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Oceans hit highest temperature on record

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221–230 of 696 posts

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#221
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the US. That's because it's also the cheapest source of energy. So markets are working. https://abcnews.com/US/solar-generates-energy-coal-us-1st-ti... "Solar and storage provided 90% of all new power added in the U.S." is mind blowing. How about we give the US credit for this? Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Given th…

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Foreign state actors?

We have government agents frequenting this website to sew anti-US sentiment? Really?

Could you identify some of them? Or at least one or two of the obvious ones?

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#222
post #2

When I was younger, I remember thinking, "a few degrees, what difference does that make?" Then when I grew older I realised that in Climate science a few degrees is the difference between survival and annihilation. A few degrees warmer in the ocean and El Niño becomes an incredible problem for half the world. I am glad that I live far away from the effects but it is sad to think of people losing all kinds of things f…

It's a marketing copy thing. If instead of 1 degree, they said 1.4 million TWh, which is the amount of energy needed to heat the Earth by 1 degree, it would hit better extreme number emotional buttons, but I'm not in charge of things.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#223
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centers use no more than 1.5% of electricity globally[1], and a long LLM query uses only a little more than 5 minutes of general laptop use ~3x the energy of running an LED light for 5 minutes. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-energy-do-data-centers-a...

When all is said and done, data centers are going to be complimentary to green energy. They can spin up and down to buffer non-linear power nodes. They also represent investment in economic growth that doesn't come from resource extraction or travel or manufacturing.

Building data centers relies on immense manufacturing. The GPUs, systems, cooling, batteries, etc don't come from no where. They have strict replacement schedules too.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#224
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Foreign state actors? We have government agents frequenting this website to sew anti-US sentiment? Really? Could you identify some of them? Or at least one or two of the obvious ones?

Yes, I could.

But to be serious, there's endless evidence that it's going on, and if you don't believe it I'm not the one with my head in the sand. (That's a common English idiom meaning "not paying attention," for the foreign state actors out there.)

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#225
post #7

Meanwhile governments are electing to either do nothing or actively make the problem worse (particularly in the case of the US — expanding fossil fuel extraction, pushing data center build out and attacking renewables like wind).

We are doing a lot. Almost 90% of electricity capacity added last year was renewables. Nearly 1 in 3 cars sold are now EVs. The world is spending over $2 trillion every year on low‑carbon energy investment. Solar and wind have already avoided more than 2 gigatons of CO2 being added to the atmosphere. In the US, the IRA will drop emissions 40% to below 2005 levels. What do you mean we are doing nothing?

That's added capacity. Fossil fuel use is at an all times high. Everything else is meaningless.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#226
post #213
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm weird. Just to be fair I'll acknowledge that certain political actors in the US deny there's any man made climate change and fight renewable energy because it conflicts with some narrow business or political interests. I'm not denying that. But... The political criticism in the US (and in Canada where I'm from) against fossil fuel extraction makes no sense. We should want that fossil fuels are extracted here . No…

Why does it matter where on the planet the fossil fuels are extracted in terms of dealing with global climate change? The US and Canada combined are responsible for 28% and 31% of the global oil and natural gas extraction respectively. If this share were eliminated, then it would force global demand down via the supply/demand price curve especially as there are competitive clean alternatives to burning fossil fuels f…

It doesn't work like that. If the US and Canada stopped extraction of oil and gas for the most part that shortage would be made up in other places. As we remove our supply from the markets prices would rocket up and countries like Russia and Saudi would make immense profits while making up for most of the losses and not moving the demand needle as far as you think it will move for the environment. There will also be a move back to coal where that's an option (some power stations).

And that's ignoring the consequences of that on e.g. people in cold climates that rely on gas for heating or people that rely on gasoline for getting to work. The correct approach is to reduce the usage of fossil fuels which will lead to reduced extraction naturally.

You're not 100% wrong but the impact is marginal. Partly because some energy markets are a cartel. The prices aren't strictly governed by supply and demand but rather supplies are throttled to drive prices.

This is why that's the wrong thing to focus on. If we (e.g. Canada and the US) have strong economies that allows us to do more. Both internally and by influencing others. For example I can afford to drive an EV and use a heat pump because the Canadian economy does well, despite those not being economical options. Many early adopters of solar and EVs and other environmental approaches were only possible because we have strong economies, and those drive down prices for everyone.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#227
post #10

BBC did a pretty good deep dive a few days ago on what we're in for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xZCh8eDZFc DW also, similar stuff, but the guest is quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcl5Mn373Oc Anton Petrov covered it from a much more science lens a couple months back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRoU3whzX_Q

That BBC documentary shows or exposes very shallow thinking skills at this timestamp 6m42s: https://youtu.be/_xZCh8eDZFc?si=AHyDPgoDucsCRllS&t=402 They claim the panama canal is continuously fed by freshwater for the canal locks (which segment the canal into sections with different water levels, and which enable ships to be raised or lowered to the next water level during travel along the canal). It's 2026, why are h…

Wow, guy on internet solves problem within seconds. And you didn't even have to visit the site. Incredible.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#228
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the US. That's because it's also the cheapest source of energy. So markets are working. https://abcnews.com/US/solar-generates-energy-coal-us-1st-ti... "Solar and storage provided 90% of all new power added in the U.S." is mind blowing. How about we give the US credit for this? Fossil fuel extraction is not the problem. The problem is fossil fuel usage. Given th…

I'm in the US and _I_ don't want us to get credit. Even the worst of people do something good every now and then. But if you reward that, they won't change.

> Even the worst of people do something good every now and then. But if you reward that, they won't change.

Scratching my head on that one.

I mean... is something not better than nothing? Or do you only get rewarded if it's 100% perfect? If so then by that metric nobody should be rewarded here. There's nobody in the world who has done enough, certainly none of the major economic powers.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#229

Thank God we have a new technology that is aggressively using water, power, and making the world increasingly hotter.

I know. Banning internal combustion engines is a good first step.

I will kill myself the day I can no longer drive an internal combustion engine.

I don't really see any purpose if we have to be confined to computer enabled cars with built in surveillance with no resemblance of quality, control or freedom.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#230

I try to do my part to the best of my ability. But obviously it's only a droplet in the ocean (hah). But if I'm being honest, what scares me far more than this is the capability of humans to "force" a solution on the world.

If one would have to do the best of its ability then one should adapt very quickly its consumption patterns (stop buying so many things, get minimalist), food patterns (food is likely the per-capita biggest environmental destroyer, eating fish and beef is very taxing on the planet e.g.), travel patterns (no airplanes, use bikes/feet/public transports, cars as last resort).

Those aren't small things to ask and I understand why people and governments pretend to gaslight with just energy, as it asks for no impact on daily life.

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