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July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

nytimes.com

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Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#181

Post by gus_massa »

collyw wrote: post #65
harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Having kids especially in the west is probably the least environmental friendly thing you could do.

To save humanity we will need some kids anyway. Who will choose who will have them?

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#182

Post by collyw »

blahi wrote: post #73
Flockster wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but at this point this gets absurd. I can understand that for some people it is beneficial to deny the idea of climate change. But since you are already acknowledging the self-evidence of it, how is it "not clear at all", that the change is not human made?

The climate has changed many, many times throughout history.

Not as dramatically as in the last 50 years.

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#183

Post by nilved »

dash2 wrote: post #177
nilved wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. No, you really can't, or we wouldn't have year-after-year record breaking temperatures. Regulation has never fixed anything. And especially when it comes to science, we need t…

> Regulation has never fixed anything. That's just silly. Regulation guarantees the safety of the food you eat, the buildings you live in and the car you drive.

Plenty of people are dying from unsafe food, unsafe buildings and unsafe driving. Nobody can fix these problems because lobbyists are increasing the barrier to entry under the guise of safety.

After all, check out this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12340694

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#184

Post by blowski »

collyw wrote: post #65
harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Having kids especially in the west is probably the least environmental friendly thing you could do.

If we stop having kids, then why would we bother to protect the environment?

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#185

Post by sanxiyn »

nl wrote: post #159
_ph_ wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and Solar are now cost-competetive with nuclear, without its nasty side effects. And the cost of storage for nuclear waste has not really been calculated yet.

Whoever downvoted this should take a look again. While being pro-nuclear was all counter-conventional wisdom cool 5 years ago, the math is changing very, very quickly. PV power is so much cheaper in terms of startup costs, and it scales both up and (more importantly) down.

Indeed, it is amazing how quickly things are changing. If we solve intermittency, there won't be any reason to be pro-nuclear.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#186

Post by collyw »

staticelf wrote: post #46
sevenless wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids? Besides, global warming-derived refugee flows into Europe could well put it in a much worse position than the US.

Well.. yes. But I think a lot of people are going to have kids nonetheless and a lot of people here maybe already have kids.

Or nephews and nieces or other kids that they might actually care about leaving an inhabitable world for.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#187

Post by Retric »

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Per capita CO2 production has dropped in the US and EU by over 20%. Remember, the only long term causes are fossil fuels which are both finite and replaceable.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#188

Post by nl »

runeb wrote: post #91
oliv__ wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before AC, did people not live without it?

In my part of the world (northern Europe) basically nobody has AC, but that is probably because of the cooler temperatures here. I'm curious, at what temperatures do people who live with AC start using it? Or is it going all year round?

I live in Australia.

We tend to use AC if the outdoor temp is above 30C, so most days November to April.

It gets to above 45C here, which is pretty horrible without AC.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#189

Post by Retric »

nilved wrote: post #160
pjc50 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. Little things like the EU mandate for ending incandescent lightbulbs can definitely add up. You need technology and policy and economics. The market for power plants is never go…

> Yes and no. You can change the carbon efficiency of people's consumption quite a bit with appropriate nudging and consumption taxes. You can also have global agreements paying countries not to exploit their "unburnable" fossil fuel resources. No, you really can't, or we wouldn't have year-after-year record breaking temperatures. Regulation has never fixed anything. And especially when it comes to science, we need t…

If you reduce net CO2 production by 90% you still get record temperatures year after year, but the rate of increase is dramatically smaller.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#190

Post by snarfy »

michael_h wrote: post #175
snarfy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the problem is there are too many people in a world of finite resources. A solution is less people. I'm not suggesting how this is done, but we probably shouldn't e.g. subsidize growth anymore. You shouldn't get a tax break for having kids. It should go the other way.

You're probably correct on this point in general, but the tax break I get from having kids offsets the cost of almost two weeks of preschool. No one is having kids to save money.

You're right of course. Again, no real solutions just pointing out a problem. Also, not sure why people assume I want to reopen Auschwitz when I say we need less people.
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