Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just wait until our upcoming reality hits the conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics. Climate change is going to herald in Dark Ages 2.0. I suppose the upside to that is eventually there will be an Enlightenment 2.0 also, and hopefully we'll get there faster than it took the first time. BTW, Dark Ages 1.0 wasn't even the first time humanity has been through a dark age... ...honestly, it pays to study history to…
I don't disagree with the existential threat proposed by climate change. I just think that you're being a condescending jerk, which will ultimately only impede progress toward your goals. You're not going to convince people of your cause by calling them ignorant. Jesus.
IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
221–230 of 456 posts
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#222It always makes me sad how scientists have to put on a brave face and try to tell us there's still time . Sadly, they know the most likely outcome puts us blowing past 3C by the end of the century, and 'carbon capture' isn't going to save us. If you guys are planning to see the natural world in retirement, don't wait. Better to see it as it is now than what it will become.
What exactly are you saying here? That in 30 years, the entire planet will be an arid desert?
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#223The comparisons between the AR5 and AR6 are alarming. Now, under no emission scenarios other than low and very low which we are not tracking close to, we reach +2C at or just before 2050. Many reading this thread will see 3 degrees by the time they plan to retire. This comes with drought, undernourishment, and mass migration: https://sciencenorway.no/climate-climate-change/deadly-heat-...
> 2050 Luckily that aligns with the singularity timeline. AGI will have a very good carrot for us to agree on its terms.
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#224Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#225Let’s say if there is a magical wand that can will any policy the user wants to happen — so the magic can’t remove carbon, but it allows the bearer to pursue any mean within humanity technological abilities — what are the actual actions that could be taken to fight climate change? My impression is that even the big polluter like China (as an example) is already on full speed to build more nuclear plant or solar power…
Simply taxing CO2 emissions and maybe reinvesting some profits (into electrification and renewables) should do just fine. The problem is people have to pay for these changes. This means potentially: - General increase in prices/decrease in disposable income - Danger for competitiveness of domestic industries - Uncertain second-order effects/additional risk Just consider electric vehicles-- pushing for no new combusti…
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#226Are there any resources that show the improvement we've already made in those terms? I think that would be helpful. Like, there's got to be an estimate of what our rate was when growth was before we started introducing what we've already been doing. I know there are cynics who want to make the argument that we've done absolutely nothing and that we're still in the base scenario, but I think that doesn't give credit t…
So far it seems like the report gets worse every year.
The pessimistic take is that every single advancement in environmental policy has been used to cover increased fossil fuel usage somewhere else. Almost every "carbon credit" trading program has been to pat people on the back for doing "their part" while actually doing very little and masking existing fossil fuel consumption with sleight of hand accounting tricks. Almost every bit of annual power savings by collective action switching to things such as LED light bulbs and EV cars has been (too easily) entirely offset by the vastly increased energy consumption of things like cryptocurrency mining operations and AI computation farms and still far too cheap oil prices. (The world was on track for net coal-fired power plant shutdown and Bitcoin alone is responsible single handedly for restarting up enough coal-fired power plants in the 2020s to offset that expected net gain.)
This report card says we aren't doing anywhere near enough. We aren't meeting our collective promises (we are likely to miss the Paris Agreement best case target and are hoping we still have a path to stick to the Paris Agreement's worst case). Maybe we still aren't yet "doomed", but there's not really a lot of credit to go around for anyone collectively doing the right thing. (Individual action was always something of a red herring given how dwarfed individuals are by large corporations and industries. It's probably not worth handing out gold stars for individuals doing their part, either.)
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't seem hyperbolic to me, and I don't understand the addition of "short timeframe". "next natural equilibrium" implies something like 100 years to me, at least. I am very concerned about climate change even though I understand it's not going to directly kill me in 10 years.
Let's be really clear: it's not going to "directly" kill many people at all in the next ten years. People will die from things like storms and floods and heat waves and droughts. Maybe more people will die from causes that someone, somewhere attributes to climate, but these are all indirect. The real, immediate threat of climate is that we'll have to spend huge amounts of money mitigating these things.
Sorry… this is supposed to be a threat? What are you threatening me with, a good time?
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Economic growth" is probably a bad indicator to follow. Why? Isn't economic activity a very good proxy for normal human life, good living standards, and the capacity to adapt to any conceivable challenges? Limited economic impact from climate change is arguably the most important and positive climate related news you could ever hope to see. > I would rather follow "number of excess death directly or indirectly lin…
> Why? Isn't economic activity a very good proxy for normal human life, good living standards, and the capacity to adapt to any conceivable challenges? It's not a bad proxy, but it surely is not as good as actual excess death as proxy for "normal human life, good living standards and the capacity to adapt". Economic activity is means to those ends; excess death is a measurement of how far we can attain them.
Excess deaths, in and of themselves, only tell you that more people than average died. Excess deaths, in and of themselves, don't tell you why they died.
While a total number of human deaths is objective and can be counted with nearly perfect confidence, human deaths from a specific cause can be extraordinarily subjective. I gave some examples in the post you're replying to, but anybody with an agenda can link virtually anything to climate change if they really want to. Therefore, this metric isn't going to be persuasive to a large amount of people.
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#229Are there any resources that show the improvement we've already made in those terms? I think that would be helpful. Like, there's got to be an estimate of what our rate was when growth was before we started introducing what we've already been doing. I know there are cynics who want to make the argument that we've done absolutely nothing and that we're still in the base scenario, but I think that doesn't give credit t…
Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't seem hyperbolic to me, and I don't understand the addition of "short timeframe". "next natural equilibrium" implies something like 100 years to me, at least. I am very concerned about climate change even though I understand it's not going to directly kill me in 10 years.
Not hyperbolic. What is NOT factored in by the IPCC is the effect of NOT using "fossil fuels". Agriculture is affected. NOT using fossil fuels simply means no fertilizer. Famine killing 1 billion would be expected. So -- bad if you do, bad if you don't. My "bet" is simple. I simply purchased natural gas stocks. The bet is that the need for fertilizer will beat the "stop fossil fuels". Because, if it doesn't, the mone…
Producing ammonia is one of the primary uses for hydrogen discussed in the reports. There are many companies doing this as we speak (Yara, CF Industries, BP). If it turns out to be too difficult to scale up or become cost effective, then fertilizer production will be one of the last sectors to use fossil fuels. That's ok, because there are so many other sectors that we can decarbonize right now.