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Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

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Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#151

Post by Cheer2171 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #126

I find it surprising that the 1896 answer of warming estimates closely match modern estimates. Back then: - They didn't have electronics, radio was barely being discovered - They didn't have airplanes, they just discovered the upper atmosphere, with the very first weather balloons - They knew about atoms, the periodic table was 30 years old, but nucleus wasn't discovered yet Climate science is a notoriously difficult…

The 1896 warming estimates that were accurate were not estimating future CO2 emissions. They were of the form: if we emit X tons of CO2 a year, the greenhouse effect will be Y. The greenhouse effect of CO2 can be studied in a literal greenhouse, and the effect can be extrapolated to the earth with methods we teach in high school today. They didn't predict at what year we would be at a tipping point, but at what the effects would be with a given level of CO2.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#152

Post by galangalalgol »

Winse wrote: post #135

As with most large scale changes...there are winners and losers. New species and extinctions. High CO2 is great for plants in my greenhouse...I suppose that's why it is called a greenhouse gas. Anyone longing for lower CO2 levels in our entire atmosphere is basically an anti-Canadian Agriculture bigot. Seriously though sometimes the cure is much worse than just handling the issues one at a time as we transition to a…

Even if we solve the political and technical aspects of the problem, most of the Earth's habitable history has been at mich higher mean temperatures. Either finding ways to adapt to that, or modify it should definitely be on our todo list. Just because we don't slam ourselves directly into planet-sterilizing feedback loop, doesn't mean we aren't going to hit elevated temperatures in the future. We maybe only have half a billion years until increased irradiance kills everything, so having a parasol before then would be nice. Could get the planet another couple billion years of habitability.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#153

Post by timeon »

konschubert wrote: post #87
dougmwne wrote: post #52

I worked in climate policy for awhile. I got out of it because I lost hope. I believe our governments have lost hope also. Covid taught us that if they inflict the necessary pain to control carbon, our governments will be consumed by populist anger. Only the Chinese system appears to have any hope of controlling people’s behavior that much without riots. And what a terrifying system! Even their control began to slip…

You are right that degrowth is not a politically viable path to saving the climate. Additionally, it is not effective unless you want to return to pre-industrial society. What works is: Changing the source of the energy we consume. Solar is the cheapest source of energy now. Wind is good in some areas. Nuclear can be useful too. The amazing thing is that solar is so cheap now, there is basically no way stopping it. W…

> Additionally, it is not effective unless you want to return to pre-industrial society.

Still needed to some extent even in your optimistic scenario. Because growth is increasing so is demand. New sources of energy are not displacing old ones. Just covering new demand.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#154

Post by FrustratedMonky »

AlexandrB wrote: post #103
foofie wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> worthless climate certificates I think that carbon offsetting is a good idea in the spirit of a glass half-full. It's unrealistic to expect the world economy to quit fossil fuels cold turkey, and a system that allows those who cannot transition to externalize their ability to reduce or eliminate emissions is a way to get close to the desired result with the constraints we have right now.

I also think it's a good idea, but there are too many loopholes[1] for bad actors to abuse at the moment. [1] https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-b...

Cap/Trade/Offsets/Coupons. Worked for NOx.

Remember Acid Rain, it was real, it was solved.

Industry was able to work with a cap/trade system.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#155

Post by layer8 »

Winse wrote: post #135

As with most large scale changes...there are winners and losers. New species and extinctions. High CO2 is great for plants in my greenhouse...I suppose that's why it is called a greenhouse gas. Anyone longing for lower CO2 levels in our entire atmosphere is basically an anti-Canadian Agriculture bigot. Seriously though sometimes the cure is much worse than just handling the issues one at a time as we transition to a…

CO2 is actually not so nice for breathing, if you ever monitored a CO2 ppm meter indoors, where the air gets stuffy when too much CO2 from breathing accumulates. With the current trajectory, by the end of the century, opening the window won’t get you what we now consider fresh air anymore, the air will feel stuffy all the time. We already get less fresh air now than 50 years ago, where CO2 base levels were around 300 ppm, vs. 400 ppm now.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#156

Post by rout39574 »

bko wrote: post #116
konschubert wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that degrowth is not a politically viable path to saving the climate. Additionally, it is not effective unless you want to return to pre-industrial society. What works is: Changing the source of the energy we consume. Solar is the cheapest source of energy now. Wind is good in some areas. Nuclear can be useful too. The amazing thing is that solar is so cheap now, there is basically no way stopping it. W…

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but if solar is cheaper, why isn't it the dominant energy source today? Seems like a win win, people get cheaper energy all without force. Generally the market chooses the best product, which is why we replaced horses crapping all over our cities with cars. It wasn't legislation or some global consortium of governments that phased out the horse, it was a better product. What am I m…

Momentum, installed base, established interests, changing uses.

Foolishly reductionistic model: at the instant that solar becomes defacto cheaper, if everyone immediately changed, you'd need at least [total world power consumption / solar panel production rate] years to change over.

2022 world electricity consumption was about 25000 TWH. That envelope-backs to about 2800 GW if the sun is always directly overhead everywhere and there are no transmission losses.

In 2022, we installed about 228GW of solar panels. Assuming constant production (HAH!) that says it should take more than a decade to replace the existing demand. Which will of course stand still for us.

Apply whatever multiplication factors you like about what percentage of the year a given real solar cell will generate power; about how quickly folks are convinced to change; about the construction of projects which were planned before this price threshold was passed; about the impact of using grid power to do transportation work which was previously done by pumping dead dinosaurs...

The confounding factors abound. But that's an ignorant sideline answer to why. :)

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#157

Post by weberer »

perfunctory wrote: post #114
tompccs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmental activists are almost entirely responsible for the killing of nuclear energy in the 1970s. Much of the blame for climate change lays at their feet.

Funny how environmental activists were powerful enough to kill the nuclear energy but not the fossil one.

I would bet most of these protests were funded by the fossil fuel industry. The chances of this many people organically being anti-nuclear are near 0%.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#158

Post by cesarb »

beretguy wrote: post #101
konschubert wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that degrowth is not a politically viable path to saving the climate. Additionally, it is not effective unless you want to return to pre-industrial society. What works is: Changing the source of the energy we consume. Solar is the cheapest source of energy now. Wind is good in some areas. Nuclear can be useful too. The amazing thing is that solar is so cheap now, there is basically no way stopping it. W…

> Nuclear can be useful too. I wouldn’t call it just useful. As far as I understand it’s the best realistic shot we’ve got.

I don't think it's that realistic; nuclear simply takes way too long to build. For instance, the most recent nuclear reactor under construction near where I live has been under construction for 40 years and it's still not complete. In the meantime, the amount of added solar, wind, and hydro has been several times the power that single reactor will have once it's finally done.

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#159

Post by I-M-S »

Shacklz wrote: post #89
drexlspivey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t just shut down the fossil fuel industry before you have alternative green energy infrastructure in place, this is a multi decade project. Otherwise the price of oil shoots up and you get inflation which affects most people’s ability to get by. “Populist anger” might be justified if people have a hard time paying their bills.

> “Populist anger” might be justified if people have a hard time paying their bills. If the costs of current living standard wasn't externalized to future generations (to the detriment of the environment), they couldn't afford those bills to begin with. Unfortunately, it's very hard to reduce people's living standards once they got used to it. So yes, the end result is what you're saying - however, I think it's a ver…

It's not even externalized to future generations, just to other continents whose inhabitants produce crap for the West

Re: Xkcd: Greenhouse Effect

#160

Post by layer8 »

unglaublich wrote: post #88

And people keep wondering why climate protesters are not asking things "nicely" anymore, and resort to blocking traffic and defacing paintings. They tried the nice way... they tried for many decades.

People aren’t wondering, they just don’t consider this an acceptable or effective way to protest.
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