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Global warming has accelerated significantly

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Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#91

Post by myrmidon »

leetharris wrote: post #16
ck2 wrote: post #6

Basically the oceans are way way way too hot which is melting even the most ancient ice and that can never be undone in our lifetimes (well maybe from a nuclear winter) USA is about to have another El Nino summer which will be scorching from overheating oceans But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely, forcing coal plants to restart

[flagged]

Disagree with this perspective entirely.

Not only is it factually wrong (US emissions are much higher than Indian ones despite India being like 4x as many people), it also ignores second order effects of sane environmental policy completely:

By demonstrating that emission reduction is feasible, smaller wealthy western nations can have giant effects on billions of people living in poorer states. Not only does this demonstrate that wealth and environmental concerns are compatible, it also allows "follower-nations" to emulate such efforts cost effectively by picking proven technologies and avoiding technological dead-ends.

Just consider wind/solar in China: I would argue that the whole industry and growth rates only got to the current point so quickly is thanks to research, development and investment done in western nations in the decades prior.

Countries like Germany (1b people). If they had just kept using fossils until now, Chinese electricity might well be >90% coal power as well.

Geoengineering is a naive pipedream in my view because all proposals are either the height of recklessness and/or completely financial lunacy: CO2 capture for small individual emitters like cars is never gonna be even close to cost competitive with just reducing those emissions in the first place (but I'm always curious about any novel approaches).

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#92

Post by giwook »

_heimdall wrote: post #55
giwook wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has actually been leading the charge in terms of green energy lately, at least in terms of making solar power equipment more accessible by way of driving down cost. I have no idea however if they're just exporting this to other countries or if they're also pushing renewable energy domestically. From what little I've read on this topic in recent years though they seem to realize that all of that smog is coming f…

China has continued to rapidly increase their use of coal for power generation. Just a few days ago there was an article about them hitting an 18-year high of new coal power installations [1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...

I'd guess that this is in large part due to the sheer amount of datacenters they plan to bring online in the coming years and the fact that they can't scale up green energy quickly enough to meet the expected demand.

In an ideal world I think they'd prefer to be powered by 100% clean energy but not at the cost of losing the AI race.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#93

Post by alberto467 »

xyzelement wrote: post #5

As an observation, global warming has completely disappeared as social concern in the last few years. Great that someone is still publishing research, but it seems like being a climate scientist has gone from hottest field to nobody cares.

I think a lot of people have lost faith in the ability of the world to come all together and make the necessary sacrifices to make a difference. Especially when some parts of the world are in competition with each other and not making these sacrifices allows them an edge.

Also another group of people have realized they are not willing to forgo all their petty and unnecessary comforts nor are they willing to pay any price increases that would be required to adopt less economical but more sustainable services or production methods.

I don't think there's been any big change in climate change believers/deniers, but i do think some people have started accepting that we're doomed and that there is no "practical" solution. And if you think you're doomed, you might as well skip the sacrifices and enjoy your last days (decades) to the fullest.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#94

Post by wolttam »

f6v wrote: post #24
xyzelement wrote: post #5

As an observation, global warming has completely disappeared as social concern in the last few years. Great that someone is still publishing research, but it seems like being a climate scientist has gone from hottest field to nobody cares.

The problem is, no amount of climate policies in the West is going to offset burning fuel in the developing counties. It’s a global phenomenon and addressing it locally is futile. That, and you don’t have the luxury of green solutions when energy prices were going through the roof.

Someone needs to set the example and be the model?

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#95

Post by missedthecue »

pjc50 wrote: post #71
missedthecue wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most countries including the US are deploying record amounts of renewables. But the climate conversation is definitely reduced, and that's global. Its been a good while since I saw angsty euro teens throwing tomato soup on paintings or gluing themselves to motorways. That used to be a monthly occurance.

That was .. last year? There's a "top of stack" effect in that there can be only a certain number of issues which are most important in discourse , and the Israel/Iran situation has taken over the top of discourse as has the US President. A vital part of good governance is caring about things which aren't in today's newspaper.

No, it was more of a 2023 thing, which is now three years ago. It had definitely calmed down by 2025 too. Iran situation is only a few days old.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#96

Post by wereHamster »

leetharris wrote: post #16
ck2 wrote: post #6

Basically the oceans are way way way too hot which is melting even the most ancient ice and that can never be undone in our lifetimes (well maybe from a nuclear winter) USA is about to have another El Nino summer which will be scorching from overheating oceans But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely, forcing coal plants to restart

[flagged]

China is already slowing down the addition new fossil fuel power plants. Yes, they still build new ones, yes they generate a lot of emissions. But they are also adding more than the rest of the world combined of renewable (solar, wind) electricity generation each year. Realistically, if China stopped 100% of emissions tomorrow, they'd be in much better position to replace it with clean alternatives than most other countries.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#97

Post by captainbland »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #49
captainbland wrote: post #9

Today: this Tomorrow: trillions invested in new technology for simulating human torture accurately at the molecular level, requiring twice the level of all consumer electricity use on the planet. Advocates claim "all use is valid".

Is this a reference to "Torment Nexus"?

While I'm sure that subconsciously influenced what I wrote, it was more a general jab at the sentiment that negative externalities can always be justified so long as a technology has users who prefer to use it.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#99

Post by acdha »

xyzelement wrote: post #30
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of how policies are grouped together in many countries (particularly the US), the fight against fascism is necessarily concurrent with the fight against climate change.

[flagged]

This is a function of your personal media diet: when you spend time consuming rationalizations funded by the fossil fuel industry, it’s easy to deride people who were right as “screamers” and the longer you do so the easier it is to project your intellectual failure onto nebulous “other” people you don’t know. It’s not your fault that climate change is costing lives and billions of dollars, the people who tried to stop it were engaged in hyperbole. It’s not your fault that people are being illegally killed, assaulted, or detained, it’s their fault for allowing you to ignore the clear evidence that this was going to happen.

Re: Global warming has accelerated significantly

#100

Post by Sharlin »

miroljub wrote: post #88
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.

[flagged]

No, it really does not work like that, for reasons that should be obvious.
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