July was the hottest month ever recorded, according to Nasa • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by ak217 » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

Brakenshire wrote: post #424

ak217 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, that should be part of it. Fleets of drones planting forests. But artificial photosynthesis modules in the desert and engineered algae could also play a huge role.

The cost of taking carbon out of the atmosphere by not burning it is going to be far cheaper than taking it out of the atmosphere directly, for a long time. Hell, a lot of the things we are failing to do now are outright profitable through reductions in energy costs even without any costing in of carbon emissions.

The cost is not entirely relevant, even putting aside the need to take out the carbon that we have already emitted. There is a power law distribution of wealth, and people on top have just about all of the financial and technological means to combat global warning, but limited means to convince the people on the bottom to use their tools. Deforestation, automotive and agricultural emissions are just not going to stop fast enough. It's faster, easier and probably more morally sound to build something like a Gigafactory for carbon sequestration modules than to wage (even economic) war on countries that emit too much greenhouse gas.

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

#462

Post by spdustin » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #426

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…

I understand your despair, but there's hope to be found in the fact that this, too, shall pass. We've weathered worse crises as a species and come out of them smarter and stronger - and we'll do the same with this one, though it take a thousand years.

I do appreciate the sentiment. Truly, I do. It occurs to me that my pressing "submit" on that first comment was actually an important milestone for me, mentally.

Through the years of my watching my species demonstrate the law of triviality, I can see now that I've gone through the five stages of grief, as defined by the Kübler-Ross model.

Denial: Mainly, as a child. I can't think of a moment of my life after the executive function portions of my brain were developed that I was in profound denial, but I can identify spans where I felt that my negative impact didn't really count.

Anger: My early adult years, angry with the "political-industrial complex" for metaphorically writing the environmental checks I and my offspring would have to cash.

Bargaining: In my late twenties and early thirties, thinking "maybe if I make these changes, I can convince others to do the same, and together, we can effect real change in our government and in society." It's about this time that I also noticed that people who use the phrase "[foo]-industrial complex" come off as either idealists or conspiracy theorists.

Depression: In recent years, I've experienced a growing sense of despair while watching story after story showcasing the arguments between humans who, you'd think, would all prefer not to have to worry about how difficult life will become when the effects of climate change are really felt; grand ideas that couldn't possibly be implemented in time; seeing how my voting and writing politicians and commenting on web sites (ha!) failed to make a difference; thinking that my kids' lives will be harder, and as a parent, all I want is to make their lives better than mine.

Acceptance: And here we are. My "coming out" as a person who's realized it's too late gets (as I write this) 26 fake internet points. I feel validated, in a weird way, and it gave me peace to see those first dozen points roll in over just a few minutes. I've accepted that the climate is irrevocably (in my lifetime) wrecked, and there are things I can do now to help my children. I can help them learn the lessons my generation didn't. I can show what changes we can make that would make a difference, not because they will make a difference for me, but because there may come a time that those lessons would be passed on, possibly made part of a societal contract to stop arguing, stop fucking up the environment, and start doing what's necessary to ensure, wherever they live in the future, these mistakes won't be repeated. Teaching them the simple math behind it all:

When you spend, over just 150 years, a natural currency that took millions of years to save, you drive the environmental economy into ruin. From day one, a fourth grade student could've done the math and said, "hang on, guys... this doesn't add up."

And then I realize: I don't have to teach them that last part. My son figured that out on his own. Two years ago. In the fourth grade.

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

#463

Post by spdustin » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 6:34 PM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #458

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.

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?

I don't think a deity or a politician or a wealthy philanthropist will save us. We're beyond saving. I think I can teach my kids how to help save themselves and their like-minded peers, those very peers that would leave this planet behind if they could.

As for what stops someone buying a seat on that one-way ride to a brave new world? Two things:

1) Your hypothetical buyer isn't actually that brave.

2) The same reason people can't rush the cockpit of a fully loaded airliner any longer. The rest of the passengers know it's in their best interests, as a group, to prevent that from happening.

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

#464

Post by maxsilver » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #280

harryh wrote: 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.

>> Some combination of green energy sources plus probably very large scale terraforming. The Achilles heel in all of this is how to make green energy affordable. If you want to really make impact, making these technologies affordable for lower income and the poor is the best way to reduce energy consumption. Unfortunately, a lot of these technologies are still way way way out of reach of these people to take part in.…

> The Achilles heel in all of this is how to make green energy affordable. Last time I checked, getting a small solar array on my house would cost in the neighborhood of $20K just get it installed.

Depending on where you live, green energy might already be affordable today.

I had the same sticker shock at solar prices. While looking into that, I learned that my local for-profit electric provider offers a "green energy" option, where they promise to replace my billed electricity usage with mostly wind energy instead of the coal / natural gas mix normally used.

The total cost of that is $0.01/kwh extra. Or, roughly $6/month extra on an average electricity bill, to switch from coal to wind.

https://new.consumersenergy.com/residential/programs-and-ser...

A plan like this should be affordable for the vast majority of Americans.

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

#465

Post by __jal » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 6:44 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #365

__jal wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who make me crazy are the ones who argue that everything will be fine, there's on need to change behavior because we'll fix it in post, I mean, geoengineer our way out of any problems. I always want to suggest to these people that they should start smoking, because clearly, the future's so bright there will be a cancer cure soon. And, not to be too crass, but that admittedly snarky reply is about one body.…

> still don't fully understand, and that is undergoing changes with implications we don't fully understand. There is evidence to support what you are saying: every year there is new research that brings the inhospitable-deadline closer to today - there is a high degree of uncertainty. However, assuming that humans are at the very least responsible for the acceleration of climate change by pumping out GHGs, we could s…

I don't disagree. I'm completely on board with reducing GHGs. I'm talking about proposals to pump sulfur compounds into the stratosphere[1], or the loon that decided to dump a bunch of iron into the ocean several years ago.

You might be reacting to my parting, pessimistic shot - that's fine. I don't think we should give up either. I'm just not optimistic when it comes to humans and collective action problems.

[1] details may be incorrect; I haven't paid a ton of attention to the specific proposals.

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

#466

Post by runeb » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 6:56 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #271

runeb wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets problematic, because then you'd basically have a system where the government decides who gets to have kids. A better solution is probably a raised standard of living and more education. edit: By raised standard of living I'm not talking about AC and other energy-intensive luxuries. I mean not having to have 7 kids because many of them will probably die.

You've got two variables you can control. Birthrate and deathrate. Someone, or something, will ultimately be making decisions. Why not a government, or government analog? What about that bothers you? What alternatives do you suggest? Different mechanisms? Different institutions? Raising standards of livings has always required raising material resource consumption.

Its an interesting question to ponder if the reduced birth rate by increasing quality of life, education levels and general health will offset the raised material resource consumption by that move.

In the end I think the individuals themselves will be the ones making the decision to have fewer kids. I don't have a source for this, but I seem to remember that immigrants to more developed nations have fewer children after assimilating than people in their native, less developed countries.

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

#467

Post by James001 » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 6:57 PM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #429

James001 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a pretty solid factual case for quantifiable damage here: floods in Louisiana, Texas, India, West Virginia and France and fires in California, Portugal and Canada. There's also decreased crop yield due to droughts and decreased fish yield due to ocean acidification. This is non-zero.

Almost all of those cases can have explanations that are not global warming related.

For example, in Canada those fires were huge because of too-efficient fire suppression methods. Not enough controlled fires were done in that area and Fort Mcmurray expanded beyond its Fire Protection zone.

Not every weather-related catastrophe is caused by global warming, that just harms the credibiltiy of that argument

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

#468

Post by James001 » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

HillRat wrote: post #447

mikeash wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the evidence for increased CO2 leading to increased biodiversity and agricultural yields?

Under conditions of increased CO2 availability, plants tend to decrease waster usage and sequester more carbon. Growth rates are faster, but require increased mineral availability. Unfortunately, nitrogen levels in plants decrease in high-atmospheric CO2 conditions, which leads to lower protein concentrations. As a result, consumption crops provide less energy and nutrition when consumed. So, all in all, the downside…

Really?

You're going to extrapolate from lower nitrogen levels in plants in higher CO2 conditions (without a citation, might i add) to higher CO2 levels causing overall lower nutrition? and more aggressive soil depletion? Keep in mind that obviously more plant growth means more plant decay which cycles back int othe ecosystem.

Are you trying to suggest that we should be decreasing agricultural yields so as to prevent soil depletion? There are better ways.

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

#469

Post by zamalek » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

__jal wrote: post #465

zamalek wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still don't fully understand, and that is undergoing changes with implications we don't fully understand. There is evidence to support what you are saying: every year there is new research that brings the inhospitable-deadline closer to today - there is a high degree of uncertainty. However, assuming that humans are at the very least responsible for the acceleration of climate change by pumping out GHGs, we could s…

I don't disagree. I'm completely on board with reducing GHGs. I'm talking about proposals to pump sulfur compounds into the stratosphere[1], or the loon that decided to dump a bunch of iron into the ocean several years ago. You might be reacting to my parting, pessimistic shot - that's fine. I don't think we should give up either. I'm just not optimistic when it comes to humans and collective action problems. [1] det…

Your well-presented argument merely deserved a contribution. I really had to do a double-take on those proposals :). As for your collective action concerns, I agree with you in general - although I have recently been privy to a small glimmer of hope.[1] Until a few weeks ago I regarded this outcome as less probable than the human race improving our climate impact and had many brilliant hypotheses as to why; something that I have since been proven wrong about.

I really hope that I am proven wrong about it being too late due to trapped GHGs (but we can still try).

[1]: http://ewn.co.za/2016/08/22/Victory-for-DA-as-Herman-Mashaba...

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

#470

Post by mikeash » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #456

mikeash wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Almost. Right now, the drain is actually emptying the tub faster than the faucet is filling it. Atmospheric CO2 is increasing at a lower rate than CO2 is being released by humans, because natural sinks are absorbing a lot of it. It was fairly stable, on human timescales, before we started adding our own input.