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Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

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Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#401

Post by acdha »

lsh123 wrote: post #376

And this is a good thing! For the most of its history, Earth was much (>5F) warmer than today: http://www.climate.gov/media/11332 https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte... We are still technically getting out of the last ice age. Warmer climates mean more places are warm enough to grow food. More CO2 means plants grow faster (also more food). Yea, some low lands might get flooded - either build…

This is like saying losing weight is good so you should contract cholera. The times where the climate was warmer in the past took much longer to get that way, giving ecosystems time to adapt.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#402

Post by waffleiron »

tptacek wrote: post #399
seasox wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you count the emissions for the stuff manufactured in China for (not only) european customers. If you look at consumption-based emissions[0], China is at 7 t per capita, which is 8 t less than the US, 2 t less than Germany and about par with Denmark, Slovakia, and England. 0: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...

This is per capita data again, which makes the argument circular. In absolute terms, China emits more than twice as much CO2 as the next producer, and only a small fraction of that is exported.

Per capita data makes sense. CO2 emissions don’t change if we cut giants countries into many smaller ones. If China was 25 different countries you wouldn’t be pointing the finger to them.

Why shouldn’t the highest emitters not be the ones to reduce most?

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#403

Post by FrankyHollywood »

Sargos wrote: post #317
FrankyHollywood wrote: post #292

All these comments mentioning cutting down on energy. It will help a bit, but the real problem is there are just to many people on earth. A world wide one-child policy like it used to exist in China [1] would be a real solution in keeping earth a pleasant place to live. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

First world countries already have 1 child per family with the rest of the world also moving that direction as they grow wealthier. This policy wouldn't actually do much to help and would likely cause massive unintended consequences like China is dealing with right now.

Yes I know putting it into practice by law is not practical or even wanted. I just don't believe climate changes significantly improves by having electric cars and replacing old light bulbs with led. We need more deepcutting measures.

Either have less kids or power the world nuclear and all eat vegan (no methane producing animals), or accept the new climate reality and deal with the heat or whatever. Just don't pretend we are doing a good job at the moment because we don't.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#404

Post by danbolt »

concordDance wrote: post #355
thomasahle wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's related to the comment I was replying to: > Meanwhile, educated people in western countries are incredibly eco-conscious, have excellent modern waste management, have amazing huge national parks and conservation areas, clean waterways or have nets to prevent plastics entering the oceans.. are 'banning' gasoline cars by 2030.. and the air quality! Amazing. The commenter appears to say that people in western count…

The Chinese emit more per capita than the Europeans.

I think the world would benefit if western nations had a carbon levy on imports as well as a carbon tax on domestically-produced goods. Or, with the added costs, market forces would encourage people to find more efficient lifestyles. If someone wanted a more environmentally-taxing lifestyle, they could play the fair cost.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#405

Post by onetimeusename »

refulgentis wrote: post #398
onetimeusename wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source for what? That emissions are declining in the US? You can find some details here https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... I am surprised you didn't know this already. Here is China https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT?location... It doesn't take into account trends that already exist. In the next decade small reductions to emissions in US transportation per year will be me…

> Source for what? "This doesn't take into account that countries like the US have already cut emissions and emissions have been declining for years." > You can find some details here https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica ... I am surprised you didn't know this already. This being US / 1st world emissions are decreasing? Thank you for looking that up etc., I appreciate it -- I did know that, an…

What I am taking issue with is the assertion from the other poster that "Greenhouse gasses scales super-linearly with income" which links to a page. That page looks at one year, 2021, and makes assertions that don't account for annual trends like the decrease in emissions the US has been experiencing for years and will continue to experience. The US _IS_ reducing emissions. It also doesn't take into account the large expected increases over just say the next decade in countries like China.

Total global emissions are an important factor to consider for the global climate and focusing only on reducing emissions of the US will be meaningless because total global emissions will still continue to go up.

edit: thanks for clarifying btw and here is trends in total global emissions found on the page https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#406

Post by amrocha »

batch12 wrote: post #400
amrocha wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you better turn off the engine and then hope the other drivers turns theirs off too. In what world is doing nothing the right choice?

I don't know if hope is enough. I don't think people are willing to be miserable for hope- especially when there is no reasonable expectation that others would stop.

I disagree that you need to be miserable. Humans are very good at getting used to their circumstances, and some of the changes would be net positives on the personal level. I know I'm way happier now that I ride my bicycle as my main method of transportation.

But also, climate change is already making us miserable. I went on vacation and it was impossible to be outside between 12-3, so we had to plan our days around that. It's not a choice between happy and miserable, it's a tradeoff between less than ideal situations.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#407

Post by tptacek »

waffleiron wrote: post #402
tptacek wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is per capita data again, which makes the argument circular. In absolute terms, China emits more than twice as much CO2 as the next producer, and only a small fraction of that is exported.

Per capita data makes sense. CO2 emissions don’t change if we cut giants countries into many smaller ones. If China was 25 different countries you wouldn’t be pointing the finger to them. Why shouldn’t the highest emitters not be the ones to reduce most?

Because we're not having a moral argument but rather a practical one. The fact is that China emits much more CO2 than other countries, even after you account for exports (ie, CO2 emissions "offshored" from Europe and North America). Moreover: while emissions in the west are falling, the are rising in China and India and the developing world, as they must, because they track rising standards of living.

I don't understand the "25 smaller Chinas" argument. China sets statewide emissions policies. That's a reason we pay attention to country borders here, rather than considering an undifferentiated mass of humanity as a map scatterplot.

Ultimately, the reason to point out the gap between China and Europe or North America is that if you concentrate climate mitigation strategies on the west, you won't actually do much to solve the crisis. Fair's got nothing to do with it.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#408

Post by eastof »

ethanbond wrote: post #181
calvinmorrison wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Greenland will finally get populated and maybe people will stop living in hurricane zones

Yes yes the solution here is to physically move hundreds or thousands of years of capital investment, especially forms of capital investment that cannot be moved and are just abandoned/destroyed. That way we can emit a bunch more to rebuild that already-built infrastructure in a different locale!

You're forgetting that the rebuild is only for survivors so it's a smaller scale.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#409

Post by leereeves »

kurthr wrote: post #77
leereeves wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That chart covers a very short duration. Here's a more complete chart of Earth's temperature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... As you can see, we are indeed coming out of one of the coldest periods ever in Earth's history.

... and based on that chart are now hotter than any time in the last 100k years, heading into the last few million. A few 10s (of million) years at +25c are going to be the "new normal"? I'm trying to understand the point. The rate of change is quite dramatic, and the last time (Eemian) there was anything like this there were "rapid" 12c oscillations. Humans didn't exist. I suspect most current plant/animal species a…

> Humans didn't exist. I suspect most current plant/animal species are "devolved" by such swings.

The first apes evolved about 20 million years ago, when the world was much hotter. I suspect we can survive those conditions again.

And regardless of climate change, most current plant/animal species will go extinct (or already have) due to habitat destruction and mass exploitation. As a cause of mass extinction, that's a much bigger problem than climate change.

Re: Earth had hottest 3-months on record; unprecedented sea temps & extreme weather

#410

Post by leereeves »

mindcandy wrote: post #84
leereeves wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That chart covers a very short duration. Here's a more complete chart of Earth's temperature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... As you can see, we are indeed coming out of one of the coldest periods ever in Earth's history.

Looks to me more like we were in a very long, very cool period and are suddenly popping out of it and are only accelerating. That’s fine for the planet. But, sucks pretty hard for any life forms that evolved to fit the Earth in the last 10 million years according to that chart.

It looks very long because of the scale of the chart. But everything on the right half of the chart would fit in a few pixels on the left side.
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