Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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call to action: Jun 10, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

RealTalk posted:

The economic effects are "going to be catastrophic and that's just taken as a given"? No, it shouldn't be taken as a given. It might well be true but you still have to provide evidence and, most importantly, consider a complex cost-and-benefit analysis taking into account not just the seen, but also the unseen (per Bastiat).

I'd love for someone to quibble with the numbers I cited in my post so we could get down to the nitty gritty on this subject.

I clearly posted the current levels of fossil fuel use by the largest countries in the world. Then I listed the current percent use of renewable energy by these same countries.

From this pro-Climate Change website:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-reductions-needed-to-curtail-climate-change-ipcc-17300

"This final installment, focused on mitigating climate change, says that in order to keep warming under the 2�C (3.6�F) threshold agreed on by the world�s governments at a 2009 meeting in Copenhagen, greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 will have to be 40 to 70 percent lower than what they were in 2010. By the end of the century, they will need to be at zero, or could possibly even require taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, a controversial proposition."

Greenhouse gas emissions need to be 40 to 70% lower by 2050 than they were in 2010 to keep to the 2 degree Celcius threshold.

Do you agree that with current technology, renewable energy sources cannot possibly fully replace fossil fuels if we reduce them as dramatically as would be required?

Higher energy costs and reduced energy consumption would affect the poor and middle class the most. Jeff Bezos could stand a reduction in his living standards far better than could someone who's barely surviving.

And what about developing nations that are in the process of industrialization, with millions moving from rural areas into cities to work at factory jobs? They are moving from grinding poverty into the middle class. What happens if these factories are shut down and further economic development is halted?

Every aspect of our economic growth and our living standards is predicated at some level on access to cheap, abundant and scalable energy sources.

Energy economist Robert P. Murphy wrote a relevant article on the chasm between the rhetoric on climate change and actual predicted harm and cost to humanity:

"It's understandable that the public has no idea of the real state of the literature on climate change policy, because even professional economists use utterly misleading rhetoric in this arena. To show what I mean, first, let�s quote from a recent Noah Smith Bloomberg article, which urges left-liberals to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal:

One of the bigger economic issues under debate right now is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the multilateral trade deal that would include most countries in the Asia-Pacific region as well as the US. Many people both here and abroad are suspicious of trade deals, while economists usually support them. This time around, however, the dynamic is a little bit different � the TPP is getting some pushback from left-leaning economists such as Paul Krugman.

Krugman�s point is that since US trade is already pretty liberalized � the effect of further liberalization will be small.� I�m usually more of a free-trade skeptic than the average economist.� But in this case, I�m strongly on the pro-TPP side. There are just too many good arguments in favor.

University of California-Berkeley economist Brad DeLong does some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, and estimates that the TPP would increase the world�s wealth by a total of $3 trillion. Though that�s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, it�s one of the best reforms that�s feasible in the current polarized political situation. (emphasis added)

To summarize the flavor of Smith�s discussion, he thinks the TPP is �one of the bigger economic issues� today, and that its potential windfall to humanity of $3 trillion is �not a big deal in the grand scheme of things� but certainly worth pursuing if attainable. Krugman disagrees with Smith�s assessment, but their differences are clearly quibbles over numbers and strategies; it�s not as if Smith thinks Krugman is a �Ricardo denier� or accuses Krugman of hating poor Asians by opposing the trade deal.

We get a much different tone if instead we look at Smith discussing climate-change policy. For example, in June 2014, Smith wrote a Bloomberg piece on five ways to fight global warming. In the interest of brevity, let me simply quote Smith�s concluding paragraph:

If we do these five things, then the US can still save the world from global warming, even though we�re no longer the main cause of the problem. And the short-run cost to our economy will be very moderate. Saving the world on the cheap sounds like a good idea to me. (emphasis added)

Clearly, there is a chasm in the rhetoric between Smith�s two Bloomberg pieces. When discussing the TPP, it�s an honest disagreement between experts over a trade agreement that Smith thinks is definitely worthwhile, but in the grand scheme is not that big a deal. In contrast, government policies concerning climate change literally involve the fate of the planet.

At this point, most readers would wonder what the problem is. After all, isn�t man-made climate change a global crisis? Why shouldn�t Smith use much stronger rhetoric when describing it?

I am making this comparison because according to one of the pioneers in climate-change economics, William Nordhaus, even if all governments around the world implemented the textbook-perfect carbon tax, the net gain to humanity would be � drumroll please � $3 trillion. In other words, one of the world�s experts on the economics of climate change estimates that the difference to humanity between (a) implementing the perfect carbon-tax policy solution and (b) doing absolutely nothing was about the same difference as DeLong estimated when it comes to the TPP."

https://fee.org/articles/the-costs-of-hysteria/

Later in the article Murphy makes this salient point:

"Nordhaus evaluated Al Gore�s suggestion to cut emissions by 90 percent, and estimated that it would make humanity some $21 trillion poorer compared to the do-nothing baseline � a net harm seven times greater than the net benefits of the textbook-optimal approach."

Even if you take the IPCC report and leading climate models as the objective truth regarding the science, it is absolutely valid to consider whether State action (depending on what policy is proposed) will cause more harm than benefit from the perspective of human welfare.

Is this Arkane or OOCC? It's the only time I've seen this concen troll climatecentral.org site linked, ever.

# ? May 21, 2018 03:16

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# ? May 15, 2024 12:04

spf3million: Sep 27, 2007; hit 'em with the rhythm

It seems like what he/she's trying to get at is that mitigating our emissions to stay under 2C would be very painful and likely will not happen. I think we can all agree on that part at least.

# ? May 21, 2018 03:42

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

RealTalk posted:

If new energy technologies emerge which yield the benefits of fossil fuels without the costs, that would be fantastic. But the most likely way we will see the necessary innovation is through the market where entrepreneurs risk their own capital in free competition. Government central-planning and subsidization is extremely unlikely to settle upon the best new energy technology. Most likely, they'll misdirect resources and waste a lot of money on political boondoggles.

It did, it was called nuclear power.

spf3million posted:

It seems like what he/she's trying to get at is that mitigating our emissions to stay under 2C would be very painful and likely will not happen. I think we can all agree on that part at least.

Yes, but "It'll never happen so never try and also stop talking about it" never gets said out of genuine concern for the talker.

Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 04:23 on May 21, 2018

# ? May 21, 2018 04:20

spf3million: Sep 27, 2007; hit 'em with the rhythm

Nevvy Z posted:

Yes, but "It'll never happen so never try and also stop talking about it" never gets said out of genuine concern for the talker.

He said that polluters should pay for their emissions.

I don't agree that anything other than government action will convince polluters to pay (anarchy... :rolleyes:

) but the idea that we somehow put a price on emissions seems like common ground.

# ? May 21, 2018 05:19

Arkane: Dec 19, 2006; by R. Guyovich

Just a silly hypothetical, but let's say that we knew that Earth was going to shift from our interglacial period to a glacial period and that the process was scheduled to begin exactly in the year 2100. The glacial period would decrease the temperature by multiple degrees gradually, and kill off a good deal of the life on earth.

Should humans try to prevent it/delay it from happening or no? Preventing it or delaying it maintains the interglacial status quo, where life has flourished. Strictly curious if people are bothered by humans doing anything to the planet that is 'unnatural', or opposed principally to the possibly ill effects from warming.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? May 21, 2018 05:23

Bob Ross Nuke Test: Jul 12, 2016; by Games Forum

I'm opposed to humans eliminating most life on earth not directly related to our own sustenance or economy. I'm opposed to the idea that a human life is more valuable than a dolphins, despite outnumbering them like 100 Million to 1 now.

Whether that elimination comes in the form of global warming or just the relentless march of deforestation and aggressive mono-agriculture, I don't really care because both are symptoms of the same plague. If a comet smacked us like a beaten spouse that'd be different, we really don't have any control over an extinction of that nature.

Kill off like five billion humans before we irreversibly destroy the only source of multicellular life we've discovered in the entire universe, is all I'm saying. :shrug:

# ? May 21, 2018 06:26

Evil_Greven: Feb 20, 2007; Whadda I got to,
whadda I got to do
to wake ya up?

To shake ya up,
to break the structure up!?

The climate ain't reading y'all's arguments:
https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/997883514925211648

# ? May 21, 2018 06:30

Ferdinand Bardamu: Apr 30, 2013

# ? May 21, 2018 07:27

Nocturtle: Mar 17, 2007

RealTalk posted:

The reason I stated this is because climate change activists tend to make rosy claims about how far renewable energy sources have come and vastly overstate the extent to which we could currently replace fossil fuels.

The argument boils down to "the swich-over would be easy. We aren't we already doing it?"

No, the switch-over would NOT be easy and renewable energy, especially wind and solar, are not currently capable of shouldering more than a very small percent of our energy demands.
...

This is ignorant, no-one claims this. Everyone understands switching from fossil fuels is not easy, as they're simply the cheapest available energy source. One of the major goals of climate activism is to artificially make fossil fuels relatively more expensive via a carbon tax. This isn't compatible with a belief that decarbonizing is easy or cheaper than the status quo. You don't understand this or are trying to mischaracterize the debate.

Arkane posted:

Just a silly hypothetical, but let's say that we knew that Earth was going to shift from our interglacial period to a glacial period and that the process was scheduled to begin exactly in the year 2100. The glacial period would decrease the temperature by multiple degrees gradually, and kill off a good deal of the life on earth.

Should humans try to prevent it/delay it from happening or no? Preventing it or delaying it maintains the interglacial status quo, where life has flourished. Strictly curious if people are bothered by humans doing anything to the planet that is 'unnatural', or opposed principally to the possibly ill effects from warming.

Most people support measures resulting in the least number of billions dying. If the earth was entering a glacial period AND we sufficiently understood earth's geology AND we knew how to intervene and prevent another ice age AND we could be confident in not making things worse then you'd probably see broad support for geoengineering a stable climate. However given that we don't understand this incredibly complicated system and its many feedback processes, it would be safest to avoid meddling with it as much as possible until we do. Incidentally this is exactly the same reason to minimize carbon emission-induced global warming as I'm sure you agree.

On the subject of having fun and changing the environment via rapid carbon emissions, here's a vivid article from the Atlantic about the PT extinction:

The Atlantic posted:

Burning Fossil Fuels Almost Ended All Life on Earth
PETER BRANNEN JUL 11, 2017
...
The cause of all this misery�a growing consensus of paleontologists and geologists believe�was burning fossil fuels. Though acid rain and a ravaged ozone layer likely played a role as well, geochemical signals in the layers of ancient rock that capture the global die-off suggest a carbon dioxide-driven global warming catastrophe�one so profound it would dwarf even the extraterrestrial disaster that cut short the dinosaurs� reign almost 200 million years later.

Near the top of the supercontinent Pangaea in what is now Siberia, a gigantic plume of magma�enough to cover the lower 48 states a kilometer deep�was burbling through one of the most coal-rich regions in the world and covering millions of square miles of Pangaean countryside in basalt lava. As the molten rock ponded underground, seeping sideways into the crust, it incinerated not only untold seams of coal laid down by ancient forests in the hundred million years before, but huge deposits of oil and natural gas as well. The ignited oil and gas exploded at the surface, leaving behind half-mile craters. The volcanoes injected as much as 40,000 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere. This unthinkable volcanism, and the greenhouse gases it liberated, account for the extreme global warming and ocean acidification seen in the rocks spanning the dreaded Permian-Triassic boundary. It�s even been called The Great Dying. Carbon dioxide, it seems, nearly killed the planet.
...
Unsurprisingly, there�s no life in these ghastly rocks (even most plant life checks out at temperatures not much more than 40 degrees Celsius), making them exceedingly difficult to date.

�There�s absolutely nothing to date in any of these rocks because everything�s dead,� says Knapp. �But what we can say is that this is definitely Permian.�
...
After visiting ancient fossil reefs and lifeless rock exposures, this might have been my best view of what was happening at the end of the Permian. As far as we can tell, we�re shooting carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere ten times faster than the ancient volcanoes of Russia did during the end-Permian mass extinction, an episode that almost ended the project of complex life on Earth. Our planet is once again at a crossroads, and the tangled path to redemption is still very much open. But we now find ourselves falling towards the first steps down an older, much darker road.

�What we�re doing is the equivalent of that supervolcano going through Siberia,� Knapp said, overlooking the pit. �By stripping out all of the coal from everywhere it exists on Earth and burning it. And we�re doing it really, really fast. So we have an analog in Earth�s history. And it�s loving scary.�

If nothing else it's a nice description of the scale of death caused by the PT extinction.

# ? May 21, 2018 15:48

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

I think "Fossil Fuel was a 'cheat code' for rapid industrialization" was the best thing I've read on this thread.

# ? May 21, 2018 21:34

Owlofcreamcheese: May 22, 2005; Can't post for 9 years!; Buglord

VideoGameVet posted:

I think "Fossil Fuel was a 'cheat code' for rapid industrialization" was the best thing I've read on this thread.

I think it's a thing fossil fuel companies paid a lot of money to make people believe.

# ? May 21, 2018 22:05

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I think it's a thing fossil fuel companies paid a lot of money to make people believe.

I'm not a fan of cheat codes in games or life.

# ? May 21, 2018 22:44

Bob Ross Nuke Test: Jul 12, 2016; by Games Forum

The vague notion that we're causing the PT Boundary event to repeat at ten times the speed it did last time, but nobody really gives a poo poo, is pretty :allbuttons:

.

Nothing says "but the GDP gains will be worth it!" like reducing all life on earth to multicellular bacteria at best again, eh friends?

# ? May 22, 2018 04:23

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

THE BEATWEAVER posted:

The vague notion that we're causing the PT Boundary event to repeat at ten times the speed it did last time, but nobody really gives a poo poo, is pretty .

Nothing says "but the GDP gains will be worth it!" like reducing all life on earth to multicellular bacteria at best again, eh friends?

That article has a really alarmist tone that's confusing people. What he means is that the rate of carbon emissions is 10x the rate of the release from the Siberian Traps 250MYA, hypothesized to have caused the P-T event. But since the volcanic event lasted for far longer the cumulative emissions released by humans is very small in comparison to that released by the Siberian Traps, less than 1%, and we'll never even come close to making up the difference. I do believe we should be worried about CO2-induced anoxia, and subsequent H2S emissions, but keep in mind that article is marshaling facts to maximize terror while omitting those that could ramp it down.

# ? May 22, 2018 06:56

Dwanyelle: Jan 13, 2008; ISRAEL DOESN'T HAVE CIVILIANS THEY'RE ALL VALID TARGETS
I'm a huge dickbag ignore me

Thug Lessons posted:

..... the cumulative emissions released by humans is very small in comparison to that released by the Siberian Traps, less than 1%, and we'll never even come close to making up the difference.

This, right here, I think is part of the overall problem.

Your making concrete statements about future events, which is.......none of us can predict the future, yo.

How do you know how much carbon humans are going to release in the atmosphere in the future? Maybe it's less than this, maybe it's more. Even current estimates can change, if usage changes.

No one is sure! And the possible bad effects for a worst case scenario are bad.

# ? May 22, 2018 12:30

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

Thalantos posted:

This, right here, I think is part of the overall problem.

Your making concrete statements about future events, which is.......none of us can predict the future, yo.

How do you know how much carbon humans are going to release in the atmosphere in the future? Maybe it's less than this, maybe it's more. Even current estimates can change, if usage changes.

No one is sure! And the possible bad effects for a worst case scenario are bad.

Well, the article says the Siberian Traps released up to 40,000 GtC. We're currently emitting 10 GtC a year, so even at 10x the rate of emissions it would take us 4,000 to match them. Even if we scaled up emissions to 100x the rate, it would take 400 years. Even if you had multiple worst-case scenarios happening at the same time�say huge permafrost methane emissions, a methane clathrate release, Amazon and Boreal forest dieback, and so on�you'd be hard pressed to reach 10,000 GtC. There is simply no way for humans to get that much carbon into the atmosphere in the timescales we have available.

# ? May 22, 2018 14:19

Flowers For Algeria: Dec 3, 2005; I humbly offer my services as forum inquisitor. There is absolutely no way I would abuse this power in any way.

What if we all simultaneously let out a huge fart? That�s probably not 40 000 GtC, but close enough imo.

EDIT I�m talking real huge farts

# ? May 22, 2018 14:22

Nocturtle: Mar 17, 2007

Thug Lessons posted:

Well, the article says the Siberian Traps released up to 40,000 GtC. We're currently emitting 10 GtC a year, so even at 10x the rate of emissions it would take us 4,000 to match them. Even if we scaled up emissions to 100x the rate, it would take 400 years. Even if you had multiple worst-case scenarios happening at the same time�say huge permafrost methane emissions, a methane clathrate release, Amazon and Boreal forest dieback, and so on�you'd be hard pressed to reach 10,000 GtC. There is simply no way for humans to get that much carbon into the atmosphere in the timescales we have available.

You say that like we're not going to try.

But seriously that article is fine, it bends over backwards to point out that the conditions that gave rise to the PT extinction probably don't exist today if it even was caused by a runaway greenhouse effect. The main point is that we don't want to get anywhere near a PT extinction scenario, and should think carefully about emitting CO2 at 10x the rate associated with the disaster. It's also nice propaganda to push back against brain-worm carriers suggesting that maybe a warmer world isn't so bad, and not worth sacrificing a few points of GDP growth to avert.

# ? May 22, 2018 14:34

Gum: Mar 9, 2008; _{oho, a rapist

time to try this puppy out}

Thug Lessons posted:

Well, the article says the Siberian Traps released up to 40,000 GtC. We're currently emitting 10 GtC a year, so even at 10x the rate of emissions it would take us 4,000 to match them. Even if we scaled up emissions to 100x the rate, it would take 400 years. Even if you had multiple worst-case scenarios happening at the same time�say huge permafrost methane emissions, a methane clathrate release, Amazon and Boreal forest dieback, and so on�you'd be hard pressed to reach 10,000 GtC. There is simply no way for humans to get that much carbon into the atmosphere in the timescales we have available.

I feel like you buried the lede here

# ? May 22, 2018 14:39

Paradoxish: Dec 19, 2003; Will you stop going crazy in there?

I mean, he's not really wrong. We'd have to undertake some Captain Planet villain scheme to burn every bit of carbon we can find for no particular use or purpose just to get close. "Realistic" scenarios that involve ramping up emissions would result in such catastrophic warming in the relatively near term that industrialized civilization would collapse long before we could ever hope to burn that much carbon.

# ? May 22, 2018 15:03

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

If you want some catastrophism that a little more tethered to reality, there was a fascinating story out from the Guardian on what's (to my knowledge) the first survey of the Earth's total biomass and the changes humans have induced in it. It comes with some startling infographics:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

Also a bunch of interesting stuff that isn't really relevant to climate or environment, like that fact that 13% of all biomass is bacteria living kilometers below the surface of the Earth. I look forward to reading the entire paper when I get a chance.

# ? May 22, 2018 15:17

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

The Impossible Burger is good enough to fool meat eaters.

It�s a good thing.

# ? May 22, 2018 15:29

Perry Mason Jar: Feb 24, 2006; "Della? Take a lid"

I went pescatarian last year. Do I have to stop eating fish, too? I mean, before the oceans die. Also if Thug Lessons could hit me with an extremely rational, sober, science based evaluation that it is in fact OK to eat eel, that'd be great.

# ? May 22, 2018 15:42

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

Perry Mason Jar posted:

I went pescatarian last year. Do I have to stop eating fish, too? I mean, before the oceans die. Also if Thug Lessons could hit me with an extremely rational, sober, science based evaluation that it is in fact OK to eat eel, that'd be great.

I'm vegetarian, but you can eat farmed fish. Stuff like tilapia, salmon, catfish. It causes pollution but it's nowhere near the impact of wild fisheries. Everything else is pulled directly out of the wild, most of it unsustainably. If you're eating something like bluefin tuna you're out of your mind, because the annual quota on those is enough to drive them to extinction.

e: Greenpeace operates a seafood red list of fish to avoid: http://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/campaigns/oceans/seafood/red-list-of-species/

Thug Lessons fucked around with this message at 16:03 on May 22, 2018

# ? May 22, 2018 15:59

Perry Mason Jar: Feb 24, 2006; "Della? Take a lid"

Thanks. I really like the red list, especially because eel's not on it. Or sardines or mackerel. I eat a lot of canned fish.

# ? May 22, 2018 16:06

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Perry Mason Jar posted:

I went pescatarian last year. Do I have to stop eating fish, too? I mean, before the oceans die. Also if Thug Lessons could hit me with an extremely rational, sober, science based evaluation that it is in fact OK to eat eel, that'd be great.

I went pescatarian about 30 years ago, went all vegan 7 years ago.

I did love my sardines, but the rest of the fish had gone down in quality and frankly, it's not sustainable.

(Well Aquaponics is, so there's that)

# ? May 22, 2018 16:55

Facehammer: Mar 11, 2008

It's funny that Real Talk brings up the London manure crisis, because his posts contain a huge excess of horseshit.

# ? May 22, 2018 17:33

Accretionist: Nov 7, 2012; I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

And how often do paradigm shifts even happen? Can I count on a well-timed miracle?

# ? May 22, 2018 17:43

Notorious R.I.M.: Jan 27, 2004; up to my ass in alligators

THE BEATWEAVER posted:

The vague notion that we're causing the PT Boundary event to repeat at ten times the speed it did last time, but nobody really gives a poo poo, is pretty .

Nothing says "but the GDP gains will be worth it!" like reducing all life on earth to multicellular bacteria at best again, eh friends?

We also evolved stuff like diatoms as a result and fundamentally changed ocean chemistry to the point that organic life will respond much differently to another ocean carbon loading event. Nature learns.

This thread is a trainwreck I'm glad to see we have astroturfers from the CO2 Foundation here now.

If you are curious about tipping points and exponential uncertainty start with Shakhova et. al. If you're tired of reading hilariously bad Arkane posts about AR6 ask him to provide a breakdown of what he thinks the SSP/RCP outcome matrix is going to look like for a good barrel of laughs.

# ? May 22, 2018 20:48

funkatron3000: Jun 17, 2005; Better Living Through Chemistry

Catching up on the past several pages, going back to carbon taxes and externalities... since we have to get to less than net zero carbon emissions, wouldn't the cost of carbon (at a minimum) be the cost to completely remove/offset/etc it from the atmosphere?

Where does a global treaty mandating steadily increasing carbon taxes until they offset 100%+ of emissions, and by nature of the increased cost shift production to less expensive non-carbon alternatives, fit on the feasibility scale of solutions to climate change?

# ? May 23, 2018 18:26

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

Notorious R.I.M. posted:

We also evolved stuff like diatoms as a result and fundamentally changed ocean chemistry to the point that organic life will respond much differently to another ocean carbon loading event. Nature learns.

Are you less confident in the feasibility an ocean H2S release event than you used to be? It's absolutely true that life has gotten progressively more resistant to mass extinction on the family level but I haven't read enough to understand the specifics.

# ? May 23, 2018 20:11

Trainee PornStar: Jul 20, 2006; I'm just an inbetweener

Notorious R.I.M. posted:

If you are curious about tipping points and exponential uncertainty start with Shakhova et. al. If you're tired of reading hilariously bad Arkane posts about AR6 ask him to provide a breakdown of what he thinks the SSP/RCP outcome matrix is going to look like for a good barrel of laughs.

I googled a few articles & stopped, some very depressing stuff if I'm reading it right?

http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-mechanism.html
"This ice has until now acted as a glue, holding the sediment together. Moreover, the ice in the cracks has until now acted as a barrier, a seal, that prevented the methane contained in those sediments from escaping."

On a scale of 1 to 10, how fast is my slide into alcoholism going to be?
(only half joking)

# ? May 23, 2018 20:12

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

funkatron3000 posted:

Catching up on the past several pages, going back to carbon taxes and externalities... since we have to get to less than net zero carbon emissions, wouldn't the cost of carbon (at a minimum) be the cost to completely remove/offset/etc it from the atmosphere?

That's an absolutely fair way to measure a carbon price. The problem comes in with the limits of a concept of an externality. The actual number here can only take the form of an equilibrium price, which is an abstraction. We don't know how much it costs to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The American Physical Society, (just about as good of an authority as you can get), estimated the mean price to be $600/ton, and while a lot of people have claimed it's perfectly possible for less, that number should serve as a baseline. And a $600/ton carbon price would be like dropping a nuke on the energy sector.

# ? May 23, 2018 20:19

Notorious R.I.M.: Jan 27, 2004; up to my ass in alligators

Thug Lessons posted:

Are you less confident in the feasibility an ocean H2S release event than you used to be? It's absolutely true that life has gotten progressively more resistant to mass extinction on the family level but I haven't read enough to understand the specifics.

It's really unclear to what extent wide spread anoxic events would be sulfidic rather than just ferruginous, imo. The PT extinction is just so different in terms of Earth's layout and what sort of life, especially including phytoplankton, existed at the time. I think the PT boundary gives a good base overview of what sort of processes start occurring when you increase GHG load, but I think it's easy to assume we're repeating it when things would actually be significantly different and likely in very weird ways.

# ? May 23, 2018 20:24

Notorious R.I.M.: Jan 27, 2004; up to my ass in alligators

Trainee PornStar posted:

I googled a few articles & stopped, some very depressing stuff if I'm reading it right?

http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-mechanism.html
"This ice has until now acted as a glue, holding the sediment together. Moreover, the ice in the cracks has until now acted as a barrier, a seal, that prevented the methane contained in those sediments from escaping."

On a scale of 1 to 10, how fast is my slide into alcoholism going to be?
(only half joking)

Well the author's main argument about uncertainty is that the distribution of unknowns is log-scale rather than linear. What sort of methane releases from the gas hydrate stability zone could occur this century? 10MT? 100? 1GT? 10!?

When we talk about tipping points we should be clear that we're talking about events that either have uncertainty that is more than linear, as in this case, or we're talking about events where outcomes start rapidly bifurcating and diverging.

# ? May 23, 2018 20:31

Preen Dog: Nov 8, 2017

funkatron3000 posted:

Where does a global treaty... fit on the feasibility scale of solutions to climate change?

Serious answer: What is the feasibility of any global treaty? For example, land mines are unambiguously bad, and not using them doesn't cost any money, but even the land mine ban can't get anywhere near global assent.

A global net-zero climate tax treaty would require nothing less than complete consensus, by most everyone on earth, of who's responsible for climate change, who will pay, and how much. You could argue that the burden should be shared equally, but developing nations, or even young industrial powers, would never agree to that (or even couldn't, for internal stability reasons). Then, for everyone to sign and implement the treaty at great expense, which any state could easily cheat on by misreporting emissions, at every level of government and down to the emitter itself. It would also have to be global, or opt-out nations would simply increase their carbon footprint as fossil fuels instantly became cheaper for them.

I can hardly hope a global, ad hoc, something or other understanding will get hashed out eventually, as keen green nations lean on their dirty trading partners. Even then, power plants are built to last 60 years or more; the agreements will be hilariously post-dated.

# ? May 23, 2018 20:41

Evil_Greven: Feb 20, 2007; Whadda I got to,
whadda I got to do
to wake ya up?

To shake ya up,
to break the structure up!?

Global sea ice area saw its 2 std deviation shadow and turned right the gently caress around:

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ? May 23, 2018 23:05

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

Can they make everything but the current year be transparent or something?

# ? May 23, 2018 23:13

galenanorth: May 19, 2016

To translate from interactive "toggle on and off lines" to a static shareable media link, this'd be better as a GIF with a quarter of a second spent on each year, in .mp4 format so you can pause at a certain year, then at the end they show all the years at once

https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/global-sea-ice is the link from the image

galenanorth fucked around with this message at 02:39 on May 24, 2018

# ? May 24, 2018 02:36

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# ? May 15, 2024 12:04

spf3million: Sep 27, 2007; hit 'em with the rhythm

Thug Lessons posted:

That's an absolutely fair way to measure a carbon price. The problem comes in with the limits of a concept of an externality. The actual number here can only take the form of an equilibrium price, which is an abstraction. We don't know how much it costs to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The American Physical Society, (just about as good of an authority as you can get), estimated the mean price to be $600/ton, and while a lot of people have claimed it's perfectly possible for less, that number should serve as a baseline. And a $600/ton carbon price would be like dropping a nuke on the energy sector.

I think a key point is that the cost of emissions reductions isn't a fixed figure, it's a spectrum. There are emissions reductions projects out there that pay out at <$100/MT. By pay out I mean emitting entities would be incentivized to pay for emissions reductions projects that save the company $100/MT of emissions. Rule of thumb pay out economics is a 3-4 year simple payback. Some companies allow for longer payback on energy projects than they would other capital intensive potential projects. A 4 yr payback @$100/MT means it would have to cost less than $400 for every MT/yr of reductions. If it didn't meet the pay out requirement, the company would be economically incentivized to do something else with that money.

Eventually the low hanging fruit will be taken and further emissions reductions would need to go after more expensive emissions. The ultimate cost (i.e. the highest the market could ever support) would be the cost of pulling CO2 directly out of the air.

Is that $600/MT figure the estimated ongoing cost of CO2 removal? Or is that the estimate price that would be needed to get people to build sequestration projects? Not sure about sequestration but emissions reductions projects are usually high capex, low opex so I'm not quite sure what to make of that figure.

# ? May 24, 2018 02:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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