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Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#121

Post by numbers_guy »

Animatronio wrote: post #106
numbers_guy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The role model nonsense, I never got that. How is that supposed to do anything. As for the comparative wealth, I already earn 1/3 of what I would in the US, my home is smaller, I don't own a car and I have no A/C. And now I should also be taxed even more, while Americans who already pollute 10x as much keep doing as they please. Fuck that. That's fucking unfair and I am not willing to do that.

I imagine someone in India or China is saying that right now, comparing themselves with Europeans or Americans. BTW I'm with you, imposing drastic changes in lifestyle upon a single country is just not going to work at all.

I think it is fair to allow poorer countries to catch up.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#122

Post by MrVandemar »

seu wrote: post #17
H8crilA wrote: post #4

At which point do you think humanity will start seriously thinking about radical solutions? Such as detonating thermonuclear weapons to throw enough dust above the troposphere to cool the planet down? I'm thinking we're still really far away. Migration from areas that become uninhabitable is still weak. And it doesn't look like any state that has substantial military/commercial/political power is interested in starti…

> At which point do you think humanity will start seriously thinking about radical solutions? You mean, like, switching to a vegan diet, using public transport and stop flying? Those seem radical enough for most people in the Northern Hemisphere. > Such as detonating thermonuclear weapons to throw enough dust above the troposphere to cool the planet down? Weird world, one in which people can consider drastically chan…

>You mean, like, switching to a vegan diet, using public transport and stop flying? Those seem radical enough for most people in the Northern Hemisphere.

One of these things is not like the other.

Vegan diets — and I support them in principle — do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions.

Vegan diets just don't deliver enough calories and essential nutrients without (industrial) supplementation, and veganism depends on broadscale monoculture crops with massive fossil-fuel inputs to grow, harvest and distribute, and exist in places largely that used to be healthy ecosystems supporting animal life.

Nice idea, and I'm cool with the overall philosophy and principles of veganism, but yoking it to climate activism, conflating it with strategies to "save the planet" is misguided.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#123

Post by myshpa »

ghiculescu wrote: post #3
Daishiman wrote: post #2

The cascading events that might lead to the end of organized nation-states in many parts of the world due to climate change look like a real possibility now.

What sort of events do you forsee?

I see a lot of dead people and violence.

Loss of glaciers in Himalaya ... 500 mil people on the move

Tropic & wet bulb or 50+C temperatures ... 2 mld. people on the move

Deforestations & droughts ... mass migrations, almost everybody affected

Large scale crop failures (temperatures, droughts, polinators ...) ... famines, wars

Biodiversity loses (it's critical) ... famines, huge loses for future ppl

Thermohaline circulation slow/shutdown ... cooling of northern countries, agricultural loses, extreme events

Loss of ice cover (Arctic, Greenland, Antarctic) ... rising oceans for several meters, major cities underwater

Cascading tipping points ... who knows

I'm starting to believe the sooner the system collapses, the better for the future of humanity.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#124

Post by Lorkki »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #82
Lorkki wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The expert opinions that I've seen so far have indicated that geoengineering at any scale that we're realistically able to produce on a short notice is unlikely to have a sufficient effect on climate change. Essentially it's a pipe dream at best, and a way to create additional (localised) disasters at worst. If the only proper argument for doing it is that "the left" is against it and "the right" is for it, that seem…

The expert opinions that come from the same people who don't want it to happen? How much are those worth?

It would be pretty strange for experts to recommend doing something that they consider ineffective or harmful.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#125

Post by peterashford »

danjac wrote: post #28
croes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still no solution for nuclear waste, still depend on external water cooling, security can't handle threads like cyber attacks and airplane crashes. That generation of power plants isn't really helping and new ones need a lot of time to build and produce lots of CO2 in the process.

All true, but right now those risks pale in comparison to the ongoing disasters caused by fossil fuels.

Sure. But Fossil Fuel vs Nuclear is a false dilemma

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#126

Post by myshpa »

MrVandemar wrote: post #122
seu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At which point do you think humanity will start seriously thinking about radical solutions? You mean, like, switching to a vegan diet, using public transport and stop flying? Those seem radical enough for most people in the Northern Hemisphere. > Such as detonating thermonuclear weapons to throw enough dust above the troposphere to cool the planet down? Weird world, one in which people can consider drastically chan…

>You mean, like, switching to a vegan diet, using public transport and stop flying? Those seem radical enough for most people in the Northern Hemisphere. One of these things is not like the other. Vegan diets — and I support them in principle — do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions. Vegan diets just don't deliver enough calories and essential nutrients without (industrial) supplementation, and veganism depe…

Such a load of bull. I'm sick of people ignoring the science. Educate yourself before writing anything next time. It's clear as day you're wrong. It's the most impactful thing you can as an individual do.

We need to stop fossil fuels asap, stop animal ag (deforestation, pollution, biodiversity loss, etc.), reform agriculture (soils, biodiversity, poisons) and start reforesting/afforesting.

There are tons of studies that show it's the best way to stop the climate crisis.

How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449

Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357

Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/

Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm

The way we eat could lead to habitat loss for 17,000 species by 2050

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287498/meat-wildlife-bi...

Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob...

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares. The expansion of land for agriculture is the leading driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss.

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century

https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm

Without Changing Diets, Agriculture Alone Could Produce Enough Emissions to Surpass 1.5°C of Global Warming

https://www.wri.org/insights/without-changing-diets-agricult...

Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357

Livestock and climate change: what if the key actors in climate change are... cows, pigs, and chickens?

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Livestock-and-climate-...

The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4

Study finds forest protection successfully leads to reduced emissions at global scale

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-forest-successfully-emissions-...

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#127

Post by Aerroon »

croes wrote: post #73
pjerem wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still no solution for nuclear waste That’s false. In France we have a project to bury them 500m underground in stable geological formations. And even if this site failed to retain the radioactive (which studies says it will not) that would be a minor issue against climate change. As for security issues since nuclear power exists (~70 years) we can count deadly accidents in some dozens of victims while the pollution…

>That’s false. In France we have a project to bury them It's not a solution if it's still a project otherwise nuclear fusion and carbon dioxide capturing would be solutions too.

Here's a practical solution: put it in the second parking lot. The nuclear waste that a nuclear plant generates over its lifetime likely won't even fill up that same plant's parking lot. And some of that waste could also be reused at a later time.

Something else to consider is that the stuff with the highest radioactivity is usually the shortest. At this stage having a robust forever-lasting solution for nuclear waste is not a larger priority.

There are places in the world where you can just find uranium rocks lying on the ground.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#128

Post by myshpa »

anonzzzies wrote: post #59
uxcolumbo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study[0] and several other studies by UN, Oxford Uni etc disagree with you. The single best thing an individual can do is immensely reduce or completely avoid meat and dairy. Imagine millions and millions of people doing this, behavioural change will trigger system’s change. It’s something we can do today, just need to decide whether having a burger is more important or not. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s…

> Imagine millions and millions of people doing this But they won't. Even here on HN, where some smart people roam, touching their meat (like, eating LESS of it, not quitting altogether) will make them into incoherent angry (I guess) men. And that's of course a big step, smaller steps are even not a thing for many people; not flying, no car, hell, here people even refuse to obey the law of not topping up (or filling)…

> some smart people roam, touching their meat (like, eating LESS of it, not quitting altogether) will make them into incoherent angry (I guess) men

Not so smart then.

> The only way will be if governments decide to step in

That's why more people vegan == more pressure for governments not to ignore the issue.

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#129

Post by aziaziazi »

mrob wrote: post #90
WithinReason wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I everyone in the world adopted a vegan diet CO2 emissions would drop by 13%. Still eating pork, poultry, eggs and fish would reduce it by 8.6%: https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food

That's "CO2e" (CO2 equivalent, measured in global warming potential), not CO2. The time scale isn't specified, despite making a big difference in some cases, so I'll assume it's calculated over 20 years, which seems to be the most common. It's important to distinguish CO2 from CO2e, because a large part of CO2e emissions from animal farming are methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Methane emission…

We also may stop it altogether, kangaroo included and gain:

- those 4.4% co2e difference, which is quite consequent

- freshwater savings

- land savings (especially forest)

- the ability to feel morally good when looking and thinking about the food we eat

Re: Climate records tumble, leaving Earth in uncharted territory – scientists

#130

Post by myshpa »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #36
jgilias wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual decisions like that are only good for making yourself feel good about doing something, but it’s close to meaningless when it comes to actually solving it. It’s systemic solutions that are needed. Some of those may include disincentivizing consumption. But it’s also not simple given that in many places there’s serious pushback against that. And also the economic cost. Everything is interwoven. I wish people…

Removing subsidies on meat production and flying are the systemic variants of those individual choices. People would be vegan no-flyers in no time.

Sure ... but without a significant portion of people in the population being vegans it's a political suicide to even suggest that.

It has to start in our own kitchens.

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