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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

nytimes.com

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Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#91

Post by PavlovsCat »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #30

It seems to me we are truly and globally fucked: 1. There were just massive protests and riots in France (a relatively ecologically-aware country) due to an increase in the diesel tax of about 8 cents a liter meant to help wean the country off carbon. As a result of the riots, the tax was cancelled. 2. Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction, i.e. doing everything it can to support coal.…

Who exactly is behind this yellow jacket stuff, though? How about everybody else goes on the streets? We're talking about the survival of hundreds of millions of people, even billions of people, and a few thousand people engaging in vandalism make gas tax increase not an option, just like that?

Why do we so easily accept mass starvation and wars in the future, but not harsh laws now? And no, I don't mean tax the middle class and the poor, by all means tax private jets to hell, too. But don't "non-tax" our future to hell and just shrug it off.

> Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction

So fight it. It's not like everybody started "grabbing women by the pussy" just because Trump was elected, how could you care what he and his interest groups want when it comes to something even more important? Is that's what anyone wants to tell their children, that there was this guy, and so nobody could do anything?

> Even if places like China and India go all out to try to reduce their reliance on carbon, their huge populations and still relatively low level of development mean that there is a tidal wave of new "carbon users" coming.

Okay, that's but that's then, and there. Saying "we can't do anything" just excuses everybody not doing anything, and it worsens the example we set, to boot. How about we do something out of principle, for once, because it's the right thing to do? Even if it's "inevitable" as you say, it's not like we're not doing other things, who knows what inventions or discoveries we can still make - so every year we buy, is better.

We are the generations with the least excuses. We know more than those before us, we can be certain it's happening, and we have more options than those after us. Our lack of using those options will further restrict their options.

First we did nothing (serious) because it wasn't clear if it would so bad, it was "controversial". Then suddenly it jumps over to "inevitable". There is the middle part that's missing, where people act, and don't excuse their present inactions with predictions how it would not matter if they acted, knowing full well they will never have to face the people they condemned, or how their predictions turned out, what could have happened if they had chosen differently.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#92

Post by hwillis »

fromthestart wrote: post #60
hwillis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because our evidence comes from geologic and fossil records that simply do not have good resolution past 1Ma or so. That's not true. For any point when oceanic life was common, their sediments give WAY better resolution than that.

Not even close. Fossil dating is based on whether or not certain marker species exist in a particular rock sample. The very same species that gradually evolve and become extinct on scales of millions of years. The resolution is piss poor, and so unreliable that most wells in petroleum forgo biostratigraphic dating altogether.

You're talking out your ass.[1]

> Annually laminated (varved) lake sediments offer considerable potential as high-resolution archives of palaeo-environmental conditions where other high-resolution proxy indicators are not available (e.g., arid terrestrial regions), and latitudes poleward of the treeline (Lamoureux and Bradley, 1996; Wohlfarth et al., 1998; Hughen et al., 2000). When annual deposition of the varves can be independently confirmed (e.g., through radiometric dating), they provide seasonal to interannual resolution over centuries to millennia. Varved sediments can be formed from biological processes or from the deposition of inorganic sediments, both of which are often influenced by climate variations. Three primary climate variables may influence lake varves: (a) summer temperature, serving as an index of the energy available to melt the seasonal snowpack, or snow and ice on glaciers; (b) winter snowfall, which governs the volume of discharge capable of mobilising sediments when melting; and (c) rainfall. Laminated lake sediments dominated by (a) can be used for inferences about past high latitude summer temperature changes (e.g., Overpeck et al., 1997), while sediments dominated by the latter two influences can be used to estimate past drought and precipitation patterns (Section 2.5.2.2).

> Ocean sediments may also be useful for high-resolution climate reconstructions. In rare examples, annually laminated sediments can be found (e.g., Hughen et al., 1996; Black et al., 1999) and it is possible to incorporate isotope and other information in climate reconstructions, much as varved lake sediments are used. Otherwise, sedimentation rates may sometimes still be sufficiently high that century-scale variability is resolvable (e.g., the Bermuda rise ocean sediment oxygen isotope record of Keigwin, 1996). Dating in such cases, however, must rely on radiometric methods with relatively poor age control.

Biostratigraphic dating isn't how these things are dated. The existence of a species before or after an event isn't how the event is dated. It's not even really that relevant; it relies inherently on species that are not well represented. Instead well represented species, usually ones that didn't die out, are used.

Not to mention that biostratigraphic dating is a secondary evidence source... those fossils themselves are dated by far more accurate methods. Near as I can tell, you're basing this opinion off the resolution of radiometric rock dating, which is accurate to about a million years. That has nothing to do with measuring fast changes, which are measured via properties of the rock itself.

[1]: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5WiaJ3...

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#93

Post by fromthestart »

jf22 wrote: post #90
fromthestart wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand how ironically unscientific your thinking is?

Only to people who assume science is only about proving something wrong rather than expanding to a better understanding.

How do you improve understanding if you've decided that something is true and forbidden any questioning of the subject? Science cannot exist without skepticism - otherwise it's just dogma.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#94

Post by hwillis »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #86
hwillis wrote: post #32

The article offhand mentions that we're on track for RCP 8.5, or 8.5 W/m^2 additional heat in 2100. That should fucking terrify you. That's 4 C global temperature rise, a .75 meter sea level rise, and a doubling of ocean acidity. Page 82 of the IPCC report[1] has some fast facts- at RCP 8.5 most of the wild animals on earth will start dying out from lack of freshwater. Corals and molluscs will die out, and all ocean…

A decade or two ago I was pretty optimistic. The world came together to phase out CFCs after all, albeit a problem an order or two of magnitude smaller. Unless things like Extinction Rebellion somehow become mainstream ( https://rebellion.earth/ ) in short order I think we're fucked. I think we have to actually accept we're fucked to start doing enough substantive about it. When we can see that wall we're about to hi…

> A decade or two ago I was pretty optimistic. The world came together to phase out CFCs after all, albeit a problem an order or two of magnitude smaller.

ps we started releasing CFCs again

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#95

Post by ip26 »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #89
freeone3000 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Should they be the ones paying for everybody else and let the people living in the cities without a car not pay their fair share of the burden?" A carbon tax, which taxes carbon, taxes the people who use carbon less, does not sound like users aren't paying "their fair share". They ARE paying their fair share, because they use less. The problem of use-based taxes affecting the poor disproportionately is well-known, b…

The reason that people in cities won't pay the tax is that they have buses and trains available. That is not available to the people from the countryside. You can't just say stop polluting but not give any alternative mode of transport for this people. What about the rest of the people of this the planet who don't live in a city? Should they just shut up and take it? Easy to say when you are not the one who has to pa…

You can't just say stop polluting but not give any alternative mode of transport for this people.

Part of the reason they don't have alternative modes of transport is because driving is so (artificially) cheap that other modes have a hard time getting off the ground & staying operational.

Yes, I know it's chicken & egg.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#96

Post by mywittyname »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #89
freeone3000 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Should they be the ones paying for everybody else and let the people living in the cities without a car not pay their fair share of the burden?" A carbon tax, which taxes carbon, taxes the people who use carbon less, does not sound like users aren't paying "their fair share". They ARE paying their fair share, because they use less. The problem of use-based taxes affecting the poor disproportionately is well-known, b…

The reason that people in cities won't pay the tax is that they have buses and trains available. That is not available to the people from the countryside. You can't just say stop polluting but not give any alternative mode of transport for this people. What about the rest of the people of this the planet who don't live in a city? Should they just shut up and take it? Easy to say when you are not the one who has to pa…

People in cities pay higher costs for housing and sacrifice space, comfort and privacy for the amenities of city life. They also suffer the most from localized pollution.

The entire point of the tax is to incentivize people to use less fuel. How they accomplish that is their own prerogative. They can move, travel less, buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, look to increase their earning, or any of a number of alternatives not listed here.

This is precisely why usage taxes are so effective. Rather than prescribing a solution to a problem, you let people figure out the best way to minimize how much they are effected.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#97

Post by [deleted] »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #58
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #30

It seems to me we are truly and globally fucked: 1. There were just massive protests and riots in France (a relatively ecologically-aware country) due to an increase in the diesel tax of about 8 cents a liter meant to help wean the country off carbon. As a result of the riots, the tax was cancelled. 2. Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction, i.e. doing everything it can to support coal.…

Protesters are not protesting just the taxes on fuel. They protest the fact that taxing fuel is not the solution if you don't provide an alternative mode of transport. Some people live far from the cities, Should they be the ones paying for everybody else and let the people living in the cities without a car not pay their fair share of the burden? The problem with taxing the diesel is that you are telling people that…

[deleted]

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#98

Post by ip26 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54
orblivion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Current US administration is going 180 degrees in the other direction, i.e. doing everything it can to support coal. And apparently failing miserably in this effort: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/17/epa-cheers-...

I think this article helps me clarify a great point, mainly in these sentences: "The yearslong decline in U.S. emissions has been widely credited to the oil and gas boom. Power plants increasingly turned from coal to natural gas as innovations in extraction technology resulted in lower prices." Lots of people talk about carbon emission reductions, but there is a much simpler way to think about it. There is a lot of c…

So instead of looking at emission rates...

Lowering the emission rates does buy us time to tackle the problem. It's hard to solve something right away & all in one go. But if you can put our friend Zeno to work, you might have a chance.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#99

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

hwillis wrote: post #32

The article offhand mentions that we're on track for RCP 8.5, or 8.5 W/m^2 additional heat in 2100. That should fucking terrify you. That's 4 C global temperature rise, a .75 meter sea level rise, and a doubling of ocean acidity. Page 82 of the IPCC report[1] has some fast facts- at RCP 8.5 most of the wild animals on earth will start dying out from lack of freshwater. Corals and molluscs will die out, and all ocean…

> Any worse than RCP 8.5 and the earth enters a runaway greenhouse. At that point the atmosphere turns into Venus, and life on Earth really would be over.

I don't see how that would be possible (and at least the scientists at the ICPP don't believe it would be possible either, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect).

At the end of the day, it is believed that all or almost all of the oil, coal and natural gas we use comes from biogenic sources, meaning it used to be in the atmosphere at some point in the past. We're basically taking what was once in the air, then stored underground, and putting it back out in the air again. Much (if not most?) of Earth's history has been without any ice caps, so it's not like this state will lead to a Venus-like Earth.

Of course, a 4-8 degree hotter Earth without ice caps still means the deaths of billions of people, so I'm not saying it's not a total disaster, but I just don't see how a runaway greenhouse effect is possible just from burning fossil fuels.

Re: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rise Like a ‘Speeding Freight Train’ in 2018

#100

Post by Wowfunhappy »

usaar333 wrote: post #69
jf22 wrote: post #40

I know cryptocurrencies are popular here but IMHO crypto should be immediately banned before they start generating more and more emissions.

Does that have to be the case? Crypto mining can be done in areas with surplus hydroelectric power that can't be efficiently distributed elsewhere.

But in reality, this by and large isn't what's happening. Some mining is done with surplus hydroelectric power. A lot isn't.

I don't think crypto should be banned because I don't know how you'd enforce that effectively, but it's a real issue.

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