131–140 of 176 posts
Not only broke it, destroyed it: +2.2C (+4.0F). That's incredible, in a terrifying, "well, I guess this is going to happen" kind of way.
If every disaster contains opportunities, what are they here? The obvious thing would be investing in green technology, but what else? Are HVAC equipment producers about to see a big uptick in sales?
Climate Crisis Any news source that reports "record-breaking temperatures" is, deliberately or not, making these dangerously increasing temperatures sound like a good thing. This extreme heat is costing us $$$
I missed the part where "deadly heat wave" was a framed as a good thing.
For me it’s easy to accept that climate change is happening but predicting what will unfold in the next 30-50 years seems nearly impossible. Humans have historically been bad at predicting what will happen even 20-30 years in the future. The media is even worse ( https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-in... ). Articles can be found from at least the sixties predicting the end of the earth in X year…
For me it’s easy to accept that climate change is happening but predicting what will unfold in the next 30-50 years seems nearly impossible. Humans have historically been bad at predicting what will happen even 20-30 years in the future. The media is even worse ( https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-in... ). Articles can be found from at least the sixties predicting the end of the earth in X year…
50 years passed and their predictions in some areas match current state and in some preconditions failed because they did not think it will be THAT BAD.
Based on that I know it will be either what they say now or it will be way worse..
Ps. Im talking about the scientists which were hired by oil companies to create prediction maps.
For me it’s easy to accept that climate change is happening but predicting what will unfold in the next 30-50 years seems nearly impossible. Humans have historically been bad at predicting what will happen even 20-30 years in the future. The media is even worse ( https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-in... ). Articles can be found from at least the sixties predicting the end of the earth in X year…
We're seeing record shattering temperatures in different parts of the world a lot this yet - yet the article doesn't even mention climate change. As long as we keep shoveling meat into our faces 5x per day and the population keeps expanding at break-neck rate, we have massive heatwaves and endless storms to look forward to. And then that road will come to an end, and it won't be pretty.
> As long as we keep shoveling meat into our faces 5x per day Right, because that's your biggest problem. It couldn't be the fossil fuels used for transportation (29%) or the industry that produces the goods and the raw materials like cement (22%), the production of electricity (28%), or even the commercial and residential emissions (12%). Oh no, our biggest problem has to be agriculture (9%). And let's not talk abou…
- Industrial regulations will take years if not forever to be reformed to offset the damage in that sector. You also have big money in keeping things "business as usual", so good luck with that. Things need to be made.
- Transportation: it will take years to get all the gasoline-fueled vehicles off the road, although there are some good strides being made here. However, the biggest issue is that electric cars are prohibitively expensive, and people still need to get to work.
- Production of electricity: again, good strides being made in this department but it's still years away. We need electricity.
- Meat eating: you, the people next to you, _everyone_ can immediately decide this very second to do their part. Here's the thing about food though - human beings don't need to eat meat. There is plenty of plant-based food out there and at this day and age and depending on your location, highly restricting your meat and dairy use is the easiest it's ever been.
Out of the list of issues you described contributing to climate change, the one you are annoyed at me for bringing up is the only one that you personally can fix, entirely by yourself. Yet, you choose not to, and I don't really understand why.
tl;dr: All those other issues require change at a massive level that the "average Joe" can't do a whole lot about. But eating no or less meat requires minimal effort, everyone can do it starting right this second, and it has a huge payoff. Not just on a climate impact scale, but on a global health level.
If people won't even make that first step that can be done for no effort, how do you think any of those huge issues will get figured out?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are they not normal and necessary? Are you willing to give up electricity for 6 hours of your day to combat climate change? I think most people aren't willing to do that. If you were to take the problem seriously you'd need to start doing things like that and no one wants for their quality of life to decrease that much.
"No electricity for six hours a day" at an individual/consumer level is not the solution and obviously never will be even if the math lined up. Think economically, not individually. Commuting is normal but it is not necessary. Suburban and rural living at consistent standards of living (necessarily higher-consumption factors due to diseconomies of scale) are not necessary. You're right in that people won't do it, but…
- we know that that effort would result in an uptick in carbon production (need to produce all this new stuff: factories, ship it everywhere, etc.)
- we also know that as energy gets cheaper, people use more of it
- there aren't enough rare earths to replace all transportation with EVs, and even if there were it's like 20% of emissions; this ignores rare earths needed for outside storage batteries/grid tech/...
the only solution - happens to be economic - is massive shedding of consumption by basically the entire population of the earth, and if you think your standard of living won't decrease many-fold you aren't being realistic.
Pro tip for people who do not have airconditioning in their houses: 1. Go to universities 2. Go to co-working spaces Go to any place to flee the heat. I'm at my university right now, and I'm not even noticing it's as hot as it is since the airconditioning is doing an amazing job here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's called a forecast. So what if they are off by only 10 years? Does it matter? Because it's certainly going to be ice-free way before 2100. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-i... This year is looking like it will set the record for lowest yet. My guess is that it will be ice-free in September within 5 years because it's an exponential decay. Note "ice-free" is agreed to mean less than 1mil…
> Note "ice-free" is agreed to mean less than 1mil square kilometers. Agreed by who? You're trying to convince the deniers; giving them a massive out like that isn't tactically sound. "Oh their prediction was wrong so they changed the terms - climate change is a conspiracy and they're lying to our faces, can't you see?!?!"
I was going to say "It's an endless fight", but it isn't true. The fight will end when we all die. The horrors that are coming are unspeakable. During the famines in Russia during the civil-war starving mothers ate their children. Famine is our future. In the USA, we are already locking up climate refugees, many children, in cages.
Things are already starting to get bad and we aren't at 1.5C, or 2C, or the 3-4C we are projected to hit by end of the century.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Example: across much of the US in the last few years there have been record colds because of polar vortexes. A few weeks of record colds doesn't negate climate change. A few weeks of record heat isn't the proof of it either. I keep saying that ocean acidification needs to be the forefront of the argument more. The data is so much clearer and dramatic that it's so much harder to deny the harm being done by greenhouse…
> Example: across much of the US in the last few years there have been record colds because of polar vortexes. A few weeks of record colds doesn't negate climate change. A few weeks of record heat isn't the proof of it either. I don't know about these polar vortexes in particular, but climate change predicts wider swings in both directions, as there is more energy in the system. In other words, the vortex would not h…
If I may share a simpler analog, it's like when I see people on social media mocking flat-earthers and saying, "how do you think cell phones work if satellites aren't real?" Okay - you agree the earth is near-spherical. That's great. But your lack of actual understanding just gave the flat-earthers a chance to point out that cell phones don't actually use orbiting satellites, make you look like you don't know what you're talking about, and win the argument. Now somebody who also doesn't understand is questioning the scientific consensus even more strongly.