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Global warming has accelerated significantly

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Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#701

Post by tlogan »

bko wrote: post #409
jokoon wrote: post #147

Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years. The pain will come slowly, people won't see it. It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it. And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt. Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries. There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented…

The IEA says China’s CO₂ emissions rose by 565 Mt in 2023 to 12.6 Gt, which it states was a 4.7% increase from 2022.

So any emission reduction done by developed countries is offset by China.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#702

Post by tzs »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #385
standeven wrote: post #303

The main driver of this is human-produced CO2, and there are meaningful ways to reduce usage. -Switch to an electric vehicle -Migrate from gas appliances (range, furnace, water heater) to electric (induction, heat pumps) -If your power grid isn’t clean, add rooftop or balcony solar -Encourage friends and family to do the same

Prices are a great incentive. In Germany, 1 kWh of electricity costs roughly 3x as much as 1 kWh of gas. That doesn't make heat pumps very attractive. Historically the differences were even worse. Relying on people individually making choices that are better for the environment at a disadvantage for themselves is not going to work.

A gas furnace produces at most 1 kWh of heat from 1 kWh of gas. A heat pumps produces 3-4 kWh of heat from 1 kWh of electricity. If electricity is 3x as much as gas per kWh the heat pump should be less expensive to operate.

Plus, it also gives you AC which comes in handy if you live someplace where you want AC.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#703

Post by ant6n »

sulam wrote: post #295

FWIW my personal assessment is that this acceleration is both real and largely out of our control. Models in the past did not attempt to account for non-anthropogenic carbon emissions, but as we experience further warming, most especially in the Arctic, feedback loops and tipping points mean that this (carbon emissions caused by “natural” processes) are becoming more evident. This is especially sensitive because a la…

> I’m of the opinion that direct air capture is the primary escape hatch

Great! That means we dont need to reduce emissions, cuz the magic bullet will just take care of everything. No need to change anything.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#704

Post by dottjt »

ecshafer wrote: post #134

The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and take industry from other countries. My proposal is thus: create a supranational treaty organization with a EPA like authority(or whatever the European equivalent is…

The technical term for what you're broadly describing is Jevons Paradox.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#705

Post by topaz0 »

azan_ wrote: post #319
topaz0 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying in 1910 "cars are a tiny fraction of our emissions, you should be focusing on the steam train and the woodstove"

No, it's not. The comparison makes zero sense and is fuelled by social-media sentiment, not facts.

It's already using on the order of 1% of global energy, and there are active plans to expand that by a factor of 5 or more in the near future. That's as a percentage of current energy use, which is already way higher than it should be, so if all other sectors reduced theirs to sustainable levels it would be like 5% now and 25% planned. It's a bit more complicated when you account for renewable energy, but certainly adding consumption is not helping there. Now that buildout may not happen as planned/advertised, but I think it's very reasonable to worry about new things that make the situation worse even by a few percentage points when you need to make things better overall by much more than that to make progress. Of course this is not to say that we shouldn't be worried about/working on other sources of consumption that are currently a larger fraction -- we need to keep doing that too. But giving a pass to hundreds of TWh from AI junk in favor of trying to reduce the thousands of TWh from some other source by a couple hundred is a good way to erase the gains that you make over there.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#707

Post by mrlonglong »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #60
mrlonglong wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden?!

They’re referring to this: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/bidens... The Republicans are even more protectionist and sinophobic, however. Nobody ever had the option to vote for importing Chinese EVs.

I might buy one just to annoy them then.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#708

Post by scottLobster »

yfw wrote: post #673
notarobot123 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, those still unconvinced of the human influence on climate change seem to be the sort that would trust the basement randos more than they would reputable scientists

Theres a mistrust of government and the establishment. Not saying fringe is better but the behavior of govts, corruption and influence by rich donors doesn't help

Also scientists generally suck at messaging and persuasion. They think if they just dial up the stakes and consequences a little more, it'll be compelling! Maybe if we make one more documentary with bad CGI disaster movie scenes, that'll do it! Same with the stupid "Doomsday clock" that is somehow always "the closest we've ever been to nuclear war!" whenever it gets trotted out. You'd think people who know what stochastic noise is would realize when they're producing it.

They would have made a lot more headway talking about clean air, clean water, jobs, and a bright prosperous future where we manufacture wind turbines, batteries and solar panels in deep red Missouri. A minority tried that, but most stuck with the catastrophizing for decades and now that they've ruined their social credit no one will listen to the message they should have opened with.

You need people emotionally invested, and it's a lot easier to get them invested in their lives than in the abstract consequences of computer models that are at least 100 years out if they're even accurate. And most people are not independent enough to direct their own lives. If they make the right decisions on abstract concepts, it was more because the incentives/disincentives in their environment were set up correctly than they actually understood the decision they were making. Message accordingly.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#709

Post by designerarvid »

notarobot123 wrote: post #182
eykanal wrote: post #3

For those (like me) who don't know the authors, apparently they are well-published authors in the field of climate science whose work is very highly cited: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=gra... Not a perfect measure of whether this is a reputable article but at least readers should know this isn't from some randos in a basement somewhere.

Ironically, those still unconvinced of the human influence on climate change seem to be the sort that would trust the basement randos more than they would reputable scientists

There’s actually research to support the claim you’re making here (Elaboration Likelihood Model).

When forming attitudes in an area where one doesn’t care, one tends to rely more on who is saying it than what is being said. The opposite is true, if you care about [climate change], you listen to the arguments regardless of who is presenting it.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#710

Post by tim333 »

mbgerring wrote: post #544

The only extant “X-risk” is, and always has been, climate change. “AGI” is science fiction, and actually-existing AI is making climate change harder to deal with, by increasing electricity demand on our fossil-fuel-powered grid with no attendant increase in clean generation. Serious engineers need to stop whatever they’re doing and work on this problem. Also, if you’re hiring: I’m an expert on the U.S. regulated util…

I'm not sure about AGI as in human level intelligence being sci-fi. We seem rather close. I've never been much of a doomer though re AI X-risk.
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