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

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

#151

Post by xyzelement »

bulbar wrote: post #94
xyzelement wrote: post #86

This article sprinkles the word "risk" which people interpret as "bad things are coming" but actually means "there's some probability of the bad thing happening." The probability is not quantified so it's impossible to react to. Over-protecting from a risk is as bad and under-protecting. For example - something bad can happen to you any time you leave your house. However if you "protect" against that the risk by neve…

> Over-protecting from a risk is as bad and under-protecting. This is not generally true. > For example - something bad can happen to you any time you leave your house. The better analogue would be: outside of your house is a robber that will rob you if you leave the house. But you can't quantify how bad it will be to get robbed.

I think that's a fair analogy actually. I grew up in Brooklyn in 1990s and it was basically guaranteed that you'd have some criminal encounter in the neighborhood sooner or later. People still left the house because running that risk was better that entombing yourself inside the house.

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

#152

Post by tonyedgecombe »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #113
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as much as people would have you believe.

What a terrible answer.

US imports represent approximately 14% of GDP, exports is about 11%. So net imports represents about 3% of GDP. Assuming emissions are roughly proportional to spending the US is exporting 3% of its emissions.

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

#153

Post by Alpha3031 »

constantius wrote: post #146
Alpha3031 wrote: post #129

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…

Because gender conservatism is literally one of the leading factors predicting willingness to reduce meat consumption? (Boterman, 2026) Have you literally never seen what nonsense the alt-right churn out? It's everywhere, I really don't see how you could have missed it. Like, this is literally what real right-wingers say:

> Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, for example, produced a documentary in 2022 featuring the Raw Egg Nationalist, a prominent far-right influencer, who said that Impossible, Beyond and other plant-based companies are part of a “soy globalist” conspiracy to criminalize meat consumption and weaken citizens through poisoned food.

https://theconversation.com/plant-based-meat-alternatives-ar...

I'm sorry I'm bigoted against right-wing nonsense but considering they want to literally erase queer people from existence I would think I am at least a little justified in thinking badly of them.

Boterman, Willem Rogier (14 January 2026). "The political ideological dimensions of meat consumption". Political Science. 78(1): 73–99. doi: 10.1080/00323187.2025.2602446. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00323187.2025.2...

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

#154

Post by tonyedgecombe »

spwa4 wrote: post #128

But there is the problem: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-world-carbon-emissio... Note: a lot of the countries on this graph are quite famous for not only refusing to implement any climate policy, but not having the necessary government control (or will) to do it even when agreeing to it.

Dividing it by country is misleading. The real divide is between the rich and poor. It's hard to create any emissions when you are only spending a few dollars a day. Meanwhile if I take a flight across the Atlantic then that is another five tonnes of carbon in the atmosphere no matter which country I start from.

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

#155

Post by mikelward »

spwa4 wrote: post #128

But there is the problem: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-world-carbon-emissio... Note: a lot of the countries on this graph are quite famous for not only refusing to implement any climate policy, but not having the necessary government control (or will) to do it even when agreeing to it.

So China is #1. USA is #2 and more than India #3 and Russia #4 combined.

Australia and Canada also very high per capita.

Really needs a global solution with China and/or US leading.

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

#156

Post by constantius »

Alpha3031 wrote: post #153
constantius wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because gender conservatism is literally one of the leading factors predicting willingness to reduce meat consumption? (Boterman, 2026) Have you literally never seen what nonsense the alt-right churn out? It's everywhere, I really don't see how you could have missed it. Like, this is literally what real right-wingers say: > Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, for example, produced a documentary in 2022 featuring the…

Thinking badly of right ideologies is justifiable, but being bigoted is wrong in any way.

I answered your comment because it was purely about gender, nothing political, and because the claim about social media posts being a major barrier was nonsense.

Yes, there are political underpinnings to eating animals. I assume you're American, so here's a gallup poll for the US:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/510038/identify-vegetarian-vega...

Since this is about America, it's about right vs liberals (so not left), and indeed they're 3 times more likely than conservatives (9 vs 3%), and indeed women are 2-3 times more likely than men to be vegetarian/vegan (6 vs 2%).

But we're talking about tiny, tiny percentage points. It's the same across the entire West. So singling out men, or even conservatives, for a tiny difference feels like antagonisation with no basis, and your comment reads not like arguing for climate or animal welfare, but as fighting your culture war. And everyone outside of your bubble will see it for a weak attack and dismiss it as just a vehicle for your favourite flavour of bigotry.

Hence why dropping it would have been better.

As an aside: women are the vast majority of leisure travellers (>70% for all travel, and much higher for leisure only). Women are probably 99% of consumers of fast fashion, and the majority of consumers of smartphone updates. The gap is much starker, and seeing it as a culture problem would be justified in discussions about pollution (though not socially acceptable...). But if you were talking about, I don't know, the externalities of coffee production, and women/liberals drank 51% of coffee and men/conservatives 49%, and you complained about women, I'd also just dismiss your comment as bigotry.

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

#157

Post by xyzelement »

sparqlittlestar wrote: post #107
xyzelement wrote: post #86

This article sprinkles the word "risk" which people interpret as "bad things are coming" but actually means "there's some probability of the bad thing happening." The probability is not quantified so it's impossible to react to. Over-protecting from a risk is as bad and under-protecting. For example - something bad can happen to you any time you leave your house. However if you "protect" against that the risk by neve…

> over-protecting from a risk is as bad as under-protecting How would protecting ourselves against 50 °C summer heat (122 °F) ever be as bad as keeping 40° heatwaves or better yet, a return to the 35° summers? 50° means a human mass extinction event. There are no corporate profits possible in that scenario anyway

Happy to explain. We need a few more numbers to make this tangible.

Let's agree that 50c summers are bad. What's the probability that summers will become 50c in the next 100 years and what's the cost of lowering that likelyhood?

Let's say there's a low probability (0.01%) and the cost of action is high. Let's use a ridiculous example: you have the opportunity to lower the risk further by half at the cost of immediately killing your family, any pets you have, and yourself. Would you, sparqlittlestar, kill your family, pets and self to move the risk of 50C summer in the next 100 years from 0.01% to 0.005%? I assume the answer is no because it's obviously and intuitively not worth it

On the other extreme let's say there's a 50% risk of 50c summers and you have a low-cost option (snapping your fingers) to halve it to 25%. You would obviously do that.

To generalize this point, it doesn't make sense to talk about how bad something could be without quantifying how likely that event is and the cost of mitigation. I find that talking about worst case outcomes regardless of likelihood is basically anxiety. Like someone who never gets on a plane because of how horrible a crash could be, separately from the reality that your particular flight is not going to crash, and meanwhile everything you miss out on by not flying is real.

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

#158

Post by CamperBob2 »

2000UltraDeluxe wrote: post #102
CamperBob2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenpeace is responsible for a lot of that warming.

May I ask how you came to that conclusion?

If you don't build nuclear plants, you'll get your base load generation from fossil fuels. Greenpeace has always strongly opposed nuclear power.

In itself, that doesn't mean they're wrong. But right or wrong, it's unquestionable that they have been successful at antinuclear activism. As a result, their activism has the net effect of promoting carbon pollution, and by no small measure.

As well as radiological pollution, for that matter: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14169712/

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

#159

Post by Alpha3031 »

constantius wrote: post #156
Alpha3031 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because gender conservatism is literally one of the leading factors predicting willingness to reduce meat consumption? (Boterman, 2026) Have you literally never seen what nonsense the alt-right churn out? It's everywhere, I really don't see how you could have missed it. Like, this is literally what real right-wingers say: > Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, for example, produced a documentary in 2022 featuring the…

Thinking badly of right ideologies is justifiable, but being bigoted is wrong in any way. I answered your comment because it was purely about gender, nothing political, and because the claim about social media posts being a major barrier was nonsense. Yes, there are political underpinnings to eating animals. I assume you're American, so here's a gallup poll for the US: https://news.gallup.com/poll/510038/identify-veg…

> I answered your comment because it was purely about gender

I was under the impression that it was about the demographics that are unresponsive to efforts to reduce meat consumption, but I suppose I could be mistaken.

> I assume you're American

I am not.

> So singling out men, or even conservatives, for a tiny difference feels like antagonisation with no basis

I consider the Boterman paper and other similar works (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/136843021882440..., https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019566632..., etc) to be sufficient basis. One does not need to eliminate meat entirely to significantly reduce it. Also, I consider right-wingers to be more reactionary than conservative.

> but being bigoted is wrong in any way.

I think I'm ethically justified in bigoted towards people that want me to die, but whatever,

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

#160

Post by taegee »

leonidasv wrote: post #10

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.

This June in Germany was on average 3 °C hotter than usual. That should give an idea.
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