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Europe's new climate in seven charts

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171–180 of 247 posts

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#171
post #94
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all that CO2 generated by nuclear power plants and renewable energy is terrible. But I guess if enough people die then Europe's carbon emissions will also go down so it's a win! And thank you for proving my point.

~50% share (in some countries much higher) fossil-based electricity is still 50% fossil-based electricity.

That tends to happen when you spend a couple decades shutting down the non-fossil fuel energy sources. Germany used to be 30% nuclear up to 2005 so well past climate change is real times. Now it's around 1%.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind total emissions grew much much faster in our lifetime (let’s say 1980-2026) than in the prior 200 years, which was before most of the recent huge growth in Chinese and Indian emissions. Also the ocean and arctic were absorbing the majority of the heat. The arctics been going through these heat waves for 10 years, its white albedo decreasing and potentially permafrost melting making more effective emissio…

“Stop eating beef.” Nah we need to stop burning fossil fuels dude.

I mean, we do also need to eat less beef. Its not going to fix things on its own, but it is part of multi-solving our way through this crisis

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#173
post #84
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... why!! Let's go back... ah, I see mile-high glaciers over London. Global warming did occur in the past as well.

How is that a reason to exclude it from the graph? Surely including it in the charts would strengthen the case for regarding it as a long term problem? Excluding it subtly suggests that global warming is a short term phenomenon.

I agree with you that it's a long term problem. I won't stop until London is under a mile-high glacier!

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#175
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1960 to 1979 had 6 years where UK temperatures went over 30C in June 1980 to 1999 had 6 years 2000 to 2019 had 13 years 2020 to 2026 has had 6 years so far, and we're only 35% of the way through The longest period of time from 1960 to 2000 where june temperatures went higher than 30 was two years, reaching 30 in 1975 and 36 in 1976. 2021 was the only June in the last 10 years where temperatures didn't reach that 1975…

So even if it goes above 30 every single remaining year it will still be 9 vs 13 in the previous decade?

These are 20 year periods, not decades. How did you think there were 13 years in the previous decade? It would be 18 vs 13 if every year up to 2039 went over 30C.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#176
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cold war never heated up. Even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, it will take millennia for the climate to return to normal.

Won't the climate change naturally even in the absence of fossil fuels? Like it has during all of history? What's "normal" is based on a small slice of human history, which itself is a small slice of the planet's history.

Your question betrays the fact that you simply don't understand the scale of what's happening.

Imagine a line chart. It displays average global temperature over millions of years. It goes up a little, it goes down a little, it fluctuates over time. That's the natural change. It occurs over thousands and millions of years.

Looking at the last few decades on that chart, you'll see a wall. It's going almost straight up compared to the rest that just meanders lazily. You can see a few other similar peaks on the chart many millions of years in the past, they generally correspond with things like apocalyptic meteorite impacts etc. And even then the change occurs much more slowly than what we're seeing now.

It's honestly insane to me that we're watching the world end and half of people are like "but are we sure this isn't normal?"

Yes we're sure. We double checked. Just look at any "global average temperature" chart and try to predict where it's going. This isn't the stock market it won't just randomly start doing something else. The movement we're seeing is directly correlated to our ghg emissions, and there's a lag - the effects of current emissions won't be fully seen until up to two decades from now. So even if we stopped right now it would continue warming for decades.

Warming also releases more GHGs. As poles and permafrost thaws, enormous amounts of methane are released that was previously trapped, further accelerating warming and acting as a positive feedback loop on top of our steadily rising emissions.

In short were fucked, we know it, and anyone who doesn't know is not paying attention.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#177
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think thats the wrong level of abstraction. The cold war ended, but clima change will not end.

> The cold war ended You wouldn't know it based on how everyone talks about Russia pulling the strings of just about every election (and being a moment away from conquering Europe while simultaneously being too incompetent to beat Ukraine).

An animal is most dangerous when deeply wounded.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#178
post #4
post #2

to me, these heatwaves feel like the start of the end of human existence

Research past heat waves in Europe. Did your grand parents felt the same as you?

> Did your grand parents felt the same as you?

They remember a lot more snow and talk about how summers were not that hot. And like, they are otherwise into half of right wing conspiracy theories.

Re: Europe's new climate in seven charts

#179
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't nuke ourselves first.

Yeah, that seems like our only realistic solution to the climate crisis.

We were somehow on the good path after covid, then world leaders decided killing each other folks was more relevant goal, followed by making big tech bros even more rich with AI centers.

Meanwhile paperstraws, and glued bottle caps, are supposed to save the planet.

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