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2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

scientificamerican.com

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Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#31

Post by bcheung »

SwellJoe wrote: post #4

The scary thing about this (well, one scary thing) is that we, as a worldwide community, needed to be making hard decisions about the climate two or three decades ago, to stave off the worst of the impact of climate change. We're several years too late to stop it, and we still have half of our government (in the US) utterly denying the problem even exists. The decisions that need to be made now to stave off complete…

I've always been heavily involved in permaculture and aquaponics. One of the things I've learned is that there is no such thing as waste in nature. Nature will always seek balance.

Combine that with the fact that technologies grow at an exponential rate and CO2 is much more linear in comparison, and it becomes a technology problem and less of a government / political issue.

We will have technology that takes CO2 as an input and produces something of value for us. We're seeing it already but it just isn't implemented on large scales. Things like algae farms converting CO2 to energy, or even bioengineering organisms for artificial photosynthesis.

CO2 will be a non-issue once technology grows more. Especially if you believe a "singularity is near".

Hell, even switching from beef to fish would be a huge savings. Fish require a lot less water per pound of edible flesh and require around 1/10th the feed. Combine that with duckweed which depollutes water, consumes CO2, and produces feed for the fish all at the same time.

There are so many technologies and solutions available even now. It's hard to not be optimistic in my opinion.

I think water shortages are a much bigger threat and we need to consider a way to desalinate water from the ocean and pump it inland. Variants of ram pumps that use the kinetic force of waves can pump water uphill without any external energy input. And then you just point a bunch of mirrors at a water tower for desalination. Not sure why it isn't being done more.

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#32

Post by tpm »

jeremyt wrote: post #3
castratikron wrote: post #2

Global warming is the greatest existential threat to civilization. And when today's Republican nominee says that global warming is a "hoax", it makes me almost certain that that's what's going to end up doing us in.

Could you lay out the play-by-play on how global warming is a threat to civilization? It seems to me, at worst, a slow-motion problem that will take almost a century to unfold and perhaps force large chunks of people to relocate to other places. I would appreciate it very much if you wouldn't read any kind of tone into my question. Straight up honest question.

The rising temperature and acidification of the oceans threatens their oxygene production. Climate change on land threatens oxygen production there. With falling oxygene production, oxygen in the atmosphere will not be replenished, and aerobic organisms will die.

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#33

Post by tonmoy »

mikerichards wrote: post #27
castratikron wrote: post #2

Global warming is the greatest existential threat to civilization. And when today's Republican nominee says that global warming is a "hoax", it makes me almost certain that that's what's going to end up doing us in.

Global Warming coincides with leftist economic/political policies very neatly. That can't be denied.

And denying it coincides with rightist parties very neatly. Neither statements prove anything

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#34

Post by tpm »

dragonwriter wrote: post #29
tpm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liberal democracy requires the availability of liquid capital (and therefore capitalism), because with only illiquid types of capital (land, social ties etc), there is no freedom and mobility. Other types of democracy may not require it, but they are not used much currently.

> Liberal democracy requires the availability of liquid capital (and therefore capitalism), "Capitalism" is not named for or defined by the existence of liquid capital (which both predates and exists outside of capitalism.)

Correct, it is named for accumulation of capital. However I don't know of any systems that are liberal (which is a nice feature) and democratic, without being also capitalistic. Maybe there some theoretical ones.

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#35

Post by chestervonwinch »

danieltillett wrote: post #18
strommen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely reason to be optimistic. Emissions have started decreasing majorly in Europe [1], slightly in the USA [2], and are even leveling off in China [3]. Those three entities account for half the world's emissions. Solar power has become cheap enough now that it's reasonable for developing countries (especially India) to rely on it heavily as they become fully electrified. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat…

The problem is the real, unbiased, can't be faked data shows that the CO2 level is rising the most it has in recorded history. It has jumped 4 ppm in the last year alone [1]. 1. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

> the real, unbiased, can't be faked data

I don't understand. Is this sarcasm?

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#36

Post by Amygaz »

castratikron wrote: post #2

Global warming is the greatest existential threat to civilization. And when today's Republican nominee says that global warming is a "hoax", it makes me almost certain that that's what's going to end up doing us in.

Narcissists are the greatest threat, with a few exceptions (I am careful who I label a narcissist. It's not because they are known to be tough boss that they have narcissistic personality disorder according to DSM-5). Anyway, they are centrally responsible for many global ailment, including global warming, and more importantly for not doing much to solve any problems.

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#37

Post by mikerichards »

tonmoy wrote: post #33
mikerichards wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global Warming coincides with leftist economic/political policies very neatly. That can't be denied.

And denying it coincides with rightist parties very neatly. Neither statements prove anything

"the right" didn't invent "global warming"....the left did.

Listen, maybe, or maybe not, there is man-made global warming, but when the left calls for the death-penalty for global warming "denialists", then we know it's the official religion of the left.

The politics of "global warming" is too intertwined with leftist political agenda.

You people can keep on being "denialists" about that in public, we know its true.

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#38

Post by btilly »

objectivistbrit wrote: post #26
SwellJoe wrote: post #4

The scary thing about this (well, one scary thing) is that we, as a worldwide community, needed to be making hard decisions about the climate two or three decades ago, to stave off the worst of the impact of climate change. We're several years too late to stop it, and we still have half of our government (in the US) utterly denying the problem even exists. The decisions that need to be made now to stave off complete…

We're several years too late to stop it, and we still have half of our government (in the US) utterly denying the problem even exists. I suggest looking up what people on the opposite side of the debate actually believe, rather than lumping them all together as "denying the problem even exists". C02 levels are rising (currently 0.04%, will be 0.05% by 2060) and cause a greenhouse effect. We don't know how strong this…

We don't know how strong this effect is, but we do know the effect is logarithmic (every additional unit of C02 causes less warming).

You don't know this. You are convinced of it, and it is wrong.

See https://www.skepticalscience.com/saturated-co2-effect.htm for a debunking of this particular claim.

Fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro power are currently the only viable options to keep modern civilisation running. Hopefully we eventually find an alternative, but it's insane to risk mass suicide to avoid a manageable change in the climate, on the utopian hope that wind/solar will somehow leap forwards in efficiency.

And you're out of date. Real world costs per megawatt delivered is now lower for solar than coal. There is a lot of work to do to replace existing infrastructure, and this is not appropriate for all environments, but solar is definitely a cost-effective part of our future.

That is not "the end of life as we know it".

OK, that phrase is exaggerated. But, for example, a mass extinction of coral and shellfish due to ocean acidification is going to fundamentally change our oceans by a whole lot with who knows what long term fallout. And while we can mitigate warming effects with aerosols, we don't have a way to mitigate CO2+H2O = H2CO3 (carbonic acid).

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#39

Post by danieltillett »

chestervonwinch wrote: post #35
danieltillett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the real, unbiased, can't be faked data shows that the CO2 level is rising the most it has in recorded history. It has jumped 4 ppm in the last year alone [1]. 1. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

> the real, unbiased, can't be faked data I don't understand. Is this sarcasm?

No. Data that comes out of a political process where people can claim that they are reducing CO2 emission is a lot more suspect than data that comes from actually measuring the CO2 level in the air. This is how we can end up with such contradictory data - on one side there is a vested interest that says emissions are going down, while the measurement of the actual CO2 emission rate is going up.

Re: 2015 Set a Frenzy of Climate Records

#40

Post by ori_b »

danieltillett wrote: post #39
chestervonwinch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the real, unbiased, can't be faked data I don't understand. Is this sarcasm?

No. Data that comes out of a political process where people can claim that they are reducing CO2 emission is a lot more suspect than data that comes from actually measuring the CO2 level in the air. This is how we can end up with such contradictory data - on one side there is a vested interest that says emissions are going down, while the measurement of the actual CO2 emission rate is going up.

The reason that the data is 'contradictory' is that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is the integral of the emissions over time (minus the amount that gets sequestered by greenery and the like).

Even if the emissions level off fully, the expected amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will grow linearly. Emissions need to decrease to less than the rate of sequestration for the total CO2 in the atmosphere to shrink.

There's no contradiction: atmospheric_CO2 = integrate_{0,today}(emissions - sequestration)dt.

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