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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

#71

Post by amelius »

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.

> The only solution to this problem is technology.

There already exists a "carbon offset market" [1]

So the solution is economical, which in turn will lead to technological solutions (carbon-reducing technology directly driven by profits in this market).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset

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

#72

Post by Flockster »

blahi wrote: post #53
socialist_coder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, but at this point this gets absurd. I can understand that for some people it is beneficial to deny the idea of climate change. But since you are already acknowledging the self-evidence of it, how is it "not clear at all", that the change is not human made?

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

#73

Post by blahi »

Flockster wrote: post #72
blahi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, but at this point this gets absurd. I can understand that for some people it is beneficial to deny the idea of climate change. But since you are already acknowledging the self-evidence of it, how is it "not clear at all", that the change is not human made?

The climate has changed many, many times throughout history.

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

#74

Post by G43nm45ji »

bnolsen wrote: post #57

if almost half you input data is made up" and not raw observations then you can falsely come to this conclusion. The real data shows spiking in the mid 1930s far above current levels.

Can you elaborate? I would like to know where you get this information.

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

#75

Post by rapala »

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…

Is the necessary volume achievable, both in land required and producing the actual panels? I'm under the impression that efficiency drops when you move towards the poles, where many of the developed countries are. Also, do solar panels still require rare minerals to manufacture?

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

#76

Post by tombert »

harryh wrote: post #34
tombert wrote: post #21

The part I find especially frustrating is that, on average, a New Yorker has a lower carbon footprint than the typical American, probably due to the heavy use of the train. So even when I do the (I think) eco-friendly thing by not having a car and using public transit, I'm still being punished for what the rest of the US (and the rest of the world) does.

Even with your slightly lower footprint due to not owning a car you still have a much larger footprint than the world mean. Probably 2-3x. So there are billions of people being "punished" for what you're doing.

Well, considering that I get my power from a combination of Nuclear and wind power, I doubt that I give a particularly high carbon footprint.

But you're not wrong, I almost certainly have a higher footprint than most of the third world.

I guess what I was getting at is that I think the levels New York has are substantially more sustainable than the rest of the US. Sorry for the confusion.

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

#77

Post by kbart »

bnolsen wrote: post #57

if almost half you input data is made up" and not raw observations then you can falsely come to this conclusion. The real data shows spiking in the mid 1930s far above current levels.

Source? Pretty much every temperature graphics I've seen looks like this: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

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

#78

Post by snarfy »

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.

There is another solution: less people.

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

#79

Post by sevenless »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #59
oDot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#80

Post by blahi »

dasboth wrote: post #60
socialist_coder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's very fucking expensive. And those articles frequently on the front page of HN are biased and are not telling the whole story. That's the problem. NGOs are framing the public discourse in a very one-sided way. If you raise concerns, you are a "denier" and downvoted into oblivion because people just want to believe the beautiful story of clean energy vs. greedy capitalist pigs.
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