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Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

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141–150 of 209 posts

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#141
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We hit 8 billion in 2022 btw. I think the problem is much worse than people imagine as well. Of those around 5.5 to 6 billion people live in "developed world" conditions (sanitation, water & electricity to the home). Over the next 20 years that's expected to grow to by another 1.5 billion (the previous 20 years was around the same). That alone is going to be a huge demand in energy, for construction and ongoing day t…

Yet Europeans will continue to hamstring their economic activity to lower their footprint which is really not doing anything in the grand scheme of things vs. China/India and what Africa will produce if/when they modernize.

Yeah lets continue releasing carbon while telling the rest of the world they're not allowed to.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#142
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the German Green Party say in their own political platform today about the use of thermal power plants? Are they in favor of them, to be used to balance the grid when renewable energy fails to meet demand, or are they against the construction and continued use? I know what the Swedish green party has on their platform, open to be read at any time on their website or in paper materials, or heard by their pol…

>What does the German Green Party say in their own political platform today about the use of thermal power plants? Doesn't matter, at least in Germany. Maybe it's different in other countries, though this would surprise me. Here, nobody reads the party platforms, as they do not correlate with the actions of our political parties. If you vote according to party platform, then you should probably vote for the conservat…

If you judge the political views of a party on how they vote (i.e. their actions), then the result will be a mess. Political parties vote in blocks and alliances, with negotiations and give-and-take. They regularly vote against their own interests if their negotiations means getting their own politics through. One has to look at both what they say and what they do, in order to understand why they voted one way or an other.

There have been recently in Sweden a discussion around party voting and block voting. In concept, every politician could vote independently based on their own views and opinions, but as a practical matter they vote according to party politics. Some has now voiced that this should be mandated according to election result, while others want to keep the current system where elected has a choice to ignore party politics and be independent after the election. The reason this has become an issue is that recent elections has been very close with only a few seats difference between the blocks, thus independent (called "wilds") representatives has the ability to overturn votes when the blocks artificial maintains the relative balances between each other.

Last, if we look at the actions, then guess how the green party voted when it came to construction of new thermal power plants in south of Sweden.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#143
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that geoengineering is feasible when we can't even seem to stop churning CO2 into the atmosphere. It's far easier to stop the fossil fuel burning than to scrub the atmosphere or set up huge space mirrors, so why do you think that we'll manage to fix the climate? Far more likely is a massive population die off and a collapse of our modern society. At least some people made a lot of money from burning…

It's far easier to start doing stratospheric aerosol injection than to stop burning fossil fuels.

However, we don't know the best substance to use and we certainly don't know what kind of side effects it would have. Historically, humans have been very bad at predicting bad side effects (e.g. cane toads in Australia) so I am sceptical, especially when businesses will be trying to make profit from it.

It seems to me like the start of a dystopian sci-fi story with humanity retreating from the surface as acidic rain destroys all plant life.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#144
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far easier to start doing stratospheric aerosol injection than to stop burning fossil fuels.

However, we don't know the best substance to use and we certainly don't know what kind of side effects it would have. Historically, humans have been very bad at predicting bad side effects (e.g. cane toads in Australia) so I am sceptical, especially when businesses will be trying to make profit from it. It seems to me like the start of a dystopian sci-fi story with humanity retreating from the surface as acidic rain…

When the alternative is failing crops and hot bulb events - it will happen eventually. We did this for over 100 years btw., just as a by-product of burning fossil fuels. Cleaner technologies and air pollution regulations have unmasked real global warming scale in northern hemisphere.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#145
post #130
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was always explained that way to me though. the "Our house is burning, and we are looking away" speech was like 20 years ago and it was pretty clear then than average increase in temps mostly mean higher maximums and minimums. Nowadays, people who never did anything to consume less (and made fun of people who stopped taking the plane) can't hide behind the "we didn't know" because everybody knew, so they hide behi…

What do you mean? Both Europe and America moved industrial production to China (which was an explicit choice/policy) which as a side effect radically increased the amount of coal used to power industrial production, BUT lets Europeans and Americans both pay less (ie. make workers poorer) AND lets them claim innocence for CO2 increases, while in fact increasing their CO2 use indirectly.

Do you think that if China had isolated itself and refused all trade, it would have tried to avoid industry and emissions?

Do you think that China is controlled by its customers, making it a passive bystander in its own emissions, the agency and blame for which thus belongs to the customers?

Do you think that individuals who deliberately choose to emit less exist in significant numbers in China, or in the world, or ever might do?

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer choices are only going to get you so far

True. Review on it from two years ago here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221479932... Might be worth shifting subsidies away from meat and towards plant protein to a level consistent with the social cost of carbon, but one could probably expect resistance from a certain demographic, maybe loudly exclaiming on social media that it's a secret government plot to emasculate them or something. (and o…

What's the purpose of this caricature?

You're talking about eating plant protein, what's the point of throwing in an atack on men, even a subset of them? Or do you really think that the main thing that bars us from eating less meat or any other kind of utopia is some evil men doing "or something" on social media?

Your comment could have stood on its own without throwing your bigotry, or ignorance, in to unnecessarily antagonise people.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the path we're on I don't think we'll have to worry too much about future generations. The EU has already seeing 10,000 excess deaths from climate changed caused heat waves and this is a minuscule taste of what's to come. A very large percentage of mass extinction events have their roots in increased atmospheric CO2, but all of them on dramatically increased time scales. The closest thing in the history of the pla…

How many excess deaths from cold?

Since climate change is making extremes worse, not just causing warming… likely more than baseline.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#148

This is the most important part most people don't get: > And what would 3 °C mean for Germany? > FB: In summer, meteorological records could reach up to 50 °C. Three degrees of global warming does not mean hot days will just be 3 or 4 degrees hotter. It could mean up to 10 degrees hotter. We would also face much longer droughts. 3°C warming implies summer days can get 10°C hotter. This is nightmare scenario.

That 3°C is about the yearly average of global temperatures, from deserts to poles, night and day, all year round, and maintained for several years. That is not weather, but it’s more like system energy.

Now, some regions get more average heating than others, so in that is not even, and then there is the weather, what you feel day to day. And right now we are already getting extreme heatwaves and other extreme weather events like flooding rains and hurricanes in zones where they were not usual. Those will increase in frequency and intensity, and I would not be surprised if there are peaks of temperature beyond 55°C, even before 2050, in industrialized countries

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#149
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, we don't know the best substance to use and we certainly don't know what kind of side effects it would have. Historically, humans have been very bad at predicting bad side effects (e.g. cane toads in Australia) so I am sceptical, especially when businesses will be trying to make profit from it. It seems to me like the start of a dystopian sci-fi story with humanity retreating from the surface as acidic rain…

When the alternative is failing crops and hot bulb events - it will happen eventually. We did this for over 100 years btw., just as a by-product of burning fossil fuels. Cleaner technologies and air pollution regulations have unmasked real global warming scale in northern hemisphere.

Seems strange to go for the untested approach with unknown side effects instead of reducing and stopping the dumping of CO2 into our air. The best time to reduce emissions was 50 years ago, but the next best time is now.

I think we're currently in the situation that we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.

Re: Global Warming at 3 °C by 2050? What's Behind the New German Climate Warning

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Review on it from two years ago here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221479932... Might be worth shifting subsidies away from meat and towards plant protein to a level consistent with the social cost of carbon, but one could probably expect resistance from a certain demographic, maybe loudly exclaiming on social media that it's a secret government plot to emasculate them or something. (and o…

What's the purpose of this caricature? You're talking about eating plant protein, what's the point of throwing in an atack on men, even a subset of them? Or do you really think that the main thing that bars us from eating less meat or any other kind of utopia is some evil men doing "or something" on social media? Your comment could have stood on its own without throwing your bigotry, or ignorance, in to unnecessarily…

What a manly snowflake.
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