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September was the most anomalously hot month ever

scientificamerican.com

341–350 of 439 posts

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see solar activity included in the discussion as well. But anytime I bring it up I'm called a climate denialist. But we're seeing auroras very far south and those days it's no issue mentioning the sun is currently in an active phase. Why is that detail always omitted when it comes to global warming, sorry climate change?

I don't understand. Do you think there is scientific doubt about the greenhouse effect, or that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, or that for hundreds of thousands of years CO2 concentrations have correlated with average temperature? There isn't any doubt about the problems of greenhouse gases, and there isn't anything we can do about the sun's activity other than use it as an excuse to do nothing "until we understand".

This is the kind of responses I'm referring to. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything as you assume, I'm wondering why solar activity isn't accounted for in the models. Maybe it can explain something? Trust the science and all that you know, being thorough.

I'm curious if the changes we see can be explained by the sun activity yes. I'm not qualified to assess which of the scientists are right and which aren't, and to what extent CO2 gases cause global warming. Instead of just asking me to take it for a fact when asking a question please use your expertise and explain it in a sense that I can understand and verify.

I'm asking out of curiosity and because I want to understand, to me this could all be because of the sun and an elaborate cash-grab, just as plausible. Because it's not about stopping it at all costs, some people can apparently buy the right to produce more? With these kind of hand-wavy responses from those who claim to have the knowledge where do you think me and other like me are turning for information?

I don't know if it's easier to build a giant sunscreen than to get the worlds population eating bugs because apparently cows fart too much? But we still keep exploiting the amazon, and doing everything we can to keep the endless growth economy we've built going. So how pressing can it really be? We're fighting wars over more resources, when maybe we should be fighting to stop consumerism?

I don't know. But I'm not taking anyones word for it, help me understand or move on. Don't tell me what to think.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#342

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.

Not really, I don't distinguish between the different ways to solve it. I wish that was the discussion, but I feel like any solution that has any costs of any kind is just ignored because a lot of people don't feel like this is serious enough to do anything serious about it, doesn't matter whether it's reducing consumption, massive switch to nuclear, or whatever.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#343

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…

> 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 r…

> Such as things like human rights, standards of living, morality and the role+purpose and limitations of government.

Unfortunately, the dustbins of history are full of civilizations that took disruptive events carefully and with grave dignity and solemnity and respected the rights of powerful stake-holders within their society.

That the people who make such arguments generally live in the places best positioned to weather out the situation, is also unfortunate. While people in well-pr tut about whether it's really proper for a government to take action to avoid calamity from befalling its citizens, other people will be literally dying.

It's a rather crass and callous/indifferent position you've staked out, you're kind of not coming off like a very good person here. Like it's literally "I guess you'll have to die, then, not like we're going to unwind the economy just for you" once again.

It is, as someone notes upthread, basically the same as masks during COVID. Some people will stroke their chin and pontificate about utilitarianism and the greater good, but that's not really comfort to anyone whose loved one dies from excess pollution or a transmissible disease. And of course the people taking this position are usually the most protected themselves - we all can WFH here if circumstances dictate, it's different if it's your wife stocking a grocery store, they care a lot less about the GDP impact and more about the direct personal impact than you do.

And the existence of this subgroup - such as yourself - fundamentally forestalls the ability of the other 70% of the society from being able to protect itself. Kind of a problem in general - the american system (and the EU and UN as well, but particularly the US) provides too many brakes on action and biases to inaction (via checks-and-balances) such that even supermajority level political control often is not enough unless it is single-party control of every single branch of government and lever of power.

You don't just need 50%, you don't just need 70%, you need 70% across every possible dimensionality that the US distributes political power over - essentially single-party control is the only way to rule if the minority does not consent, and we are talking about people who openly state that they will never consent.

It'll end in deaths sooner or later, whether that's from inaction, or from those whose deaths would be caused by inaction taking action themselves (which is why almost everyone is forecasting conflict and political instability from climate change to kick up majorly in the second half of the century). Again, the only disappointing part is that this too will be visited on the least-fortunate instead of the responsible parties (who will largely be fine, and we will probably even bail out florida and other affected areas anyway).

What happens when the unstoppable force of climate change meets the immovable object of modern political system's bias-to-inaction? Fireworks, basically - because unlike HN you can't just tone-police the discussion away in the real world, people won't just take "I guess you'll have to die so I can have the new xbox this year" lying down.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#344
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I would argue most people care about GDP growth targets but they just don't understand them that way. GDP growth is what leads to improvements in real human quality of life. It is your ability to get healthcare, housing, food and all the other things that make life a lot less painful. I would rather live in a society with a higher GDP than less (all things considered) and so would most people (as evidenced by populat…

No idea why your getting downvoted for such an obvious statement, there is very strong (But not perfect) correlation between GDP and standard of living.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- which government? - did I emit a ton of CO2 when I cut down a tree? - what happens to the cost of medical plastics, etc? Did you just kill millions in poor countries because the cost of care went up so much? This stuff is hard. Pretending it is simple stops us from working on the hard parts.

>what happens to the cost of medical plastics, Plastic production is an insanely small part of oil and gas usage, 4%. Anyone bringing up plastic as a reason to not stop using oil isn't being intellectually honest. We could literally decimate the oil industry and still produce way more oil than the plastic industry needs. It's just not a concern.

The proposal was to crank up the price of oil directly. You couldnt price-curve your way past a $1,000 per CO2 ton tax. While plastic does not drive oil production, it is definitely the case that oil prices determine plastic production costs.

Recycling can absorb much of that, but medical plastics cannot be made through recycling today.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#346
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 r…

> Such as things like human rights, standards of living, morality and the role+purpose and limitations of government. Unfortunately, the dustbins of history are full of civilizations that took disruptive events carefully and with grave dignity and solemnity and respected the rights of powerful stake-holders within their society. That the people who make such arguments generally live in the places best positioned to w…

You should run for politics. The level of strawmanning and platitudes that your reply just levied is something typically only seen from politicians.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#347
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wrong. We have precise records from antarctic core samples that can say with near absolute certainty what our climate looked like for hundreds of thousands of years. Cool story, bro. The antarctic ice cores contain valuable information, but they do definitely not tell a complete story of neither temperatures, nor anything else across the whole globe on a granular time scale. > ...which was a catastrophic event for…

A fascinating look into the mind of a Joe Rogan listener ITT.

Have no idea what you mean. But if you refer to me being logically consistent and not contradicting myself every few sentences, I recommend that you not just continue looking, but also learn it.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#348
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some time in the next decade there will be a “perfect storm” heat wave combined with a power failure, and millions will die in days. This will jerk the Overton window and popular sentiment in an unpredictable direction, and no one knows what the world will look like on the other side of that.

Where in the world would this event take place? In the hottest parts of the US the temperature gets to 46ºC regularly during the summer and people have lived there for hundreds of years. Do people die of heat stoke? Sure, at a rate of hundreds per year. Elsewhere in the world there are places where people love in the same heat with less means of cooking and less access to water. Millions of people may have to adapt.…

Texas, maybe? If the power grid goes down because of excess AC usage?

Yes, I read that people have been living for 100s of years (pre-AC) through temps regularly hitting 46 degrees, but see also the response on wet-bulb temps and survivability. 46 degrees for 5 days straight without AC (as in, backup power is gone...) and I think we'll see some losses.

Europe regularly sees large deaths due to heat during summers already today, true mostly in elderly.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking people to have less, experience less, and do less isn’t an argument that can ever win. The winning argument is to show how you can consume more energy for less money by using sustainable technology. Cramped trains will rarely win politically but electric cars that go fast and look cool do win. In essence I believe the only politically viable way to reduce carbon is to engineer and tech our way to systems that…

> Asking people to have less, experience less, and do less isn’t an argument that can ever win. Yes and no. I agree that if your approach is to ask people to do this, you aren't going to win the argument. But instead you can reframe the argument. Does that $70,000 truck that you have to make payments on while you do back-breaking or soul-crushing work to afford it really make you happy? Do you really get use out of t…

> But instead you can reframe the argument.

Why would someone argue with you about what they like? You’re assuming that they are dumb and that you are smart. That’s a bad way to approach persuading people.

Re: September was the most anomalously hot month ever

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear and panic are not the same thing. If your car is rolling towards the rim of the grand canyon and isn't slowing down, you would be afraid but ideally would quickly but calmly consider and try your options (emergency brake, steer away from edge, bail before it reaches edge, etc) rather than panicking.

What if you are the passenger and the driver has their foot down on the accelerator while refusing to believe that the cliff lies ahead? What is the appropriate emotion?

Still composure, and the appropriate course of action is still to evaluate your options and choose the best one, even if that's the best option out of a list of bad options.

Unless you think that panic will induce the driver to stop accelerating, I suppose. Though I think the closer analogy would be "you're a passenger in a car with a brick on the accelerator and no driver", because I don't think there's any person or coherent group of people who actually control the global economy (in the sense of "control" where they can make sweeping changes that go against local incentive gradients, and have those changes stick).

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