wrote: post #156

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…

I think it’s important to have realistic ideas about how climate change might actually go. For example:

- if all emissions stopped tonight, we’d still be on track for temperature rises over the next several decades

- some places would get hotter, others wouldn’t. Similarly changes in rainfall would not be evenly distributed. It may be that Europe’s climate doesn’t change all that much, for example (due to changing ocean currents cooling the North Atlantic)

- some of the facts that drove rhetoric 20 years ago have since changed, for example the cost of renewable energy has dramatically decreased such that certain kinds of subsidies or sacrifices are less necessary (on the other hand, the power/km^2 density of solar / wind in some places may still imply land uses that people would find unacceptable were they to become dominant)

- in the grand scheme of things, geoengineering (like pumping SO2 into the troposphere or dispersing silver particles in the atmosphere) is cheap and could be performed unilaterally by many countries were they to feel sufficiently threatened by climate change.

I think one reason to care about this kind of geoengineering is that it might just happen. I think it’s also useful to consider that we’re currently doing the ‘geoengineering’ of pumping more and more CO2 into the atmosphere and I think we should be careful to avoid treating ‘planned’ geoengineering asymmetrically from the side-effect kind.

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

#359

Post by corney91 »

concordDance wrote: post #296
teamonkey wrote: post #293

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.

An umbrella solves that at minimal cost.

For the record, I don't think all car use is wrong, but the example of visiting a friend 10 miles away isn't a very good one. Someone shouldn't be expected to buy a car and its associated maintenance, tax, and externalities, just to visit someone that nearby.

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

#360

Post by Symbiote »

concordDance wrote: post #296
teamonkey wrote: post #293

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?

If people aren't willing to the nearest bus/tram/train stop while holding an umbrella and/or wearing a raincoat, we're all fucked.
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