And note, this is separate from the paper last week by James Hansen et al, which discussed the newly researched effects of new feedback loops in ice-melt-surface-waters shutting down ocean circulation (and also increased the amount of sea level rise in shorter time periods).
Upvoted. I am not a AGW denialist, but I find it disturbing that every time I come across a new finding in atmospheric science in a press release it is in some way linked to James Hansen's research or advocacy. Can anyone point to a body of research for the layperson that is independent of his influence?
Take a look at ecological changes: range of species, growing season change, bird migration changes in timing and whether migration happens or not. All point toward significant warming. Hansen has very little to say about them.
How do you define "influence" in serious science? Do you really think scientists believe in one person instead of using the scientific methods?
In the relevant climate science, Hanson is just one of the thousand scientists from the whole world who all perform their own research and then report and agree on the summary findings internationally, you surely can't assert that all are "influenced" by just one person.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change surely isn't accepting "only his" claims. If nobody of thousands of the scientists would have similar findings, nobody would accept his work as serious:
Hint: the work of denialists is exactly that: not serious, as most of them can't even make the basic assumptions right.
So what should you consider for a valid "body of research"? The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There's no better international organization of scientists who work on these topics.
Unless you read at least that, you won't even have an idea about the material for which you seem to believe you're against (even if you claim that "you're not a denialist.)" The report reflects the state of the art of that science.
You missed the point of my comment. I personally am a little more familiar with the science than the average American's understanding. What I see published for the general audience however, (and I would not rank IPCC reports in that category, even the summary ones,) overwhelmingly references, quotes, or relates to Hansen. If I'm trying to open stubborn minds, and everything comprehensible I can give these people features a name that's readily tarred as a politically-motivated pariah in the denialist community, their distrust of the mainstream media reporting and belief in their own FUD only hardens.
I agree that there are people who don't understand how science works (that is, they are effectively illiterate for basic scientific methods and facts), so I always try to explain them the basics of science first. Somebody who believes Earth existed for just 6000 years doesn't even know what science is all about, so you can't even expect him to plan more than until the imminent judgement day, oh happy day (sadly, there are actual influential US politicians who said such things).
I start explaining such person that without using the same scientific principles, the mobile phone they carry around wouldn't be possible (just for GPS, the satellites have to carry atomic clocks and the formulas that are used every time have to consider both special and general relativity). Science works.
Otherwise, how can you even talk about the fact that we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now (see the chart, max around 300, now we're already at 400 ppm).
And how we know? The same way we know how to make GPS. Science. And it's nothing US-based, there are other countries very capable of the best science. You know, countries able to send the probe to the comet.
Once somebody understands the basics, the start about climate should be learning about IPCC, the process and conclusions.
"Science" is not one thing. It works with very different accuracies and predictive powers in different disciplines. The science that makes your mobile phone and GPS work is nailed down by massive amounts of data and controlled experiments confirming theories to many decimal places. That's why those things work so well and so precisely.
Climate science is nowhere near that accurate--not by many orders of magnitude. So if you are telling people that they should believe climate science with the same confidence that they should believe the science that makes their mobile phone and GPS work, you are giving them serious misinformation.
> we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now
Yes. And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now.
What we don't know is how the climate works to a sufficient accuracy to bet trillions of dollars on particular predictions about what effect rising CO2 levels now are going to have.
The range is accurate enough to know the problems. We even know that the effects will have a very long time span, certainly longer than a few hundred years during which we've released so much CO2.
Those that demand "accuracy" expect to receive one line and not the range. Which less changes how much our children will suffer, and even less for children of our children, only more for us who are old enough to die before the bigger effects come.
"After me the floods" is immensely selfish to those that follow us.
> And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now.
To compare, that "much higher" state was before dinosaurs went extinct and the modern mammals started to develop!
The fossil fuels now burned needed exactly these hundreds of millions of years to form. The immense part of that is already now burnt in just around hundred years. Note the difference in magnitudes.
And comparing the change of the CO2 concentrations with the known temperature variation, we can expect even much worse changes than very conservative(!) IPCC predictions:
> The range is accurate enough to know the problems.
I disagree. The model predictions don't match the actual data.
> We even know that the effects will have a very long time span
No, we have models that say that, but the model predictions don't match the actual data.
> that "much higher" state was before dinosaurs went extinct and the modern mammals started to develop!
CO2 was much higher then, yes. But it was also much higher during a good part of the Cenozoic.
> The fossil fuels now burned needed exactly these hundreds of millions of years to form.
No, they didn't. They formed during the Carboniferous period, a small part of the total time period during which CO2 was much higher than it is now. Also, CO2 was much higher than it is now for a long time after the Carboniferous, when the fossil fuels had already formed.
> comparing the change of the CO2 concentrations with the known temperature variation, we can expect even much worse changes than very conservative(!) IPCC predictions
Only if you assume, incorrectly, that CO2 changes caused the temperature changes during the ice ages and interglacials. But the CO2 changes during the ice ages and interglacials happened after the temperature changes.
The IPCC AR5 admits it--and then tries to argue that it doesn't matter, because their conclusions aren't based on the models, they're based on "expert judgment" or something like that.
"New Zealand politician and a lawyer." "He was also involved with the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust, a charitable organisation that, according to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), appears to have been set up solely to take court action against them. The trust lost two court cases against NIWA and on both occasions, was ordered to pay costs. NIWA has put the trust into liquidation and as of 2014 was considering to pursue Brill and another trustee for the owed money.[7]"
His claims are, of course, a distortion of what really happened, and are based on what he and those like him call the "hiatus." Which is also misinterpretation of the curve of the temperature change, and which those especially liked before the last two years that broke most of the records.
I see only the agenda there, and again, scientific illiteracy.
The quotes presented on that page mean really nothing, which is somehow expected when written by the guy who doesn't understand the subject, being scientifically illiterate.
> the only thing that you have to back your claims is a post from WUWT
A post which gives specific quotes and references from the IPCC AR5. Whatever you might think of WUWT in general, this particular post is talking about what the IPCC itself is saying.
I could just as well say that a site like RealClimate is "a known alarmist site that has lied a lot of times". At that point we're just pointing fingers and arguing from authority, not substance. That's why I picked an article that specifically quotes and references the IPCC AR5 itself, rather than one of the hundreds of critical papers and articles that have been published by skeptics on the mismatch between the models and the data.
> I could just as well say that a site like RealClimate is "a known alarmist site that has lied a lot of times"
No, you can´t if you don´t lie
> At that point we're just pointing fingers and arguing from authority,
No, WUWT has no authority because nobody on this site is a climate scientist
> That's why I picked an article that specifically quotes and references the IPCC AR5 itself
No, you quoted an article where someone interpreted what the IPCC said. You didn't quoted anything from the IPCC. And that was your claim
> rather than one of the hundreds of critical papers and articles that have been published by skeptics on the mismatch between the models and the data.
Still waiting one of those articles from climate scientists
But I will wait a lot, you're just another denier that has nothing to back what you write
> WUWT has no authority because nobody on this site is a climate scientist
In other words, you would rather argue from authority than look at the actual substance. Thank you for making your position clear.
> You didn't quoted anything from the IPCC
The article I linked to had direct quotes from the IPCC AR5.
> Still waiting one of those articles from climate scientists
Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, to name just two, are climate scientists and have written skeptical papers. But there's nothing magical about the label "climate scientist" that makes what they say correct. You have to look at the actual substance. But you've already indicated you don't want to do that, so I guess we'll just have to disagree.
You can have any religion you want but don't expect to be considered of any scientific significance (except as the example of a deluded mind) if your claims don't match the reality.
As you've said: "You have to look at the actual substance."
I know one older guy who I really respect, and with nice scientific background, whose political beliefs would make him agreeing with the "deniers." He started to blog how global warming is a lie etc. I've just sent him the links to really look at the data, the scientific work and to check himself. He never wrote or said anything against global warming again. You seem to have more scientific background than a lawyer, maybe you should honestly check the figures, facts and formulas just once...
> Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen claims are provably scientifically wrong
I can't find any source for the data underlying the graph in your first link comparing Hansen to Lindzen regarding temperature predictions. The skeptical science article it is attributed to has a link to a 1988 Hansen paper that is broken ("not found"), and a link to a 1989 MIT Tech Talk article quoting Lindzen that has no graph at all and does not make any temperature prediction. So as far as I can tell, the supposed comparison in that graph has no factual basis.
Your second link shows multiple comparisons between statements Spencer has made and the "mainstream" IPCC position on climate science; the differences between them would be more accurately described as differences in opinion on how to interpret the data and how to make predictions, not as showing that Spencer is "provably scientifically wrong".
> As you've said: "You have to look at the actual substance."
Yes, I did. See above.
> maybe you should honestly check the figures, facts and formulas just once...
I have been, for quite some time now. As I said, we're just going to have to disagree.
> looking at the people that really knows what they talk is not arguing from authority.
Why do you think they really know what they are talking about? Because they say so? Because they are "climate scientists" and have the "proper" credentials? That is arguing from authority.
The claims you promote are without any scientific background, here's why:
The concentration of 500 ppm now would make all ice on Earth disappear, whereas 400 million years ago there would be needed 3000 ppm (note three thousand, ten times more than it was before we stat high-rate burning) to achieve the same, as, among other effects, the solar constant was 4% lower then:
Now consider this: during the last 800,000 years CO2 concentration oscillated between 200 and 300 ppm. The humanity pushed it to 400 ppm in around 100 years, and the 500 ppm is the point of no ice on the Earth.
> The claims you promote are without any scientific background, here's why
None of this addresses the actual issues I was raising.
> The concentration of 500 ppm now would make all ice on Earth disappear
According to the hypothesis given in the paper you link to. But it's a hypothesis, not a fact. One obvious omission in the paper is treatment of other forcings besides CO2 and solar. Also, all of the data is proxy data, and the solar forcing is not even based on data but on an assumed linear rate of increase in the solar constant.
> None of this addresses the actual issues I was raising.
Just when somebody closes the eyes and screams at the same time "I don't see anything." It was exactly on the subject: when you claim that millions of years ago the concentration was higher, we even know that the state of the Earth wasn't comparable. Not to mention that humans didn't exist.
Thanks a whole lot. Finally someone gave me a link and some pointers to a report instead of handwaving about how 2500 scientists cannot be wrong. Now we are talking!
Edit: still ain't completely sold. Anyone has pointers to why there was significantly less ice around Greenland about a 1000 years ago or can prove that this is wrong?
Compare to IPPC estimates: two whole degrees change are the most optimistic expectations and assume almost no use of fossil fuels in future, compared to now.
> Finally someone gave me a link and some pointers
See my other comment here, I also give the link to the raw data and the programs of the models too. And the books that teach the basic formulas involved. It is all real, and the effective consensus of the scientists is not accidental. There's immense scientific work on one side, almost no scientific work on another, and people have the impression that it's 50:50 only because the other side gets so much "air time."
See also how that other side is really the one which effectively lives from being there:
Thanks again. You did something right that I can't remember having seen before in the threads I have participated in.
Now that I have hopefully established myself as an uninformed but intelligent sceptic, not denier, here are two pointers as to why the explanation kind of worked this time:
* links to the actual report, and the intro part. Most people, even in technical forums, assumes malice right away, starts telling me how "2500 scientists can't be wrong" and that I should read the report, all while leaving me with a not-so-subtle feeling that they never read it themselves.
* actually, to a degree at least, answer my question about Greenland instead of immediately assuming malice and bringing out the troll hunting gear. This is, IIRC, the first time I have seen a serious answer that partly covers that question.
On my side I might read a bit more in the report, note one AGW person who isn't all torch and pitchforks and possibly change my mind. (I already live kind of carefully but because I don't like wasting resources, not because I have believed in AGW so far.)
"Each report is produced by a committee of experts selected by the Academy to address a particular statement of task and is subject to a rigorous, independent peer review; while the reports represent views of the committee, they also are endorsed by the Academy."
------
1) chartered by the US Congress in 1863 at the request of President Lincoln
I'm looking at the paper. I don't understand the domain well enough to find the constants to which you're referring—do you have an example and why you find it weird?
Given the timescales involved they'll be saying it for many more years and given the consensus amongst scientists the smart move is to work to correct.
The worst case is they where wrong and we improved the planet for nothing...oh no.
I'd say the worst case is we spend billions of dollars (that could have been spent elsewhere, say improving human health) on something that makes no difference at all.
On the other hand, spending billions of dollars on things carrying questionable benefits for humanity would not be news. At least the reason for this would be noble.
It would seem reducing global air pollution, especially in areas that suffer enormously on a daily basis (China is a prime example), is at least as beneficial to human health as focused efforts in medical research. And that's even without asking how this hypothetical "spending elsewhere" is going to be regulated in your opinion, and that is not a rethorical question. After all, similar complaints are heard every time a robot lands on a planet or satellite in the Solar System.
Reducing particulate emissions and other pollution which harms the human respiratory system is a different objective from reducing CO2 emissions. There are some synergies between the goals, but optimizing for one will negatively impact the other in many instances.
As r0muald and nitrogen said, reducing pollution definitely is not something that "makes no difference at all". But...
The other problem is that "makes no difference at all" is a good outcome. A bad outcome is that we reduce carbon usage drastically, which reduces economic output drastically, which causes many deaths. (This is not hyperbole. Take China, for instance. They're polluting like crazy, but even with all the pollution, people are better off. They're moving to the cities to get out of rural poverty. That poverty shortens life spans more than the pollution does.)
I think the unfortunate reality is that we're going to have to go through a major, catastrophic climate change event before the narrative of the American right (which is by far the most vocal denier of climate change) changes and we can start making some progress in reversing it.
I only hope that whatever event(s) trigger this policy change are somewhat reversible. Earth is, ironically, going to be the first testbed for terraforming technology.
Like Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy? Or the streets of Miami flooding? I don't think anything is going to change a denier's minds if they don't want to. We just have to try and fix it without them.
The problem, of course, is that the salaries of most supporters of the Republican party would not be impacted at all by most measures that would be taken to curtail emissions. The salaries of the leaders (and, more importantly, their backers) on the other hand...
This is an unintentionally great comment. When people claim that every weather event is caused by global warming, it's hard to take it those claims seriously.
You're saying that those hurricanes would not have been any less severe without the impact of humans messing with the atmosphere for the last century?
I'm not saying "global warming causes all the hurricanes", I'm saying "humans messing with the atmosphere has increased the variance and severity of our weather". If you don't agree with that, you're in willful denial.
Anyways, thanks for recognizing that my comment was great. I'll take what I can get.
Do we really think a century of data is a lot? Especially when you are talking about ~20 events per year?
Can you explain why 1850 looks comparable or worse than the 1990s and worse than 2010s so far? I don't see what this proves.
The inputs for "man's impact" in the 1850s would not come close to modern day. If we took that into account, by your logic, the bar charts should explode out the top! But it doesn't. Not even close.
1850 - 1.2B people
2010s - ~7B people and a lot more pollution
From your linked data, the impact of AGW on hurricanes over the last year = 0
Edit: I think you may agree with me that it doesn't point to more extreme weather events. If so - my comment is directed at the parent.
I'm not worried about China at all, their leadership has a far better chance of listening to science and acting appropriately. As they grow their standard of living it will be using less carbon intensive methods.
Meanwhile, the US is far too entrenched with ideology and vested interests that have captured the political machinery.
Kind of sad that we're in this state, but people keep voting Republican...
What solutions are you proposing exactly to reverse climate change? The trillions in investment so far in clean energy have yielded minimal results. What specifically are you recommending?
As I mentioned in my other reply to you (which happened at the same time) revenue neutral carbon tax, or the equivalent righty version which is cap and trade.
But really technology is going to drive this change, as long as the entrenched interests don't prevent the use of renewables that are cheaper than fossil fuels.
Already ideally sited solar and wind are cheaper than coal, and learning curves are pushing that down all the time.
Storage is also getting incredibly cheap, with lithium ion batteries it's around $0.08/kWh right now at the wholesale level.
What we're really going to need is efficient carbon capture schemes though, because the feet-draggers have cost us an extremely valuable 15 years. If we can do capture at something less than $500/ton then I'm starting to feel a bit optimistic that we can head off the worst of it.
But every. Single. Ton. That we emit right now is going to cost out children several times that amount. Improving efficiency of use and increasing the scale and efficiency of the renewable energy manufacturing is a massively important economic development for the US and the world.
Except cap and trade programs have done nothing to prevent or curb climate change. Oil companies just buy carbon offsets and continue polluting. Solar still depends on billions in subsidies to be viable, as with many other renewable energy sources. Solar is also extremely inefficient. It costs around 8 times more to output the same energy compared to natural gas for example. We've already invested billions in solar, and we've barely made a dent on solar costs. Oil is very cheap and affordable to the poor, which explains their continued use in the developing world over renewable energy.
What carbon cap and trade programs? Is your contention that a cap and trade program could t reduce emissions? If it can't, then it's not a cap and trade program.
Your pricing information on renewables is out of date, and quickly becoming more out of date.
The renewable industry is changing fast, traditional energy industry changes slow. Those dinosaurs won't know what's hit them until it's too late.
Not 100% sure about this, but if you rely only on a pure market approach, then oil & coal will become cheaper & cheaper while they become less popular. Their demand will drop & so the price will go down.
The reality is that we must put an human mandated limit on the amount of carbon fuels to burn.
Think of it another way: If burning carbon fuels causes major instability in the climate, then the fate of the human race should not be determined by the amount of carbon in the ground. It should be determined by humans being determined.
The trouble with the idea that technology will drive this change is that it's just driving down the cost of fossil fuels to below the new technologies as countries like Saudi Arabia desperately try and make sure they sell all of their oil. In order to avoid global warming we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground and that's just not in the interest of fossil fuel producers, and because for a lot of those fuels extraction is a tiny portion of the price they can afford to undercut renewables all the way down the cost curve until the pumps run dry or the renewable energy manufacturers give up and go out of business.
Fuel costs are just one part of the infrastructure, as fuels get cheaper, capital costs will dominate. (And they already do for, say, cars where less than half of the per mile costs are for fuel.) At some point I believe the capital costs will be less for renewables than for any fossil fuel based system.
Of course if we were to price in the negative externalities, I think that renewables would already be cheaper. But this is one case where ideology has prevented us from setting up an efficient market for energy.
Higher prices on carbon fuels would be the simplest solution. Cap and trade works. It's not perfect but it works. Creating property rights for the sky lets markets do their magic.
"A 2003 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) study found that the Acid Rain Program accounted for the largest quantified human health benefits of any major federal regulatory program implemented in the last 10 years, with benefits exceeding costs by more than 40:1."
If renewables did get trillions in investment this far, a reference would be nice, it wouldn't touch the subsidies fossil fuels receive annually at $5.3tn[0].
Accounting for environmental damage is important, but if you calculate the subsidies like that, it isn't just the energy industry that gets subsidized (as would largely be the case with renewables), it's the consumers using the energy (they receive most of such subsidies).
So just to be clear: The $5.3 trillion is arrived at by counting untaxed environmental harm as a subsidy. Which I think it is interesting to consider the damage, but I don't think that is what people are going to think when they think energy subsidy.
I think my point still stands in response to his argument, if you ignore post-tax subsidies. The pre-tax sum is $333bn in 2015 and $541bn in 2013. So would easily accumulate to trillions over a short number of years.
But I do think post-tax subsidies is a fair metric, for example, in places where there's state health care, my tax is being spent to care for people whose health has been affected by fossil fuels. So it seems like state subsidised to me.
No, this really is a subsidy to the fossil fuel industry: the amount they pay to obtain fossil fuels is less than the actual cost, which means they can sell them for prices which would be unprofitable if they paid for the environmental costs and for applications where they'd otherwise be replaced by other more environmentally-friendly options. The consumers definitely aren't the ones who are being subsidised here - they don't care where their energy is coming from, so the actual consumer benefit is only the difference between the cost of fossil fuels and the cost of the cheapest option if fossil fuel producers had to pay the full environmental price, minus the environmental harms to the consumers. (Which may well actually not be a net benefit to consumers at all.)
But consumers would have either had to pay extra for that $5.3 trillion expense, or not use as much energy. Figuring out where the blame should be placed is a bit of chicken and egg, but we're trying to point out that bandying questionable numbers around like this isn't helping the cause.
There are several examples in history of succumbing to hte logic "we need a single-party state in order to finally listen to scientists about the best way to run society!" It doesn't end well.
I suppose if the scientists were in charge, we'd finally stop burning fossil fuels? That we'd force massive changes to resource distribution and reshape society in order to save the world?
And if you don't agree, you're too dangerous, right? Off ot the gulags?
Do you understand that millions and millions of people would die of starvation?
It's amazing how eagerly people advocate for the right kind of totalitarianism.
I don't read that epistasis was suggesting it's because they're a single party totalitarian state. It's because their elected officials aren't loudly proclaiming that climate change doesn't exist, regardless of how many parties there are.
Plenty of multi-party democracies have parties that somehow manage to agree on whether anthropogenic climate change exists and whether dinosaurs were real. America just isn't one of them.
We don't need a single party state, we need parties that aren't embarrassingly out of touch with how the world works. When your presidential candidates take pride in not believing things despite overwhelming evidence, you have a problem.
Hah, that's not even remotely what I was asking for, and very weird that you would put totalitarianism as words in my mouth. Most unfair.
the way that parties change is that people stop voting for them. Any vote for such a stridently anti-science and anti-future party encourages them.
That said, this is my most important issue. Others will rank other issues higher, and vote on that basis. But it will be at least a decade after the Republican Party apologizes and corrects their science mistakes that I will trust them to vote for them.
Since when are any politicans forthright in correcting and apologizing for their mistakes? Barring prison or other legal woes, when was the last time the advocates of any government program awknowledged and sought to remedy the deleterious effects of their actions?
What's amazing is that people think questioning means you aren't scientific (and thus an idiot). Believing in science MEANS questioning everything.
Our society questions nothing. If we find it on the internet - it's true. Very few want to be a contrarian or go against what's popular at any given time for fear of others shaming them in mob-groups for having a different viewpoint.
We've entrusted too much credibility in people with science degrees and their models. I've done some interesting things with machine learning. It's extremely easy to develop predictive models that confirm what you want to confirm. That was probably the first thing I learned and if you aren't humble - you'll use a model as a crutch and be proved a fool.
Some of the greatest minds in history have been proven wrong. Science is not a democracy.
Our country isn't either but people forget that. They think 50+1 should dictate everything. Me-first.
If only they understood the other side - they could unite. But they haven't advanced beyond their tribalism and self-righteousness.
I care about China of course, I said I'm not "worried" about them. I'm not "worried" about those increasing emissions, that's completely expected, and better than what most people thought it would be in previous years.
This could be primarily because of the economic slowdown, but I've read other articles that report the change is more systemic and permanent as China seeks to lead in clean energy tech.
Every single Republican candidate for president was openly mocking Obama when he was in Paris a few months ago for the climate talks. They're an absolute embarrassment:
Saying ISIS is a bigger threat to the global world than climate change is....embarrassing? Innocent people are being blown up and their heads are being cut off at this instant because of ISIS. They are committing a genocide at this very minute.
How many people per year would you estimate ISIS kills?
Is it more than 150,000 people [1]? Because that's how many people the WHO estimates currently die right now as a result of climate change. And the number is expected to go up to 250,000 by 2030-2050 [2].
Other estimates have been even higher, e.g. [3] which came up with 400,000 extra deaths due to climate change per year already.
And yet, with the record levels of climate emissions, billions of people are living longer and healthier due to cheaper energy costs that keep them warm and fed at low cost.
Why is the global world living longer despite its ever increasing usage of fossil fuels? Just to take one example, China's life expectancy has grown increasingly despite having record levels of pollution. You would think that more and more people would die as fossil fuels increase. Something doesn't connect here. Care to explain the conundrum for me?
ISIS having their hands on a nuke would be catastrophic.
Isis getting a nuke is quite far fetched. What is a bigger danger is one of the terrorist groups in Pakistan (which actually has nuclear weapons) getting a nuke. Or India & Pakistan having a nuclear exchange. Or one of the wars in the Middle East leading to Israel or the USA to use the nuclear weapons they have ready there (which they continually threaten). Nuclear war is one of the scariest things we face and could destroy us instantly, it's a small chance but a possibility.
However climate change is definitely already happening and is potentially also devastating for the survival of the species. It could itself ignite a number of conflicts, we have no idea what will happen, but we know it could be very bad.
Actually since Israel's nuclear weapons are a secret they are not continually threatening to use them, however the US is a different story. There are US nuclear weapons present in every war and the threats are made with statements like, "no option is off the table", and by looking at official policy, which maintains the option of a first nuclear strike.
Thanks for the links. I'll read them later in full. Off the bat: “That estimate includes deaths as a result of extreme weather conditions, which may be occurring with increased frequency.” May being the keyword there. Also, if the argument is more rainfall and temperatures contributing to spread of disease, does it estimate the ability to harvest more, or for longer periods in cooler climates? Not to belittle the warnings and data presented, but to look for the positive in the negative.
The GP poster is right--the threat to the average person from terrorism, from all sources, is tiny compared to, say, the risk due to extreme weather....or getting hit by a bus when crossing the street. Humans don't tend to respond rationally to fear, and tend to over exaggerate the risks of shocking things like death from terrorism. It is so common that some people came up with the idea of micromorts, so that one can reliably compare risks of unrelated items. Terrorism results in pretty tiny micromorts compared to, say, getting stuck by lightening.
I did exaggerate, sorry. There is some credible possibility of this happen, but our current models don't predict it. [1] I think it is fair to say that climate change could be very disruptive to civilization. Eg, it could cause famines, refugee crises, collapse of some societies, etc.
So many people point to politicians as the problem, but remember the people who keep them in power. Politicians are just people who play the numbers, which is exactly how a republic is supposed to operate.
Yes that's correct and it works assuming the population is accurately informed. There's been a huge propoganda push against the idea of human caused climate change. And it's largely worked. I'm sure many of the politicians even believe it.
I think it has a lot more to do with moneyed interests who would lose out on climate-change regulation than with a tremendous bloc of voters who will not support a candidate who believes climate change is real.
I would note that the graph does not show what the headline indicates.
The graph BNEF prepared shows carbon emissions ~tripling from 2012 to 2040, due to substantial growth in non-OECD coal & gas consumption, which swamps the drop in these categories for OECD countries.
Meanwhile, its consumption of coal – the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – dropped by 3.7 per cent, with imports down by a substantial 30 per cent.
The country’s solar and wind energy capacity soared last year by 74 and 34 per cent respectively compared with 2014, according to figures issued by China’s National Bureau of Statistics yesterday.
The latest figures state that “clean energy” – a combination of hydro, wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas – now accounts for 18 per cent of all its energy, up from 13 per cent in 2011.
Such rapid changes in how energy generation in China is changing suggests to me, that graph projecting non-OECD CO2 emission is most likely be wrong and overly pessimistic.
Can you provide a link supporting your claim that animal agriculture has >50% of the CO2 footprint or that the American continents produce much more CO2 than China?
I couldn't find the links for the second claim (its somewhere out there) but the ones provided don't account for animals, land use and rainforest elimination. All three are major factors of the animal agriculture.
Note that these links are talking about total greenhouse gas production, not just CO2 as was originally stated in pitchka's comment and questioned in mine. Pitchka's "18%/51%" estimates are not actually talking about literal CO2 output, but rather about general "GHG" (greenhouse gas) emissions, including gases like methane.
Based on these links which we traded, while you appear to be incorrect in your claims about literal CO2 emissions (which was what I originally commented on), perhaps what is more important is that you are correctly alluding to the effect of greenhouse gases besides CO2, such as methane.
There is this scary video[1] done by NASA that shows the earth with the level of CO2 across a year. The CO2 from China goes right to SF... And then it goes crazy. You can also see why the amazon rainforest is named the lungs of the planet or in this video it looks more like the heart of our planet.
But China seems now to be really willing to reduce its impact on the planet. There are the huge investments on solar panels for instance.
As long as people are flying private jets to climate conferences I cry foul.
If they want anyone to act they would do as the king of Nineveh:Jona 3:6
"For word came to the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."
The moment I see climate scientists starts to switch to teleconferences I think I will give it a second thought.
(Yeah. I know many, possibly most of you don't believe a thing of that but it is still a good example.)
(FWIW: I make a living making solar cell technology, I previously programmed recycling machines. I just happen to be tired of hypocrisy.)
Nah, but it helps against getting fooled while we wait for them to either stop trying to fool me (not sure about this) or put their money where their mouth is.
It was not about me being downvoted, that is more or less a given, it was about the person replying to me getting downvoted although IMO his point was valid.
Ok, that's why I was confused; by the time I got to the thread, that person had been upvoted back in the black (perhaps due to your votes). Anyway, I love some good discourse. Thanks for contributing to the conversation.
A private jet releases something like 20 tons of CO2 per flight (depending on distance / type of jet / etc. etc.). The US Coal industry released 5.4 billion tons of CO2 last year. Each private jet flight then represents about 120 milliseconds of US Coal production. So yeah, Al Gore and Leo could (and should) cut out their private jet habit, but maybe we also should burn less coal?
The power of examples. Or: actions speak louder than words.
The very moment politicians start acting like there is a crisis, people will listen.
For now it all looks like a giant racketeering scheme to deprieve the small man of cheap energy and travel while the rich ones get richer.
Not saying it is like this, but think about it a moment before knee-jerkingly hitting the downvote button.
I'm in no position to judge the science behind this but I have a nose for fish and something stinks so badly I have a hard time crediting it all to right-wing nuts for now at least.
> I'm in no position to judge the science behind this
And yet, you do.
Why do you imagine the politicians would be concerned with climate change? It's not like they or the rest of the oligarchy are going to be the ones affected.
I think you could say the same about most issues that politicians (attempt to) address. Were Nixon or Nancy Reagan ever trapped in the inner-cities deciminated by the results of their failed drug policy? Were generations of their families imprisoned as a result? Does George Bush ever have to worry about ISIS causing harm to himself or his family? Or an onslaught of immigrants on his family ranch? Will Diane Fienstein be spending her old age alone, unarmed, 30 miles from her nearest neighbors or other assistance? Unlikely.
Al Gore buys carbon offsets for his jet travel. Letting him do what he wants and still have a net carbon contribution that is 0.
Of course that depends on the people he pays for the carbon offsets actually reducing carbon emissions somewhere else in the world. It is easier to claim that you will than it is to actually do it.
(My bet is that within 10 years there will be a major scandal as someone in that space turns out to be a pure and simple scammer.)
This is meant to be a thought provoking question, not an attack:
What if the safety of the planet lay in stopping greenhouse emissions. But certain large blocs of the international community refused to stop pumping it out of the ground.
Now say diplomatic means don't create any real progress, only broken promises. For an example of what that might look like, take the nuclear accord John Kerry just got Iran to sign this year. Already they have tested new long range missiles and their leader, Khamenei, released a statement this week: "Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors," [0].
Seriously, what happens when those with fossil fuel reserved chose to use them, even when your country is being responsible? What if it meant another war in Iraq: would the positions on policy for fixing AGW swtich between Democrats and Republicans?
it is an interesting question - would we go to war to prevent carbon release?
for me to have a position on the question would depend on the particulars.
A related thought - there aren't a ton of countries that have both large fossil fuel reserves and a large enough domestic market to burn them at a high rate. US and China are the only two that come to mind. Maybe Iran? Which implies that sanctions (either on the import of energy or the export of finished goods) might be effective if you can keep the US and China on board.
I kind of don't care about their opinion on a scientific matter. The real issue is building political coalitions to force their compliance through democratic legislation.
What specific solutions are you recommending to reverse climate change? Ban fossil fuels? Force everyone to buy Teslas (which ironically depend on fossil fuels)?
A revenue neutral carbon tax at about $80/ton is popular enough that oil companies use it in their planning for the future.
The "right" has favored cap and trade schemes in the past (specifically Reagan), but suddenly became allergic to the idea.
Your "solutions" are ridiculous anti-market solutions, presumably exaggerations that you would use to describe the solutions that have actually been proposed?
Also, Teslas and other electric vehicles do not depend on fossil fuels, even if they can potentially be powered by fossil fuels (at much higher efficiencies than fossil fuel vehicles)
>Also, Teslas and other electric vehicles do not depend on fossil fuels, even if they can potentially be powered by fossil fuels (at much higher efficiencies than fossil fuel vehicles)
Of course they do. They are made of materials that depend on fossil fuels for extraction. To pretend otherwise is completely idiotic. Everything that doesn't come from plants has to be mined and mining is energy intensive.
Technically speaking all the plastic used is made from fossil fuels, but taking fossil fuels and turning them into something that we'll bury in holes in the ground instead of burning them probably isn't a bad thing when talking about global warming.
For the past 15 years or so, Germany has been pursuing an aggressive plan to switch entirely to renewable power, which includes building out lots of wind and solar. Some say it's not fast enough, but it's still pretty impressive, especially for a country so far from the equator. I think the country is around 30% renewable by now.
Bear in mind, this is absolutely necessary for the entire world at some point. Fossil fuels will not last forever. Best start now and not procrastinate.
In terms of specific policy to pursue: basically lots of subsidies.
All the power in my camper is provided by solar energy. I paid maybe $500 for the system, including a lithium ion battery. It will provide power for the next 25 years for two people, using computers all day long and plenty of bright lights at night.
Solar power is hella cheap. People need to stop whining.
It is cheap because manufacturing was subsidised by cheaper dirty coal-fired electricity. Solar panels today are essentially overpriced batteries that require years of time and sunshine to discharge. 10 years ago most solar panels barely returned 50% of the energy expended to make them. At least we seems to be getting close to the breakeven point.
P.S. I really doubt that the panel will last 25 years, and the battery is likely to go poof even sooner.
The battery is Lifepo4 chemistry with a good solar controller from electrodacus.com. I typically drain to about 65% so these are considered shallow cycles.
I think the battery will go for 15 years & the panels too. So 25 years was a bit of a stretch but 15 years electricity for $500 was pretty OK.
Solar energy really is cheap.
There are many parts of the world where it makes the most financial sense.
The American right is really a coalition of several different factions, and it can be chipped apart on certain issues. We see that today, with religious conservatives proposing state laws to discriminate against gay and transgender people, but many big businesses opposing those laws.
Maybe we could make progress more quickly on fighting climate change if we simply bought off businesses. Implement a carbon tax that replaces business income tax and results in a net lower tax burden on businesses (from day one), and I bet a lot of opposition funding would dry up.
It would be very expensive... but compare to the cost of protecting or moving all our coastal cities and communities.
Maybe one reason climate change has become a cultural/political issue is that the people who understand the issue best and have worked on it the hardest, tend to also be people who are suspicious of businesses in general. They resist anything that looks like a corporate giveaway, and prefer a regulatory, government-led approach. As a result, "freedom first" libertarian types have lined up with big businesses in opposition.
I won't pretend that I've thought through the details deeply--take this as a musing more than an actual proposal.
What if the left just figure out how many people to move into right leaning states to make a sweep?
The left has been the majority for a while, but not in charge because 1 person != 1 vote (2 senators / state regardless of population, no D.C. senator, electoral college system.. any more?)
It would be even easier if the left would just get off its collective butts and go vote.
Disproportionate representation is a problem, for sure, but the American left would have far more success despite that problem if only they would go vote in off-year elections.
Either way, I don't think it would help the fundamental problem, which is that roughly half of the voters in this country don't accept climate science, and their party and associated media have set up a huge feedback loop to keep it that way. Helping the Democrats isn't really a solution, because we need two healthy parties.
So long as a dangerously insane candidate is in danger of winning an election, the only ethical choice is to vote for the sane candidate most likely to win in any race.
Agree that we need multiple functional sane parties, but we haven't had that happy situation in the US for forty years.
I totally agree, you have to work within the framework you have, and in this case that means voting against the crazies. It just doesn't work very well. I don't claim to have any answers for what would work better, it's just that this particular answer is unsatisfying.
Really? So you're saying every person in America can be neatly defined as either right or left? That's odd because I know a lot of conservative folks who are for marriage equality and left-wing folks who love guns and are members of the NRA.
> So you're saying every person in America can be neatly defined as either right or left?
For hysterical raisins, the US has a basically permanent two-party system. Charitably speaking, you can be socially and economically either conservative or liberal, R or D.
There are some people who are economically conservative and socially liberal -- "do what you want, and leave me alone." There are others who are economically liberal and socially conservative -- "we should help the less fortunate, because that is what Christ and compassion demand." And there are plenty of other positions, but the only two real options are R and D. Tweaking the meanings of those two letters is your best bet.
Policy is not going to fix this. Neither are politicians. We're trapped in an economic model which demands infinite growth. A system built principally on hydrocarbon energy. Modest improvements can be made to improve efficiencies (see Jevon's paradox), but we're in a treadmill to hell. You can't grow GDP without consuming more energy. We stop growing, the system will collapse. And you're never going to have a politician get elected on a platform of conservation. "You know all that wasteful consumption we've enjoyed since winning the second world war, you're going to have to do with less"
Like mold in a petri dish, the human population will collapse ultimately into decentralized anarchist societies who trade among one another. Assuming we stop the 400+ reactors from going into meltdown, the majority of the population will return to farming.
We're not going to Mars anytime soon. You people can't live without AC or even know how to grow a fucking tomato plant. Sadly, most of this community will die.
I'm not sold on the AGW stuff the environmentalists put out, but their problem is positioning and they haven't grasped that in their battle.
Nobody is arguing climate change can have big impact. We're discussing AGW. Obviously deforestation and air pollution is a Bad Thing. The environmentalists would be better off telling that story which is quite simple and easy to understand.
I'm a buyer of that as both logic and an investment but not the Chicken-Little AGW story. Positioning is very important when you are selling something.
~7 million die from air pollution related deaths per year
Total number of people that die of starvation per year: ~8 million. ~900 million malnourished.
~800 million don't have access to clean water. Several millions die each year from diseases related to unsanitary water.
I don't understand why we can't unite and tackle those 3 instead of making it a battle between politics, environmentalism and self-righteousness (both sides).
If you believe or don't believe in AGW - tackling air pollution, food supply and the water crisis should be of utmost importance.
Honest question, does Antartica have any, what you would consider as, inhabitants? My understanding is that it is only scientists from a variety of countries that live there on temporary stints. However, if the ice melts in any considerable way, I wonder if (some very extreme) individuals might start looking at moving there?
It is a huge continent... if the ices melts, it's terrible in a way, but looking positivistically at the situation, there must be lots of potential.
I'm sure there are some treaties etc on Antarctica that limit exploitation? What if a bunch of people went down there with some guns and claimed some land, what would happen?
Antarctica does have exposed rock; it's not all just ice.
Not sure why you were downvoted. What we do with it is an interesting question. There is little harm in looking for ways to adapt to climate change if we don't succeed in stopping it.
If I actually want to use fresh water, Antarctica's ice is not available at all - at least not until we start towing icebergs to Saudi Arabia or something...
Unless you were planning to transport a giant iceberg with a boat, it doesn't matter that there is a lot of fresh water in Antarctica.
Water is very cheap, people need it. The important thing is to have available water near the people that is easy and cheap to process. So it's important to keep the big rivers as clean as possible, and use that water efficiently.
If tomorrow all the ice in Antarctica magically disappears, it would not change the problems of the people that need water to drink or cultivate plants.
(If the ice magically disappears, it will create other problems changing the climate patterns. If it just melt instead of truly disappearing, it will cause floods.)
Maybe I'm missing something, but what does that do for us? It's not like you or I are drinking antarctic water. For it to get to us, it has to melt into the salty ocean, evaporate, and then rain.
Antarctica exists basically in two separate ice sheets, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the first of which consists of 90% of the sheet.
The collapse of ice in Antarctica is basically limited to the tinier West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with the EAIS expected to make a more or less neutral balance (perhaps even slightly positive).
Plenty of countries have claimed overlapping areas of Antarctica. Currently an international treaty reserves Antarctica for mostly science and nature (no military, no mining) but the treaty isn't permanent.
The problem is that the best-case scenario for Antarctica is severely limited by the whole "daylight" problem. Being at the pole, it is dark a lot of the time, and even when it is light a lot of the time, the light is hitting it at sharp angle, making it both inconvenient and weaker.
At best you're probably talking, Antarctica becomes as livable as Alaska is now.
There has been industrial interesting at exploiting the mineral resources of Antarctica, so I wouldn't be surprises if there has been consideration at colonizing it as well, or if one of the justification for such enterprise would be to study harsh conditions for potential space colonies.
I haven't read through the paper in enough detail to see if the actual model used is mentioned, but I did see that they use CCSM forcings. You can see the relevant CESM models here: http://www2.cesm.ucar.edu/models. They provide links to the various components as well as validated configurations for you to play with.
If you are specifically interested in ice sheet models you could look at these:
I'll believe it when I see it. We have at least 40% larger ice sheets now than in 2012, and more than in 2006 [1]. See also [2].
These models have been shown to be wildly inaccurate at empirical prediction [3], so I think we need to work harder and exercise more scientific skepticism before creating alarmist headlines in the mainstream media.
That's interesting because you're link [2] is the same source used in my link [2]. There's less ice in the arctic, more in the antarctic from what I can tell. The latter is a pretty big contradictory data point in the typical mainstream climate change narrative, particularly the one peddled by the likes of Al Gore et al.
Here's what I think. People are being overly alarmist and it's driving policy. Nature goes it cycles, on the order of maybe hundreds or thousands (or more) years. It's been way colder in the past than it is now, and it's also been way warmer in the past than it is now. We should reduce CO2 emissions insofar as it affects the health of people, such as smog in China.
But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
It's cool that you're really into being skeptical and evaluating evidence and stuff, but have you considered that you aren't putting enough thought into what "definitive proof" is? There's no a priori definition of definitive proof, only what satisfies the inquirer. Why aren't you skeptical of your standards when they fly in the face of consensus amongst thousands of professional scientists?
I personally tend to think the majority of scientists are probably right when they say global warming is happening.
At the same time, I think changing our own standards of proof based on what sways "the majority of experts" is dangerous. There are lots of examples of "the majority of experts" being wrong. For some examples, see the roughly every 200 year cycle that repeats (my observation while reading the book) in The History of Mathematical Thought I-III by Kline.
Scientists perform peer review to make sure their standards are well calibrated. If you're not relying on scientists and their work, then where do your standards of proof come from?
There are plenty of cases in biology recently where results published in respectable peer-reviewed journals have not held up. As I said, generally I believe the consensus opinion of the experts, but I also think it's occasionally reasonable not to do so automatically.
I think this is the misunderstanding: I did not say to adopt the majority opinion. I said to consider the majority opinion being different as evidence that one's methodology needs to be reexamined.
People who call themselves skeptics and disagree with mainstream scientific consensus hardly ever consider the issue. How are so many thousands of scientists so incompetent at evaluating their own data, but me, the armchair reviewer, knows what's up?
This is a challenging viewpoint. It could theoretically be correct, but what if it wasn't? What if there truly is an imminent threat to the stability of our civilization, and we are still debating its existence when we should be acting?
This is where examining the evidence and arguments is important. If this whole thing were a conspiracy propping up unnecessary research, then the arguments would be weak and the evidence would be inconclusive. Unfortunately for humanity, this is not the case.
Globally, sea ice is declining, and has been for a while: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=85246 (That's pulled from the end of the blog post I linked elsewhere.) Quoting directly from what I just linked:
Claire Parkinson (http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/bio/claire.l.parkinson) has been studying polar sea ice for about four decades. She has been speaking to public audiences for nearly as long. And it was those public audiences who provoked one of the NASA climatologist’s latest research projects.
“When I give public lectures or talk with people interested in the topic of polar ice, somebody will often say something like: ‘Well, the ice is decreasing in the Arctic but it’s increasing in the Antarctic, so don’t they cancel out?’” said Parkinson. “The answer is no, they don’t cancel out.”
> Here's what I think. People are being overly alarmist and it's driving policy. Nature goes it cycles, on the order of maybe hundreds or thousands (or more) years. It's been way colder in the past than it is now, and it's also been way warmer in the past than it is now. We should reduce CO2 emissions insofar as it affects the health of people, such as smog in China.
But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
These, by the way, are a common defenses used by skeptics: this might be a cycle and not understanding what is meant by global warming. The preferred term is climate change. Yes, it has been colder in the past, and yes, it still snows. What has changed is the pattern of cold weather. Here's a relevant XCKD: https://xkcd.com/1321/. Essentially, it get cold, but it's doesn't stay cold. Also, the patterns of storms have changed. We've always had blizzards and tropical storms, but the intensity of these storms has ramped up.
The claim of a cyclical nature is questionable considering the data highly suggests a correlation between rising CO2 levels and the global temperature. The point that is missing out is that this is referring to the global average warmth, and our weather systems are VERY sensitive to this. Even a small change, like 2 to 4 degrees will have devastating effects.
> Here's what I think. ... Nature goes it cycles, on the order of maybe hundreds or thousands (or more) years. It's been way colder in the past than it is now, and it's also been way warmer in the past than it is now
People think all sorts of interesting and plausible thoughts and hypotheses; that doesn't make them correct. People once thought the Sun revolved around the Earth, which seems plausible when you look outside. How do we distinguish between true and false hypotheses? Science!
The hypothesis you describe is interesting but not a new one. It has been carefully considered and ruled out by almost all scientists involved - based not on an idea in someone's mind but on extensive evidence, it's almost certain that global warming is caused by humans. A good place to read about the evidence would be the IPCC[1]; their summary reports are succinct, and written clearly for non-scientists.
We'll never be absolutely certain, but we'll never be absolutely certain of anything and would never take any action if we waited to meet that standard. What will you say to the millions who die, starve, lose their homes and wealth: 'I didn't know?' We could not have more or clearer warnings. I feel we have a great responsbility and need to act immediately or blood will be on our hands, just like the people who refused to act in the face of catastrophes in the past.
> Nature goes it cycles, on the order of maybe hundreds or thousands (or more) years. It's been way colder in the past than it is now, and it's also been way warmer in the past than it is now.
I'm pretty sure that climatologists are acutely aware of the nature of the climate.
> But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
According to the IPCC AR 5 (which I'm sure a well-informed skeptic such as yourself have perused), there is a 95-100% probability that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are responsible for at least half of the warming observed from 1950-2010. Are you not satisfied with this certainty level?
I think it's a lot easier to accept man-made global warming when you realize how significant humans are on a global scale.
There's two numbers that blow my mind every time I think about them.
The first is the energy produced by the radioactive decay at the fiery core of the Earth: 45 terawatts. That power is enough to move the continents around the globe.
The second is the energy produced by human industry -- all of our coal plants, oil burned, nuclear power, solar & wind, the whole 9 yards: 16 terawatts. That's 1/3 the power generated by the entire rest of the Earth, down to the core, and it's growing: if it grows at the same rate as it has historically, in 25 or 30 years we'll surpass the core entirely.
Humans aren't just insignificant specks on the surface of the Earth, we're major players, comparable to its fiery core. Knowing that, is it so surprising we can affect the climate significantly?
Well, I don't know why people are down voting in particular.
But exercising "scientific" skepticism would involve citing real (i.e. primary) sources, not blog posts that don't seem to be able to cite properly either. Otherwise it's just skepticism.
Here are some papers, from climate scientists, acknowledging that models need to be re-evaluated since they've tracked poorly with climate change over the past decade.[1][2]
Certainly not from the insanely warm, practically snowless winter we've had in the northeast US.
Everybody's perfectly happy to believe the climate scientists when they say "That's mainly due to El Nino this year."
Then the next day the same scientists say "CO2 emissions are affecting the climate" and we're back to "What global warming? If I can't see something it doesn't exist."
Honest question. If 99% of scientists and astronomers said a giant asteroid were headed to earth, and within 10 years, all life on the planet would be destroyed. Would you believe it?
Not as a certainty, no. Given that kind of time frame and a very far object, neither our measurements, nor our calculations could possibly be precise enough to know anything other than a probability of an earth impact.
Unless we are talking about a big object hanging out nearby, slowly getting closer, in which case I have plenty of non-scientist acquaintances who will be pointing telescopes at it and verifying.
For something as (relatively) easy to predict as asteroid trajectories, I would be very curious why the 1% disagree, or whether it really is 99% given that exact phrasing with no qualifications. It invites scrutiny, but also invites not being certain either way (though I would err on the side of that large a majority even if I'm not certain). I posted this quote by Bertrand Russell almost a month ago, it's worth a repost: "(1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment."
It's a good quote, but it is based on the premise that all the experts are equally qualified and have no conflict of interest. I am not convinced that is the case, which means we all have to find our own way. Hence all the discussion, I guess :)
I thought of disputing the "scientists and astronomers" bit in the parent (what do botanists generally know of orbital dynamics that make them any more qualified to comment than anyone else who took a few physics courses in high school / college?), it should really be restricted to domain-relevant experts which would then make it easier to take the claim that they're all more or less equally qualified. You're right there are lots of incentives in play that don't always make finding the truth the best course of action for either an expert or a so-called expert. As a layman on the subject I don't have much to contribute on the topic and would rather study other things. Though when I see the occasional chart (as the paper you linked above has) and notice that, while not "wildly incorrect", predictions have generally been "incorrect" over the last 15 years, or when I notice a shift or new emphasis in narrative, I end up feeling justified in my suspicions on the epistemic virtues (let alone the actual claims argued for being true or false) of the relevant experts. It's like, seeing all the issues with replication and so on in Psychology, how can you not help but feel like the entire field would be better off starting from scratch with rigorous methods?
Is it really 10 years? Within our lifetimes? Within 50 years?
I really wish someone would nail down a definitive timeline to when someone should really worry about climate change.
I mean ordering the world's problems big to small, I'd say unemployment, income inequality, and stagnant economic growth are more important things to worry about.
In your own lifetime it does make more sense to worry about those short term things - in comparison to climate change, the inequity / unemployment / economy change very quickly. If you have children or are worried about the survival of our species, then climate change is a far more important problem.
> please explain why I shouldn't exercise scientific skepticism
Linking to blog posts is not "exercising scientific scepticism". It's a fucking biased blog post that's just another echo in your echo chamber. Here, let me try:
Obama is a space lizard[1][2][3]
Edit: To all the downvoters, please explain why I shouldn't exercise scientific scepticism relating to how the mainstream discusses the presidents reptilian status?
FYI the doctor is a "young-earth creationist" who has a PHD in an unrelated subject. Here's him arguing about how evolution is rubbish[1], perhaps we should listen to him because he's a doctor don't you know?
The other two sources are essentially reblogs from patently biased websites with an agenda to push, one by a neo-conservative (wow unexpected) and the other unnamed.
If you'd spend a little time critically thinking about your sources rather than using them to confirm some bias of yours you'd have already discounted them as trash.
Yes, different underlying religious and political views than mine of the author make what they're saying invalid. Gosh, I wonder what would happen if the authors of Nature papers had to reveal their political affiliations on every article they published. Can I discount someone's argument just because they support the Green party?
I don't agree with creationism in any form, but that doesn't mean that someone who does is wrong when they quote Al Gore, post a picture of a graph, or try exercising critical thinking about a topic.
Yes, different underlying religious and political views than mine of the author make what they're saying invalid.
Not by itself, but combine those views with the fact that the source used from the blog post is the Daily Mail, I'm comfortable ignoring the rest of the content.
> Yes, different underlying religious and political views than mine of the author make what they're saying invalid
No, him saying the Earth is between 5,700 and 10,000 years old makes what he's say invalid. Him saying evolution is rubbish and believing word for word an ancient religious text condoning all kinds of crazy stuff makes what he says invalid.
If you actually stop for a second and start critically thinking rather than just repeating it in sentences as if it's some kind of defence it's fairly obvious that your source doesn't pass any kind of litmus test for scientific credibility. I judge some of his views on par with thinking Obama is a space lizard, but you appear to be saying "hey let's conveniently ignore all that other crazy stuff he says because his views match mine and CRITICAL THINKING".
Practice what you preach.
Edit: fuck me sideways he sources the Daily Mail, what a train wreck. Are you kidding me? This is too perfect, you can't actually believe this guys anything other than just another crazy fundamentalist can you? Take a hard long look at what you read please, if you want to post that crap somewhere I would suggest sending it to your fellow "critical thinkers" and not HN.
Steven Novella, a scientific skeptic (http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-arctic-sea-...), summarizes it well: Arctic sea ice is undeniably decreasing over the last 36 years. The long term trend is clear. Those who want to deny this trend, however, focus on short term data because you can cherry pick any conclusion you wish.
It's pretty stable during the industrial revolution, when CO2 production really was kicked up a notch. Also, the rate of sea level rises rose at a much faster rate say 10,000 years ago than they're rising right now.
What I'm trying to say is that I think these temperature trends are more macro on the order of thousands of years, and probably mostly out of our control. I think what we're seeing now with contemporary research - 10 years ago, or 40 years ago - is mostly noise.
Chart 1: take a look at the scale, it says "millions of years." The predicted sea level changes would be fine and easy to deal with if they were projected to happen in a million years, not in a few decades.
Chart 2: again, the scale, it's thousands of years. A thousand years literally take up 20 pixels in that chart, so the beginning of the industrial revolution was about 5 pixels from the right. It's literally smaller than the dots used to mark the data points. Also, CO2 and greenhouse gasses released due to human activity are higher now than they have ever been in history: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Global_C... (this whole chart fits inside the last dot on your second chart.)
Did you notice that there is more signs every year, that we are heading to catastrophe but we try not to think about it and feel like everything will be ok anyway - who cares? It's better to read what's up with Kardashians instead of facing the reality. Reality in this case means changing the way we live, dramatically, because there is no other way to stop what's coming. Politicians will not do this because it means economical decline, unemployment etc.
On last conference in Paris NOTHING was done. All agreed that everyone will do what they "can" to work against global warming, which means every country in the world can say "we are doing what we can" while doing almost nothing.
Did you ever notice the conflict of interest in which government funded scientists predict disaster, requiring more research to be funded? Oh and did you ever notice how all of the solutions proposed give the government more control over the economy?
As opposed to the conflict of interest where the people who make money from the status quo, and the scientists on their payroll, say there is no problem?
I understand the scepticism, but if there is a problem with the status quo, that is the only way to find out about it. The people making money off selling oil aren't going to volunteer to shut down.
There's other ways. Let people put their money where their mouth is. If AGW is a real problem, then we ought to see certain insurance become expensive or coastal land value decreasing. People could even trade climate derivatives that start paying once temperature rises above a cap or something like that.
If you look at the time scales we are looking at, it becomes more understandable.
For example, this article that describes the runaway rising of sea level predicts that "Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500."
We are dead by 2100 when the sea level is up one meter. It's the future generations who suffer.
I'm holding on to some optimism re: Paris summit. It's too early to say that nothing was done, as we haven't hit the first checkpoint. In the U.S., the most troubling thing to happen since Paris is the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily block Obama's clean power plan. Given the vacancy on the court, it's unclear how this will play out once the case makes its way up.
In terms of the 'we don't seem to think about it' – it's behavioral economics 101. We're very optimistic about our futures, and very obsessed with the present. It's why people need to be opted-in to 401k plans. We imagine 'tomorrow' to be this wonderful place where everything will get done and work out ok.
Reduce or eliminate your consumption of animal products. I think this is the easiest and most impactful step any individual can take. It doesn't rely on politicians or corporations. You just need some temporary will power to learn and change a few habits.
When I needed a new car a few years ago, I passed on my 'dream car' for a more basic car because the flashy car took 50% more fuel.
But in the end, that's small fries. I should be taking the bus to work if I really wanted to reduce my travel carbon footprint.
My house probably produces way more CO2 than my car. Heating/cooling (use a programmable thermostat, wear warm clothes indoors in winter). Lights (I've mostly switched to CFL.. no LEDs yet, until the CFLs start dying). Laundry (use cold water.. new detergents work better in cold water anyway). Water heating (you'll never take my long hot showers from me!!).
Do not reproduce, encourage others to not reproduce. The 100% most effective way to reduce the human effect on the planet is to reduce the number of humans on the planet.
But of course if you follow that philosophy that probably just means you lose the evolutionary lottery and someone else will have plenty of children to take your kids' place.
Yes, and heat stroke can give you chills. If we just keep giving the pendulum a boost, eventually the difference between extremes will become untenable.
> “The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent,” Parkinson said.
> Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km).
---
The sea level is currently rising at about 3mm/yr (~1.2in/decade). The sea level is about 8 inches higher now than in 1870, and the rate of rising is increasing (+0.016mm/yr^2).
So, if that Boston map is correct, then MIT, Boston University, and chunks of Harvard will all be toast by the time my youngest is the age of her great-grandfater. Crazy.
CO2 is not a pollutant. Without it, plants, and thus animal life will die. In fact plant death nearly occurred recently on a geological timescale. More co2 = more life. There is no such thing as stasis wrt global climate, and I'm glad the climate does not appear to be moving in the direction of an ice age in the near term, although it looks as though in the long term this is inevitable.
OMG co2 is not harmful it is plant food. If there is more of it more plants grow. The earth has had insanely higher amounts of co2 in the atmosphere than are present today in which periods life thrived even more so than today.
It's the level that we are interested in. Everything is a poison, what matters is the dose. It is good for plants, but it is also a greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot more CO2 than Earth, and a lot less life.
Water is also essential for life, still you can drown. Yes, we had higher levels of CO2 in geological times of the earths past. The problem is, we are changing the CO2 content at a rate where ecological systems might not be able to cope with it. Also, even if the ecological systems do not collapse, just flooding of the inhabited costal regions would create enough human suffering to justify strong countermeasures against raising CO2.
interesting that you bring in human suffering. Have you thought about all the lives saved and brought into existence due to the burning of fossil fuels? I'm not much of a utilitarian, but gradual sea rise is nothing compared to the degree of poverty inflicted and number of people that would never be born if fossil fuel use were forcibly reduced. And no solar can't replace it, nor wind. The only contender is nuclear.
There is no doubt that modern civilization was only possible due to fossil fuels. But that says nothing about how long we should continue to use them. Actually its just in the last very few years that alternative energies are competitive. This is really a development which happened in the last 20 years. And solar and wind can replace fossil fuels. In 2015, 30% of the German electricity was produced by regenerative energies, up about 5% from 2014. So in the next few years, it will be the largest part of energy production. We don't have to go to 0% CO2 emissions, having 10-20% gas power plants for filling gaps is absolutely acceptable, as long as the rest is CO2-free.
Do note that the sea ice extent has little to do with what the ice sheets are doing. From what I last heard (my information might be out of date), the slight increase in sea ice extent in the south pole could be due to changes in winds or ocean currents in the southern ocean.
Note that you will need to select "Southern Hemisphere" at this link in order to see the Antarctic ice measurements. By default you are seeing something else.
If excess energy consumption is a 'vice', we would be following Malthus's prediction of a vice-based catastrophe before a food based 'Malthusian' catastrophe:
"The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world."
Just like yeast die of alcohol (pollution) poisoning during fermentation before their food source is anywhere near depleted, we might have plenty of food but not do so hot. If yeast could only slow their reproduction they might last for a darn good while in the brew...but luckily they destroy themselves! Otherwise beer would be too slow, and that's unacceptable.
As long as politicians remain cheap to purchase, there will never be a solution without catastrophe and maybe not even then.
We need a well-funded super pac to more than offset the super pacs of the fossil fuel industry. A big stick that can go after every congress person, senator and governor relentlessly.
I'm dumb when it comes to science. But if the worst case scenario happens, couldn't we build facilities to 'dispose' of the melted ice in any way, instead of letting the sea level rise?
That's a really good question. Maybe we could pump it to a colder area of Antarctica? Or pump a corresponding amount of ocean water to a cold area of Antarctica.
Based on the down votes I have to assume some people think you can move a warm body mass to a colder region and that will have no effect on the temperature of that colder region.
Where does all the energy go if it does not go into raising the temperature?
The Gulf Stream does exactly what is suggestion, moving massive amounts of warm water north and it's effect on winter temperatures in Western Europe is massive.
I read an article about this a few weeks ago. Basically it's not possible because of the amount of energy required to pump the water. It's a HUUUUGE amount of water. Sea levels are rising 3mm/year, which is ... hmm
Surface area of Earth = 510 million km^2 = 5.10e14 m^2.
But the hoover dam just drops the water, what, a few hundred meters? We'd need to transport the water many km from the oceans to the middle of the antarctic continent, and lift it a couple km, to the tops of the glacier. So it's way more than 15 hoover dams.
WAIS is 530,000 cubic miles of ice. This comes out to 2x10^18 kilograms of ice (assuming it's all at glacial ice density; in reality the upper few hundred meters are less dense) which will correspond to 2x10^18 liters of water to dispose of. This is 100 times the volume of lake Baikal or the Great Lakes (and only ten times smaller than the Arctic Ocean), if I did all my math right...
Possibly a better idea, but still stretching the limits of human engineering, would be to try to structurally reinforce the weakest points of Greenland/Antartica, e.g. Jakobshavn, Thwaites, etc. It's important to understand these aren't just homogenous sheets of ice, due to geology/ocean currents/etc there's specific weak points that are collapsing far more rapidly, and as they do it will be like popping the cork off a bottle. If we could find a way to buttress the corks, it could help slow the melt-out.
That said, any time you consider any geoengineering idea, you have to make the argument that the $1 trillion or whatever you'd spend on solar radiation management or ice shelf preservation or whatever, would not be money better spent on just transitioning away from fossil fuel use.
I fear an Armageddon. We are changing the climate faster than we understand what's happening, and we're starting to get weirder and weirder weather patterns. We're threatening our food supply.
We've destroyed most of the ocean's fish, and we're heavily dependent on livestock and crops for food. If we disrupt the weather too much, we're not going to be able to make food. People are going to starve, and not by the millions but by the hundreds of millions. Certainly enough strife to cause war between the countries that are actually trying to do something and the countries that are continuing to ramp their CO2 output.
We don't know when we cross the line from 'severe' to 'dire', but we've got enough destructive technology that if it becomes a global problem, we may end up blowing ourselves up trying to resolve the conflict.
I was recently in Africa, and I was shown the rate at which the country (Cote d'Iviore) was growing. Families with as many as 10 kids. But all I could see was deforestation. Miles and miles of deforestation, something like 30 minutes of driving through an urban area that had all been vegetation in 2011.
This season's weather was weird, and it has made me very afraid of what's coming in the next 5 years. We're destroying our planet's methods of regulation, and at the same time we are increasing the rate at which we're introducing adversarial agents. It's going to be a disaster, because everyone reading this critically knows that the people in power aren't going to do anything about it until people in their own country are dying by the millions as a result.
If you care about surviving the next 20 years, this should be your biggest concern. We depend on a stable climate. Without that, we will not have food. Be afraid.
If you were shocked to see 1 million crossing into Europe in 2015, imagine what it will be like in the near future when tens of millions face drought & famine.
The general problem is that most of the world lacks the scientific understanding to know how big & bad of a problem this may turn out to be.
Google & zuckerberg could just black out certain zip codes every so often. go to google.com & get a message about the impending doom & what the person can do about it.
To me, people should not be able to pick & choose technology. If you enjoy using a cell phone & sending email then you should accept what scientists are saying. No more doubting.
If software is eating the world, it should hurry up & start directing the herd.
> If you enjoy using a cell phone & sending email then you should accept what scientists are saying.
This is not a valid argument. The science that underlies the workings of your cell phone and email is more accurate by many orders of magnitude than climate science. "Science" is not all one thing, and climate science does not get to claim the same accuracy as, say, electrodynamics just because it has "science" in its name.
It sounds like you're advocating for totalitarianism. What scientists in what disciplines are the designated authorities? What does "no more doubting" or "you should accept what scientists are saying" even mean?
Suppose some scientists say "global warming is an imminent existential threat". Should I be forced to implement their policy proposals as well, or do I just have to nod my head in agreeance to their every decree? What is the threshold upon which scientists must be "accepted" (and presumably obeyed)? Who decides this?
I do not doubt that the climate is changing nor I doubt that humans play a large factor in that. Yet I cannot gather the will to be afraid. It is true that we haven't faced this challenge from a prevention standpoint, at least not beyond small mitigations, but when has humanity embraced prevention from the start? We usually leave that as a lesson for the second time...
Climate change will stress our civilization and we will deal with that stress, becoming more capable and sophisticated in the process. Well that, or we will die. But that has been the deal since the start. Lets stay awake people, there will be lots of adapting to do!
Assuming no major attempt to stop or reverse climate change happens until the major crises start (Im an American), huge swathes of infrastructure will be destroyed or rendered unusable. To say we've grown used to that infrastructure is a adorably naive understatement; like I'm sitting here eating a genetically engineered animal grown a thousand miles away that was only born so it could be killed, while arguing with hundreds of people simultaneously by mashing my finger into a sheet of sapphire and having light waves beamed into space and back. Modern human is so weird that we're essentially a different species compared to what we were/will be without the current global infrastructure. I'm afraid societies dont have or wont quickly be able to develop the knowledge needed to survive the new planet we're making.
Well certainly, but the difference is Europe was given loans from decidedly non-postapocalyptic America and they didnt have to worry about understanding an effectively different planet. Reconstruction post climate change isnt really analogous.
For some context about what impact this could have on major U.S. cities, the NYTimes published an interactive a few years back[1].
I guess if this new model is accurate, the scenarios on that link which are projected for 100-300 years out could instead happen in a few decades. This would result in major areas of Miami, New Orleans, NYC, and Sacramento all going underwater.
Right, totally not what one would expect. But based on the geography of California, it's very vulnerable if the water levels were to go up significantly. There would essentially be a second Bay cutting deeper into the state, only it would probably be a toxic mess a few feet deep with acres of asphalt and buildings barely submerged.
Central valley all used to be marshlands/lakes/extensions of the bay. The coastal regions of CA are hills. CA is basically a giant bowl (which flattens out towards the south).
It'll be underwater (literally and figuratively) 5 years after you buy it...
Also, changes in land values are far more likely to be driven by changes in employment patterns, transportation technology, and weather systems than by sea levels.
This is a good 'eli5' answer to the question posed.
What is an alternative hypothesis? The energy companies worked against renewable because it was Good For The Country? Because nothing expensive or hard is worth getting? Because economic ruin was definitely going to happen?
> "I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. I’m not a great believer. There is certainly a change in weather that goes – if you look, they had global cooling in the 1920s and now they have global warming, although now they don’t know if they have global warming. They call it all sorts of different things; now they’re using “extreme weather” I guess more than any other phrase."
This story is about ~1 metre sea level rise. Greenland's glaciers (if they were to entirely melt) provide ~8 metres, and Antarctica's would provide ~60 metres - so even if you built a wall to protect some / much of this area, you'd have to be planning either subsequent abandonment or a lot more construction work.
But this presupposes that it's feasible from an engineering or financial perspective -- I suspect that in any but a tiny number of cases that it would not be.
In turn it assumes that people would want to live behind a wall that is protecting them from probable death if it collapses, or is intentionally destroyed by the kinds of people who like to kill other people. And these walls would be quite an attractive target.
Would you want to live beneath sea-level if you had the option to live above sea-level?
Then there's groundwater issues (salinity is going to render such earth less habitable).
The other answers don't actually address your question. To some extent, yes, because adequately protecting large areas of exposed coast requires building and maintaining many miles of seawalls. This isn't impossible by any means, but economically it's not very feasible to protect, say, Miami from both rising sea levels and the intense hurricanes that are likely to result. It would be much cheaper to just relocate people inland as needed.
i.e. is there one catastrophic event where everything is immediately flooded? (Similar to Katrina).
Or is the area just slowly flooded over decades? In which case, no one does anything? (i.e. the Sacramento scenario is hard to fathom in this scenario)
I suppose it would be like Katrina (New Orleans) or Sandy (New York), which of course un-flooded after the storm, but each time it floods, with the base sea level being higher than last time, it gets progressively worse until you just give up spending the money to reclaim the land and protect it from the next storm.
Maybe look into whatever it is they do in the Netherlands. A very large fraction of the entire country is just barely above sea level (or even below it in places).
60% of the population is below sea level, even. It's true that only 25% of the land area is below sea level (and another 25% less than 1 meter above it), but that happens to be the most densely populated area.
For example, if the sea were to spill over onto all below-sea-level land, Amsterdam would be an island, some 15 km off the new coastline. The Port of Rotterdam would still be there (25km offshore), but the rest of the city would disappear.
I wonder how much the public perception of the danger of large-scale ice melt is influenced by a lay understanding of the way phase changes can happen extremely suddenly.
Probably not that much. What worries me is feedback loops like the melting permafrost, and collapse of the Amazon ecosystem. Or the loss of ice causing more sunlight to be absorbed. Or a sudden overflow of the ocean's ability to store energy (something that has been masking most of the warming so far). Things could run out of our control in a very short amount of time.
I was talking about this to a fellow physicist friend the other day. Natural system with equilibrium points don't evolve away from them smoothly. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect the climate to be any different.
Does anyone know if these climate models are open source, how they work etc? It seems this is an area where we as software engineers can start to have a think about how accurate these simulations are and possibly think about ways of improving them...
It is possible to access many parts of most of these models, however I think it's not as easy as you might imagine to just dive in and improve them. Often, an individual needs a background in a specific scientific field in addition to some software engineering capabilities. Sometimes this means you have mathematicians and physicist pursuing higher degrees in atmospheric science, in other cases an ecologist gains a masters in CS. I think you might be underestimating the programming and numerical chops of people who are involved in making the models run, not everyone is a great programmer, but they do exist within the broad field.
The overarching climate models also typically aren't individual monolithic models, but tend involve various multidisciplinary pieces spanning much of the physical sciences. Also, get ready to work in Fortran. I spent a summer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and met some people there whose work was mostly the uncertainty quantification of outside climate models. My understanding at the time was that the lab specifically does not produce their own model, but rather, acts as an impartial testing ground for the major efforts from other global institutions.
All of that aside, they do have plenty of problems, and people from the outside do come in and make improvements, it's just not necessarily easy to break into. If you wanted something more accessible to start thinking about, you could do worse than the edGCM from Columbia[1].
As someone with a small amount of background in software engineering (though it's not my primary job) I can say that they do think about these things and do have very experienced software developers working on these projects, but help is always appreciated!
Speaking to the accuracy of the simulations I do think that's more in the domain scientist's court though, since most of these things use pretty specialized numerical models and physical approximations.
Edit: I'd also like to say that I pretty much agree with everything cwal said.
The models are all numerical simulations. But even if you are skilled in numerical calculations you'd need a lot of energy to learn and understand the domain too.
Here's one university elementary-introduction-level course about that:
Unless China, USA and India start cutting emissions anything the smaller countries do to limit their emissions will likely dwarfed by the growth in these super polluter countries.
Yes, the EU will need to cut its emissions but it has a cap and trade system and political leaders are generally on board with the need to remake their economies without carbon. In addition, it is miles ahead of the US in terms of emissions. According to this article, in 2013, the EU had per capita emissions of 6.8 tons/person versus 16.5 for the US. Even more startling, it was lower than China, which weighed in at 7.2.
I don't think the problem is sovereignty. The problem is vested interests, wealth and greed.
I have no doubt that given the will, the problem of climate change is not an overly hard problem to fix. We humans have always been good at problem solving.
We just need those vested interest to get out of the way and let that happen.
Slightly more nuanced point: US emissions are actually down from their peak by quite a bit [1]. The problem is that developing countries like China are rapidly increasing their emissions to US per capita levels [2] while the rest of the world's emissions aren't dropping fast enough to compensate. At this point it's pretty inevitable that world CO2 levels are going to continue rising for many years.
The problem is that developing countries like China are rapidly increasing their emissions to US per capita levels
I've also read that many of China's emissions come from producing products for export, such that the U.S. may be shedding official omissions by shifting production to China, which allows the emissions to be counted there even though the final product ends up being used in the U.S.
That's not really how it works. Small countries can make massive differences by improving technology, updating best practices, and doing research that can help illuminate the path forward.
We desperately need a clearer picture of what the climate change timeline is going to look like, and how to approach each step, given immensely complicated cultural realities. People in smaller countries with good education systems are positioned perfectly to take a lead role in that.
It's going to be a lot worse than this. Time to get realistic about the fact that the balance of the natural environment has been broken, and it will definitely lead to a collapse of the global ecosystem in a couple years. This problem is not being caused by CO2 alone. That's only a tiny part of it. There will be massive tectonic activity. Global warming is only the first step. It's like when a human gets a fever. 1°C of global temp increase is a huge amount of heat but does not show terribly dangerous symptoms. But 2 - 3°C increase means massive upheaval and risk of brain death. To solve this problem, we need to be looking into gravity, not just radiative transfer/greenhouse gasses.
But perhaps a bigger problem than nobody knowing about the gravity problem is that at this stage, nobody wants to know, either. For that reason, nobody can prevent the coming period of change.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 408 ms ] threadAnd direct link to the paper: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v531/n7596/full/nature1...
And note, this is separate from the paper last week by James Hansen et al, which discussed the newly researched effects of new feedback loops in ice-melt-surface-waters shutting down ocean circulation (and also increased the amount of sea level rise in shorter time periods).
These are scary times.
The one with a weird weird constants IIRC?
In the relevant climate science, Hanson is just one of the thousand scientists from the whole world who all perform their own research and then report and agree on the summary findings internationally, you surely can't assert that all are "influenced" by just one person.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change surely isn't accepting "only his" claims. If nobody of thousands of the scientists would have similar findings, nobody would accept his work as serious:
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_structure.shtml
Hint: the work of denialists is exactly that: not serious, as most of them can't even make the basic assumptions right.
So what should you consider for a valid "body of research"? The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There's no better international organization of scientists who work on these topics.
See their procedures:
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtm...
Then see their last report, on the level you can probably understand, but with a lot of fine details:
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/
Specifically, start from the summary:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FIN...
Unless you read at least that, you won't even have an idea about the material for which you seem to believe you're against (even if you claim that "you're not a denialist.)" The report reflects the state of the art of that science.
Red herring, it's not about any person. It's about the scientific process.
This is for general audience which was exposed to the claims "it's just sun" or the variations:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-wor...
I agree that there are people who don't understand how science works (that is, they are effectively illiterate for basic scientific methods and facts), so I always try to explain them the basics of science first. Somebody who believes Earth existed for just 6000 years doesn't even know what science is all about, so you can't even expect him to plan more than until the imminent judgement day, oh happy day (sadly, there are actual influential US politicians who said such things).
I start explaining such person that without using the same scientific principles, the mobile phone they carry around wouldn't be possible (just for GPS, the satellites have to carry atomic clocks and the formulas that are used every time have to consider both special and general relativity). Science works.
Otherwise, how can you even talk about the fact that we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now (see the chart, max around 300, now we're already at 400 ppm).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period
And how we know? The same way we know how to make GPS. Science. And it's nothing US-based, there are other countries very capable of the best science. You know, countries able to send the probe to the comet.
Once somebody understands the basics, the start about climate should be learning about IPCC, the process and conclusions.
"Science" is not one thing. It works with very different accuracies and predictive powers in different disciplines. The science that makes your mobile phone and GPS work is nailed down by massive amounts of data and controlled experiments confirming theories to many decimal places. That's why those things work so well and so precisely.
Climate science is nowhere near that accurate--not by many orders of magnitude. So if you are telling people that they should believe climate science with the same confidence that they should believe the science that makes their mobile phone and GPS work, you are giving them serious misinformation.
> we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now
Yes. And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now.
What we don't know is how the climate works to a sufficient accuracy to bet trillions of dollars on particular predictions about what effect rising CO2 levels now are going to have.
The range is accurate enough to know the problems. We even know that the effects will have a very long time span, certainly longer than a few hundred years during which we've released so much CO2.
Those that demand "accuracy" expect to receive one line and not the range. Which less changes how much our children will suffer, and even less for children of our children, only more for us who are old enough to die before the bigger effects come.
"After me the floods" is immensely selfish to those that follow us.
> And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now.
To compare, that "much higher" state was before dinosaurs went extinct and the modern mammals started to develop!
The fossil fuels now burned needed exactly these hundreds of millions of years to form. The immense part of that is already now burnt in just around hundred years. Note the difference in magnitudes.
And comparing the change of the CO2 concentrations with the known temperature variation, we can expect even much worse changes than very conservative(!) IPCC predictions:
http://robertscribbler.com/2014/04/11/world-co2-averages-tou...
I disagree. The model predictions don't match the actual data.
> We even know that the effects will have a very long time span
No, we have models that say that, but the model predictions don't match the actual data.
> that "much higher" state was before dinosaurs went extinct and the modern mammals started to develop!
CO2 was much higher then, yes. But it was also much higher during a good part of the Cenozoic.
> The fossil fuels now burned needed exactly these hundreds of millions of years to form.
No, they didn't. They formed during the Carboniferous period, a small part of the total time period during which CO2 was much higher than it is now. Also, CO2 was much higher than it is now for a long time after the Carboniferous, when the fossil fuels had already formed.
> comparing the change of the CO2 concentrations with the known temperature variation, we can expect even much worse changes than very conservative(!) IPCC predictions
Only if you assume, incorrectly, that CO2 changes caused the temperature changes during the ice ages and interglacials. But the CO2 changes during the ice ages and interglacials happened after the temperature changes.
Source for that?
http://www.climate2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pd...
A discussion of the key admissions (and how the IPCC tried to obfuscate them), including specific references to the AR5 SPM, is here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/09/the-ipcc-discards-its-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Brill
"New Zealand politician and a lawyer." "He was also involved with the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust, a charitable organisation that, according to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), appears to have been set up solely to take court action against them. The trust lost two court cases against NIWA and on both occasions, was ordered to pay costs. NIWA has put the trust into liquidation and as of 2014 was considering to pursue Brill and another trustee for the owed money.[7]"
His claims are, of course, a distortion of what really happened, and are based on what he and those like him call the "hiatus." Which is also misinterpretation of the curve of the temperature change, and which those especially liked before the last two years that broke most of the records.
I see only the agenda there, and again, scientific illiteracy.
The link I gave gives specific quotes and references from the IPCC AR5. It doesn't talk about Barry Brill or his claims at all, nor did I.
I will suppose that you don't have anything
A post which gives specific quotes and references from the IPCC AR5. Whatever you might think of WUWT in general, this particular post is talking about what the IPCC itself is saying.
I could just as well say that a site like RealClimate is "a known alarmist site that has lied a lot of times". At that point we're just pointing fingers and arguing from authority, not substance. That's why I picked an article that specifically quotes and references the IPCC AR5 itself, rather than one of the hundreds of critical papers and articles that have been published by skeptics on the mismatch between the models and the data.
> At that point we're just pointing fingers and arguing from authority,
No, WUWT has no authority because nobody on this site is a climate scientist
> That's why I picked an article that specifically quotes and references the IPCC AR5 itself
No, you quoted an article where someone interpreted what the IPCC said. You didn't quoted anything from the IPCC. And that was your claim
> rather than one of the hundreds of critical papers and articles that have been published by skeptics on the mismatch between the models and the data.
Still waiting one of those articles from climate scientists
But I will wait a lot, you're just another denier that has nothing to back what you write
In other words, you would rather argue from authority than look at the actual substance. Thank you for making your position clear.
> You didn't quoted anything from the IPCC
The article I linked to had direct quotes from the IPCC AR5.
> Still waiting one of those articles from climate scientists
Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, to name just two, are climate scientists and have written skeptical papers. But there's nothing magical about the label "climate scientist" that makes what they say correct. You have to look at the actual substance. But you've already indicated you don't want to do that, so I guess we'll just have to disagree.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/03/06/denial-hire-richard-lin...
https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Roy_Spencer.htm
You can have any religion you want but don't expect to be considered of any scientific significance (except as the example of a deluded mind) if your claims don't match the reality.
As you've said: "You have to look at the actual substance."
I know one older guy who I really respect, and with nice scientific background, whose political beliefs would make him agreeing with the "deniers." He started to blog how global warming is a lie etc. I've just sent him the links to really look at the data, the scientific work and to check himself. He never wrote or said anything against global warming again. You seem to have more scientific background than a lawyer, maybe you should honestly check the figures, facts and formulas just once...
I can't find any source for the data underlying the graph in your first link comparing Hansen to Lindzen regarding temperature predictions. The skeptical science article it is attributed to has a link to a 1988 Hansen paper that is broken ("not found"), and a link to a 1989 MIT Tech Talk article quoting Lindzen that has no graph at all and does not make any temperature prediction. So as far as I can tell, the supposed comparison in that graph has no factual basis.
Your second link shows multiple comparisons between statements Spencer has made and the "mainstream" IPCC position on climate science; the differences between them would be more accurately described as differences in opinion on how to interpret the data and how to make predictions, not as showing that Spencer is "provably scientifically wrong".
> As you've said: "You have to look at the actual substance."
Yes, I did. See above.
> maybe you should honestly check the figures, facts and formulas just once...
I have been, for quite some time now. As I said, we're just going to have to disagree.
No, you're not disagreeing, you're just posting lies and bullshit, in fact, you're just trolling
And, by the way, looking at the people that really knows what they talk is not arguing from authority.
And yes, you have made clear that you don't want to learn the real science.
Why do you think they really know what they are talking about? Because they say so? Because they are "climate scientists" and have the "proper" credentials? That is arguing from authority.
In both cases, you're just a waste of time, believe what you want and let adults deal with reality
It is funny that the only ones that are against reality are the conservative Americans like you. The rest of the world doesn't deny reality.
The concentration of 500 ppm now would make all ice on Earth disappear, whereas 400 million years ago there would be needed 3000 ppm (note three thousand, ten times more than it was before we stat high-rate burning) to achieve the same, as, among other effects, the solar constant was 4% lower then:
http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf
Now consider this: during the last 800,000 years CO2 concentration oscillated between 200 and 300 ppm. The humanity pushed it to 400 ppm in around 100 years, and the 500 ppm is the point of no ice on the Earth.
None of this addresses the actual issues I was raising.
> The concentration of 500 ppm now would make all ice on Earth disappear
According to the hypothesis given in the paper you link to. But it's a hypothesis, not a fact. One obvious omission in the paper is treatment of other forcings besides CO2 and solar. Also, all of the data is proxy data, and the solar forcing is not even based on data but on an assumed linear rate of increase in the solar constant.
Just when somebody closes the eyes and screams at the same time "I don't see anything." It was exactly on the subject: when you claim that millions of years ago the concentration was higher, we even know that the state of the Earth wasn't comparable. Not to mention that humans didn't exist.
Edit: still ain't completely sold. Anyone has pointers to why there was significantly less ice around Greenland about a 1000 years ago or can prove that this is wrong?
That what you name "significantly" was during the change of the parts of degrees C:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Compare to IPPC estimates: two whole degrees change are the most optimistic expectations and assume almost no use of fossil fuels in future, compared to now.
> Finally someone gave me a link and some pointers
See my other comment here, I also give the link to the raw data and the programs of the models too. And the books that teach the basic formulas involved. It is all real, and the effective consensus of the scientists is not accidental. There's immense scientific work on one side, almost no scientific work on another, and people have the impression that it's 50:50 only because the other side gets so much "air time."
See also how that other side is really the one which effectively lives from being there:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-c...
Now that I have hopefully established myself as an uninformed but intelligent sceptic, not denier, here are two pointers as to why the explanation kind of worked this time:
* links to the actual report, and the intro part. Most people, even in technical forums, assumes malice right away, starts telling me how "2500 scientists can't be wrong" and that I should read the report, all while leaving me with a not-so-subtle feeling that they never read it themselves.
* actually, to a degree at least, answer my question about Greenland instead of immediately assuming malice and bringing out the troll hunting gear. This is, IIRC, the first time I have seen a serious answer that partly covers that question.
On my side I might read a bit more in the report, note one AGW person who isn't all torch and pitchforks and possibly change my mind. (I already live kind of carefully but because I don't like wasting resources, not because I have believed in AGW so far.)
Please also read the main points from "America's Climate Choices" by the US The National Academy of Sciences (1):
http://dels.nas.edu/Report/America-Climate-Choices/12781
That's the US scientific consensus:
"Each report is produced by a committee of experts selected by the Academy to address a particular statement of task and is subject to a rigorous, independent peer review; while the reports represent views of the committee, they also are endorsed by the Academy."
------
1) chartered by the US Congress in 1863 at the request of President Lincoln
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-basi...
The worst case is they where wrong and we improved the planet for nothing...oh no.
The other problem is that "makes no difference at all" is a good outcome. A bad outcome is that we reduce carbon usage drastically, which reduces economic output drastically, which causes many deaths. (This is not hyperbole. Take China, for instance. They're polluting like crazy, but even with all the pollution, people are better off. They're moving to the cities to get out of rural poverty. That poverty shortens life spans more than the pollution does.)
I only hope that whatever event(s) trigger this policy change are somewhat reversible. Earth is, ironically, going to be the first testbed for terraforming technology.
-- Upton Sinclair
I'm not saying "global warming causes all the hurricanes", I'm saying "humans messing with the atmosphere has increased the variance and severity of our weather". If you don't agree with that, you're in willful denial.
Anyways, thanks for recognizing that my comment was great. I'll take what I can get.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/gw_hurricanes/fig33.jpg
Can you explain why 1850 looks comparable or worse than the 1990s and worse than 2010s so far? I don't see what this proves.
The inputs for "man's impact" in the 1850s would not come close to modern day. If we took that into account, by your logic, the bar charts should explode out the top! But it doesn't. Not even close.
1850 - 1.2B people 2010s - ~7B people and a lot more pollution
From your linked data, the impact of AGW on hurricanes over the last year = 0
Edit: I think you may agree with me that it doesn't point to more extreme weather events. If so - my comment is directed at the parent.
You should know that's a somewhat dated view. The scientific consensus is now much less certain about the link. See e.g. [1, p.7].
[1] http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FI...
That's exactly how you wrote it.
>Like Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy? Or the streets of Miami flooding?
It's a great example of what the problem is. If you aspire to being a great negative example, I guess that's your prerogative.
We can hide behind per-capita stats but the global CO2 level and climate does not care about per capita.
Meanwhile, the US is far too entrenched with ideology and vested interests that have captured the political machinery.
Kind of sad that we're in this state, but people keep voting Republican...
But really technology is going to drive this change, as long as the entrenched interests don't prevent the use of renewables that are cheaper than fossil fuels.
Already ideally sited solar and wind are cheaper than coal, and learning curves are pushing that down all the time.
Storage is also getting incredibly cheap, with lithium ion batteries it's around $0.08/kWh right now at the wholesale level.
What we're really going to need is efficient carbon capture schemes though, because the feet-draggers have cost us an extremely valuable 15 years. If we can do capture at something less than $500/ton then I'm starting to feel a bit optimistic that we can head off the worst of it.
But every. Single. Ton. That we emit right now is going to cost out children several times that amount. Improving efficiency of use and increasing the scale and efficiency of the renewable energy manufacturing is a massively important economic development for the US and the world.
Your pricing information on renewables is out of date, and quickly becoming more out of date.
The renewable industry is changing fast, traditional energy industry changes slow. Those dinosaurs won't know what's hit them until it's too late.
The reality is that we must put an human mandated limit on the amount of carbon fuels to burn.
Think of it another way: If burning carbon fuels causes major instability in the climate, then the fate of the human race should not be determined by the amount of carbon in the ground. It should be determined by humans being determined.
Of course if we were to price in the negative externalities, I think that renewables would already be cheaper. But this is one case where ideology has prevented us from setting up an efficient market for energy.
https://www3.epa.gov/captrade/documents/ctresults.pdf
"A 2003 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) study found that the Acid Rain Program accounted for the largest quantified human health benefits of any major federal regulatory program implemented in the last 10 years, with benefits exceeding costs by more than 40:1."
https://archive.epa.gov/clearskies/web/html/captrade.html
[0] IMF, How Large Are Global Energy Subsidies, 2015, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0
So just to be clear: The $5.3 trillion is arrived at by counting untaxed environmental harm as a subsidy. Which I think it is interesting to consider the damage, but I don't think that is what people are going to think when they think energy subsidy.
But I do think post-tax subsidies is a fair metric, for example, in places where there's state health care, my tax is being spent to care for people whose health has been affected by fossil fuels. So it seems like state subsidised to me.
I suppose if the scientists were in charge, we'd finally stop burning fossil fuels? That we'd force massive changes to resource distribution and reshape society in order to save the world?
And if you don't agree, you're too dangerous, right? Off ot the gulags?
Do you understand that millions and millions of people would die of starvation?
It's amazing how eagerly people advocate for the right kind of totalitarianism.
Plenty of multi-party democracies have parties that somehow manage to agree on whether anthropogenic climate change exists and whether dinosaurs were real. America just isn't one of them.
We don't need a single party state, we need parties that aren't embarrassingly out of touch with how the world works. When your presidential candidates take pride in not believing things despite overwhelming evidence, you have a problem.
the way that parties change is that people stop voting for them. Any vote for such a stridently anti-science and anti-future party encourages them.
That said, this is my most important issue. Others will rank other issues higher, and vote on that basis. But it will be at least a decade after the Republican Party apologizes and corrects their science mistakes that I will trust them to vote for them.
Our society questions nothing. If we find it on the internet - it's true. Very few want to be a contrarian or go against what's popular at any given time for fear of others shaming them in mob-groups for having a different viewpoint.
We've entrusted too much credibility in people with science degrees and their models. I've done some interesting things with machine learning. It's extremely easy to develop predictive models that confirm what you want to confirm. That was probably the first thing I learned and if you aren't humble - you'll use a model as a crutch and be proved a fool.
Some of the greatest minds in history have been proven wrong. Science is not a democracy.
Our country isn't either but people forget that. They think 50+1 should dictate everything. Me-first.
If only they understood the other side - they could unite. But they haven't advanced beyond their tribalism and self-righteousness.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/a-fresh-look-at...
Now, India, there I'm a bit worried....
This could be primarily because of the economic slowdown, but I've read other articles that report the change is more systemic and permanent as China seeks to lead in clean energy tech.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/30/china-car...
Every single Republican candidate for president was openly mocking Obama when he was in Paris a few months ago for the climate talks. They're an absolute embarrassment:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/republicans-obama-clim...
Is it more than 150,000 people [1]? Because that's how many people the WHO estimates currently die right now as a result of climate change. And the number is expected to go up to 250,000 by 2030-2050 [2].
Other estimates have been even higher, e.g. [3] which came up with 400,000 extra deaths due to climate change per year already.
[1] http://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/
[2] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/
[3] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/27/climate-cha...
Why is the global world living longer despite its ever increasing usage of fossil fuels? Just to take one example, China's life expectancy has grown increasingly despite having record levels of pollution. You would think that more and more people would die as fossil fuels increase. Something doesn't connect here. Care to explain the conundrum for me?
ISIS having their hands on a nuke would be catastrophic.
However climate change is definitely already happening and is potentially also devastating for the survival of the species. It could itself ignite a number of conflicts, we have no idea what will happen, but we know it could be very bad.
Can you cite an instance in any reputable broadsheet where Israel has officially threatened to use nuclear weapons?
Misstatements not challenged quickly, too often become the "truth".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort
The places most affected by climate change already have terrible health: http://gamapserver.who.int/gho/interactive_charts/ncd/mortal...
Saying stuff like that feeds right into the deniers.
[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/426608/how-likely-is-a-ru...
It does not show that the Chinese government is actually going to change anything substantive.
Here's something from late 2015:
China is totally crushing the U.S. on renewable energy http://grist.org/climate-energy/china-is-totally-crushing-th...
Here's one that is just a month old:
China set to surpass its climate targets as renewables soar https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079179-china-set-to-su...
The graph BNEF prepared shows carbon emissions ~tripling from 2012 to 2040, due to substantial growth in non-OECD coal & gas consumption, which swamps the drop in these categories for OECD countries.
Meanwhile, its consumption of coal – the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – dropped by 3.7 per cent, with imports down by a substantial 30 per cent.
The country’s solar and wind energy capacity soared last year by 74 and 34 per cent respectively compared with 2014, according to figures issued by China’s National Bureau of Statistics yesterday.
The latest figures state that “clean energy” – a combination of hydro, wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas – now accounts for 18 per cent of all its energy, up from 13 per cent in 2011.
Such rapid changes in how energy generation in China is changing suggests to me, that graph projecting non-OECD CO2 emission is most likely be wrong and overly pessimistic.
Animal agriculture has around 51% CO2 footprint. Bunch of it done on the rich soils of Amazon, and vast plains of USA.
Meat, dairy and eggs is what is killing us. Not traffic, not heating.
The first claim seems to be incorrect at least based on simple googling to obtain the following link: https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html
According to that link agriculture/land-use appears to have about 1/6 the impact of industrial processes/fossil fuel.
The second claim appears to be incorrect for "human produced" CO2 at least, using standard numbers. Perhaps there is another source?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Summing up the numbers there, I get the following results:
Annual CO2 Emissions:
(China): 10,540,000 kt
(USA + Canada + Mexico + Brazil + Argentina + Venezuala): 7,245,000 kt
Here's an 18% estimate while transportation is 13%.
Here's a 51% estimate, trumping everything else.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
I couldn't find the links for the second claim (its somewhere out there) but the ones provided don't account for animals, land use and rainforest elimination. All three are major factors of the animal agriculture.
But China seems now to be really willing to reduce its impact on the planet. There are the huge investments on solar panels for instance.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUUo2tL8rvQ
The irony being that people with money and power are the least likely to ever be affected by it.
If they want anyone to act they would do as the king of Nineveh:Jona 3:6 "For word came to the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."
The moment I see climate scientists starts to switch to teleconferences I think I will give it a second thought.
(Yeah. I know many, possibly most of you don't believe a thing of that but it is still a good example.)
(FWIW: I make a living making solar cell technology, I previously programmed recycling machines. I just happen to be tired of hypocrisy.)
Saw it was below 0 and upvoted you even though I guess "your side" is the one who is busy downvoting me.
Downvoters: can you please stop downvoting based on assumed political belief and start judging content based on quality? Please?
So yes, your position is unpopular, and it's wrong.
The very moment politicians start acting like there is a crisis, people will listen.
For now it all looks like a giant racketeering scheme to deprieve the small man of cheap energy and travel while the rich ones get richer.
Not saying it is like this, but think about it a moment before knee-jerkingly hitting the downvote button.
I'm in no position to judge the science behind this but I have a nose for fish and something stinks so badly I have a hard time crediting it all to right-wing nuts for now at least.
Why do you imagine the politicians would be concerned with climate change? It's not like they or the rest of the oligarchy are going to be the ones affected.
All in the guise of cheap energy. Hooray. Energy is cheap, until it becomes a lot more expensive.
Thanks for your lack of vision.
The commenter you're replying to is just saying what it appears the average person is thinking, not that they subscribe to it at all.
Of course that depends on the people he pays for the carbon offsets actually reducing carbon emissions somewhere else in the world. It is easier to claim that you will than it is to actually do it.
(My bet is that within 10 years there will be a major scandal as someone in that space turns out to be a pure and simple scammer.)
Often a direct replacement for kerosene solutions.
I'd like to help your efforts if possible. I write code. Nothing too amazing but have been at it a while. How can we connect over email?
Phase three will be "it was actually the liberals who blocked action on climate change"
What if the safety of the planet lay in stopping greenhouse emissions. But certain large blocs of the international community refused to stop pumping it out of the ground.
Now say diplomatic means don't create any real progress, only broken promises. For an example of what that might look like, take the nuclear accord John Kerry just got Iran to sign this year. Already they have tested new long range missiles and their leader, Khamenei, released a statement this week: "Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors," [0].
Seriously, what happens when those with fossil fuel reserved chose to use them, even when your country is being responsible? What if it meant another war in Iraq: would the positions on policy for fixing AGW swtich between Democrats and Republicans?
[0]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-missiles-khamenei-idU...
for me to have a position on the question would depend on the particulars.
A related thought - there aren't a ton of countries that have both large fossil fuel reserves and a large enough domestic market to burn them at a high rate. US and China are the only two that come to mind. Maybe Iran? Which implies that sanctions (either on the import of energy or the export of finished goods) might be effective if you can keep the US and China on board.
A revenue neutral carbon tax at about $80/ton is popular enough that oil companies use it in their planning for the future.
The "right" has favored cap and trade schemes in the past (specifically Reagan), but suddenly became allergic to the idea.
Your "solutions" are ridiculous anti-market solutions, presumably exaggerations that you would use to describe the solutions that have actually been proposed?
Also, Teslas and other electric vehicles do not depend on fossil fuels, even if they can potentially be powered by fossil fuels (at much higher efficiencies than fossil fuel vehicles)
Of course they do. They are made of materials that depend on fossil fuels for extraction. To pretend otherwise is completely idiotic. Everything that doesn't come from plants has to be mined and mining is energy intensive.
Energy is fungible. It doesn't matter if it's energy intensive, industry and mining can succeed without fossil fuels just fine.
These seem like very fragile assumptions.
I just wanted to say that "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" seems to be a common tactic along with high levels of straw person arguments.
Bear in mind, this is absolutely necessary for the entire world at some point. Fossil fuels will not last forever. Best start now and not procrastinate.
In terms of specific policy to pursue: basically lots of subsidies.
All the power in my camper is provided by solar energy. I paid maybe $500 for the system, including a lithium ion battery. It will provide power for the next 25 years for two people, using computers all day long and plenty of bright lights at night.
Solar power is hella cheap. People need to stop whining.
P.S. I really doubt that the panel will last 25 years, and the battery is likely to go poof even sooner.
I think the battery will go for 15 years & the panels too. So 25 years was a bit of a stretch but 15 years electricity for $500 was pretty OK.
Solar energy really is cheap.
There are many parts of the world where it makes the most financial sense.
Maybe we could make progress more quickly on fighting climate change if we simply bought off businesses. Implement a carbon tax that replaces business income tax and results in a net lower tax burden on businesses (from day one), and I bet a lot of opposition funding would dry up.
It would be very expensive... but compare to the cost of protecting or moving all our coastal cities and communities.
Maybe one reason climate change has become a cultural/political issue is that the people who understand the issue best and have worked on it the hardest, tend to also be people who are suspicious of businesses in general. They resist anything that looks like a corporate giveaway, and prefer a regulatory, government-led approach. As a result, "freedom first" libertarian types have lined up with big businesses in opposition.
I won't pretend that I've thought through the details deeply--take this as a musing more than an actual proposal.
The left has been the majority for a while, but not in charge because 1 person != 1 vote (2 senators / state regardless of population, no D.C. senator, electoral college system.. any more?)
Disproportionate representation is a problem, for sure, but the American left would have far more success despite that problem if only they would go vote in off-year elections.
Either way, I don't think it would help the fundamental problem, which is that roughly half of the voters in this country don't accept climate science, and their party and associated media have set up a huge feedback loop to keep it that way. Helping the Democrats isn't really a solution, because we need two healthy parties.
People just don't get that this could be a serious problem & that once you notice you have a problem, you've got 250 years of locked in effects.
Here's hoping that SolarCity, Tesla, and others can make a technological difference.
Many totally different questio ns meaning different things to different people.
To many people I guess voting is choosing the lesser evil.
Agree that we need multiple functional sane parties, but we haven't had that happy situation in the US for forty years.
Really? So you're saying every person in America can be neatly defined as either right or left? That's odd because I know a lot of conservative folks who are for marriage equality and left-wing folks who love guns and are members of the NRA.
For hysterical raisins, the US has a basically permanent two-party system. Charitably speaking, you can be socially and economically either conservative or liberal, R or D.
There are some people who are economically conservative and socially liberal -- "do what you want, and leave me alone." There are others who are economically liberal and socially conservative -- "we should help the less fortunate, because that is what Christ and compassion demand." And there are plenty of other positions, but the only two real options are R and D. Tweaking the meanings of those two letters is your best bet.
That merely means voters are severely limited in their ways to express their opinion. It doesn't mean every person is reducible to a single bit.
Like mold in a petri dish, the human population will collapse ultimately into decentralized anarchist societies who trade among one another. Assuming we stop the 400+ reactors from going into meltdown, the majority of the population will return to farming.
We're not going to Mars anytime soon. You people can't live without AC or even know how to grow a fucking tomato plant. Sadly, most of this community will die.
Nobody is arguing climate change can have big impact. We're discussing AGW. Obviously deforestation and air pollution is a Bad Thing. The environmentalists would be better off telling that story which is quite simple and easy to understand.
I'm a buyer of that as both logic and an investment but not the Chicken-Little AGW story. Positioning is very important when you are selling something.
~7 million die from air pollution related deaths per year
Total number of people that die of starvation per year: ~8 million. ~900 million malnourished.
~800 million don't have access to clean water. Several millions die each year from diseases related to unsanitary water.
I don't understand why we can't unite and tackle those 3 instead of making it a battle between politics, environmentalism and self-righteousness (both sides).
If you believe or don't believe in AGW - tackling air pollution, food supply and the water crisis should be of utmost importance.
It is a huge continent... if the ices melts, it's terrible in a way, but looking positivistically at the situation, there must be lots of potential.
I'm sure there are some treaties etc on Antarctica that limit exploitation? What if a bunch of people went down there with some guns and claimed some land, what would happen?
Not sure why you were downvoted. What we do with it is an interesting question. There is little harm in looking for ways to adapt to climate change if we don't succeed in stopping it.
If I actually want to use fresh water, Antarctica's ice is not available at all - at least not until we start towing icebergs to Saudi Arabia or something...
Water is very cheap, people need it. The important thing is to have available water near the people that is easy and cheap to process. So it's important to keep the big rivers as clean as possible, and use that water efficiently.
If tomorrow all the ice in Antarctica magically disappears, it would not change the problems of the people that need water to drink or cultivate plants.
(If the ice magically disappears, it will create other problems changing the climate patterns. If it just melt instead of truly disappearing, it will cause floods.)
The collapse of ice in Antarctica is basically limited to the tinier West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with the EAIS expected to make a more or less neutral balance (perhaps even slightly positive).
https://youtu.be/DbKNlFcg02c
It's probably one of the best observed treaties, but that would change, I fear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070802-russi...
Not sure about Antartica.
At best you're probably talking, Antarctica becomes as livable as Alaska is now.
If you are specifically interested in ice sheet models you could look at these:
PISM - http://pism-docs.org/wiki/doku.php
CISM - http://oceans11.lanl.gov/cism/
ISSM - https://issm.jpl.nasa.gov/
I'll believe it when I see it. We have at least 40% larger ice sheets now than in 2012, and more than in 2006 [1]. See also [2].
These models have been shown to be wildly inaccurate at empirical prediction [3], so I think we need to work harder and exercise more scientific skepticism before creating alarmist headlines in the mainstream media.
[1] https://www.commentarymagazine.com/culture-civilization/popu...
[2] http://blog.drwile.com/?p=12927
[3] http://objectivescience.net/warming-predictions-vs-real-worl...
Edit - to the downvoters, please explain why I shouldn't exercise scientific skepticism relating to how the mainstream discusses climate change.
Sea ice is incredibly sensitive to warming.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center the Maximum winter extent of sea ice is now at the lowest recorded in the satellite record.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_ice [2] https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Here's what I think. People are being overly alarmist and it's driving policy. Nature goes it cycles, on the order of maybe hundreds or thousands (or more) years. It's been way colder in the past than it is now, and it's also been way warmer in the past than it is now. We should reduce CO2 emissions insofar as it affects the health of people, such as smog in China.
But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
At the same time, I think changing our own standards of proof based on what sways "the majority of experts" is dangerous. There are lots of examples of "the majority of experts" being wrong. For some examples, see the roughly every 200 year cycle that repeats (my observation while reading the book) in The History of Mathematical Thought I-III by Kline.
Somewhere unscientific.
People who call themselves skeptics and disagree with mainstream scientific consensus hardly ever consider the issue. How are so many thousands of scientists so incompetent at evaluating their own data, but me, the armchair reviewer, knows what's up?
This is where examining the evidence and arguments is important. If this whole thing were a conspiracy propping up unnecessary research, then the arguments would be weak and the evidence would be inconclusive. Unfortunately for humanity, this is not the case.
Claire Parkinson (http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/bio/claire.l.parkinson) has been studying polar sea ice for about four decades. She has been speaking to public audiences for nearly as long. And it was those public audiences who provoked one of the NASA climatologist’s latest research projects.
“When I give public lectures or talk with people interested in the topic of polar ice, somebody will often say something like: ‘Well, the ice is decreasing in the Arctic but it’s increasing in the Antarctic, so don’t they cancel out?’” said Parkinson. “The answer is no, they don’t cancel out.”
Here: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
These, by the way, are a common defenses used by skeptics: this might be a cycle and not understanding what is meant by global warming. The preferred term is climate change. Yes, it has been colder in the past, and yes, it still snows. What has changed is the pattern of cold weather. Here's a relevant XCKD: https://xkcd.com/1321/. Essentially, it get cold, but it's doesn't stay cold. Also, the patterns of storms have changed. We've always had blizzards and tropical storms, but the intensity of these storms has ramped up.
The claim of a cyclical nature is questionable considering the data highly suggests a correlation between rising CO2 levels and the global temperature. The point that is missing out is that this is referring to the global average warmth, and our weather systems are VERY sensitive to this. Even a small change, like 2 to 4 degrees will have devastating effects.
People think all sorts of interesting and plausible thoughts and hypotheses; that doesn't make them correct. People once thought the Sun revolved around the Earth, which seems plausible when you look outside. How do we distinguish between true and false hypotheses? Science!
The hypothesis you describe is interesting but not a new one. It has been carefully considered and ruled out by almost all scientists involved - based not on an idea in someone's mind but on extensive evidence, it's almost certain that global warming is caused by humans. A good place to read about the evidence would be the IPCC[1]; their summary reports are succinct, and written clearly for non-scientists.
We'll never be absolutely certain, but we'll never be absolutely certain of anything and would never take any action if we waited to meet that standard. What will you say to the millions who die, starve, lose their homes and wealth: 'I didn't know?' We could not have more or clearer warnings. I feel we have a great responsbility and need to act immediately or blood will be on our hands, just like the people who refused to act in the face of catastrophes in the past.
[1] http://www.ipcc.ch/
I'm pretty sure that climatologists are acutely aware of the nature of the climate.
> But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
According to the IPCC AR 5 (which I'm sure a well-informed skeptic such as yourself have perused), there is a 95-100% probability that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are responsible for at least half of the warming observed from 1950-2010. Are you not satisfied with this certainty level?
There's two numbers that blow my mind every time I think about them.
The first is the energy produced by the radioactive decay at the fiery core of the Earth: 45 terawatts. That power is enough to move the continents around the globe.
The second is the energy produced by human industry -- all of our coal plants, oil burned, nuclear power, solar & wind, the whole 9 yards: 16 terawatts. That's 1/3 the power generated by the entire rest of the Earth, down to the core, and it's growing: if it grows at the same rate as it has historically, in 25 or 30 years we'll surpass the core entirely.
Humans aren't just insignificant specks on the surface of the Earth, we're major players, comparable to its fiery core. Knowing that, is it so surprising we can affect the climate significantly?
But exercising "scientific" skepticism would involve citing real (i.e. primary) sources, not blog posts that don't seem to be able to cite properly either. Otherwise it's just skepticism.
http://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2310.epdf?referrer_ac...
[1]http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/full/463284a.html [2]http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-forecast-for-2...
Everybody's perfectly happy to believe the climate scientists when they say "That's mainly due to El Nino this year."
Then the next day the same scientists say "CO2 emissions are affecting the climate" and we're back to "What global warming? If I can't see something it doesn't exist."
Unless we are talking about a big object hanging out nearby, slowly getting closer, in which case I have plenty of non-scientist acquaintances who will be pointing telescopes at it and verifying.
Science is a bitch!
Is it really 10 years? Within our lifetimes? Within 50 years?
I really wish someone would nail down a definitive timeline to when someone should really worry about climate change.
I mean ordering the world's problems big to small, I'd say unemployment, income inequality, and stagnant economic growth are more important things to worry about.
Linking to blog posts is not "exercising scientific scepticism". It's a fucking biased blog post that's just another echo in your echo chamber. Here, let me try:
Obama is a space lizard[1][2][3]
Edit: To all the downvoters, please explain why I shouldn't exercise scientific scepticism relating to how the mainstream discusses the presidents reptilian status?
1. http://www.ufo-blogger.com/2013/03/man-in-black-reptilian-sh...
2. http://www.hiddencodes.com/obama/
3. http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/02/06/3199
I'm sorry this particular topic turns off your ability to think critically and brings out snarkiness instead.
FYI the doctor is a "young-earth creationist" who has a PHD in an unrelated subject. Here's him arguing about how evolution is rubbish[1], perhaps we should listen to him because he's a doctor don't you know?
The other two sources are essentially reblogs from patently biased websites with an agenda to push, one by a neo-conservative (wow unexpected) and the other unnamed.
If you'd spend a little time critically thinking about your sources rather than using them to confirm some bias of yours you'd have already discounted them as trash.
1. http://blog.drwile.com/?p=8530&cpage=1#comment-73990
I don't agree with creationism in any form, but that doesn't mean that someone who does is wrong when they quote Al Gore, post a picture of a graph, or try exercising critical thinking about a topic.
Not by itself, but combine those views with the fact that the source used from the blog post is the Daily Mail, I'm comfortable ignoring the rest of the content.
No, him saying the Earth is between 5,700 and 10,000 years old makes what he's say invalid. Him saying evolution is rubbish and believing word for word an ancient religious text condoning all kinds of crazy stuff makes what he says invalid.
If you actually stop for a second and start critically thinking rather than just repeating it in sentences as if it's some kind of defence it's fairly obvious that your source doesn't pass any kind of litmus test for scientific credibility. I judge some of his views on par with thinking Obama is a space lizard, but you appear to be saying "hey let's conveniently ignore all that other crazy stuff he says because his views match mine and CRITICAL THINKING".
Practice what you preach.
Edit: fuck me sideways he sources the Daily Mail, what a train wreck. Are you kidding me? This is too perfect, you can't actually believe this guys anything other than just another crazy fundamentalist can you? Take a hard long look at what you read please, if you want to post that crap somewhere I would suggest sending it to your fellow "critical thinkers" and not HN.
His blog post rebuts your claims.
Maybe you can provide more counter-argument to my skepticism of climate changes being man-made.
Take a look at this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Phaneroz...
Sea levels have historically gone all over the place, definitely without us driving SUVs way back when.
Now this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Gla...
It's pretty stable during the industrial revolution, when CO2 production really was kicked up a notch. Also, the rate of sea level rises rose at a much faster rate say 10,000 years ago than they're rising right now.
What I'm trying to say is that I think these temperature trends are more macro on the order of thousands of years, and probably mostly out of our control. I think what we're seeing now with contemporary research - 10 years ago, or 40 years ago - is mostly noise.
Chart 2: again, the scale, it's thousands of years. A thousand years literally take up 20 pixels in that chart, so the beginning of the industrial revolution was about 5 pixels from the right. It's literally smaller than the dots used to mark the data points. Also, CO2 and greenhouse gasses released due to human activity are higher now than they have ever been in history: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Global_C... (this whole chart fits inside the last dot on your second chart.)
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
which directly contradicts your statement. ( In fact we have record low sea ice this winter.)
If you do not understand the science, that doesn't make the science wrong, it just makes you look stupid.
On last conference in Paris NOTHING was done. All agreed that everyone will do what they "can" to work against global warming, which means every country in the world can say "we are doing what we can" while doing almost nothing.
I understand the scepticism, but if there is a problem with the status quo, that is the only way to find out about it. The people making money off selling oil aren't going to volunteer to shut down.
For example, this article that describes the runaway rising of sea level predicts that "Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500."
We are dead by 2100 when the sea level is up one meter. It's the future generations who suffer.
In terms of the 'we don't seem to think about it' – it's behavioral economics 101. We're very optimistic about our futures, and very obsessed with the present. It's why people need to be opted-in to 401k plans. We imagine 'tomorrow' to be this wonderful place where everything will get done and work out ok.
My optimism on Paris? It's a cautious one...
But in the end, that's small fries. I should be taking the bus to work if I really wanted to reduce my travel carbon footprint.
My house probably produces way more CO2 than my car. Heating/cooling (use a programmable thermostat, wear warm clothes indoors in winter). Lights (I've mostly switched to CFL.. no LEDs yet, until the CFLs start dying). Laundry (use cold water.. new detergents work better in cold water anyway). Water heating (you'll never take my long hot showers from me!!).
But of course if you follow that philosophy that probably just means you lose the evolutionary lottery and someone else will have plenty of children to take your kids' place.
In carbon emitted per mile it's about the same as traveling by car. But those airliners cover a lot of miles in one trip.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transp...]
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reache...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
> “The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent,” Parkinson said.
> Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km).
---
The sea level is currently rising at about 3mm/yr (~1.2in/decade). The sea level is about 8 inches higher now than in 1870, and the rate of rising is increasing (+0.016mm/yr^2).
Carbon dioxide is a fund pollutant.
Edit: lol why downvote? are you the only person on HN who doesn't like charts?
This does nothing but lend creedance to the flat earth theory. NORTH AND SOUTH POLE ARE THE SAME
:-)
"The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world."
Just like yeast die of alcohol (pollution) poisoning during fermentation before their food source is anywhere near depleted, we might have plenty of food but not do so hot. If yeast could only slow their reproduction they might last for a darn good while in the brew...but luckily they destroy themselves! Otherwise beer would be too slow, and that's unacceptable.
We need a well-funded super pac to more than offset the super pacs of the fossil fuel industry. A big stick that can go after every congress person, senator and governor relentlessly.
It would require a lot of energy, but all remedies to climate change require that.
Where does all the energy go if it does not go into raising the temperature?
The Gulf Stream does exactly what is suggestion, moving massive amounts of warm water north and it's effect on winter temperatures in Western Europe is massive.
Surface area of Earth = 510 million km^2 = 5.10e14 m^2.
~70% is water, so 3.57e14 m^2.
Multiply that by 3mm (3e-3 m) = 1.07e12 m^3.
1.07 trillion tonnes of water. Per year.
Or 33,907 tonnes per second!
Actually the Hoover dam streams 2000 tons per second [1]. So we may not be far off!
Basically build 15 Hoover dams worth of nuclear plants in Antarctica and their plumbing.
Expensive? Yes. But also quite doable especially compared to cost of losing coastal cities.
1. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/ReclamationDamsIrrigationProje...
That said, any time you consider any geoengineering idea, you have to make the argument that the $1 trillion or whatever you'd spend on solar radiation management or ice shelf preservation or whatever, would not be money better spent on just transitioning away from fossil fuel use.
We've destroyed most of the ocean's fish, and we're heavily dependent on livestock and crops for food. If we disrupt the weather too much, we're not going to be able to make food. People are going to starve, and not by the millions but by the hundreds of millions. Certainly enough strife to cause war between the countries that are actually trying to do something and the countries that are continuing to ramp their CO2 output.
We don't know when we cross the line from 'severe' to 'dire', but we've got enough destructive technology that if it becomes a global problem, we may end up blowing ourselves up trying to resolve the conflict.
I was recently in Africa, and I was shown the rate at which the country (Cote d'Iviore) was growing. Families with as many as 10 kids. But all I could see was deforestation. Miles and miles of deforestation, something like 30 minutes of driving through an urban area that had all been vegetation in 2011.
This season's weather was weird, and it has made me very afraid of what's coming in the next 5 years. We're destroying our planet's methods of regulation, and at the same time we are increasing the rate at which we're introducing adversarial agents. It's going to be a disaster, because everyone reading this critically knows that the people in power aren't going to do anything about it until people in their own country are dying by the millions as a result.
If you care about surviving the next 20 years, this should be your biggest concern. We depend on a stable climate. Without that, we will not have food. Be afraid.
The general problem is that most of the world lacks the scientific understanding to know how big & bad of a problem this may turn out to be.
Google & zuckerberg could just black out certain zip codes every so often. go to google.com & get a message about the impending doom & what the person can do about it.
To me, people should not be able to pick & choose technology. If you enjoy using a cell phone & sending email then you should accept what scientists are saying. No more doubting.
If software is eating the world, it should hurry up & start directing the herd.
This is not a valid argument. The science that underlies the workings of your cell phone and email is more accurate by many orders of magnitude than climate science. "Science" is not all one thing, and climate science does not get to claim the same accuracy as, say, electrodynamics just because it has "science" in its name.
Suppose some scientists say "global warming is an imminent existential threat". Should I be forced to implement their policy proposals as well, or do I just have to nod my head in agreeance to their every decree? What is the threshold upon which scientists must be "accepted" (and presumably obeyed)? Who decides this?
This is the stuff of nightmares.
Climate change will stress our civilization and we will deal with that stress, becoming more capable and sophisticated in the process. Well that, or we will die. But that has been the deal since the start. Lets stay awake people, there will be lots of adapting to do!
You missed one. It is also possible that we become less capable and less sophisticated (e.g. the dark ages).
I guess if this new model is accurate, the scenarios on that link which are projected for 100-300 years out could instead happen in a few decades. This would result in major areas of Miami, New Orleans, NYC, and Sacramento all going underwater.
Scary stuff.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/24/opinion/sunday...
Florida, OTOH, would be lost.
Also, changes in land values are far more likely to be driven by changes in employment patterns, transportation technology, and weather systems than by sea levels.
This was unacceptable to them. So they got to keep their money, and sacrificed the future of the planet instead.
What is an alternative hypothesis? The energy companies worked against renewable because it was Good For The Country? Because nothing expensive or hard is worth getting? Because economic ruin was definitely going to happen?
> -- Donald Trump, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/0...
There's a considerable chance that this man will be your next president.
This story is about ~1 metre sea level rise. Greenland's glaciers (if they were to entirely melt) provide ~8 metres, and Antarctica's would provide ~60 metres - so even if you built a wall to protect some / much of this area, you'd have to be planning either subsequent abandonment or a lot more construction work.
But this presupposes that it's feasible from an engineering or financial perspective -- I suspect that in any but a tiny number of cases that it would not be.
In turn it assumes that people would want to live behind a wall that is protecting them from probable death if it collapses, or is intentionally destroyed by the kinds of people who like to kill other people. And these walls would be quite an attractive target.
Would you want to live beneath sea-level if you had the option to live above sea-level?
Then there's groundwater issues (salinity is going to render such earth less habitable).
i.e. is there one catastrophic event where everything is immediately flooded? (Similar to Katrina).
Or is the area just slowly flooded over decades? In which case, no one does anything? (i.e. the Sacramento scenario is hard to fathom in this scenario)
Maybe look into whatever it is they do in the Netherlands. A very large fraction of the entire country is just barely above sea level (or even below it in places).
For example, if the sea were to spill over onto all below-sea-level land, Amsterdam would be an island, some 15 km off the new coastline. The Port of Rotterdam would still be there (25km offshore), but the rest of the city would disappear.
http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/
Also, feedback loops are something they have only very recently considered.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_ball_of_mud
The overarching climate models also typically aren't individual monolithic models, but tend involve various multidisciplinary pieces spanning much of the physical sciences. Also, get ready to work in Fortran. I spent a summer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and met some people there whose work was mostly the uncertainty quantification of outside climate models. My understanding at the time was that the lab specifically does not produce their own model, but rather, acts as an impartial testing ground for the major efforts from other global institutions.
All of that aside, they do have plenty of problems, and people from the outside do come in and make improvements, it's just not necessarily easy to break into. If you wanted something more accessible to start thinking about, you could do worse than the edGCM from Columbia[1].
[1] http://edgcm.columbia.edu/software2/edgcm-climate-modeling/
As someone with a small amount of background in software engineering (though it's not my primary job) I can say that they do think about these things and do have very experienced software developers working on these projects, but help is always appreciated!
Speaking to the accuracy of the simulations I do think that's more in the domain scientist's court though, since most of these things use pretty specialized numerical models and physical approximations.
Edit: I'd also like to say that I pretty much agree with everything cwal said.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/?wpmp_tp=1
The models are all numerical simulations. But even if you are skilled in numerical calculations you'd need a lot of energy to learn and understand the domain too.
Here's one university elementary-introduction-level course about that:
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~sme/CSC2602/
and one book with the real formulas:
http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~stocker/papers/stocker14icm.pdf
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29239194
I have no doubt that given the will, the problem of climate change is not an overly hard problem to fix. We humans have always been good at problem solving.
We just need those vested interest to get out of the way and let that happen.
[1] https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.ht... [2] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC/countries...
I've also read that many of China's emissions come from producing products for export, such that the U.S. may be shedding official omissions by shifting production to China, which allows the emissions to be counted there even though the final product ends up being used in the U.S.
We desperately need a clearer picture of what the climate change timeline is going to look like, and how to approach each step, given immensely complicated cultural realities. People in smaller countries with good education systems are positioned perfectly to take a lead role in that.
But perhaps a bigger problem than nobody knowing about the gravity problem is that at this stage, nobody wants to know, either. For that reason, nobody can prevent the coming period of change.