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NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

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Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#181

Post by tajen »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #175
tajen wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but cold countries becoming unlivable is desired. I don't know, let's analyze the facts. Do they emit carbon and participate to the destruction of civilization in 2150? Which one is a crime against humanity, staying in cold countries or moving those populations?

There seem to be a MAJOR problem with your reasoning. Why do we fear carbon emissions? Because climate change will make swaths of planet uninhabitable and/or underwater, forcing people there to move. Don't tell me your solution is preventively moving half billion people. Isn't that the result you wanted to avoid? What's the principial difference anyway between land becoming uninhabitably hot and land becoming uninhab…

But there is now 7 billion people. And no, it's not just "People will have to move": +6 degrees in one century is a temperature change we haven't seen since humans appeared on Earth: https://www.xkcd.com/1732

So we need to come back to emissions of 1990 (when they balanced natural absorption), emit a even less for a while, but with 7 billion people, everyone has to emit much less than in 1990.

To preempt any question... I still eat meat and I don't see how I could do without.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#182

Post by dagss »

awi wrote: post #160
dagss wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot meat, which stands for 10% or so of CO2 emissions [1] (and that isn't needed at all, compare meat consumption in the west with global average). And I'd consider "travel" a product too, I'm sure it factors into GDP which was the metric under discussion. You are right, the biggest question is how fast we can make the transition. In considering that question, you can't dismiss lifestyle changes (=current over…

No I didn't forget meat. Meat production does not directly put carbon atoms into the air (forget methane for a second). That is what I mean by direct emissions. When we decouple energy from carbon, the amount of greenhouse gasses produced by agriculture changes. The problem with such calculations you refer to is that they assume the current rate of CO2 emissions per unit of energy produced/consumed. When we reduce th…

Given infinite clean energy you can always harvest back CO2 from the atmosphere, so I am not sure why you make the sharp distinction between direct and indirect. Yes, I agree that at the end of they day it's only about the world's energy consumption and energy sources. So I'm just saying "stop wasting energy" then.

The point about lifestyle changes wasn't moral BTW, point is they should not be dismissed if they buy time, in trying to make exponentially growing green energy overtake the exponentially growing problem with CO2 emissions. You are asserting such changes are unrealistic, in which case it is of course no point in arguing for them. (But if you look at WW2 and the oil crisis in the 70s there were large-scale lifestyle changes being made, once the crisis is easily visible and understandable.)

It seems like we need everything that can be thrown at the problem (and probably even then hopes are low). Do you believe any focus on reducing (or rather, stopping further increases of) energy consumption is actually hurting a move to clean energy?

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#184

Post by beatpanda »

raphman wrote: post #128
neilsharma wrote: post #108

Slight tangent, but how does one with SWE/product skills get involved in climate work? There seems to be some research every other day indicating how disastrous global warming is going to be, but a dearth of jobs outside of solar installation or academia.

if you haven't already seen it: Bret Victor offering some thoughts on "How do you think the tech community (startup community, or any community) can contribute to tech and/or policy solutions on a global scale?" - http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

We started using this as a recruitment tool at a company I work for

(p.s. we're hiring: http://genability.com)

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#185

Post by guard-of-terra »

tajen wrote: post #181
guard-of-terra wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seem to be a MAJOR problem with your reasoning. Why do we fear carbon emissions? Because climate change will make swaths of planet uninhabitable and/or underwater, forcing people there to move. Don't tell me your solution is preventively moving half billion people. Isn't that the result you wanted to avoid? What's the principial difference anyway between land becoming uninhabitably hot and land becoming uninhab…

But there is now 7 billion people. And no, it's not just "People will have to move": +6 degrees in one century is a temperature change we haven't seen since humans appeared on Earth: https://www.xkcd.com/1732 So we need to come back to emissions of 1990 (when they balanced natural absorption), emit a even less for a while, but with 7 billion people, everyone has to emit much less than in 1990. To preempt any question…

Then stop talking about crimes about humanity. If you consider yourself a criminal, go and jail yourself.

Personally I don't think "going back" is viable, we should probably be trying to engineer ourself a new climate. Better than we had pre-industrialization.

Our planet was pretty messed up even before humans came. It was going to snowball.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#186

Post by curiousgal »

adrianN wrote: post #177
curiousgal wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for killing the vibe of the joke, but what does that expression mean? (Non-native English speaker)

Eating beef and pork is tasty but really bad for the environment.

Oh I see. Thank you!

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#187

Post by guard-of-terra »

Scarblac wrote: post #149
guard-of-terra wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Industrial revolution" is a loose concept, it started at different time in different places and didn't really become runaway before mass petrol. For us colder northern countries, population didn't change that much since the coming of petrol. Maybe 1,5x increase in all. Definitely not sevenfold.

The industrial revolution is the point at which we began to use a lot of fossil fuel, first coal and later petrol. It may be different times in different places but it's more or less equivalent to the "before petrol" I was replying to. That was also different times in different places. And I bet those colder northern countries import much of their meat these days, so it's not much use to make this about local matters…

You can probably try to outlaw international meat trade. Still, colder countries are okay-ish for cattle actually, and you can grow chickens pretty much anywhere.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#188

Post by ocschwar »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #72
M_Grey wrote: post #11

I suspect that we can expect a lot of bad news to emerge over the next few decades, as the promise of climate change becomes the reality of climate change.

On the other hand, people have been saying that for last few decades, and the bad news hasn't had much impact.

Only if you're still living in a bubble of comfort.

(Which I am as well. The bad news has had very little impact ON ME. Because I live in a part of the US with the best infrastructure. )

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#189

Post by marcosdumay »

michaelbuddy wrote: post #90
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ice is 90% more reflective. Melting sea ice turns the oceans into giant heat sinks and accelerates warming.

Except the most "reflective" areas get the least amount of sun per year anyway.

It's a big amount. Relative data are useless here, we are talking about a 1-2K heating in a 300K body.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#190

Post by the_gastropod »

afarrell wrote: post #170
tjic wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People (well, climate science researchers) have been saying that the changes are decades ahead of us, even now, but that we need to take action now and in the past to prevent these changes. Climate researchers have _not_ been implying that the bad effects are way out in the 21st century: they've made hundreds of testable predictions that catastrophe was at hand in the 80s, 90s, and aughts. We were going to see the…

> the end of arctic ice nitpick: it is actually antarctic ice we need to worry about. Arctic ice (except on Greenland) is floating and so it is already displacing its weight in water.

Melting Arctic ice is also worrisome because it alters the salinity of the ocean, potentially altering ocean currents.
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