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World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

cnbc.com

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Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#71

Post by lapcat »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #14
cowpig wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you connect the dots a bit more than that? To me this just sounds like self-serving hand-waving.

Technological innovation allows the same amount of consumption with far less collateral impact. For example, before AC, electrification required 1000x more wire than it does now. Streets were covered in poles and electrical wire. Cars produced far more and worse pollution. Every technological innovation in the aim of efficiency reduces the negative collateral impact of human civilization. Likewise, more recently, the…

> For example, before AC, electrification required 1000x more wire than it does now. Streets were covered in poles and electrical wire.

What do you mean "before AC"? AC was invented more than 100 years ago.

The wires are still there. The power companies just tend to bury them underground nowadays. Out of sight, out of mind.

In any case, what does this have to do with global warming?

> Cars produced far more and worse pollution.

The change is due to government regulation of emissions. Good luck getting the auto manufacturers to give a crap on their own.

Even EVs are heavily subsidized by government funds.

Besides, the primary cause of global warming is manufacturing, not auto emissions, which is why global warming hasn't stopped despite an improved emissions situation. And it's also why accelerationism is not a solution.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#72

Post by bloopernova »

FreelanceX wrote: post #56
Fornax96 wrote: post #41

We're doomed. News like this drains my motivation to do anything at all, because it might all be for nothing anyway.

There is no such thing as "doomed". Humanity is not going to disappear. We can either do better or worse, and there really is no limit to the "worse" side.

If predictions of 8 to 10 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century are true, then humanity is absolutely doomed.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#73

Post by exe34 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #11
padjo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth is AI going to help?

AGI will make the economy far more efficient, increase the rate of scientific innovation, etc. For example, some ancestor of alphafold could spark a revolution in genetic engineering, creating crops which are far more efficient and resilient, etc.

I believe that AGI is capable of all of this. Eventually. If it doesn't kill us at that point. If we don't get enslaved by the corporations who control AGI first.

Expecting it to happen just in time to save us from ourselves? That sounds more like religious belief to me. We're burning down the garden in the hope we will find a yellow brick road under the ashes.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#74

Post by magicalhippo »

wongarsu wrote: post #9

> The findings do not represent a break of the landmark Paris Agreement, which aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” over the long term. It seems safe to say we are now locked in to a path that will break the Paris Agreement, unless "long term" includes space sunshades, scattering reflective particles in the upper atmosphere, or other simi…

> It seems safe to say we are now locked in to a path that will break the Paris Agreement

I've been of the opinion that this was obvious from the day the Paris agreement was signed, and should be absolutely no surprise to anyone.

Not saying we shouldn't try, more energy makes for more extreme weather which is not great.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#75

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

shafyy wrote: post #68
boxed wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the word "drastic" here. It's very much less drastic than what we are already doing. In fact, it's much less drastic. I like to say: There is no longer a choice of playing God or not, only a choice of playing a competent or incompetent God.

You know what would be less drastic? Fucking stop emitting as much carbon. Solutions are there: Less livestock farming, less cars, less flights, less production of unnecessary products. Now, can we convince enough people to change their behavior just by telling them to do it? No, of course not. But what works really well is controlling people's behavior via consumer prices. This means, make animal products more expen…

[dead]

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#76

Post by gorjusborg »

blueflow wrote: post #34
gitfan86 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major incre…

If humans can survive in Australia, Humanity surely will survive the climate change.

The world isn't just a collection of independent climates.

Surviving in one of today's extreme climates doesn't necessarily provide proof of surviving when the previous extreme is now the mildest climate.

Even if the human body can take the heat, it still needs to be fed and watered. Those systems currently aren't in your climate, in many cases.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#77

Post by sigzero »

shafyy wrote: post #68
boxed wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the word "drastic" here. It's very much less drastic than what we are already doing. In fact, it's much less drastic. I like to say: There is no longer a choice of playing God or not, only a choice of playing a competent or incompetent God.

You know what would be less drastic? Fucking stop emitting as much carbon. Solutions are there: Less livestock farming, less cars, less flights, less production of unnecessary products. Now, can we convince enough people to change their behavior just by telling them to do it? No, of course not. But what works really well is controlling people's behavior via consumer prices. This means, make animal products more expen…

I do so love my dead animals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#78

Post by Fornax96 »

smeej wrote: post #52
Fornax96 wrote: post #41

We're doomed. News like this drains my motivation to do anything at all, because it might all be for nothing anyway.

I don't want this to sound dismissive, but aren't we all "doomed" in the end anyway? How long does anything we do have an impact anyway? A generation? Two? Five? How many individual people have had an impact on the world five or more generations after they've died, as a percentage of the total population? Were all those other people's lives meaningless? I think you're grappling with a fundamental aspect of being mort…

The hardest part for me to accept is that there are so many people who just don't care. Not about the disasters, the climate refugees, the death toll, the extinction of thousands of species, respiratory diseases, etc.

How can people just accept all that as a fact of life when it's all man-made horrors?

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#79

Post by wsc981 »

boxed wrote: post #39
chefkoch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess at some point we will start geoengineering which will either work or kill a lot of people.

We already do massive geoengineering. That's what all that CO2 is doing! We're just doing it incompetently.

For reference: all that CO2 is equal to about 0.04% of human atmosphere. Of which 3% is from human activity.

So 0.0012% of CO2 in atmosphere caused by humans. Nature is responsible for the remaining 0.0388% in atmosphere.

Re: World surpasses key warming threshold across an entire year

#80

Post by exe34 »

bloopernova wrote: post #72
FreelanceX wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as "doomed". Humanity is not going to disappear. We can either do better or worse, and there really is no limit to the "worse" side.

If predictions of 8 to 10 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century are true, then humanity is absolutely doomed.

I think hunter-gatherers in Antarctica might be fine eventually.
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