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

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

#491

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

runeb wrote: post #466

dredmorbius wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 af…

Several principles suggest not. The Jevons Paradox, White's Law (after Leslie White), and the Darwin-Lotka Power Law.

These seem to reflect strong underlying tendencies of complex evolving systems. In particular that higher levels of organisation and complexity very powerfully tied to greater rates of energy and resource use, overall if not individually.

If humans manage to defeat this tendency it would be a singular exception.

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

#492

Post by CydeWeys » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 1:05 AM UTC

chr1 wrote: post #321

CydeWeys wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on everything except for this part: > Higher sea level is not a problem, it gives more water to create lakes and fill aquifers in places like Sahara, Iran, and central Asia. Higher sea level is absolutely a problem, as it disproportionately takes away the most valuable, economically productive, and inhabited land, and causes huge refugee crises. There's no shortage of seawater. Everything you mentioned c…

You are right, I should've said slowly raising. If we let it to actually rise and flood cities it would be indeed a catastrophe, but the perspective of raising sea can incentivize richer countries to invest into moving that water somewhere else.

The best (and really only) place to store that much water is in kilometer-thick ice sheets at the poles ... the melting of which is what is causing the current problems. The aquifers simply aren't close to big enough to make a dent.

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

#493

Post by James001 » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 1:40 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #480

James001 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"without a citation, might i add" Odd card to play when your comment had no citations either, and you seem to be ignoring my request for them....

It's well established that increased CO2 leads to increased plant biomass, thereby satisfying my claim that it leads to increased agricultural yield (as per greenhouses for example).

My claim that increased CO2 leads to more biodiversity is more tenuous but is more likely than a decrease in biodiversity, all other factors being controlled for.

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

#494

Post by flukus » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 1:58 AM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #50

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.

Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion. So yet more air conditioning will ensue, consuming more energy, warming oceans further, raising humidity, and thus exacerbating the problem. Positive feedback cycles sure are…

> Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion.

There are plenty of places in the world that regularly ge t those conditions. People/Animals survive.

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

#495

Post by flukus » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 2:49 AM UTC

undersuit wrote: post #348

izzydata wrote: post #339

No wonder my electricity bill was so insane. Maybe this winter will be the coldest winter ever recorded.

It could be the hottest January on record. Seeing as half the world is experiencing winter right now, what do you think will happen to global temperatures when the southern hemisphere experiences their summer?

Not much, the southern hemisphere has a lot more water than land, leveling out the temperature. Records are created or not based off what happens in the northern hemisphere.

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

#496

Post by justifier » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 3:37 AM UTC

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 think moments like define science

accept an inevitability or try to understand a phenomena enough to affect it

if tomorrow we discovered an asteroid on inevitable trajectory with the earth i hope I'll be able to help either divert its path or catch and mine it

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

#497

Post by nl » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 3:47 AM UTC

tomp wrote: post #489

nl wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery solves all of these problems.

Flow batteries are amazing for home use, but for industrial scale? I don't know... Also, IIRC, don't they have a fairly limited temperature range?

They are currently being used in Africa and South America primarily for industry use (telecommunications mostly).

No, you won't run an aluminium smelter with them, but for load balancing during those (pretty rare!) times when you don't have either solar or wind they are fine.

I don't know about the temperature problem. I know they are used here in Australia at 40C+ and in Africa in similar climates.

I think that they are actually better for industrial use than home use. They aren't silent, and they need to be cycled. The noise isn't an issue in industry, and in home use I know the power cycling can sometimes be a problem because it is hard to find somewhere to dump the power (currently the solution is to dump it to heat, which isn't great - or alert the homeowner and get them to run a pool pump or something).

RedFlow (one manufacture) is in the same building as me, and they have an interesting report: http://redflow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Diesel-Runtime...

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

#498

Post by zaroth » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 3:52 AM UTC

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #404

zaroth wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US emissions per person is the world highest at 16.5 tons -- that's several hundred dollars per year, not day. That's 16.5 tons per man, woman, and child, right? So potentially over $1,000 for a family of 4. > Second, the revenue from the carbon tax should be fed back to the people by lowering other taxes. It should be net-zero on the government budget. The bottom 50% of earners currently pay about 3% of Federal ta…

Principle of charity, give the person a break. Obviously people are going to think about that before enacting a carbon tax. Funnel some of that money into offsetting transfers to low income households and you're all set. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Taxes can be progressive, flat, or regressive. This is actually one of the most important qualities of a tax.

A carbon tax is decidedly not progressive. Take a look at the carbon map [1] of the 'Americans Carbon Footprint' and you will see, the problem is not the rich motoring around in their their yachts.

Now, the biggest factor in carbon footprint is the zip code you live in -- due mainly to energy use and transportation costs. So does a carbon tax vary based on the zip code of your primary residence? Seems absurd to me. So we have to start by admitting that any carbon tax we do come up with may not actually tax a large part of your carbon emissions. Which is to say, it likely would unfairly target certain products based on their carbon footprint while giving a free pass to others. While taxing some carbon might seem better than taxing no carbon, IMO a tilted carbon tax is worse than no carbon tax.

A gasoline tax approximates transport carbon footprint. It also makes electric and public transit more desirable. You can certainly also tax electric/natural gas/oil based on their footprints. This would be effective, but again, regressive.

If you take out the part where people are paying for their carbon footprint and go back to just taxing the rich, it's not really a carbon tax anymore.

It's not like people can report their carbon footprint on their 1040. The only way to tax carbon is to tax purchases at sale -- let's call it a CAT - Carbon Added Tax. Such a 'CAT' would be regressive.

Generally, if you subsidize purchases which lead to lower carbon footprints, the rich will spend more money on those qualifying items. For example, solar subsidies. This is an example of a non-regressive approach to encouraging carbon shrinkage through the tax code. SolarCity calculated that lifetime net carbon savings of the typical solar install was 150 metric tons.

[1] - http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/american-carbon-footprint

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

#499

Post by zaroth » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 4:06 AM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #396

zaroth wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US emissions per person is the world highest at 16.5 tons -- that's several hundred dollars per year, not day. That's 16.5 tons per man, woman, and child, right? So potentially over $1,000 for a family of 4. > Second, the revenue from the carbon tax should be fed back to the people by lowering other taxes. It should be net-zero on the government budget. The bottom 50% of earners currently pay about 3% of Federal ta…

A simple solution could be to cut every man, woman and child a cheque for 1/nth of the carbon tax revenue. The top 50% probably use more than 50% of all the carbon (but are probably also better positioned to cut their emissions in the short term), so it should be fairly progressive, distribution-wise.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't actually change anything. You cannot make a tax non-regressive by adding a blanket subsidy. It's like shifting the curve 'mx + b' by increasing 'b'. Everyone gets the subsidy, and then there is still a regressive tax that is targeting the poor.

Not to be argumentative, but based on some brief research, the bottom 50th percentile do in fact cover close to 50% of the carbon footprint, and it's the rich, not the poor, who are in a position to cut their emissions by choosing more-expensive/lower-emitting products.

In short, these are two most disagreeable sentences.

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

#500

Post by sevenless » Wed, Aug 24, 2016, 8:24 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #494

madaxe_again wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion. So yet more air conditioning will ensue, consuming more energy, warming oceans further, raising humidity, and thus exacerbating the problem. Positive feedback cycles sure are…

> Not only this, but as the article touches upon, it may end up being lethal to go outdoors. At over 35C/95F with humidity of 100%, humans and other animals cannot cool themselves, even naked, in a breeze, in the shade, and die of heat exhaustion. There are plenty of places in the world that regularly ge t those conditions. People/Animals survive.

I don't think so, not with that humidity. People can't live in conditions where wet bulb temperature exceeds body temperature for long. You simply can't cool down by sweating.