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Levels of banned CFCs rising

nature.com

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Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#111

Post by anoonmoose »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #45
bluGill wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both matter, though warming wasn't considered a big deal, the media was still coming away from warning about a coming ice age (i've never figured out what was going on there, as a kid I heard it more than once, but now few admit the scare existed). The ozone hole was a big deal. Now that CFCs are banned the ozone layer is recovering. I'm guessing these emissions are not really enough to harm the ozone layer much (so…

>as a kid I heard it more than once, but now few admit the scare existed. People very rarely admit to backing the wrong horse that. Nobody will tell you they sold AAPL and MSFT stock in the 90s. Nobody will tell you they believed the racist propaganda back in the 60s. Nobody will tell you they believed Iraq had WMDs in the 00s. Nobody will tell you that they believed the people who were saying Long Island would soon…

Would love to hear what you think about the Ars Technica article linked in another reply to GP, and how it relates to what you and GP said.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#112

Post by kadoban »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #45
bluGill wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both matter, though warming wasn't considered a big deal, the media was still coming away from warning about a coming ice age (i've never figured out what was going on there, as a kid I heard it more than once, but now few admit the scare existed). The ozone hole was a big deal. Now that CFCs are banned the ozone layer is recovering. I'm guessing these emissions are not really enough to harm the ozone layer much (so…

>as a kid I heard it more than once, but now few admit the scare existed. People very rarely admit to backing the wrong horse that. Nobody will tell you they sold AAPL and MSFT stock in the 90s. Nobody will tell you they believed the racist propaganda back in the 60s. Nobody will tell you they believed Iraq had WMDs in the 00s. Nobody will tell you that they believed the people who were saying Long Island would soon…

There was like one story in a popular science magazine once that got a lot of play, and many people heard about it because it's a vivid story. That's about the extent of it.

Climate change deniers also keep it alive because enlarging it validates their distrust of scientists.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#113

Post by tzs »

hammock wrote: post #103
tzs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you diplomatically convince another country that their people need to have a lifestyle and standard of living that emits a fraction of the CO2 that your people emit?

They’re doing it to us (Americans)… stands to reason that it can be done to others

Doing what to us?

The current US lifestyle has CO2 emissions per person 2x that of the current Chinese lifestyle, and over 8x that of the current Indian lifestyle.

Total emissions from India is 1/2 US emissions and total from China is 2x US emissions, but switching to per country instead of per person doesn't really help because the US is the #2 emitter by country (we are #16 per capita).

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#114

Post by wongarsu »

anonym29 wrote: post #83
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> find a way to cleanly 1000x our energy production. Have you heard of our lord and savior Nuclear Fission? We should build a shitload of restores all over the place.

We're making important strides on fusion too, which makes fission look like a waste of radiological material, in comparison.

They are not really competing for the same material. Fission smashes neutrons into big atoms to make them smaller, fusion smashes small atoms into each other to make them bigger. Both work by making atoms of the more stable medium-sized variety, and extracting the energy of that process.

But yeah, looks like commercial fusion reactors are getting closer.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#115

Post by kadoban »

barkingcat wrote: post #85
londons_explore wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romans were believed to have a 'pale white' skin. They lived in Rome, and while there are records of sunshades (Velarium), it doesn't seem they were common. For example, the colosseum, a place people might stay many hours, had only 30% coverage. I don't think someone with similar skin would last long in Rome in the sun today...

People also had much lower life expectancies. I don't think it's useful to say that because the people in antiquity didn't have sun protection they were stronger or somehow immune to sunburns ... maybe they just died before living long enough for it to matter. Or maybe they all died from cancers of all kinds, just not categorized as such, or died by murder / wars before cancer became an issue.

The vast majority of historically lower life expectancies is due to changes in death rates in the first few years. People who made it to adulthood weren't all keeling over at 35.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#116

Post by dirtyid »

mrguyorama wrote: post #92
bluGill wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trends are the US is reducing emissions. I'm not sure what China us doing (I know they build a lot of solar, but i'm not clear if they are also building coal power plants)

They are building, buying, and using a lot of coal, but that's mostly a temporary regression in their environmentalism from a significant economic reduction. Remember, at one point they were literally closing their airports because it's too smoggy to operate safely. China will reduce their fossil fuel usage even if global warming was not a concern, simply because they don't like the lost productivity and societal hap…

>temporary regression

...

>China will reduce their fossil fuel usage even if global warming was not a concern

Pretty much, security enviroment has changed. So indigenous energy security = short/medium term coal is back until electrification proliferates.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#117

Post by hammock »

tzs wrote: post #113
hammock wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re doing it to us (Americans)… stands to reason that it can be done to others

Doing what to us? The current US lifestyle has CO2 emissions per person 2x that of the current Chinese lifestyle, and over 8x that of the current Indian lifestyle. Total emissions from India is 1/2 US emissions and total from China is 2x US emissions, but switching to per country instead of per person doesn't really help because the US is the #2 emitter by country (we are #16 per capita).

>Doing what to us?

Diplomatically convincing us that we need to have a lifestyle and standard of living that emits a fraction of the CO2 we currently do...

I think we agree..

Why so hostile?

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#118

Post by josephcsible »

nluken wrote: post #18
anonym29 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is mentioned as having been a likely culprit in the past. I don't understand why Westerners are so keen to make major sacrifices to quality of life in the name of fighting climate change when nothing we do will make a statistically significant impact in the long run with major population centers like China, India, and Nigeria continuing to grow more wealthy with rapidly increasing demand for reliable, 24/7 ener…

I mean what do you propose western nations do? Nothing? Yeah stupid measures like removing straws from restaurants make 0 difference, but pushing for more fuel efficient vehicles and cleaner sources of electricity seems like a worthwhile effort without much QoL sacrifice. Green infrastructure (i.e. reducing car dependence) also seems to improve quality of life in many places, so I would argue we should be trying to d…

> what do you propose western nations do?

Ban imports of goods made in ways that would have been illegal to do here.

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#119

Post by Gareth321 »

Leary wrote: post #35
anonym29 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is mentioned as having been a likely culprit in the past. I don't understand why Westerners are so keen to make major sacrifices to quality of life in the name of fighting climate change when nothing we do will make a statistically significant impact in the long run with major population centers like China, India, and Nigeria continuing to grow more wealthy with rapidly increasing demand for reliable, 24/7 ener…

If you look at cumulative historical emissions, whether CO2 or HFCs, it is the West that produced the majority of the pollutants that is currently in the atmosphere. The west, therefore should bare the majority of the responsibility for their actions since they produced this tremendous externality when they were industrializing.

It sounds like you're arguing we should be cool with China destroying the environment because some other countries already damaged it. Am I understanding your argument correctly?

Re: Levels of banned CFCs rising

#120

Post by dsfyu404ed »

anoonmoose wrote: post #111
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as a kid I heard it more than once, but now few admit the scare existed. People very rarely admit to backing the wrong horse that. Nobody will tell you they sold AAPL and MSFT stock in the 90s. Nobody will tell you they believed the racist propaganda back in the 60s. Nobody will tell you they believed Iraq had WMDs in the 00s. Nobody will tell you that they believed the people who were saying Long Island would soon…

Would love to hear what you think about the Ars Technica article linked in another reply to GP, and how it relates to what you and GP said.

I always figured it was a Y2K style "experts make narrowly scoped statements and journalists blow it out of proportion and make it look like the world is ending" type panic. The article doesn't really look into that side of things other than to say it happened.
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