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Oceans hit highest temperature on record

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Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#441
post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western democracies at this point can't do anything at that even hints at minimally inconveniencing 5% of the population. Any 5% at that. We are stuck in local maximum even if it slowly and surely slides into the shitter

This is an interesting take because for example the EU car fleet emmission rules, fuel taxes, additional member state polluting car taxes etc. do exactly that. Otherwise ICE cars in the EU would be far far cheaper and the EV marketshare would be much lower. Yeah the issue is "minimally inconveniencing 5% of the population", but it's not any 5%, it's the powerful 5% who resist the change using any means necessary incl…

> This is an interesting take because for example the EU car fleet emmission rules, fuel taxes, additional member state polluting car taxes etc. do exactly that. Otherwise ICE cars in the EU would be far far cheaper and the EV marketshare would be much lower.

Can't speak about EV marketshare (I'm guessing someone is bundling hybrids into stats you read), but large part of population is buying only used ICE cars, or get new ones on a business lease; only minority actually pays the sticker price for new car out-of-pocket.

Also, it's hard not to notice how much general population hates those. I'm actually surprised EU got as far as it got here, pretty sure they're burning a lot of political capital because of environmental regulations.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#442
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eu is stupid for not engaging in active climate engineering right now. They are the most at risk and should take decisive action before they end up living in a glacier. All the downvotes are just showing why no action is being taken even though right now we are literally terraforming the planet with no plan, and it is going to stop the transatlantic currents that keep Europe from becoming arctic. But sure, just d…

Western democracies at this point can't do anything at that even hints at minimally inconveniencing 5% of the population. Any 5% at that. We are stuck in local maximum even if it slowly and surely slides into the shitter

Pretty much everything the EU does, is inconveniencing most of its population, often in the name of "climate change" (while not actually making any impact).

Positives: no mobile roaming charges

Negatives:

- less efficient home appliances (dishwasher, washing machine, drier)

- cookie law

- car annoyances (e.g. "beep if over the speed limit")

- paper straws

- attached bottle caps

- LED lights

- expensive electricity (a lot of this is caused by individual countries, but probably also the EU plays a role, e.g. by not classifying nuclear as "green" / "renewable" and banning Russian gas)

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#443

With the growth in solar, it is easy to think that we can solve it, we just do more renewables, but the decline of fossil fuels is negligible: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7438918221... Globally, fossil fuels supply 81.1% today (2023). Only marginally down from 81.4% in 2000. Fossil fuels are not on track to end by 2050. But rather in 4-10 centuries.

> With the growth in solar, it is easy to think that we can solve it,

90% of things you can buy/use would not exist without fossil fuels, including food, medicine, clothes, roads, tires, electronics, solar panels, windmills, etc.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#444

Does anybody else feel like this is the answer to the Fermi paradox? Advanced civilizations simply exploit, consume, and pollute their way of existence.

14 billion years and not a single piece of evidence of a prior civilization.

The universe is vast, both in space and time. You would not detect anything from a past civilization that died a few millions of years ago in the closest solar system, which is really not that far in either time nor space

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#445
post #425
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eu is stupid for not engaging in active climate engineering right now. They are the most at risk and should take decisive action before they end up living in a glacier. All the downvotes are just showing why no action is being taken even though right now we are literally terraforming the planet with no plan, and it is going to stop the transatlantic currents that keep Europe from becoming arctic. But sure, just d…

The EU has made a difficult problem even worse by switching from pipeline gas to LNG. LNG has anywhere from 10% to 100% more greenhouse gas emissions, depending on who you believe about how much methane leaks during LNG production and transport operations. Most credible estimate IMO is +60%.

Putin turned off the gas, not the EU

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#446
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a tiny problem with that hypothesis - there are I think at most 3 potentially viable climate reversal options - DAC, sun shield and aerosol injection in the atmosphere. All 3 options are likely cost through the nose and will require sums and efforts on a global scale. Any single country attempting them on its own, would require to set aside double digit amounts of its GDP for decades, effectively crippling i…

Game of chicken. Wait as long as you can because as it starts to get worse for everyone, maybe more and more countries will join in on the efforts. I don't know if any country has the industrial base to do it yourself, as you say, but if any does, it's almost certainly China just due to manufacturing output and expertise alone. They're, what, 30-35% of the world's output? Set aside 30% of that and they can still feed…

> Set aside 30% of that

It looks like we are in agreement about rough requirements, but estimate consequences differently. That's precisely what I was talking about - even for China powerhouse it would require 30% of GDP (example number, but it's good enough). My point was that 30% of GDP is an incredibly, astonishingly expensive amount of money to be diverged to a completely new activity.

Just to illustrate - NATO countries are currently haggling about spending even 3% on a military out of all things, and military spending is famously popular in most of the countries among people of power, due to all the corruption and jobs and factories and manufacturing and prestige etc. Poland ramping up spending to 4-5% is seen as extremely overspending (it's rational for survival reasons, but economy may not bear that long term). 30% spending on a thing not benefiting rich class in short to mid term is anathema. Not even grandpa Xi with his totalitarian power would manage that.

Also let's not forget that grandpa Xi has this tiny little victorious invasion of the independent Taiwan planned, likely done in a double push together with his puppet Kim against Korea, and simultaneously conducting a total blockade of the South China Sea for a many years. China may even manage that, but that won't be profitable in the slightest, and during the war all that economy engine will stall due to disrupted shipping and sanctions. They just won't have those 30% of GDP to spend on a side.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#447
post #255
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The eu is stupid for not engaging in active climate engineering right now. They are the most at risk and should take decisive action before they end up living in a glacier. All the downvotes are just showing why no action is being taken even though right now we are literally terraforming the planet with no plan, and it is going to stop the transatlantic currents that keep Europe from becoming arctic. But sure, just d…

The EU is not "most at risk" compared to eg south Asia, the middle east, parts of Africa, etc; and this idea that AMOC collapse will turn Europe into a glacier is a blatant exaggeration that does not root itself in reality.

wrong:

EU is the region with the highest acceleration of most climate parameters

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#448
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).

This is the very definition of the Tragedy of the Commons. Without everyone committing to common limits, it is folly for anyone to. And FWIW, I don't buy the "but the countries that bred like rabbits for the past few decades are owed their due reserved quota". Having a massive population isn't something you need to be rewarded for, not to mention that the math doesn't even make sense. For China and India to get their…

They should better colonize other countries like Europeans did to reduce populations.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#449

With the growth in solar, it is easy to think that we can solve it, we just do more renewables, but the decline of fossil fuels is negligible: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7438918221... Globally, fossil fuels supply 81.1% today (2023). Only marginally down from 81.4% in 2000. Fossil fuels are not on track to end by 2050. But rather in 4-10 centuries.

> With the growth in solar, it is easy to think that we can solve it, 90% of things you can buy/use would not exist without fossil fuels, including food, medicine, clothes, roads, tires, electronics, solar panels, windmills, etc.

Sounds super valuable, we should probably stop setting a finite resource on fire.

Re: Oceans hit highest temperature on record

#450
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU has more people than the USA but emits 1/3 of the USA's, what's the exceptionalist excuse for that?

well, yes we're overfed and over-commercialized. But we also vastly out build, grow and produce Europe. (and you have more people)

If using simple metrics like GDP growth, I'm more in the camp of Paul Krugman's argument[0] that such comparisons with simple naïve metrics are insufficient to analyse it.

I agree the USA has grown more steadily than the EU and the American software/tech industries have a leg up but the devil is in the details.

I travel a lot for work to the USA and I do not experience what this GDP growth has brought to the US in the past 10-15 years: infrastructure in general is worse (worse airports, worse roads, etc.), urban life is worse, rural life is worse, quality of food is worse.

[0] https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-v-america-whos-rea...

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