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A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

cnn.com

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Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#141

Post by amanaplanacanal »

anonym29 wrote: post #62
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

>So, exactly what is the source of skepticism? We should define climate skepticism, to avoid indicting a strawman. I'd start with my definition, as someone with unorthodox views on climate that often place me at odds with progressives. It may be easier to start with the elements we agree on. Is the climate changing? Yes, obviously, visibly, measurably. Do human activities, including burning of coal and hydrocarbons,…

You seem to be completely ignoring the biggest problem. How do you propose the rich countries in the temperature zones deal with the billion climate refugees fleeing the inhospitable tropical areas of the planet?

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#142

Post by dgroshev »

CalRobert wrote: post #66
yoyohello13 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids o…

You're missing the vast interconnected network of stuff that's required to sustain that home. From your home battery to cancer treatments that you might need to sewer that runs to your home, all of this needs to be made and sometimes replaced. Most of those things are still unavailable to most humans; in many places we still haven't built roads, much less sewers and water distribution systems.

Household electricity self-sufficiency obscures the vast requirements to support it and extend this self-sufficiency to billions of other people.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#143

Post by dnautics »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #42
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

> It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact

What are you talking about? The united states is currently ~-30% off peak carbon emissions.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#144

Post by dnautics »

supertroop wrote: post #69
mistrial9 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof superficial and incorrect

Explain your reasoning or stop wasting bits.

it's hard to argue that the environmental movement has had "no effect" considering how much carbon the US and Europe have reduced in the last 15 years. SOx and NOx, have basically gone to zero, and water is cleaner, etc.

Sure, some of that is "dollars and cents" and not the movement directly, but most of that (technological improvement) had nonzero influence on the technologists who built the impromevents.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#146

Post by awjlogan »

anonym29 wrote: post #104
awjlogan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your car can go at 0 kph and 100 kph. It’s the rate of the change that kills you, not the speed.

Poor analogy. 23° C global average temperature increase, even slowly, will end a lot of life if nothing is done to address impacts. The rate of change isn't what causes those deaths; for 23° C warming, the terminal metric is indeed itself what kills, not the rate of change getting there. That said, another section I've largely left out above is that it's effectively impossible to coordinate global action to meaningfu…

I was addressing your statement that Earth is always changing. Yes, of course it is, obviously at +/- 20°C little that we recognise now would survive, but the transition is a lot less painful for you and yours if it happens over millions of years rather than a few centuries.

The one hope is that renewables and batteries continue to reduce in cost, and grids everywhere develop around that paradigm. Economically, it’s inevitable, but there’s a lot of (to be stranded) money, social, and political will against it.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#147

Post by Kon5ole »

awongh wrote: post #96
Kon5ole wrote: post #87

I don't know if it's too late to stop the worst case scenarios of global warming yet or if there's still time, but it doesn't seem to be happening anyway. The world can't deal with something that requires global concentrated efforts. However, I do think we have time to prepare for the worst case scenarios, and individual countries and states can do that efficiently on their own. Improve evacuation routines in floodab…

Since covid I’ve actually become less convinced of this. Yes there were national interests at play and there was a lot of general chaos. But. The level of international coordination with vaccine rollouts and agreements between countries was way more than I had initially expected. Of course this feeling depends on what your own baseline expectations are. My takeaway was that if the conditions arise that we all decide…

I agree, the world is able to deal with some things. Another good example is perhaps the ozone layer.

Global warming is much trickier though. Covid had hundreds dying daily, it was very direct and undeniable, and the cure was cheap and efficient once it was developed.

Global warming has no clear signal (oh look, another heatwave) and no clear cure at all, let alone a cheap and efficient one.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#148

Post by graeme »

CalRobert wrote: post #66
yoyohello13 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids o…

>The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now.

Have you travelled? This doesn't describe most of the world. Most of the world would need to increase carbon emissions to live the way you're describing.

You aren't describing a zero carbon lifestyle, you're describing a lower carbon lifestyle. And we still use carbon in building the things in your scenario: the building, the car, etc.

Lower carbon lifestyles can slow the speed of the increase in global warming, but as long as we're emitting any carbon we're increasing global energy forcing.

By all means choose lower carbon lifestyles, but fundamentally we need nuclear or renewables + battery or all of the above such that we don't face a tradeoff between energy use and getting stuff people want.

Energy is extremely useful.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#149

Post by mindslight »

baq wrote: post #84
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

We can't slow down burning stuff for energy, this is politically untenable. ...so the answer is to accelerate the burning, but not for the sake of burning more, but to focus on getting to true clean energy sources which will allow us to economically unwind the mess before the whole house of cards collapses, i.e. fusion + global scale solar (maybe even space solar and microwave beam down) + boatloads of batteries.

Please explain how "accelerating the burning" is supposed to cause fusion and global scale solar to pop into existence.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#150

Post by yoyohello13 »

dgroshev wrote: post #142
CalRobert wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing is that we have basically everything we need right now. You can live in a well-insulated fully electric home powered by renewable energy and have most things you need within a walk, bike, or public transport ride away, _OR_ use an electric car for the things that aren't. If you combine that with a mostly-plant based diet (or at _least_ swapping chicken for most of your beef and lamb) and have 2 kids o…

You're missing the vast interconnected network of stuff that's required to sustain that home. From your home battery to cancer treatments that you might need to sewer that runs to your home, all of this needs to be made and sometimes replaced. Most of those things are still unavailable to most humans; in many places we still haven't built roads, much less sewers and water distribution systems. Household electricity s…

You’re right about that. I do think that access to more and cheaper energy has the downstream effect of making all those other things cheaper too and more available too. Energy is the foundation of it all.
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