51–60 of 193 posts
"What if the 'safe' carbon budget is zero. We can't sugar-coat the potential realities of this." Compared to what? Living without electricity? Paying 10x for energy? The lack of a real comparison with the real life consequences of a zero carbon budget seems a bit too convenient
A few years ago we would make fun of people who questioned global warming when it snowed… now we claim it is in fact global warming when it’s hot out? Edit: Politicization of individual weather events makes way for bad science no matter how extreme. In general, individual extreme weather events are not evidence of climate change and it is my opinion that everyone sounds stupid when they politicize them. Instead we sh…
A few years ago we would make fun of people who questioned global warming when it snowed… now we claim it is in fact global warming when it’s hot out? Edit: Politicization of individual weather events makes way for bad science no matter how extreme. In general, individual extreme weather events are not evidence of climate change and it is my opinion that everyone sounds stupid when they politicize them. Instead we sh…
Basically just replace climate change with "God is angry" because science has nothing to do with it, otherwise you'd hear attempts to link the freak weather events with climate patterns.
Pro tip. the more sporadic the weather event, the less likely it has to do with climate.
A few years ago we would make fun of people who questioned global warming when it snowed… now we claim it is in fact global warming when it’s hot out? Edit: Politicization of individual weather events makes way for bad science no matter how extreme. In general, individual extreme weather events are not evidence of climate change and it is my opinion that everyone sounds stupid when they politicize them. Instead we sh…
If we want to get technical, too, the "snow" or "polar vortex" weather is because of the global warming induced breakdown in the arctic circumpolar vortex. That is the same reason that is snowed in Texas this past winter.
We are extremely seriously fucked.
A few years ago we would make fun of people who questioned global warming when it snowed… now we claim it is in fact global warming when it’s hot out? Edit: Politicization of individual weather events makes way for bad science no matter how extreme. In general, individual extreme weather events are not evidence of climate change and it is my opinion that everyone sounds stupid when they politicize them. Instead we sh…
Respectfully, I’m getting fatigued from hearing about climate changes. Not because I don’t care, but because I feel powerless to do anything major about it. For all the recycling I’ve done, a single factory can undo in just a day. Being defeatist isn’t exactly productive, but hearing that calamities are happening on a daily basis doesn’t help much either. I really do think the only way this’ll get better is after som…
I sympathize with and share your exhaustion, but I force myself to pay attention to these stories. They remind me why Climate Change is always my #1 priority when voting in elections, and when thinking about the world writ large. There was an editorial in The Atlantic a couple of years ago—which I now can’t seem to find—titled something like “We should be covering climate change like it’s the only story that matters”…
Their priority is more about intersectionality (and not even as it regards climate).
If they believe it's climate, then they should stress climate and leave other things second.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For all the recycling I’ve done, a single factory can undo in just a day. Tangential, but recycling is much less effective the reduced consumption. I think the problem with policy makers not moving on this front is a reflection of people not doing so. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to make people even believe in something that would require them to sacrifice their lifestyle, let alone actually commit to doing…
I think most consumer-facing plastics need to go. They're one of the major catalysts, if not the catalyst for our hyperconsumerist habits. Go back to glass bottles for things. Give subsidies to companies that use glass for inventory loss and such. Bring back the milkman who refills your empty jugs.
Edit: there's a small glimmer of hope in the way some consumer goods are shipped from places like Amazon (in special ship-to-consumer only basic packaging). Then again those are coming from Amazon, which is ironic in its own way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sympathize with and share your exhaustion, but I force myself to pay attention to these stories. They remind me why Climate Change is always my #1 priority when voting in elections, and when thinking about the world writ large. There was an editorial in The Atlantic a couple of years ago—which I now can’t seem to find—titled something like “We should be covering climate change like it’s the only story that matters”…
Making money comes first in this world, and only then comes the realization if our kids or grandkids still have a habitable world. Guess up until now it’s an abstraction people couldn’t imagine. Despite years of warning. Recently been thinking we should reform old style political parties. Instead we get to directly vote for ideological topics which we can vote on, and politicians/parties who adhere to them. So instea…
Cliff Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington and chief scientist of the Northwest Modeling Consortium analyzed this West coast heatwave event from a global warming perspective, in a post titled "Was Global Warming The Cause of the Great Northwest Heatwave? Science Says No." (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-ca...):
> The evidence for a predominantly natural origin of the high temperatures records of last week is compelling, with global warming marginally increasing the peak temperatures by perhaps a few degrees. Without global warming, we still would have experienced the most severe heatwave of the past century.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think all geo-engineering is a bad idea. The least worse idea is sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere. The consequences of any geo-engineering ideas are not well understood.
I could imagine something a bit better controlled could be ok. Large areas of solar panels, engineered to reflect as much as they can't use, would be a good double benefit. Excess electricity could be opportunistically used for GHG capture or the panels could maybe flip over and become mirrors. An orbital umbrella that we could modulate such that we can deal with unanticipated consequences could also be ok. I'm sure…