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July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

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

#381
post #311
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Kind of - this approach works until you run out of trees, then you have a serious problem. Sub-saharan Africa is experiencing this in places http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80918e/80918E0u.ht...

Plus, burning trees generates a ton of other harmful particles. It's not a problem if a few people do it during winter time for fun, but it becomes a massive healthcare issue when it generates a suffocating low-lying brown smog carpeting your whole city.

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

#382

I own a home built in the 1960s in the northeast US. My home (like many others, I'm sure) uses an oil-fired boiler to provide heating and hot water. I don't have gas lines to my house. The gas company won't run them unless I pay ~$5,000 for them to do so. Even if my home used natural gas instead of oil, I feel like it's not really solving the problem. What are my options here? Is solar viable? What can _I_ reasonably…

Take a hard look at the numbers. For example, livestock are responsible for 3.1% of US co2 equivalent warming (Wikipedia citing the US EPA), so going from average meat consumption to no meat consumption isn't a huge impact, but it's something.

$5k is about a dollar a day for 13 years; switching to natural gas is about 25% more efficient than fuel oil, co2-wise. Depending on how much heating you need that 25% could be vastly more impactful than a life without meat. Also, look into electric heating, depending on your electric supply that could be vastly more carbon efficient.

Also, around the house efficiency in the form of insulation and modern appliances is something that's usually super cost effective and carbon effective on a house from the 60s. It again will require up-front capital but is almost always a super smart move to do as soon as possible.

In some ways it's easier to be super self sacrificial and not eat meat, but it's important to look at the big picture. It really is about the numbers here; personal purity does nobody any good. Except on the political side; become a vocal single issue voter and never vote for a politician that doesn't have climate change part of their platform, and the same goes for political parties. Ultimately putting in mile carbon taxes will shift the market to do the right thing, but the politics make this impossible. Yes anti-economical too, negative externalities must be addressed by societal means, just like liabilities must be addressed through societal means.

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

#383
We all know by now CO2 and CH4 leads to a warmer planet. We also know what's driving greenhouse gas levels to rise across Earth. Contributors are deforestation, intensive animal farming, and primarily the combustion of carbon fossil fuels like coal, tar sands, oil, natural gas etc. But here is the underlying problem, despite us knowing how bad things are, (97+% of scientists who study this field agree we are causing the planet's climate to shift away from the temperate climate we thrived in) not enough is being done at present to truly solve the problem.

What really is disheartening and what no one in the media and government is talking about is how in 2015 CO2 levels rose by the largest amount in human recorded history. 3.05 PPM http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html We are being lied to and mislead by our governments that uniform actions are being performed to save the planet for the future of man. Vested interests in the fossil fuel industry continue to drive climate change. Yes, solar and wind energy is starting to become incredibly efficient and cheap but not enough of it is coming online in proportion to fossil fuel burning that persists and is also installed annually. If we do not rally against it, our ability to live on this planet is at stake. The lives of our posterity are also at risk because of the burning. It will not be until we take extreme actions not on a country level but as humanity together that we will slow the burning and save ourselves.

What are these actions you might ask that will actually be effective? These can range from banning fossil fuels entirely, global carbon pricing system, banning deforestation, changing human diets, extreme uniform investment in renewable energy and potentially fourth generation nuclear reactors, more funding for developing nations to install alternative energy sources, and to shift the transportation grid towards sustainability.

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

#384
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 would say political will. I still don't understand why aa advanced country like USA doesn't have a good public transportation system which could easily take the cars off the road. Many people would be happy to avoid sitting in cars for hours and polluting more.

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

#385
Sergey Brin made a statement regarding global warming: something like, "I'm not worried about it. We can put solar-powered carbon scrubbers in the deserts of the world and essentially fix the problem with an investment in the tens of billions (relatively small)."

I forget where I heard this and wasn't able to dig up a source. I think it was a Jason Calacanis podcast or video of an interview. Either way it was secondary information. Bad sourcing, I know--sorry.

I agree with many who suggest reducing consumption is a risky gambit at best. How practical are counter-measures? Can we just geo-engineer our way out of it?

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

#386

I've come to the (I feel) inevitable conclusion that we are already well and truly fucked. I will still do what I can to slow the inexorable slide into worldwide famine, war and anarchy, in the hopes that the majority of my children's lives will be made incrementally better, should they choose to remain on this planet (and, it is assumed, that they may actually have a choice, but there's no way I can know). We're on…

We need a Mahnattan Project for carbon sequestration.

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

#387

I've come to the (I feel) inevitable conclusion that we are already well and truly fucked. I will still do what I can to slow the inexorable slide into worldwide famine, war and anarchy, in the hopes that the majority of my children's lives will be made incrementally better, should they choose to remain on this planet (and, it is assumed, that they may actually have a choice, but there's no way I can know). We're on…

Thank god for negative feedback loops eh? I'm actually glad we have more CO2 in the atmosphere, because it will increase biodiversity and agricultural yields. I don't see any evidence that climate change is proceeding at a fast enough pace to cause damage.

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

#388
post #386

I've come to the (I feel) inevitable conclusion that we are already well and truly fucked. I will still do what I can to slow the inexorable slide into worldwide famine, war and anarchy, in the hopes that the majority of my children's lives will be made incrementally better, should they choose to remain on this planet (and, it is assumed, that they may actually have a choice, but there's no way I can know). We're on…

We need a Mahnattan Project for carbon sequestration.

I can take all that money if you'd like and plant a few trees?

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

#389

I've come to the (I feel) inevitable conclusion that we are already well and truly fucked. I will still do what I can to slow the inexorable slide into worldwide famine, war and anarchy, in the hopes that the majority of my children's lives will be made incrementally better, should they choose to remain on this planet (and, it is assumed, that they may actually have a choice, but there's no way I can know). We're on…

This is tangential to your point about remaining on this planet, but it is much easier to survive on our planet, polluted or not, than it is to setup shop on a different planet.

I am fully in agreement with your view on how messed up things are on our planet due to human action. I just felt compelled to point out that any adjustments to be made on other planets can be done here. Can't breath on mars? Build a dome and generate air into it. The same thing could be done on Earth if the situation was bad enough. Can't survive on the surface of Venus due to hot and thick atmosphere? Live floating in the clouds. We could do the same on Earth.

The process of getting to another planet is so infeasible at this point and probably will be for a long time yet. We can hope, but I like to play devil's advocate. Also, Human's are very good at adapting and I'm sure the will to survive will keep our species alive even if pollution degrades our environment to the point of toxicity.

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

#390
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people are dying from unsafe food, unsafe buildings and unsafe driving. Nobody can fix these problems because lobbyists are increasing the barrier to entry under the guise of safety. After all, check out this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12340694

In 1900 it was literally impossible to buy flour that did not contain significant amounts of chalk dust and other adulterants. In Hong Kong there are entire streets given over to baby formula shops because the Chinese from the mainland don't trust the stuff in their shops, with very good reason. Don't assume that just because things are not perfect that regulation hasn't made a huge positive difference.

>. In Hong Kong there are entire streets given over to baby formula shops because the Chinese from the mainland don't trust the stuff in their shops, with very good reason.

But aren't Chinese shops much more heavily regulated than the ones in Hong Kong. I've always understood China as a very heavily regulated bureaucracy and Hong Kong as a bit more free market?

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