Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 111 posts

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#101

Post by maxhille »

bergen wrote: post #31
snehk wrote: post #15

Welp. Time for a conference we all fly to using private jets to tell the plebs how it's their doing that's destroying the planet. Maybe agree on a tax or something that screws over the little guy while having absolutely no effect on the global climate.

A tax on CO2 producers that is redistributed as basic income, helping the smallest guy the most, would be a gradual force to shift to cleaner energy, since the seismic shift that is required cleary is not favored by anyone.

That "Klimageld" is actually planned in Germany by the current Government. It should already have been implemented but different forms of inability to implement have it delayed by a lot.

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#102

Post by timbit42 »

tjpnz wrote: post #28
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #23

In the mean time, China is adding more and more solar, and is ahead of schedule in decarbonizing. Maybe there is still some hope.

While adding more coal power plants in the process. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/china-coal-pla...

They can't switch to renewable energy fast enough to keep up with their energy needs. Those coal plants will be shut down as soon as possible. It would help if other countries moved more production out of China.

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#103

Post by jfengel »

matteoraso wrote: post #63

Key line: >Yes, but: Breaching the 2-degree threshold for two days does not mean that the Paris Agreement's target of holding global warming to "well below" such a mark has been exceeded. Definitely cause for concern, but not panic.

If we wait for panic, it's gonna be really, really bad.

We've been "concerned" for a long time. We've done very little about it.

The entire point is that they're trying to get people to take it seriously before it's time to panic. When there's cause to panic, it's much, much too late.

I'd say it's already too late, because we can't even get people to "concerned". There are too many people ideologically or financially insistent that it's all a hoax, and that there's nothing to be concerned about.

I'd say that the fact that so many people aren't even concerned is cause for panic. Panic of the form: "This is all so obvious that one of us must be incredibly stupid, and increasing levels of evidence points to you."

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#104

Post by Aachen »

woeh wrote: post #35
Aachen wrote: post #5

Weather != climate. The climate is clearly changing as well but this "news" is weather.

Weather is local. This article is talking about the global average surface temperature.

One day's event doesn't make climate, though. This is just using negative news for clicks, not something useful to know

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#105

Post by pauldenton »

CalRobert wrote: post #70
snehk wrote: post #15

Welp. Time for a conference we all fly to using private jets to tell the plebs how it's their doing that's destroying the planet. Maybe agree on a tax or something that screws over the little guy while having absolutely no effect on the global climate.

Do you have a source to support your claim that a carbon tax, which is generally seen as an efficient way to reduce carbon emissions, would have no effect on the global climate and screw over the little guy? I ask as a renter who doesn't own a car and would love to stop paying for other people's fancy electric SUV's and house retrofits that costs tens of thousands of Euro.

[dead]

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#107

Post by oliwarner »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #94
oliwarner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peatland takes centuries to develop and store that carbon though. If we want to achieve this sort of thing, we'd need to manufacture peat and store that underwater. Possible but when we make more , we usually destroy the planet more too. I'm not sure we'd offset it.

"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best is today." For the short-term, planting rice differently can reduce methane emissions substantially. In the short-term, methane is much worse. In the long run, methane breaks down to carbon which persists. If we want to reverse climate change, we need to restore nature's ability to sink that carbon. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37140831 (My p…

No argument that rice can be grown better, but going back to your call for increasing wetland, isn't it the wet that makes soil produce methane? In the same way that the flooding causes rice paddy soil to create methane, and drying it out (per your study) arrests the process.

With 20-30% of atmospheric methane coming from wetlands, while they may ultimately sink more carbon into themselves, the process seems too inefficient, trading CO2 for some CH4.

Forestry produces a much healthier mix of gasses. On its own it's not a quick sink but when you manage it, and extract timber and end up sinking tonnes of carbon into your buildings. The trees consume CO2 to photosynthesis and aerobic bacteria in open forests consume CH4. Seems like a win-win.

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#108

Post by DoreenMichele »

oliwarner wrote: post #107
DoreenMichele wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best is today." For the short-term, planting rice differently can reduce methane emissions substantially. In the short-term, methane is much worse. In the long run, methane breaks down to carbon which persists. If we want to reverse climate change, we need to restore nature's ability to sink that carbon. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37140831 (My p…

No argument that rice can be grown better, but going back to your call for increasing wetland, isn't it the wet that makes soil produce methane? In the same way that the flooding causes rice paddy soil to create methane, and drying it out (per your study) arrests the process. With 20-30% of atmospheric methane coming from wetlands, while they may ultimately sink more carbon into themselves, the process seems too inef…

Peatlands cover 3 percent of the earth and hold 30 percent of stored carbon. As a quick and dirty guesstimate, if you multiply that by a 6.66 to replace the lost 85 percent, you get 20 percent of the surface and 200 percent of current carbon stores.

It seems likely that a notable percentage of global warming is due to wetlands loss, not just industrialization.

So far, I haven't managed to do a deeper analysis with hard numbers. Feel free to do a write up if you think you know enough about the topic. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be interested.

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#109

Post by oliwarner »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #108
oliwarner wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No argument that rice can be grown better, but going back to your call for increasing wetland, isn't it the wet that makes soil produce methane? In the same way that the flooding causes rice paddy soil to create methane, and drying it out (per your study) arrests the process. With 20-30% of atmospheric methane coming from wetlands, while they may ultimately sink more carbon into themselves, the process seems too inef…

Peatlands cover 3 percent of the earth and hold 30 percent of stored carbon. As a quick and dirty guesstimate, if you multiply that by a 6.66 to replace the lost 85 percent, you get 20 percent of the surface and 200 percent of current carbon stores. It seems likely that a notable percentage of global warming is due to wetlands loss, not just industrialization. So far, I haven't managed to do a deeper analysis with ha…

I'm just trying to point out a couple of issues in your logic.

You cannot multiply wetland. It takes a thousand years to get a 10m deep peat bog and every second of its wet, rotting existence creates CH4. Wetlands offer lots of benefits —nature, water management, etc— but greenhouse gasses really aren't one.

More importantly you're only comparing standing volumes of carbon. We extract billions of m³ of lumber out of forests each year. Even the process of growing it, is far better. Methane is being consumed, not created.

The overall picture is complex but if we're thinking about things in the short term, farming lumber (and using less concrete, brick) would do far more good than creating wetland.

Re: Earth likely briefly passed critical warming threshold on Friday and Saturday

#110

Post by pas »

concordDance wrote: post #39
snehk wrote: post #15

Welp. Time for a conference we all fly to using private jets to tell the plebs how it's their doing that's destroying the planet. Maybe agree on a tax or something that screws over the little guy while having absolutely no effect on the global climate.

A flat per gram CO2 tax would be a great idea, but universal international cooperation is required and this would hurt less developed countries a LOT. At this point lots of warming is inevitable regardless of what (peaceful) things the US and EU do. Africa will get four billion people this century and they want things.

Compensatory tariffs on trade coming/going into regions that don't implement it.

> Africa will get four billion people this century and they want things.

That's simply a stronger and stronger argument to make sure they get help and incentives to do it with minimal GHG emissions.

Post reply on HN