September was the most anomalously hot month ever • Hacker News Board

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#271

Post by kurthr » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

rafaelero wrote: post #236

flagrant_taco wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The debate over exact causes has always felt misguided to me. The planet is extremely complex, human impact on the planet is largely based on estimates and modeling, and at the end of the day an understanding of why it's getting hotter isn't itself a course correction. There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. We could easily cut our use of fossil f…

> There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. Have you tried arguing people against eating meat? If we can't even talk them out of the main individual contributor to climate change, I don't think we have a good chance to make a positive impact on other areas that depend on conscious effort.

This doesn't seem to match the data I've seen.

Yes, food is a significant portion of energy consumption, but typical transportation and housing (including heat/cool) easily dominate. Going from a daily mixed meat (chicken/fish/beef/eggs) eating diet to a vegan diet saves ~1 ton CO2 per year. Average is about 4-5 tons per year for a person living in a small apartment in temperate climate, who only uses public transportation, doesn't go on vacation, or buy any unnecessary consumer items. A more typical westerner who can afford meat every meal is about 10-20 tons per year.

Now, if you're eating 150g of beef every meal 3x every day, you could double your footprint (+20tons CO2). Eating only chicken, fish, and eggs gets you below 1ton/year for meat in meals. Vegan is about a third of that.

https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/carbon-ecol...

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#272

Post by 1970-01-01 » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

ibejoeb wrote: post #222

1970-01-01 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hit them with this fact: In June 2023, none of the Earth’s surface had record cold , year-to-date. Tangent: I have a very good source for this fact, however searching will not reveal it. The current state of search is horrible. I'm interested if anyone can find it. I'll link to it later this evening.

Questions: 1. "In June" or "As of June" really makes a difference. I wouldn't expect record breaking lows northern hemisphere summer, where 2/3rds of the land is. 2. Is it typical to have a record-breaking cold every year? Why is this even notable? I didn't find your source, but NOAA's June '23 climate report says "No state experienced a top-10 coldest June on record for this six-month period," so that's something, b…

OK I'll give a hint.

1. Jan 1 - June 1, 2023

2. Yes.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#273

Post by xorcist » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #251

gjulianm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. That's the issue, a lot of people just don't care or refuse to believe it. Questions like the one in the parent comment are starting to seriously annoy me because they're demanding an unachievable level of evidence before doing anything, a level that's never asked for in any other kind of intervention (for…

Everyone leaves out a large cohort - people that believe it, but don't want the solutions you're selling. We typically put forth constructive solutions like nuclear, which get shouted down / laughed out of the room instantly.

Without going to specifics, a large reason for that may be that among those who say this are a large number who loudly push for unrealistic ideas masquerading them as constructive. Some may be honestly ignorant about it, but it is also unfortunately quite an effective way to derail any discussion and delay progress. See for example any suggestion about real world hyperloops.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#274

Post by lamontcg » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #50

> Two main factors are at play in driving temperatures to such extremes: their inexorable increase from burning fossil fuels and an El Niño event that is shaping up to be a strong one. It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it…

Analysis done back in 2016, back when 2015 shattered records due to El Nino (and completely shattered the argument around a "pause" in global warming due to the El Nino spike back in 1998):

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/el-nino-and-the-2015...

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/correcting-for-more-...

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#275

Post by xorcist » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

Roark66 wrote: post #179

londons_explore wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Asking people to have less, experience less, and do less isn’t an argument that can ever win. Asking people to eat less might never win... But when there is a famine, people have no choice but to eat less. It's not that there is no food available in a famine - it's just that prices go sky high. Tomorrow the government could shut down the oil wells and say "nobody may emit any CO2 unless they pay $1000/ton of CO2 em…

>Tomorrow the government could shut down the oil wells and say "nobody may emit any CO2 unless they pay $1000/ton of CO2 emitted.". And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. It shouldn't stop us from trying to increase efficiency, but panic and insane ideas of the sort of "no one can emit a ton of CO2…

I may have posted this several times before, but China is not the problem. We know how to deal with that: international trade agreements.

The problem is that it requires the US to be on board with it. Each one alone couldn't, but the EU and US together would have the economic force required to solve this problem, if they acted with decisiveness.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#276

Post by linuxftw » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

useless999 wrote: post #240

linuxftw wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geological record can't state that the pace of warming we're seeing hasn't happened before. And our real-time measured data prior to digital electronics is laughably imprecise.

Yes, and absence of edvidence is not edvidence of absence. Which is why you need to posit a causal mechanism. To say current climate models are overly narrowing the problem domain as to exclude purely natural factors (assuming humanity is not part of nature, but that’s an ontological discussion) you would need to provide an alternative one which can predict past and future pathways. It would also need to be at least…

[flagged]

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#277

Post by supertrope » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

d-lisp wrote: post #263

supertrope wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to keep up with the climate change denial propaganda noise machine without stooping to their level. In the end motivated reasoning means people will value cheap hydrocarbon energy over global benefits of less climate change. Just look at the French gilet jaunes protests.

a. X claims he didn't have enough money to live well . and b. The only way for X to reach his workplace is to consume a more and more expensive resource. "Change job", " work more", "live somewhere else" are not good advices because X is often unqualified, works already a lot and cannot afford a place inside the town where he works. What should X do ? The necessity of consumption is a bigger problem than "we consume…

Right. When the society makes driving easy and alternatives hard people rationally choose to drive. Government sponsored roads and parking tip the scales heavily in favor of cars. The solution is to add infrastructure so less driving is necessary. More centrally located housing. Walkable distances between destinations thanks to a not spread out city layout. Sidewalks, safe ways to cross the street, safe bike lanes, frequently arriving buses and trains. This is exactly what 15 minute cities are about!

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#278

Post by gls2ro » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #230

flagrant_taco wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The debate over exact causes has always felt misguided to me. The planet is extremely complex, human impact on the planet is largely based on estimates and modeling, and at the end of the day an understanding of why it's getting hotter isn't itself a course correction. There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. We could easily cut our use of fossil f…

> We could easily cut our use of fossil fuels if we weren't trying to balance that with an arbitrary GDP growth target Believe it or not, only a handful of people genuinely care about "GDP growth targets" and they have very little influence on environmental policy. The reason why politicians oppose sweeping regulation to stop climate change is because they'd lose their jobs if they intentionally caused gas prices to…

almost everybody living in a democratic capitalist economy is influence by and takes decisions that have as the foundation the GDP growth.

that is the foundation of the way economy works. It propagates down to interests and credits and investments and jobs.

Obviously IMO.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#279

Post by gspencley » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

flagrant_taco wrote: post #91

nologic01 wrote: post #50

> Two main factors are at play in driving temperatures to such extremes: their inexorable increase from burning fossil fuels and an El Niño event that is shaping up to be a strong one. It would be quite educational to attribute in more detail the impact of these two factors. The degree of "El Nino" influence is presumably known, and if its strength is not related with global warming in complicated and unknown ways it…

The debate over exact causes has always felt misguided to me. The planet is extremely complex, human impact on the planet is largely based on estimates and modeling, and at the end of the day an understanding of why it's getting hotter isn't itself a course correction. There are such obvious first steps we could take without a complete understanding of cause if we really cared. We could easily cut our use of fossil f…

> The list goes on, but having spent decades watching people debate passionately over why the planet is warming all while going further down the same path my only conclusion is that we just don't give a damn. When push comes to shove we would rather buy new cloths imported from the other side of the world, throw resources at new construction and gut job renovations, and will happily fly around the world on vacation rather than stay home and enjoy the world around us.

Yes exactly.

You hit on something that I often say, though we come at "solutioning" from opposite angles and, from the sounds of your comment, will find little agreement. What we agree on is that understanding anthropogenic global warming and its causes is important and can inform solutions, but it does not tell us what the "right" solutions are since we have other complicating factors to consider. Such as things like human rights, standards of living, morality and the role+purpose and limitations of government.

For some of us the debate is not over whether AGW is a scientifically understood phenomenon that represents a problem (even a critical problem at that). The debate is over what the solutions ought to be, what tools are the right tools for the job and what course corrections are considerable given factors that we must also contend with that lie outside of our scientific understanding of the problem.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#280

Post by enqk » Thu, Oct 05, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #138

seanw444 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current alternatives suck. Renewables are unreliable and produce massive waste themselves. What we need is nuclear, but I only ever hear the same people complaining about fossil fuels, complaining about nuclear. It's extremely safe. Like it's not even close. If we can maintain the status quo with better technology, it will be adopted. It's just not there yet. Hence, we stick to what we have. The liberal position…

Energy capex is fungible, and nuclear energy is the most expensive. It is also carries the highest risk of cost overruns and underestimation of decommissioning costs. Why spend a penny on fission nuclear when renewables are cheaper, have shorter lead times by decades, and are vastly less financially risky?

Demand too much minerals including, because they’re so much more diffuse metals like copper

High soil occupancy in competition with food crops and human activities

Cannot provide guaranteed baseline of supply without storage (more minerals)