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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

nytimes.com

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Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#111

Post by usaar333 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #99
hwillis wrote: post #32

The article offhand mentions that we're on track for RCP 8.5, or 8.5 W/m^2 additional heat in 2100. That should fucking terrify you. That's 4 C global temperature rise, a .75 meter sea level rise, and a doubling of ocean acidity. Page 82 of the IPCC report[1] has some fast facts- at RCP 8.5 most of the wild animals on earth will start dying out from lack of freshwater. Corals and molluscs will die out, and all ocean…

> Any worse than RCP 8.5 and the earth enters a runaway greenhouse. At that point the atmosphere turns into Venus, and life on Earth really would be over. I don't see how that would be possible (and at least the scientists at the ICPP don't believe it would be possible either, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect ). At the end of the day, it is believed that all or almost all of the oil, coal and n…

The sun was dimmer in the past, so similar co2 levels as then mean more warning.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#112

Post by ip26 »

zackmorris wrote: post #34

What does everyone think about an open source project to find and eliminate all personal nonrenewable carbon emissions? Something like a spreadsheet across all features that can be optimized, possibly with machine learning. For example: * Best/cheapest/easiest rooftop solar parts and suppliers * Best/cheapest/easiest electric/hybrid cars * Most practical home greenhouse and hydroponic kits (for growing all non-grain…

These things are a lot more complicated than that, with a million permutations across all the zip codes of the world. You're better off focusing on tools to help people find what suits them, rather than a ten line list "best solar panel, best car, best rideshare..."

For solar, try: https://www.energysage.com/

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#113

Post by vkou »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #106
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this article helps me clarify a great point, mainly in these sentences: "The yearslong decline in U.S. emissions has been widely credited to the oil and gas boom. Power plants increasingly turned from coal to natural gas as innovations in extraction technology resulted in lower prices." Lots of people talk about carbon emission reductions, but there is a much simpler way to think about it. There is a lot of c…

If gas reserves are exploited along with coal reserves, your conjecture holds. If gas reserves are exploited in lieu of coal reserves, it does not. If the cost per Joule of carbon-free energy goes down over time, carbon-free energy will eventually dominate the energy economy. This is generally expected to happen "too late" because of how much carbon will be released before we get there. If burning oil and gas instead…

> If gas reserves are exploited along with coal reserves, your conjecture holds. If gas reserves are exploited in lieu of coal reserves, it does not.

If we exploit all the fossil fuel resources, in currently operating mines and wells, we will blow through the 2 C 'safe' warming budget.

Unless for every new fracking well, we shut down a coal mine, the conjecture absolutely holds.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#114

Post by acqq »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #99
hwillis wrote: post #32

The article offhand mentions that we're on track for RCP 8.5, or 8.5 W/m^2 additional heat in 2100. That should fucking terrify you. That's 4 C global temperature rise, a .75 meter sea level rise, and a doubling of ocean acidity. Page 82 of the IPCC report[1] has some fast facts- at RCP 8.5 most of the wild animals on earth will start dying out from lack of freshwater. Corals and molluscs will die out, and all ocean…

> Any worse than RCP 8.5 and the earth enters a runaway greenhouse. At that point the atmosphere turns into Venus, and life on Earth really would be over. I don't see how that would be possible (and at least the scientists at the ICPP don't believe it would be possible either, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect ). At the end of the day, it is believed that all or almost all of the oil, coal and n…

> Much (if not most?) of Earth's history has been without any ice caps, so it's not like this state will lead to a Venus-like Earth.

But much of Earth's history has been without land plants too. They appeared only after 90% of Earth history already passed: only 450 million years ago. Earth exists for 4.5 billion years.

(Also to compare, we started burning gasoline after 99.999997% of the Earth history already passed, and managed to burn during that small time period the half of all easily reachable oil in the Earth crust! For which the Earth needed... effectively all 4.5 billion years to manage to accumulate there. The size of what we did is mind-boggling on so many levels. Ah, yes, also during much of the Earth history there was effectively no oxygen in the atmosphere: it appeared in "breathable" quantities only after 77% of the current Earth's age already passed, if the Earth would be a 90-year-old lady: the oxygen exists only since she was 70, plants since she's 81, and we burned the half of easily reachable oil in only the last 1 minute 34 seconds)

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#115

Post by jf22 »

fromthestart wrote: post #93
jf22 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only to people who assume science is only about proving something wrong rather than expanding to a better understanding.

How do you improve understanding if you've decided that something is true and forbidden any questioning of the subject? Science cannot exist without skepticism - otherwise it's just dogma.

Please comment in good faith and don't weasel around with wording.

You know plenty of scientific discovery happens because scientists are further investigating the mechanisms of something.

Nobody is studying cancer trying to prove it doesn't kill people. You don't have to be a "cancer skeptic" to further our understanding of the problems.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#116

Post by ip26 »

fromthestart wrote: post #5

It's hard for me to take climate science seriously when 1. We know of the state of crisis that all other soft sciences are in (p-value abuse, publish or perish, institutional bias, replication crisis) [3] 2. We know that the earth has been substantially warmer in the past (with accompanyingly higher CO2 levels) and life thrived [2] 3. We know that we've been coming out of an ice age since long before the industrial r…

2. We know that the earth has been substantially warmer in the past (with accompanyingly higher CO2 levels) and life thrived

Nobody is worried that all life on Earth will end for good. We're worried it's going to be a pretty miserable place for humans to live, and that it will take a couple million years for diversity to return.

Life can handle +10F (silver bullet ants anyone?), but humans have a temperature limit.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#117

Post by thinkcontext »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #20
pixl97 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, that doesn't necessarily provide fair statistics. Lets use this contrived example with made up numbers where the US has a population of 500 million and China 1 billion. US per capita: 1000 tons of CO2 per year China per capita: 1000 tons of CO2 per year. Looks like China is twice as good. But if you break out population statistics and 500 million of them live in mud huts and produce almost no CO2, then the other…

How much of China's CO2 is emitted to produce things for the US to consume?

Carbon Brief has data on this on a worldwide basis

https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-largest-co2-import...

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#118

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #81
alphabettsy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your argument, but the people living in rural areas are bigger contributors to pollution since they tend to drive more and live in single family dwellings. Why shouldn’t the actual road users pay the cost of using the road? I agree any industry using fuel should pay an equal tax though.

Some people have no choice but to live in the countryside. I don't live in France anymore but in the village that I used to live in which was 40km from Paris, the rent for a decent size apartment i.e, not a broom closet was around 700 euros per month. Many people in France make less than 1800 euros per month. Which means that in the best case scenario they are left with 1k euro before any basic necessities such as fo…

People have to live far outside of the city because housing costs are too high in the city. How does it possibly make sense to make gas cheaper rather than adopting policies that create more housing so that more people can afford to live in the city?

If rents go down, the poor get to pay less to landlords. If gas prices go down, the poor have to pay more to oil companies (because it "allows" them to live further away) and spend more of their lives commuting. Which policy actually helps the poor, which one helps the oil companies?

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#119

Post by WalterBright »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #58
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #30

It seems to me we are truly and globally fucked: 1. There were just massive protests and riots in France (a relatively ecologically-aware country) due to an increase in the diesel tax of about 8 cents a liter meant to help wean the country off carbon. As a result of the riots, the tax was cancelled. 2. Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction, i.e. doing everything it can to support coal.…

Protesters are not protesting just the taxes on fuel. They protest the fact that taxing fuel is not the solution if you don't provide an alternative mode of transport. Some people live far from the cities, Should they be the ones paying for everybody else and let the people living in the cities without a car not pay their fair share of the burden? The problem with taxing the diesel is that you are telling people that…

The way to make fuel taxes palatable is to have corresponding tax reductions in other taxes that hit the poor, such as the VAT.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#120

Post by libraryatnight »

Things are just fucked. It's already too late, the drastic changes are needed for mitigation at this point - not prevention - and we as a species can't even accomplish that. Things are going to get much, much worse.

It kills me how many people think the debates that are going now are to "prevent" climate issues. The time to prevent passed, and now the time to dampen the blow is passing.

I feel terrible for kids being born right now. They're inheriting an absolute disaster of a planet.

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