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Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

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Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#201

Post by phpisthebest »

nostrademons wrote: post #178
phpisthebest wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in the context of this conversation it seems to be extended to solving climate change, and in other context it extends to personal defense (i.e the belief the police are a individual protection force) or to provide services like School, healthcare, etc etc etc...

In very general terms, I meant that the implicit social contract is that "If you follow the rules of society, you do not have to worry that you are going to randomly die." That could be in the sense of monopolizing physical force so that roving gangs can't kill you, or it could also be in the sense of ensuring that a random natural disaster doesn't kill you or you don't starve to death. When that social contract is b…

>>I meant that the implicit social contract is that

The social contract does not exist.

>> That could be in the sense of monopolizing physical force so that roving gangs can't kill you, or it could also be in the sense of ensuring that a random natural disaster doesn't kill you or you don't starve to death.

Here you are expanding government well beyond my definitional parameters. Government can not prevent and does not prevent either one of those. We also have plenty of examples in modern times of government failing pretty publically at those things

>>When that social contract is broken, people tend to ignore the other half of it, which is "if you follow the rules of society..."

Incorrect. Society stops following the rules when the rules become either too draconian or as we are seeing more recently selectively enforced to the point where the people that follow the rules are the ones being punished by government in general, and people that do not are rewarded by government either directly or indirectly which is what we are seeing to some degree today.

People desire to live in a civil society because that is what is in their best interest to do normally. Civil Society is normally the best for not only survival but to thrive and enjoy life.

Civil society is not created by government, nor can it be created from government violence. The break down of civil society normally comes when the government starts to protect those that are not civil

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#202

Post by revelio »

fy20 wrote: post #186
ryandrake wrote: post #11

Every time there's an article about climate change, it's always about how we're "close to the point of no return." It's felt like the Truck Almost Hitting The Pole GIF[1] for like 10 years now. Has anything actually gone past the point of no return? I'll almost be relieved when we're officially inevitably fucked... at least these "nearly there!" articles won't keep popping up. 1: https://tenor.com/view/truck-crash-te…

15 to 20 years ago the world was on the brink of collapse due to peak oil. And well that didn't happen..... I'm not trying to dismiss the climate change issue, but remember the media loves sensationalist articles, as that's what sells views. And what's more sensational than selling the story that we are on the brink of extinction? Case in point, if you've watched the news over the past week you'd expect Paris to be a…

"If it bleeds it leads". 20 years ago the world was being told that by now there'd be no ice in the Arctic at all. Yet, here we are. Last year was the highest level of ice for the last 12 years and ice levels are stable for the last decade:

https://dailysceptic.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/image-35...

Also, the trend on graph only looks alarming because it's been truncated and covers a relatively short period of time. Go back to old IPCC reports and the graphs show levels were much lower than today and then grew rapidly at the start of the 70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3qST_g7z8Y

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#203

Post by Maursault »

nostrademons wrote: post #149
Timon3 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite this binary. Yes, we're fucked. But the less we do, the worse we're fucked. It's better to have a glimmer of hope and use that to unfuck what you can.

That's true but also risks misallocating resources to efforts that won't make a big difference now when we should be focusing on mitigation rather than avoidance. If we had taken Al Gore's warnings in the 80s and began an aggressive push to move off of fossil fuels then, we could perhaps have avoided the whole climate change problem. We didn't, and we can't now. Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the cl…

> Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the climate will change, there will be consequences of this, and then do our best to avoid the worst effects of the consequences.

Imagine one of the consequences of all the ice melting is the salty ocean is diluted allowing for planet scale algal and fungal blooms, extincting phytoplankton overnight. What if the only hope our species has for survival is not to accept climate will change and la la la continue dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, but instead to immediately stop doing that and for the next 30 years at any one time maybe three quarters of the global population goes without electricity.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#204

Post by Arnt »

czinck wrote: post #146
saiya-jin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One generally says one kelvin per 100m elevation That's not true in Europe nor Asia nor South America nor Africa, although I didn't climb mountains specifically in Greenland to be factual. Better value is cca 0.6C per 100m, or 6C per 1km (sorry, no conversion to feet/yard vs F and similar fun games for lazy sunday afternoon... seriously, with all the love, fix this shit guys, we are not living in 15th century when…

>But at this level, where glacier starts, its already the dreaded temperature they want to avoid, so glaciers should be melting from the bottom with this logic. Yes, that's generally what happens to glaciers even ignoring climate change. The bottom melts, but is replaced by snow/ice that accumulated on top. Glaciers grow top down, not bottom up. But, if you lower the top so it's warmer, less ice accumulates, which ca…

I agree that this is probably what the article tries to say.

There is another possibility, though: Maybe it's saying that a large area of Greenland's ice surface is at an elevation where the glaciers are barely staying neutral. If that's what it tries to say, then having all of that area sink by 3m means that a large area goes into decline and stays in a state of decline. The surface sinking by 3m, 10m, 20m or 50m would then be much the same, just different speeds of irreversible decline.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#205

Post by Arnt »

saiya-jin wrote: post #137
Arnt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature is a function of elevation. It's saying that if you move the surface down by removing the top layer of material (ice), the temperature at the surface increases, all else being equal including the temperature at sea level. The effect is real, and big enough to feel with the naked skin. One generally says one kelvin per 100m elevation, although the Greenland surface will be different from that rule of thumb…

> One generally says one kelvin per 100m elevation That's not true in Europe nor Asia nor South America nor Africa, although I didn't climb mountains specifically in Greenland to be factual. Better value is cca 0.6C per 100m, or 6C per 1km (sorry, no conversion to feet/yard vs F and similar fun games for lazy sunday afternoon... seriously, with all the love, fix this shit guys, we are not living in 15th century when…

IMO, if you think you need a more precise estimate than 1K/100m, then you should just get a weather forecast for the relevant area and day.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#206

Post by bcrosby95 »

pharmakom wrote: post #193
bcrosby95 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize it was a per capita problem. Maybe we can breed our way out of it so the global emissions per capita will be better and the environment will be happy.

Not sure why you are being sarcastic. No one wants to reduce their emissions (maybe a small number do or perhaps only in the abstract. Most like their steak and international travel. I know I do) so how do we make it fair? I cannot see any way that is fair that isn’t based around some per capita distribution. Of course this will be impossible to do exactly, but we should aim for an approximation.

Coal is the dirtiest power source available. Globally, electricity is among the largest source of emissions. China has a strong commitment towards renewables, but for various reasons they also love coal. A brand new power plant is a long term commitment: these things last for decades. Building a new one today means burning through coal for 30+ years.

The best use of the world's resources would be to ensure no new coal plants are built, regardless of each individual country's emissions problems.

Furthermore, China is ahead of most countries in Europe on a per capita basis. Making excuses for them just because they aren't at the top on this metric is kinda bullshit.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#207

Post by nostrademons »

Maursault wrote: post #203
nostrademons wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true but also risks misallocating resources to efforts that won't make a big difference now when we should be focusing on mitigation rather than avoidance. If we had taken Al Gore's warnings in the 80s and began an aggressive push to move off of fossil fuels then, we could perhaps have avoided the whole climate change problem. We didn't, and we can't now. Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the cl…

> Instead, the rational approach is to accept that the climate will change, there will be consequences of this, and then do our best to avoid the worst effects of the consequences. Imagine one of the consequences of all the ice melting is the salty ocean is diluted allowing for planet scale algal and fungal blooms, extincting phytoplankton overnight. What if the only hope our species has for survival is not to accept…

Then we're fucked, because (as the article notes) the melting is already baked in from current carbon emissions, and in any case all evidence is that our species is not going to stop doing that.

In practice, phytoplankton is not going to go extinct overnight. People underestimate the resilience of evolution. Maybe 95% of phytoplankton might go extinct overnight, but the survivors (by definition) will be adapted to the new, less salty ocean currents. So then we get planet-scale algal and fungal blooms, and we should be asking ourselves "What then?" Maybe we'll want to harvest algae and make food out of it, or maybe we want to get the hell away from coastlines. The jet stream's probably going to shut down, so all those folks in Northern Europe may want to consider evacuating to Africa.

The point is to adapt to the world as it is rather than the world as we wish it to be or as we remember it. People who do that will survive and pass on their genes, and people who don't will die and drop out of history.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#208

Post by reportgunner »

EngManagerIsMe wrote: post #123
snozolli wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry no biking, rubber is an industrial process...you walk everywhere just like great grampa did This is ridiculous. If petroleum were used solely to produce bicycle tires and things like seals for appliances, the world would be unimaginably 'greener'. That entire list is just disingenuous, defeatist nonsense.

Biking is demonstrably more efficient than walking. And electric bikes are even more energy efficient than biking. Sure, manufacturing a bike takes some energy, but there's huge value in people using e-bikes to get everywhere.

Walking = 0 emissions; Biking = emissions spent on manufacturing the bike and transporting it to you + trash from all the packaging it comes in.

Walking is more sustainable.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#209

Post by reportgunner »

awb wrote: post #37
neerd wrote: post #10

Does anyone have suggestions for how an individual can feel like they’re actually doing something. I already make donations to organizations that advocate for climate activism, vote at local and national level for candidates what support climate action, and in my own live I try to be conscious about the environment impacts or my lifestyle and purchases. Despite all that I still feel like I'm changing nothing. I still…

Leading by example is a great place to start. Otherwise you have to make green choices a win/win or change people’s minds. EVs are a good example of a win/win. Most people weren’t willing to sacrifice range or power in their vehicles. But now that the range and power is there and electricity is cheaper than gas it’s more of a win/win. Changing minds is a lot harder.

How does switching from no car to an EV help climate change ? Manufacturing EVs results in emissions.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#210

Post by reportgunner »

dleslie wrote: post #92
BurningFrog wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that whatever you or I do personally has no effect at all globally on this. That's also true of hundreds of global and international problems. The best approach is to accept that which you cannot change.

That's really not true, and we have the largest experiment on collective behaviour in history to show this. COVID lockdowns had an _enormous_ impact on carbon emissions. Everyone should fight to WFH, even if you hate it, because the benefit to reducing carbon emissions is known and significant.

How do you suggest that we collectively reproduce the situation from COVID lockdown times ?
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