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July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa

nytimes.com

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

#451

Post by jandrese »

acomjean wrote: post #136
kleiba wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

climate is long term, weather is short term[1]. Its a subtle difference and often confused, especially if english isn't your first language. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_wea...

More to the point: Climate is global, Weather is local.

Even if your summer was cold, it was extra hot elsewhere and more than cancelled out the difference. Next year it could be reversed.

In fact the reversal did happen. The US had an unusually cool and wet summer last year and an unusually hot one this year.

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

#452

Post by JamesBarney »

PrettyButUgly wrote: post #394
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…

"add lots of taxes" - How incredibly naive. Any tax money would be wasted. Some people would pay more, some corrupt people will find a way to spend that tax money, and almost nothing else would change. Well maybe, you'll make it so poor people can't drive or cool their houses in the summer, but the middle class and up won't change their behavior. I wish you "just tax it" people would hold your electives accountable f…

This is a Pigovian[0] tax so the tax by itself makes the world more efficient. Also since most governments can borrow lots of money, tax revenue is fairly decoupled from government spending.

And if people are concerned about an increase in tax revenue being spent on Social Security or Medicare they could just use the money to write everyone a lump sum tax refund.(or reduce the income tax etc...)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

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

#453

Post by Diederich »

harryh wrote: post #38
Diederich wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more troubling: we are being punished by what the world did , generations past. This stuff has, by our standards, long delayed effects. The implication is disconcerting: a FULL STOP of excessive green house gas emissions right now will have, at best, a notable impact in several decades.

Without all the stuff generations past did you might still be living in a cave and hunting and gathering for food. All in, the gains you've received from your ancestors FAR FAR outweigh the losses.

Oh, I totally get that society has benefited from our 150 years focus on using the concentrated energy found in the ground.

The hell of it is that we've only had a reasonable understanding of the dangers associated with using this energy for a few decades. I find no fundamental fault associated with their decisions back in the day.

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

#454

Post by jandrese »

staticelf wrote: post #45
sevenless wrote: post #4

These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political action will be taken. But wouldn't a hotter world tend to exacerbate emission trends, with human needs for AC and desalination rising, plus forest fires? Moreover, there might be some tipping point for large scale methane release. The 'tail risk' to global warming has appreciable density a long way out.

Well the trend has so far been that countries increase their emissions generally and not the reverse. Especially with emerging economies like China and India. A lot of Swedish politicians claims that Sweden has lowered it's emissions and while that is true we also outsourced a lot of production and increased our consumption rendering our emissions actually higher when you count that in.

This is a big concern of mine. One of the grand results of local environmental regulation plus globalization has been to export pollution from first world nations to third world nations.

Pollution (at least Carbon pollution) is a global issue, and tackling it only at the local level has proven to be ineffective. It's a shame that it is politically impossible for the UN to make its own version of the EPA--complete with an enforcement arm that has teeth. Without it dirty manufacturers simply go where the pollution laws are least stringent (or at least poorly enforced) and continue to kill us all slowly.

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

#455

Post by jandrese »

sanxiyn wrote: post #125
sevenless wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems likely. 500 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 was hundreds of times higher than even the worst projections allow humans to create. CO2 eventually weathers into limestone and gets subducted under continental plates. Ultimately, geological activity renews the balance, and stops us turning into Venus.

NPR article is "irreversible in 1000 years scale". Yes, things are different in million years scale. But even immeidately achieving zero emission today will not cool the planet, at least for 1000 years.

Basically it is irreversible on a human level timescale. Many generations of life on this planet are going to have to adjust to higher average temperatures. It's going to be (and already is really) a mini-extinction event. Unless we don't change course, then it might be a mass extinction.

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

#456

Post by caseysoftware »

mikeash wrote: post #317
caseysoftware wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The point is that the faucet, in this analogy, is not contributing to the overflow. The natural inflow from the faucet is matched by a natural outflow from the drain. The surplus is the problem, not the absolute inflow. Of course, turning down the faucet would still help. But in this analogy, the faucet is jammed on, but the kid might stop if you ask him the right way.

So your assertion is that the planet is a perfectly steady state, static system?

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

#457

Post by _archon_ »

bcarrell wrote: post #391
jpollock wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already give pretty good indications on how much carbon something is producing based on the power/oil bill. If you act to reduce your total outgoings, you're probably heading in the right direction. Add insulation. If your house was built in 1960, was it retrofitted with wall insulation? Put more into the ceiling. Depending on how much space you have, you can de-carbon your heat generation. Investigate heat pumps…

> Add insulation. If your house was built in 1960, was it retrofitted with wall insulation? Put more into the ceiling. Walls were stripped to the studs approx. 8-10 years ago and new fiberglass insulation installed at that point. Attic has (rough) batt insulation, but I suspect it could be better there. Air handler for the air conditioning system is also in the attic due to, I suspect, no other viable option for the…

You may find some cheap, easy gains by adding thermostatically controlled fans to your attic's soffet vents. It can get very hot in an attic on hot, sunny days, even if the floors below are held in comfort by A/C. Forcing the (hot but not nearly as hot as attic air) fresh outside air in (especially during the cool night, then idling during the day) can reduce the work your A/C has to do.

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

#458

Post by cmurf »

spdustin wrote: post #402
ldonley wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I guess my line of thought on my kids leaving this world for another has an additional assumption: that they, and the others who would do so, would leave to escape not just the planet's climate, but the people who screwed it up for them to begin with.

OK so what disqualifies a polluter with a pile of cash from buying a seat from one of these kids?

I see the whole problem as related to manifest destiny, either economic or religious. Pure free markets will save us, and/or so will some deity. Because such faith can't possibly be wrong, can't possibly lead us astray to the degree the species ends.

Is that so?

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

#459

Post by spdustin »

savanaly wrote: post #423
spdustin wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my line of thought on my kids leaving this world for another has an additional assumption: that they, and the others who would do so, would leave to escape not just the planet's climate, but the people who screwed it up for them to begin with.

Don't you think that the problems with the environment sort of stem most significantly from emergent social phenomena analogous to (but not exactly the same as) such things as tragedy of the commons? It's not like this version of the human race just got lucky and got all the bad 'uns. Humans are humans, no point in bemoaning reality. But the social structures are in a sense an equally root cause.

I would say, yes, the economic theory of the "tragedy of the commons" is a major part of the issue. Good thing that the modern counterparts to those theorists have come to understand that the solution to the tragedy of the commons is to ensure that the costs of the consumption are borne by the consumer.

Regulation, societal norms drafted from the start to ensure transparency, and the "greater good" spirit that, one could easily argue, would be prevalent in those who would choose to risk their lives to leave this rock behind... all those things would form the framework by which our offspring would ensure that they're capable of learning from the mistakes of their forebears.

I believe that, as a race, we're too late to undo the damage we've done to our environment. The patient (our way of life) is terminal, we can only hope to make ourselves comfortable in our waning years without unnecessarily spreading the disease.

But, as cliché as it sounds, I am not hopeless, and I simply cannot allow myself to believe that future generations would do the same thing if they had another planet - or even this one - to start over again. I MUST believe that part of the human condition includes learning from and not repeating the mistakes that cost billions of lives.

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

#460

Post by spdustin »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #425
spdustin wrote: post #374

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…

* the inexorable slide into worldwide famine, war and anarchy* The projections for increased CO2 emissions and thus warming are predicated on global increases in GDP, because greater consumption correlates to greater emissions. Thus, we should expect that famine will not be the result of climate change, at least within any foreseeable range of change. Falling into famine would dramatically decrease GDPs, and thus for…

You seem to be overlooking the part of those predictions that deal with the societal effects that the forced migration of entire cultures would likely entail when those groups try to ensure their own survival as they leave behind their homelands because their land is under water / no longer arable / too hot / too cold.

War.

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