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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

#161

Post by getnormality »

fnordian_slip wrote: post #106
getnormality wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll know European Greens are serious about climate change when they stop decommissioning nuclear plants and replacing them with coal.

I recently wrote a reply to someone else with the same argument about the German greens, which I'll recycle here: "It's bad enough that nuclear proponents ignore the massive cost of nuclear compared to renewables once you factor in building costs, insurance and storage imho. But then to pretend like the conservatives didn't have a choice but to bungle the nuclear exit really is too much. The CDU never listened to the…

Obviously foreseeable consequences of an action are owned by the agents that pushed them and sit on the critical path of that action happening. The Greens fit this criterion. They pushed nuclear decommission first, without renewables ready to replace. To any reasonable observer, it is obvious that this ensures that coal would replace the nuclear. They did it anyway.

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

#162

Post by arw0n »

getnormality wrote: post #161
fnordian_slip wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently wrote a reply to someone else with the same argument about the German greens, which I'll recycle here: "It's bad enough that nuclear proponents ignore the massive cost of nuclear compared to renewables once you factor in building costs, insurance and storage imho. But then to pretend like the conservatives didn't have a choice but to bungle the nuclear exit really is too much. The CDU never listened to the…

Obviously foreseeable consequences of an action are owned by the agents that pushed them and sit on the critical path of that action happening. The Greens fit this criterion. They pushed nuclear decommission first, without renewables ready to replace. To any reasonable observer, it is obvious that this ensures that coal would replace the nuclear. They did it anyway.

There's another factual error in your above comment the previous poster didn't correct: Nuclear energy was replaced with renewables, not coal. It would have been preferable to first replace coal with renewables, then move on to expensive nuclear, but that's a different argument.

Doubling down on your second wrong argument is not giving your observations credence. It was the conservative party in a coalition with the free-market Liberals, who passed the law giving a binding timeline for the nuclear shutdown.

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

#163

Post by getnormality »

arw0n wrote: post #162
getnormality wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously foreseeable consequences of an action are owned by the agents that pushed them and sit on the critical path of that action happening. The Greens fit this criterion. They pushed nuclear decommission first, without renewables ready to replace. To any reasonable observer, it is obvious that this ensures that coal would replace the nuclear. They did it anyway.

There's another factual error in your above comment the previous poster didn't correct: Nuclear energy was replaced with renewables, not coal. It would have been preferable to first replace coal with renewables, then move on to expensive nuclear, but that's a different argument. Doubling down on your second wrong argument is not giving your observations credence. It was the conservative party in a coalition with the…

Germany trading nuclear for coal in 2022, and the role of the Greens supporting it, was widely reported by credible outlets; see for example [1]:

> With little natural gas supplies of the country’s own, and its heavily supported renewable sector unable to fully make up the shortfall, German leaders faced a dilemma. To maintain enough gas reserves to get the country through the winter, they could try to put off the closure of Germany’s last three remaining nuclear reactors, which were scheduled to shutter by the end of 2022 as part of Germany’s post-Fukushima turn against nuclear power, and even restart already closed reactors.

> Or they could try to reactivate mothballed coal-fired power plants, and make up some of the electricity deficit with Germany’s still-ample coal reserves.

[...]

> Last week, the country’s parliament, with the backing of members of the Green Party in the coalition government, passed emergency legislation to reopen coal-powered plants, as well as further measures to boost the production of renewable energy.

I acknowledge that the politics and history of the nuclear decommission is more complicated than I understood - [2] seems to be a useful walkthrough. But it all happened with Green support and is the fruits of decades of Green ideological advocacy.

[1] https://archive.ph/v3iLS

[2] https://www.cjfp.org/for-germanys-green-party-the-50-year-dr...

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

#164

Post by kgabis »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #149
kgabis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why we should be advocating for more research into SAI, but the reality is we will do it anyway when situation gets bad enough. Global warming has happened and will get only worse, if we ignore the possibility of geoengineering we risk losing not only human lives but also a lot of biodiversity after ecosystems collapse.

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

#165

Post by jerome-jh »

There was a report a few months ago predicting 4°C by 2080. It came to this figure by selecting the most likely emission scenario and warming scenario from the GIEC report.

In particular, it is hard to be optimistic on the emission scenario nowadays. So the report opted for emissions starting to drop around 2040, if I remember correctly.

That's my new baseline. Sorry I cannot find the report anymore. I am pretty sure it was posted on hacker news though.

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

#166

Post by Yizahi »

Remember that IPCC's projection of 2.7C by 2100 is done by selectively ignoring a good quarter of the models which IPCC selected in the first place. So called "hot" models. So it's a very politically motivated number. I can totally see how a scientist not bound by pandering to the most insufferable crowd on the planet can project much worse future just by being unbiased.

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

#167

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

Hikikomori wrote: post #141
MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well whatever you guys have been doing hasn't worked for a damn and only hampered EU's ability to actually project power and make changes.

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

#168

Post by nicbou »

taegee wrote: post #160
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.

For those missing context: we beat all-time heat records with ~42ºC, and it was quite difficult to manage for 3 days with our current infrastructure.

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

#169

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #152
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Assuming emissions are roughly proportional to spending

But without more info, that seems like a pretty awful assumption. A lot of the stuff we export are services and high value goods that I would think have a relatively low "emissions to value" ratio compared to the lower value manufactured goods we import.

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

#170

Post by constantius »

Alpha3031 wrote: post #159
constantius wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

I actually appreciate your replies and the argument, not attempting to belittle you.

My point is that, whatever your papers assert, the differences on carnism, in absolute terms, are so insignificant on the political/gender spectra that accusing one side on this basis can only be seen as having the only purpose of attacking that side, not of genuinely wanting to see meat consumption reduced.

When you look at the data (or when you don't eat meat and regularly debate randos about it), you will see it's not a conservative/liberal, man/woman thing, but a generalised disregard for animal life. So turning it into a culture war just makes it worse, because the conservatives who read your attack will be likely to start seeing it as part of their identity while liberals will do nothing, so in total this worsens the issue.

A big part of my debates on this site is about animal cruelty, so I'm not defending those who eat animals here, only pointing out this approach is both a lie on numbers and bad for the cause.

> justified in bigoted

You seem to think that bigoted means having a negative view, but it's actually "obstinate and unreasoning attachment of one's own belief and opinions, with narrow-minded intolerance of beliefs opposed to them". The unreasoning part and acting on prejudice is what I'm saying is bad.

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