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Global warming has accelerated significantly

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Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#411

Post by hnfong »

nairoz wrote: post #335
standeven wrote: post #303

The main driver of this is human-produced CO2, and there are meaningful ways to reduce usage. -Switch to an electric vehicle -Migrate from gas appliances (range, furnace, water heater) to electric (induction, heat pumps) -If your power grid isn’t clean, add rooftop or balcony solar -Encourage friends and family to do the same

And don't fly

COVID proved that not flying barely made a dent in the global emissions.

Sure, if we never fly again and reverted to living like a medieval peasant, maybe things will kinda work out.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#412

Post by jedberg »

fortedoesnthack wrote: post #370
jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

it depends where you live... I live in Japan now. One comment I hear often and see reflected in old TV shows is how different summers are already. 20-25 years ago it would have been considered a hot summer day around 30c. Now every summer day is 30c+. Also, a comment I hear often is that people didn't really need air conditioners back then. You definitely cannot get away with living in Tokyo without an air conditione…

Same with Los Angeles. In the 1950s, when my parents were young, you didn't need AC in LA. You just opened a window on the few hot days, and those were like high 70s/low 80s.

By the 1990s, you didn't need AC, but your home/rental was more appealing if it had one, because there were a few hot days a year that were pretty uncomfortable otherwise.

Now, you can't not have it. There are far too many hot days to live without it.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#413

Post by siruncledrew »

jcfrei wrote: post #254
asib wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developed rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc. Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them they're brainwashed. This doesn't change until nearly e…

I have a different take: Things will change once a big part of the electorate no longer feels like climate change policies will hurt their pocket. A lot of the opposition to the policies are from people who aren't in the richer percentiles and probably work in a field that's related to fossil fuels (like heating engineers, car mechanics, etc.). They fear job losses and that their commute and heating bills go up.

Until climate plans align with short-term personal incentives, I don't see how there's going to be any serious persistent fight against climate change.

People might feel benevolent one day and do something good, but the next day when they are faced with a problem and the environment is a convenient trash can or resource bin, they'll go right back to those bad habits.

The only way things will change is if everyone's life gets made miserable by the effects.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#414

Post by marssaxman »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #380
sulam wrote: post #295

FWIW my personal assessment is that this acceleration is both real and largely out of our control. Models in the past did not attempt to account for non-anthropogenic carbon emissions, but as we experience further warming, most especially in the Arctic, feedback loops and tipping points mean that this (carbon emissions caused by “natural” processes) are becoming more evident. This is especially sensitive because a la…

Relying on DAC is putting our fate in the hands of a technology we've never deployed beyond some pitifully small pilot projects, and expecting that we're going to be able to deploy that at a larger scale than we've deployed any technology since electricity itself. We're going to have to resort to geoengineering alright, but it's gonna likely be stratospheric sulfate injection given how cheaply that can be done. Is it…

The prospect that the future we're headed for will be one where the survival of civilization (and much of humanity) depends on a massive, ongoing industrial process of upper atmosphere pollution, in order to counteract the massive, ongoing industrial process of CO2 pollution we can't be arsed to rein in, leaves me feeling relieved to be mortal.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#415

Post by numpad0 »

marcyb5st wrote: post #235
energy123 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial pain will be diffuse and not obviously caused by global warming. For example, destabilization of equatorial countries due to wet bulb temperatures, through multiple causal paths: worse education outcomes (many days off school during hot months), worse economy (can't work outside), worse life satisfaction -> more autocracies, more water scarcity. Then you get more emigration to the colder north, more confl…

I am not sure how not directly linked to global warming. I am currently on the phone but I remember a study that mentioned that Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh would see a deadly heat (wet bulb temperatures) from basically 0 as it is right now to 30 days/year by 2050 or 2060. I can't remember right now. If that is not linkable to global warming I am not sure what is. And that is a huge event. In Europe we are struggl…

> What happens when 1.5B come knocking because if they stay they die?

Like let them build few of those sci-fi domes and let them keep buying disposable bottled oxygen? I don't get the pessimism. India makes its own rockets. Pakistan has nukes. Why are they supposed to be incapable of holding the nation together on Mars-like Earth?

Tokyo is already hitting 40C/100F at >90% RH during summers. It's already mildly unsurvivable. Nobody cares. Maybe in 10-20 years we'd be wearing spacesuits, but do anyone seriously think the equatorial regions will be uninhabitable and land prices on northern Europe is going to skyrocket???

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#416

Post by Dumblydorr »

r2ob wrote: post #405

El Niño, volcanism, and solar variation. it's not about us guys, relax.

I’m not sure if this comment was low effort or sarcasm but it certainly doesn’t further discussion per HN guidelines.

Those are factors in this analysis that weren’t in all prior analyses, and the confidence levels in this analysis have improved greatly and we know much more certainly that global temps are rising faster now than earlier decades.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#417

Post by gzread »

bko wrote: post #409
jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented…

China is some years behind our industrial development then undevelopment, and is building an entire USA of solar panels every year or whatever - can we expect them to quickly reduce emissions soon?

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#418

Post by masklinn »

sulam wrote: post #295

FWIW my personal assessment is that this acceleration is both real and largely out of our control. Models in the past did not attempt to account for non-anthropogenic carbon emissions, but as we experience further warming, most especially in the Arctic, feedback loops and tipping points mean that this (carbon emissions caused by “natural” processes) are becoming more evident. This is especially sensitive because a la…

> Models in the past did not attempt to account for non-anthropogenic carbon emissions

They're literally mentioned by the first IPCC report already.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#419

Post by adrianN »

xienze wrote: post #291
asib wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developed rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc. Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them they're brainwashed. This doesn't change until nearly e…

Aren’t all these developed countries voluntarily self-depopulating by way of having birth rates below replacement? Seems like the problem will sort itself out if we can resist the urge to invite the entire third world to come in and instantly raise their carbon footprint to first world levels.

That effect is much too slow.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#420

Post by jgraham »

NDizzle wrote: post #334
apexalpha wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot HAS changed. Europe even has a tax on CO2 emissions. It's just not enough and it's very hard to convince the public to accelerate when the US not only gave up but it actively reversing to fossil fuels.

At what European tax rate will China and India work on reducing their CO2 emissions?

China has now had flat CO2 emissions for two years, and experienced a decline in overall CO2 emissions during 2025[1]. Part of this is that they're deploying way more renewables than basically any other large economy [2].

They've also pivoted their industrial strategy so that basically the entire green energy sector depends on Chinese supply chains. This is significantly contributing to their economic growth [3].

I don't know to what extent taxation in Europe contributed to China's decision making here, but it presumably created an market for green energy and therefore helped solidify the economics.

This is of course not to say that there's nothing to criticize in China's environmental policies; there certainly is. But the trope of "why should we do anything because China won't" turns out to be spectacularly ill-informed. Indeed I think it makes more sense to ask the opposite: what are the likely consequences now that China has positioned itself as the global centre of green energy, and what should other countries be doing to ensure that they're not left behind?

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... [2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/g7-falling-behind-china-as-world... [3] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-drove-more...

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