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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

#81

Post by blueflow »

gorjusborg wrote: post #76
blueflow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If humans can survive in Australia, Humanity surely will survive the climate change.

The world isn't just a collection of independent climates. Surviving in one of today's extreme climates doesn't necessarily provide proof of surviving when the previous extreme is now the mildest climate. Even if the human body can take the heat, it still needs to be fed and watered. Those systems currently aren't in your climate, in many cases.

Humans live anywhere in the world with a average temperature range from -20 to 30 degrees. This is a range of 50 degrees. 10 degrees increase wont kill us.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#82

Post by ericmay »

shafyy wrote: post #68
boxed wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expen…

The car one is the most frustrating for me just because global warming is but one of the many problems associated with car-only infrastructure in countries such as the United States.

Your point about bunkers is kind of interesting. If society collapses the bunkers are really pointless. I think deep down the “rich people” building them know that. It’s just the same kind of silly doomsday prepping that regular folks do. 50 guns? Patagonia provisions? Plastic tubs of rice? All the same phenomenon.

What I find so bewildering is that since the early 1900s the “rich people” seem to have lost their minds a bit more or perhaps just hate themselves and society.

We went from a notable history of great public works to satisfy the ego, libraries to the glory of mankind, beautiful commissioned artwork and sculptures, and more to… well… “my name on a hospital/university”, effective altruism, bigger yachts and doomsday bunkers, and sprawling McMansions filled with boring bowling lanes for boring people.

Of course this is a generalization and, I think a lot of good work is going in to funding research projects and things like space exploration (making fun of wealthy people trying to launch rockets is way too nihilistic for my taste). But on the whole it really seems like our civilization hates itself and the actions of the wealthy seem to reflect that quite clearly.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#83

Post by moffkalast »

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…

Yes, and we need to start putting that sulfur or something equivalent up there again as soon as possible.

This is textbook geoengineering and people are wary of it because once you start with it, the environment becomes dependent on it to maintain balance. And like with someone addicted to a drug, there will be withdrawal symptoms if you stop abruptly. It's really funny that we've been doing it all along but never realized it.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#85

Post by moffkalast »

padjo wrote: post #8
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.

How on earth is AI going to help?

A race of machines doesn't need to eat food, drink water, breathe clean air, and doesn't die from wet bulb temperatures. I bet it's a lot easier to build nuclear reactors when radiation poisoning doesn't matter. The perfect candidate for carrying our cultural torch forward.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#86

Post by chefkoch »

wsc981 wrote: post #79
boxed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do massive geoengineering. That's what all that CO2 is doing! We're just doing it incompetently.

For reference: all that CO2 is equal to about 0.04% of human atmosphere. Of which 3% is from human activity. So 0.0012% of CO2 in atmosphere caused by humans. Nature is responsible for the remaining 0.0388% in atmosphere.

That's a bit dishonest as the CO2 level has risen by almost 50% from pre industrial times so you would need a very narrow definition of human activity.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#88

Post by polotics »

chefkoch wrote: post #36
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 guess at some point we will start geoengineering which will either work or kill a lot of people.

Looks like this is already documented: Termination Shock, by Neal Stephenson.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#89

Post by Shrezzing »

wsc981 wrote: post #79
boxed wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do massive geoengineering. That's what all that CO2 is doing! We're just doing it incompetently.

For reference: all that CO2 is equal to about 0.04% of human atmosphere. Of which 3% is from human activity. So 0.0012% of CO2 in atmosphere caused by humans. Nature is responsible for the remaining 0.0388% in atmosphere.

>So 0.0012% of CO2 in atmosphere caused by humans. Nature is responsible for the remaining 0.0388% in atmosphere.

Unless you're discussing literal "human expelled co2", as in "the measure of peoples exhalations during breathing", then you're out by several orders of magnitude. The pre-industrial co2 concentration in the atmosphere trends between 180ppm - 300ppm. In the last hundred years, the concentration has increased to 420ppm.

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

For reference, each 1ppm in the atmosphere is around 7.8 gigatonnes of CO2. Humans currently create around 40gigatonnes of CO2 per year, roughly equating to 5ppm added per year. We add equivalent to 0.8% of the atmospheric CO2 per year.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#90

Post by bglazer »

shafyy wrote: post #68
boxed wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expen…

Sure, let’s lower everyone’s standards of living - except for the richest people who won’t change their behavior at all. That’s so politically toxic that its effectively a fantasy.

That’s the problem with these tax and prices based economic nudges. They’re effectively punishments, and everyone fucking hates unjust punishments. Think about the person who has to fly to visit a sick family member. Now they’re still flying the same amount, but they’re just a lot poorer. Well that’s an edge case! Of course, it’s also going to be the lead story on conservative media for a news cycle, followed by another and another and another story just like it.

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