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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

#51

Post by manarth »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #29
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.

I'm not sure. Many of the countries with the largest emissions per capita are in regions where houses are heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Given that indoor temperature is ~ 20C, the ∆T for heating can be much greater than for cooling, since cold outdoor temp can easily go as low as -20C, while really hot weather won't go much above 40C. Thus, in a warmer climate where you need less heating in winter an…

Global warming also increases the number of extreme weather events, so we can't necessarily extrapolate winter => winter + 1ºC, so therefore we need less heating.

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

#52

Post by redwood »

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.

I tend to agree: you can't go "back to nature" when you have 8 billion people running around, a larger and larger portion of which want to live like those of us in developing countries do (especially in the basic sense of having AC to escape this increasing heat). AC is a great little allegory for the whole thing... would you rather have AC and deal with hotter and hotter days, or forego AC and wait a century, have no children or grandchildren, and hope things return to where they were?

We need to reduce the solar incident radiation...

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

#53

Post by blahi »

socialist_coder wrote: post #48
blahi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am personally acquainted with the dealings of several environmental NGOs. Not climate related, but I extrapolate. And we are talking branches of the biggest NGOs out there. They have a very big incentive to spread FUD and they do it all the time. They are basically extortion and defamation platforms used as a political lever. At least here. But I very much doubt it's much different elsewhere.

Of course, there will always be people who are less than noble in their pursuits. In academia, in NGOs, in environmental groups, in government, in private industry, everywhere. Ask yourself though, even if all this climate change and global warming is FUD, what happens if we respond to it like it is real? Result: we have a cleaner planet (cleaner air, cleaner water, oceans that still support life) and we have a susta…

I don't dispute there is climate change. It is pretty self-evident at this point that the climate is changing.

What is not clear at all is whether humans are responsible for it.

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

#54

Post by goodcanadian »

sevenless wrote: post #43
staticelf wrote: post #37

I am lucky I live in the northen parts of Europe. I do not wish to live in America in ~50-100 years from now since there is so much guns and other weapons easily available. People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. I think when the shit hits the fan it will hit hard and fast.

> People who care about their childrens future should start planning now. If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids? Besides, global warming-derived refugee flows into Europe could well put it in a much worse position than the US.

If you believe this, wouldn't the ethical thing be to not have kids?

I see this over and over . . . If you don't have kids, who exactly are you saving the world for?

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

#55

Post by ZenoArrow »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #29
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.

I'm not sure. Many of the countries with the largest emissions per capita are in regions where houses are heated in the winter and cooled in the summer. Given that indoor temperature is ~ 20C, the ∆T for heating can be much greater than for cooling, since cold outdoor temp can easily go as low as -20C, while really hot weather won't go much above 40C. Thus, in a warmer climate where you need less heating in winter an…

I'm not sure there's a 'need' for AC in homes, at least not for new builds. Would recommend taking a look at the work of the Passivhaus Institute:

http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

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

#56

Post by geomark »

codecamper wrote: post #47

Solar panels now sell for about 45c a watt out of China. Cost to create is around 36c / watt. This allows deployments such as in Chile & Dubai where the cost/kwh is 3 cents & below. This now cheaper than coal, without subsidy. Remove the subsidies that oil, gas & coal receive, and you will witness a new day. Only problem for solar right now is over supply caused by a sudden drop in demand. China reduced its subsidy a…

"Remove the subsidies that oil, gas & coal receive, and you will witness a new day."

Yes. But you will also need to remove the anti-dumping import duties on Chinese-made PV cells.

Those are some pretty big special interest groups (particular the first one) receiving government protection from foreign competition. So good luck with getting those protections removed.

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

#58

Post by Roritharr »

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.

I see this actually as a nice plot someone could turn into a book.

1. Build a machine that pulls significant amounts of CO² out of the atmosphere.

2. Go to the UN an straight up tell them "we can make this problem go away, give us 1tn$ and 20 square kilometers of land in these countries, over this schedule with these milestones".

3. Profit.

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

#59

Post by colejohnson66 »

oDot wrote: post #25
viach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These maps are based on emission trends continuing, assuming no political action will be taken. I think this is a very realistic assumption. Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9988890...

Irreversible as in "won't fix itself" or in "don't even bother with CO2 extraction [edit: from the atmosphere]"?

The earth goes through cycles (to an extent), so I like to believe that if everyone died, given enough time, the earth would return to its former self. However, I could be wrong.

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

#60

Post by dasboth »

socialist_coder wrote: post #48
blahi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am personally acquainted with the dealings of several environmental NGOs. Not climate related, but I extrapolate. And we are talking branches of the biggest NGOs out there. They have a very big incentive to spread FUD and they do it all the time. They are basically extortion and defamation platforms used as a political lever. At least here. But I very much doubt it's much different elsewhere.

Of course, there will always be people who are less than noble in their pursuits. In academia, in NGOs, in environmental groups, in government, in private industry, everywhere. Ask yourself though, even if all this climate change and global warming is FUD, what happens if we respond to it like it is real? Result: we have a cleaner planet (cleaner air, cleaner water, oceans that still support life) and we have a susta…

Good point. I've often wondered: apart from wanting to be right, what do climate skeptics have against e.g. transitioning to renewable energy?
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