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World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

cnbc.com

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Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#61

Post by wenebego »

gitfan86 wrote: post #31
atleastoptimal wrote: post #6

I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lowering on average anytime soon, the only way to save the world's species, our state and growth of civilization and such is through technological advances, AI, terraforming, etc. There's no hope simply through austerity, things are too screwed already.

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major incre…

Humans require other animals or vegetation to consume for energy

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#62

Post by hackerlight »

gasparto wrote: post #20
atleastoptimal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGI will make the economy far more efficient, increase the rate of scientific innovation, etc. For example, some ancestor of alphafold could spark a revolution in genetic engineering, creating crops which are far more efficient and resilient, etc.

Technology won't save us. Hoping that someday soon^tm someone will come up with something that makes all the current mess go away is a dangerous path. In germany they call it 'Technologieoffen' - and even some political parties have written it on their flags. 'No need to implement changes now - someday God will decent and absolve us from all of our sins - until then party hard! #yolo' I'm all for accelerating researc…

I want to accelerate good stuff (fusion, mRNA cancer vaccines, solar power learning curve, LLMs that help programmers be more productive, housing construction) and decel bad stuff (proof-of-work crypto, deepfakes, new coal mines, microplastics). If we accel/decel the right things, I think we have a shot.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#63

Post by maccard »

timeon wrote: post #25
atleastoptimal wrote: post #6

I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lowering on average anytime soon, the only way to save the world's species, our state and growth of civilization and such is through technological advances, AI, terraforming, etc. There's no hope simply through austerity, things are too screwed already.

New technologies have not helped yet. Just covered part of increased demand. So it doesn't seem like technology is going to save us. It is all just distraction. Only way is one that will never happen: de-growth.

> New technologies have not helped yet. Just covered part of increased demand. So it doesn't seem like technology is going to save us.

Those two statements are in direct conflict. Look at these two graphs, one for UK CO2 emissions [0] and the other for England's population [1] (Sorry I couldn't get a UK population graph, but to the best of my understanding they're proportional). Population is up 20%, CO2 emissions are down 50%. If that's not technology helping, I don't know what it is.

> It is all just distraction. Only way is one that will never happen: de-growth.

Disagree. We have plenty of resources, we're just incredibly, incredibly wasteful with them.

Here in the UK, there is a group trying to advocate for insulating houses who are being met with "it's too hard, it's too expensive, insulation doesn't work, causes damp, heat pumps don't work in -24c, it's a ploy from the government to limit our resource usage", but the reality of the situation is that slapping up insulated plasterboard on the inside of half of the UK's homes and putting a trickle vent on the window would save an enormous amout of CO2 and make people more comfortable. There are loans and grants available for those who can't quite afford it, and for those who absolutely can't afford it it's often done for free (yes there's a gap in the middle, but honestly we can deal with them when we've dealt with the other two categories), and yet still people won't do it.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/449503/co2-emissions-uni... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/975956/population-of-eng...

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#64

Post by raverbashing »

paulsutter wrote: post #49

Like most media coverage, the article omits the primary cause of the recent acceleration in warming - desulphurization of ship fuel “ the IMO2020 fuel change cut cloud tracks in key shipping lanes by half...this has a substantial effect on warming, concentrated in areas with heavy shipping activity like the North Atlantic. The reduction in reflective cloud cover over this region, plus an unrelated reduction in reflec…

While that does have an effect, the record temperatures are not only located on the northern Atlantic, but on the whole planet

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#65

Post by astrospective »

gitfan86 wrote: post #31
atleastoptimal wrote: post #6

I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lowering on average anytime soon, the only way to save the world's species, our state and growth of civilization and such is through technological advances, AI, terraforming, etc. There's no hope simply through austerity, things are too screwed already.

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major incre…

There’s going to be more moisture in the air, wet bulb temperature is gets deadly at much lower temperatures than dry, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need...

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#66

Post by tgv »

gitfan86 wrote: post #31
atleastoptimal wrote: post #6

I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lowering on average anytime soon, the only way to save the world's species, our state and growth of civilization and such is through technological advances, AI, terraforming, etc. There's no hope simply through austerity, things are too screwed already.

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major incre…

Have you seen what 10 degrees difference did to the world some 20k years ago? Now double the change from the last ice age to today. 60% of the Earth will be desert. The polar caps will be gone. It will be impossible to sustain 8 billion people. Billions will die. Humanity survives, but at what cost?

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#67

Post by _Algernon_ »

boxed wrote: post #51
_Algernon_ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This won't work simply due to induced demand. We spend something like 2000x less energy per unit of light now than we did burning whale fat in the 1800s and all the energy saved energy simply goes into producing more light. Hoping for technology to solve this mess is the same as hoping that adding an additional lane to a congested highway will solve traffic. It won't.

That's just wrong on so many levels. First of all, creating light is irrelevant to the problem at hand. Secondly, LEDs have made your statement outright false as there's no one who lives in a house that packs their home with light enough to spend that energy budget AND KEEPS THEM ON AT NIGHT. Because they would GO BLIND. So that's just the light thing. 100% wrong. Saying technology can't solve the problem is speculat…

The point, which I can only assume that you intentionally missed, is the following:

- Light is only a standin for any economic activity. The same argument holds for manufacturing, steel smelting, and basically any other economic activity you can think of.

- We spend ~2000x less per unit of light but create much more than 2000x the amount of total artificial light now compared to the 1800s. Hence greater overall energy consumption.

Now read my initial comment again and I will have the utmost - probably misplaced - faith that you'll understand it.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#68

Post by shafyy »

boxed wrote: post #37
wongarsu wrote: post #9

> The findings do not represent a break of the landmark Paris Agreement, which aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” over the long term. It seems safe to say we are now locked in to a path that will break the Paris Agreement, unless "long term" includes space sunshades, scattering reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, or other simi…

I don't like the word "drastic" here. It's very much less drastic than what we are already doing. In fact, it's much less drastic. I like to say: There is no longer a choice of playing God or not, only a choice of playing a competent or incompetent God.

You know what would be less drastic? Fucking stop emitting as much carbon. Solutions are there: Less livestock farming, less cars, less flights, less production of unnecessary products. Now, can we convince enough people to change their behavior just by telling them to do it? No, of course not. But what works really well is controlling people's behavior via consumer prices. This means, make animal products more expensive, make gas more expensive, make cities pedestrian and bike-friendly so people can get around without cars, make fast fashion more expensive.

But of course nobody wants this, because the politicans and people voting for them are also fucking babies that start whining if they can't fucking fly across the world just for fun twice a year. God forbid they need to eat one meal without a fucking dead animal in it.

Excuse my language, but FUCK trying to find "maybe" futuristical technological solution to problems we know we can solve right now, right today.

But of course, VCs and other motherfuckers can't make money this way.They can make money if they invest in a direct air capture startups that will never work, but then get the fuck out of there and cash out. They are out there building underground bunkers while they have you believe that technology will solve our problems. IT WILL NOT.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#69

Post by _Algernon_ »

paulsutter wrote: post #49

Like most media coverage, the article omits the primary cause of the recent acceleration in warming - desulphurization of ship fuel “ the IMO2020 fuel change cut cloud tracks in key shipping lanes by half...this has a substantial effect on warming, concentrated in areas with heavy shipping activity like the North Atlantic. The reduction in reflective cloud cover over this region, plus an unrelated reduction in reflec…

Does this change anything? It is the warming that is harmful, not the cause of it.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#70

Post by vixen99 »

raverbashing wrote: post #64
paulsutter wrote: post #49

Like most media coverage, the article omits the primary cause of the recent acceleration in warming - desulphurization of ship fuel “ the IMO2020 fuel change cut cloud tracks in key shipping lanes by half...this has a substantial effect on warming, concentrated in areas with heavy shipping activity like the North Atlantic. The reduction in reflective cloud cover over this region, plus an unrelated reduction in reflec…

While that does have an effect, the record temperatures are not only located on the northern Atlantic, but on the whole planet

It's questionable how much the Tonga eruption which sent an 'Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere' has had on the climate. Some temporary warming was certainly predicted and this would be global.
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