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The Strongest El Niño Ever

theclimatebrink.com

181–190 of 370 posts

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that every data center is now a closed loop system enjoy your propaganda. Colossus 1 and 2 still use open loop systems. And with the case of blow down water that's "returned" it's not usable due to the use of concentrated salts (1,200 to 6,000 mg/L). In your mind this is a closed loop system of clean water. It is not. And as DCs have less and less discharge there is more and more solid waste produced. Yo…

Yes, but they _could_ be a closed loop system if governments demanded it. And they should. The could, and should generate their own electricity as well. And perhaps even provide free power to the surrounding neighborhood to make up for the noise and inconvenience of having one nearby.

Have you seen that some of these things are so loud they’re damaging to health? But they’re loud at frequencies we can’t hear so it’s not easy to tell without specialised equipment

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be one thing if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars, but if anything it is only marginally better than the US. Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America, while restricting themselves from using air conditioning as some kind of virtue signaling. That's the problem as I see it.

This. Add to the list: consuming huge amounts of meat while depriving themselves of AC "for the planet".

In terms of greenhouse it also depends on type of meat. Very acidental but europeans eat much less beef and eat pork/chicken instead. Chicken protein for example is in many cases better than cheese emission wise.

Also i don't think europeans don't use AC to save the planet. It's just expensive and it didn't use to be a problem.

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Built a house in 2016 in Belgium. Perfectly insulated. You didn't have to run heating in winter. Kept it all inside. Also, it overheated instantly.

Insulation is actually helpul against heat too! But since modern buildings usually have huge windows, we're letting in about 1kw of heat from sunlight per square meter of window. That's 6kw for a 3x2m bay window, or about the equivalent of 6 electric heaters at full power. Block that heat ouside of your house with all kind of shade you can get: trees, blinds, adjustable shades, rolling shutters... Also, close every o…

> Insulation is actually helpul against heat too!

Yes, until you reach that tipping point where once warmed up, you can't cool down anymore.

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#184

Does this mean California is more likely to get mega flooding?

"El Niño, California Precipitation, and Landslides" https://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/landslides/el-nino > El Niño is the “warm phase” of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and features warmer than average ocean surface temperatures off the coast of Ecuador and Peru in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean.... Historically, the presence of El Niño conditions tilts the odds in favor of wetter than normal precipitation…

The aquifers are all extremely depleted and the reservoirs nearly empty. Extra rain will be very good. If private interests are allowed to graze and log public land, fire risk can be mitigated.

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#185

There are three possible scenarios for the next decades: 1) return to preindustrial level of pollution, possibility less than 1/10000 2) make radical changes suggested by scientists, less than 1/100 3) continue with the current pace The pyramid of pollution, which is directly proportional to the pyramid of wealth, is almost impossible to shrink as the latter is also inevitable. Just brace for impact.

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Bomb fossil fuel power plants. They’ll be replaced with the least expensive alternative, solar and batteries.

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be one thing if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars, but if anything it is only marginally better than the US. Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America, while restricting themselves from using air conditioning as some kind of virtue signaling. That's the problem as I see it.

There's a lot to criticise of every country, but we're trying. The US is not trying (*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement#/media/File:Pa... * Not aimed at all the wonderful, sane and reasonable people of the USA.

> The US is not trying

https://usclimatealliance.org/

I don't expect people outside of the U.S. to keep up on state level politics but it is worth noting that many in the U.S. are trying and given our form of government state level action isn't anything to sneeze at.

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we can see it coming, but we are doing very little about

We are doing a lot. Almost 90% of electricity capacity added last year was renewables. Nearly 1 in 3 cars sold are now EVs. The world is spending over $2 trillion every year on low‑carbon energy investment. Solar and wind have already avoided more than 2 gigatons of C02 being added to the atmosphere. In the US, the IRA will drop emissions 40% to below 2005 levels. What do you mean we are doing very little?

> We are doing a lot. Almost 90% of electricity capacity added last year was renewables

New capacity being electric is fine but we need to be actively removing fossil fuels from existing capacity, which isn't actually happening. We're just building new capacity on top of old existing fossil fuels. So sure, it's nice that a majority of new capacity is green, but we're still burning more fossil fuels year over year

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#188

The buried lede: What does all this mean for global temperatures? Because global temperature lags ENSO by around three to five months, most of this event’s warming will land in 2027, which is now shaping up to be a genuinely alarming year and the warmest on record by a sizable margin I’m certainly no climate scientist, but if I lived in Europe, I would absolutely be looking into how to get a solar energy system set u…

I don't mean to be divisive, but this meme-like stream of news articles and comments about Europeans being silly about air conditioning, from the drill-baby-drill nation that refused to even try to do anything about climate change, really grates on me.

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Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that both sides have a point. European countries (notably France) have known for at least 30 years that this was coming, but was ideologically insisting not to install proper AC or even ventilation in public spaces and transport. This does not contradict the wider angle about Americans ignoring climate change.

> ideologically insisting not to install proper AC or even ventilation This is not supported by facts. People won't spend money on equipment they don't need. Most places in France do not need air conditioning (or did not need it). It makes no sense that a building owner or transit agency would spend limited funds on something that they do not need. One may argue that the government of France should have imposed some…

On top of everything you mention, AC makes the climate problems worse. Solar reduces the negative impact, but does not eliminate it.

I live in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. 15 years ago, typical summer daily highs made it into the 80s for a week or two, and in 10+ years of being here before that I never saw it hit 90°F. Now we're 90°F almost all summer and we hit 106°F last summer (the forecast says over 100°F by the end of this week). Overnight lows have seen a similar increase. I'm getting older and fans no longer keep me cool enough to function well. As a compromise, I installed evaporative cooling 5 years ago. In our climate (very dry air when it's hot) it works well and takes ~25% of the energy of AC to run (power is only consumed by a large fan motor and a small water pump). But it does consume water, increasing our total water usage in warm months by ~50%. We have plenty of water in our area, but that's been trending in the wrong direction as well, even in wetter years.

Re: The Strongest El Niño Ever

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be one thing if Europe immediately stopped using coal, drastically reduced airline usage, quit building gasoline cars, but if anything it is only marginally better than the US. Europe mostly shifted their dirty work to Asia and North America, while restricting themselves from using air conditioning as some kind of virtue signaling. That's the problem as I see it.

We literally destroyed our car industry to try to steer the incoming catastrophe a bit, what the fuck do you want more. Germany tried to be the leader of solar but that was stolen err migrated to China, whole world profits now. While US, China and rest of the world did nothing similar, just stood and let shit hit the fan hard. Gotta milk those petrodollars till the last cent because thats all that counts, fuck our ch…

You destroyed your auto industry by ceding it to countries with higher emission intensity of production. USA, China, Japan have higher intensity than even Germany which is on the upper end of Western European countries. That's not steering anywhere except more sharply into the wall!

You've been lied to by your own ruling class. What else have they been lying to you about, I wonder?

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