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A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

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Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#361

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

camgunz wrote: post #360
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First we have to convince people that they will be better off if they have to pay a lot more for their toy trucks. That is the step 0 that nobody seems to know how to solve. Hollering about how the oil company CEOs are evil is not going to be the thing. It's already been tried. People will nod right along until you get to, "and that's why your gasoline needs to cost $7/gallon."

Trucks are 3.4% of US GHG (~60m trucks at 3.51 megatons CO2/yr is ~211 megatons CO2/yr out of 6,266 megatons from the US total). If we never started another pickup truck ever again we're still 96.6% away from zero emissions. It's also worth saying those people would probably still drive something and the odds of that car being zero emissions is very low, so this is pretty charitable. Anyway, this kind of finger waggi…

Trucks are just an illustrative point. Substitute for whatever trivial thing it is that people like and would not be willing to give up. {Beef, air travel, fast fashion, 69 degree interiors during the summer, etc.} Each one of these things only contributes a little on their own but if you add them all up it sums to a large fraction of overall US emissions.

Also not sure where you got the 3.7% number, but light duty trucks overall contribute around 10.4%. This includes some fraction of SUVs (those with truck-like drive trains weighing over 6000 pounds GVW) and minivans.

That being said, decarbonization of the truly necessary energy consumption is also a requirement, and that is expensive too. You need to convince people that they should want to pay for it -- no the billionaires cannot pay for the whole thing, for inflation-related reasons that are too complicated to get into right now. (The basic thrust of the argument is that US construction and industrial capacity is already highly utilized, and that allocating more workers to decarbonizing will necessarily drive up the cost of everything else, regardless of who nominally pays for the work.)

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#362

Post by gadders »

skeledrew wrote: post #125
gadders wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act as if reacting to global warming is cost-free. It would have a drastic impact on the economy and people's standard of living, especially in the 3rd world.

You act as if NOT reacting to global warming is cost-free. It WILL have a drastic impact on the economy and people's standard of living, especially in the 3rd world. Yes I literally copied your comment, added a single word and modified another; it's that easy to rebut.

Well, it's not really a rebuttal, is it? When choosing a path to take we need to be clear on both the climate benefits and the economic disbenefits (or vica versa).

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#363

Post by mfru »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #242
CuriouslyC wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence why the die hard capitalist shills are so set on going to space.

We should help by shooting them into space.

you can save even more co2 and costs by leaving the "into space" part out

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#364

Post by mindslight »

baq wrote: post #273
mindslight wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you agree that fusion power generation is not at the state where it can be straightforwardly built today, and you also have no idea what it might actually take to even research it to possibly get it there, but yet you're still asserting that "accelerating the burning" will surely cause whatever needs to happen to happen? Have I got that right?

Yes, pretty much, except getting to working fusion is not guaranteed - but the climate disaster is, so we have to make a bet. Solar and batteries are the obvious fallback plan. Nuclear should also be, but it’s a hard sell.

We seem to agree that there is a major resource allocation problem here ("shortening ... the Iran war by a couple of days"), but you still haven't explained how oil becoming scarce will cause breakthroughs in nuclear fusion to occur. I might accept the argument if it were just about solar (which mostly needs straightforward deployment). But nuclear fusion research requires spending large amounts of resources without any kind of guaranteed payout, so I would think it would only be hindered by energy becoming more expensive.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#365

Post by ceejayoz »

blindriver wrote: post #284
eckesicle wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until someone can reconcile these facts, and they can say distinctively that the rise in temperature we see right now isn't the same reason as before, I'm going to believe that temperature will moderate and cool, just like it did in the past. Would you indulge me and see if this one chart might change your mind? It includes each of your data points. https://xkcd.com/1732/

A cartoon purporting to know the localized temperatures around the world going back 20,000 years is not science.

"Nuh uh, I refuse to understand!" isn't science.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#366

Post by skeledrew »

nozzlegear wrote: post #304
skeledrew wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act as if NOT reacting to global warming is cost-free. It WILL have a drastic impact on the economy and people's standard of living, especially in the 3rd world. Yes I literally copied your comment, added a single word and modified another; it's that easy to rebut.

It's a bad rebuttal. What can an individual do besides vote? I already drive an electric car, I vote for candidates who promise to fight climate change, and I've been a vegetarian for over 7 years. I'm about maxed out on my negative carbon foot printing, so getting anxious over stories like this seems unproductive at best. I can't be worried about that shit.

What makes it bad? Kudos for at least trying, though I'm not sure driving an electric car helps, unless your power station uses hydro power or another renewable source to provide that electricity. A bigger gain/sacrifice in that regard would be to use public transport, or at least carpool, as often as possible so there's less energy overall being used.

And one person didn't cause the situation we have now; many did. And it'll take huge collective action to move the needle in the positive direction.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#367

Post by pstuart »

joha4270 wrote: post #341
fulafel wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fossil fuels use continues to increase and shows no signs of slowing down: https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels Instead of trying to push with a string (coming up with new non fossil energy sources) we need to ramp down fossils production using regulation, international agreements, emissions trading etc. Otherwise we'll just keep using both fossil and new energy sources.

That's a negative framing and while I'm not going to call it /wrong/, but world population is increasing so of course our energy usage is going to increase too. If you scroll a little further down on your linked page, you will encounter another[1] graph, with renewable fraction of primary energy production and its steadily falling everywhere but the gulf states. We're probably doing too little, too late, but my read…

The US reversed course with the current administration and until things change with regards to that, there will be active resistance to renewable power projects. Because we need all the energy we can get and there's money to be made building out those projects there will still be progress, but it will be done in opposition to federal goals.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#369

Post by skeledrew »

gadders wrote: post #362
skeledrew wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act as if NOT reacting to global warming is cost-free. It WILL have a drastic impact on the economy and people's standard of living, especially in the 3rd world. Yes I literally copied your comment, added a single word and modified another; it's that easy to rebut.

Well, it's not really a rebuttal, is it? When choosing a path to take we need to be clear on both the climate benefits and the economic disbenefits (or vica versa).

Exactly the kind of thinking that's gotten us to this point. What happens when that which benefits the climate continually "disbenefits" the economy, or vv?

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#370

Post by nozzlegear »

skeledrew wrote: post #366
nozzlegear wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bad rebuttal. What can an individual do besides vote? I already drive an electric car, I vote for candidates who promise to fight climate change, and I've been a vegetarian for over 7 years. I'm about maxed out on my negative carbon foot printing, so getting anxious over stories like this seems unproductive at best. I can't be worried about that shit.

What makes it bad? Kudos for at least trying, though I'm not sure driving an electric car helps, unless your power station uses hydro power or another renewable source to provide that electricity. A bigger gain/sacrifice in that regard would be to use public transport, or at least carpool, as often as possible so there's less energy overall being used. And one person didn't cause the situation we have now; many did.…

> Kudos for at least trying, though I'm not sure driving an electric car helps, unless your power station uses hydro power or another renewable source to provide that electricity. A bigger gain/sacrifice in that regard would be to use public transport, or at least carpool, as often as possible so there's less energy overall being used.

I live in rural Iowa where public transport doesn't exist. But the good news is 65% of the state's electricity comes from wind energy, and my own municipal utility has a tiny solar farm too.

> And one person didn't cause the situation we have now; many did. And it'll take huge collective action to move the needle in the positive direction.

Others are chastising OP for not being concerned about every piece of breathless, anxiety-inducing climate change news, but an individual can't do anything to change it except make a couple of tiny changes and then stop worrying.

Edit: I don't mean to be combative, I largely agree with your overall point. I shouldn't have said your rebuttal was bad, I was up too late last night when I left that comment.

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