July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa • Hacker News Board

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#291

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

s_q_b wrote: post #207

nl wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever downvoted this should take a look again. While being pro-nuclear was all counter-conventional wisdom cool 5 years ago, the math is changing very, very quickly. PV power is so much cheaper in terms of startup costs, and it scales both up and (more importantly) down.

Nuclear power isn't some counter-cultural fad. It's the top recommendation and consensus among climate scientists. This messianic fantasy that solar and wind will save us, to which every anti-nuclear technologist clings, is not only wrong, but dangerous. Global warming is no longer a theoretical issue. It is here . Now. Within 20 years people will begin abandoning the Persian Gulf, sending a wave of refugees across E…

Nuclear power have all types of problems for competing on the energy market. From its several sizes available: from incredibly big to absolutely huge, to its bad PR problem and NIMBY, to expensive waste treatment, to any company that runs them getting bankrupt sooner of later.

Solar and wind are are here now. And they get in all form-factors, including single-home sized. Besides, photovoltaics are way behind in the Moore's law, and still have a lot to improve.

Today, pushing nuclear energy is almost guaranteed to get you no result, while solar will probably get you the biggest improvement you can get.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#292

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

oliv__ wrote: post #62

redwood wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree: you can't go "back to nature" when you have 8 billion people running around, a larger and larger portion of which want to live like those of us in developing countries do (especially in the basic sense of having AC to escape this increasing heat). AC is a great little allegory for the whole thing... would you rather have AC and deal with hotter and hotter days, or forego AC and wait a century, have n…

Before AC, did people not live without it?

Hot climates were extremely limited in potential without A/C.

This includes the American south, much of the midwest, Tokyo, China's larger cities (especially toward the south), Indonesia, the Middle East, and Australia.

Developing regions, especially in Africa, Central and South America, the Philippines, and Australasia also tend to strongly favour aircond. It's not just a comfort thing -- computer and office equipment, and even paper, are difficult to maintain in hot and humid environments.

These are also the latitudes and climates in which the bulk of the world's population, much of it still underdeveloped, still lives. If the story of "an advanced Western standard of living for all" is to be borne out, A/C will be a large part of it.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#293

Post by hellofunk » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

I disagree. There are advanced cultures in the world without this ambition you speak of (I'm looking at you, Holland), where convenient life in a local environment that is all accessible by bike, eating lots of fish, and caring less about immense wealth and impressions and more about quality of life.. it is attainable.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#294

Post by gedy » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #65

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

Having kids especially in the west is probably the least environmental friendly thing you could do.

Only if you reduce humans to simplistic 'worthless carbon-gobblers'

Having children in western democracies, where they can learn and act with large amount of freedom and information is frankly eventually much better for the planet and humanity. Compared to poorly educated children in a 3rd world country, with oppressive government, western children are much more likely to find and make solutions for energy access and technologies that allow humanity to live reasonably, potentially even off-Earth one day.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#295

Post by hellofunk » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

kleiba wrote: post #120

bjourne wrote: post #110

Anyone else who feel that the climate-related news are getting very scary? If for every month for the last year, there was a new sprinter breaking the last months world Record in 100 meters you'd know something was fishy. Like some kind of incredibly potent anabolic steroid runners were ingesting. With new and improved versions of that steroid being released every few months...

I would take it with a grain of salt. In Germany, we had warm summers in recent years, but this year's July has generally been cold and very rainy.

What you have described has absolutely nothing to do with global climate change.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#296

Post by caseysoftware » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #231

caseysoftware wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "If you reduce CO2 production by 90% by humans " The analysis that I'm waiting to see is "of the global CO2 production each year, how much of it is due to humans?" If we contribute 90% of CO2 production, then reducing it may change things. If we contribute 10% of CO2 production, then even reducing our portion to zero, the overall change is near-negligible.

If my bath is overflowing, the only water I have to worry about is the relatively small volume coming over the edge - not the total amount of water in the bath. The ecosystem produces vast amounts of CO2 ... and consumes a similarly vast amount. It is the imbalance that you need to worry about. And that imbalance is largely caused by humans either damaging CO2 sinks or releasing CO2 that ha been sequestered over the…

To continue your analogy: if the goal is to stop the overflow, then we should probably see what the contributors are.

If the faucet is on and your kid is dropping pennies in, both are contributing to the overflow but stopping your kid is going to be irrelevant.

Do we know which humans are?

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#297

Post by tomp » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

sounds wrote: post #252

bad_user wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that costs are subsidized by basically letting businesses destroy the environment. The solution should be simple: add lots of taxes, let the off-the-shelf cost of meat and gasoline reflect the real cost to our environment, make deforestation a crime, tax the shit out of all polluting industries and if a country is not participating add taxes on imports from said country, or ban those imports altogether…

Great suggestions! We've basically imposed the "taxes on imports from said country, or ban those imports" on North Korea, with the result that they use the worst of environmental practices: • Inefficient small coal-burning fireplaces in outlying areas. (Pyongyang is better.) • Regulatory environment where factory and vehicle emissions are not even close to a priority. • Unsafe nuclear testing. Ok, so that was my stra…

> Many countries lack the internal political will to put meaningful environmental clean ups in place. Even something as simple as the tax you proposed to pay for environmental clean up of disaster areas is impossible due to politics.

The point isn't changing other countries. The point is giving competing green technologies a fighting chance.

I don't care whether Saudi Arabia suffocates in cheap oil or builds a hi-tech green energy paradise. That's their choice. But I don't want the local green energy startups and organic farms be driven out of business by cheap Saudi-Arabic oil. Same with China - I think it's fundamentally unfair that local businesses have to abide to many regulations (e.g. environmental, safety, hiring) that Chinese companies don't need to, yet they are able to compete in the same market offering lower prices.

I think that the current implementation of free trade is a fundamentally failed and morally wrong model.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#298

Post by caseysoftware » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

fencepost wrote: post #240

caseysoftware wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "If you reduce CO2 production by 90% by humans " The analysis that I'm waiting to see is "of the global CO2 production each year, how much of it is due to humans?" If we contribute 90% of CO2 production, then reducing it may change things. If we contribute 10% of CO2 production, then even reducing our portion to zero, the overall change is near-negligible.

Based on your statements, is there anyone whose data and interpretation of it you'd trust? I feel pretty confident that you've already ruled out anyone respected within the scientific community, particularly anyone studying climate change. It's a lot like saying "prove it to me with numbers, because all the numbers you're giving me are bunk." Edit: tense

I'd love to see simple magnitudes:

"Nature generates X million tons of CO2 each year. Humans generate Y million tons of CO2 each year which primarily comes from A, B, and C."

From my own search, there are lots of numbers around X and Y and they're wildly different. Do they converge around a range?

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#299

Post by tomp » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

bsdetector wrote: post #273

mseebach wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple carbon tax at $X/ton and a little patience would go along way by simply making carbon-lighter solutions more competitive. The problem with pretty much any regulation actually implemented is that politicians have been way too eager picking winners (massively subsidising specific approaches instead of letting a thousand flowers bloom) and protecting losers (assigning emissions trading credits to existing big p…

The question becomes if the taxes are raised high enough to actually impact or reverse climate change, will people abide by them? If it costs $100/day to heat your home in the winter are you going to pay that or buy black market kerosene or just chop down a tree and burn it when no government inspector is around? There's a limit to how much can be done with taxes.

> just chop down a tree and burn it

That's the goal, no? Burning oil releases CO2. Growing trees and burning them is carbon neutral.

Re: July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

#300

Post by JustUhThought » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #44

Personally I think that the idea that these trends can ever be revered by some sort of world wide agreement to lower consumption is a pipe dream. People want to eat meat and drive cars and fly on airplanes. As long as they're rich enough to do so you'll never stop them. The only solution to this problem is technology. Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming.

I staunchly agree with your first point.

I staunchly disagree on the second point. Technological solutions generally "solve" one problem at a time. Desalination solves the fress water problem. Carbon sequestration solve one part of the greenhouse gass problem. Electric cars solve another part. Green energy production and batteries mitigate another part. Next we need to solve pollution from ocean freightliners. Then the methane problem. Next the landfill problem. Followed by the issues created by how much we've changed global ecosysyems and weather patters due to strip mining, covering massive tracts of land with asphalt and concrete and monoculture, and deforestation. Then we need to discuss how we plan to stop poisoning the oceans because of our reliance on petroleum based fertilizers and chemical pesticides. And turtles all the way down.

Untill we learn to live in balance with nature, rather than separate from it, in an extractive relationship, treating side effects as problems to be isolated and solved, it will always be more of the same.