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Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

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Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#241

Post by virgilp »

matco11 wrote: post #16

> This pact aims to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2C this century and to pursue efforts to keep it under 1.5C. It seems to me that continuing to communicate just the average temperature increase is a missed opportunity to engage with a greater portion of the population. 1.5 or 2 degrees do not seem like much, but once one understands that’s an average made out of much bigger positive and negative sw…

> 1.5 or 2 degrees do not seem like much

Did not seem like much to me, until I realized that 28 degrees inside the house is "comfortable" while 30 is "too hot".

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#242

Post by johnchristopher »

rich_sasha wrote: post #228
nosianu wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production Not really. For some reason the actually quite simple problem is needlessly complicated in the discussions. Stop digging up ANY carbon from below ground where it was safely buried. Any carbon above ground is part of the cycle that includes atmospheric CO2. You need huge effort to change how much of it is in CO2 form at any time while still ha…

You're describing the objective function, but ignoring the constraints. Stop digging up coal - fine. Cut off power to people who have no other power sources? Erm... What about emergency diesel generators for hospitals, diesel use for shipping goods (lowest-carbon-emitting means of transport). It's just not that simple.

I am pretty sure emergency diesel generators use a tiniest fraction of energy used by tankers moving goods around.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#243

Post by brailsafe »

virgilp wrote: post #241
matco11 wrote: post #16

> This pact aims to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2C this century and to pursue efforts to keep it under 1.5C. It seems to me that continuing to communicate just the average temperature increase is a missed opportunity to engage with a greater portion of the population. 1.5 or 2 degrees do not seem like much, but once one understands that’s an average made out of much bigger positive and negative sw…

> 1.5 or 2 degrees do not seem like much Did not seem like much to me, until I realized that 28 degrees inside the house is "comfortable" while 30 is "too hot".

In what world is 28°C comfortable!?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#244

Post by skinkestek »

collegecamp293 wrote: post #192
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #23

> Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' What almost alarms me more than the thought of a climate apocalypse is that I don't think this (a UN report) is going to have any effect on the opinions of 40% of the public who see climate change as some kind of job destroying conspiracy. Nothing short of Florida disappearing under the sea is going to make any difference, perhaps we (as a species) don't deserv…

Well, the 40% are certainly not going be convinced if the "first United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate" flew on his private jet 16 times to places like Martha's Vineyard since January. Can the leaders of climate action actually live up to their own standards?

Agree.

Without going into the religious bits and more spectacular bits of it there is an extremely interesting story going on in the last part of the book of Jonah in Nevi'im (in Christianity this is part of the old testament):

As Jonah tells the inhabitants of Nineveh about the impending doom they repent and the king of Nineveh puts on sackcloth, sits in ashes and makes a proclamation which decrees fasting, the wearing of sackcloth, prayer, and repentance.

Again, without going fully religious, this is an excellent example. When people see their "king" actually doing the thing themselves that they ask others to do, change happens. There is nothing religious about this. Here in Norway, former King Olav V was famous for, among other things, taking the tram during gas rationing in the 70ies.

Old people could still tell me back in the 80ies and 90ies that prince Olav and his siblings had actual porridge for breakfast like other kids.

Today royalty plays less of a role I guess compared to influencers and thought leaders of all kinds, but I still guess it would make a massive difference if next years Davos meeting was announced to be virtual because of climate concerns.

Or if a few tik tok/Instagram stars came out and showed their 2 generation old iPhones saying: I can get a new anytime I want but I actually do care about the environment.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#245

Post by lcam84 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #170

It’s just so hard to know what actions have what impact on CO2 production. Some are high-pain, low-gain (switching devices off instead of standby?), some are opposite (cycling instead of driving when possible etc). For that if for no other reason, I’d rather if consumer prices included an explicit CO2 tax. The here can be a rebate for poorer people, or personal allowance, whatever, but there would be a fixed yardstic…

The dividend from the taxes should be evenly distributed to everyone. This would compensate people who have good environmental lifestyle and allow local business that produce low carbon (due low distribution) to be more competitive

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#246

Post by zejn »

veidelis wrote: post #49
fighterpilot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tax carbon instead of trying to pick winners and losers

On what evidence is your opinion based?

It worked for SO2 emissions.

https://voxeu.org/article/lessons-climate-policy-us-sulphur-...

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#247

Post by julius »

RandomLensman wrote: post #5

If some things "are irreversible on timescales of centuries to millennia" then really just going carbon neutral etc. sounds like a pretty weak approach as it would create costs now and large benefits only far in the future. Maybe this really needs geoengineering (and more spending on mitigation)?

Here is one engineering solution:

Weather should be very controlable by how much sun hits the earth. Which then causes heat, wind, water evaporation etc etc.

Large sun screen satelites (very simple ones that can fold out foil origami style) could block out a lot of sun at places according to stabilization weather models. Same for reflector sattelites, which could add more sun in specific places.

The difficulty is that we cannot send a hundred thousand sattelites out of our gravity well. We would need to setup basic mining and manufacturing on the moon for this plan to work (you can send sattelites into earth orbit at almost zero cost). The time it would take to setup a factory on the moon should also be used to develop the necessary weather models, which should then be tested out very slowly with the first few thousands of sattelites.

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#248

Post by flipbrad »

Fiahil wrote: post #139
pcthrowaway wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or are we still going to go after individuals eating traditional food I mean, yes, we should continue doing that. Our relationship with food is unhealthy and also a massive contributor to environmental decline. I'm not sure why you contrast this with other improvements we can make, many of which, individually, would be less impactful than a transition to a more sustainable diet.

> Our relationship with food is unhealthy Your American relationship with food is unhealthy. Our relationship with food here in France, and many other countries is perfectly fine.

I say this as a Frenchman: what a ridiculous statement. French meat and dairy consumption is not "perfectly fine".

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#249

Post by hasa »

We should reduce pollution, not panic about weather. Seas are full of plastic and organic waste, dry land too, rain forests are burned down to make more field. I don't claim that human would not affect to climate, but it is extremely difficult to prove statistically when the data we have is something like 100 years from the full 5 billion years of existence of earth. How can you take all factors into account in this kind of statistical analysis?

Re: Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity'

#250

Post by flavius29663 »

Aerroon wrote: post #160
poorjohnmacafee wrote: post #47

> But there is new hope that deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases could stabilise rising temperatures. How is this possible when you have water vapor in a positive feedback loop, which is a far more potent, prevalent ghg that increases with any rise in temperature. "Water vapor reduction" has to be part of the message at this stage, not just carbon reduction.

Water vapor also means more clouds which reflect sunlight. Are you sure that it's a positive feedback loop? Edit: this is a genuine question. The last time I read about it the result was inconclusive whether it caused or hindered warming.

It's both, actually. Water vapor is positive no matter what. Clouds can be both positive and negative at the same time, depending on cloud type, altitude etc.

This is one of the things that are hard to model. Get this wrong and you can swing from a mere +1 global warming (what CO2 alone would do in 100 years) to +3 or more.

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