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Rime posted:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...es-of-progress/ That whole article is horrifying but this part stuck out: The Washington Post posted:“What is less clear is whether these trends can continue,” Lewis said by email. “Reduced plant operation and closures around the country are putting huge pressures on local governments to deal with slowing economic growth and unemployment. Overcapacity in these sectors, and particularly an overbuild of coal plants, means there is pressure to increase coal electricity production, which is often done through the curtailment of renewables. As a result, China’s long term CO2 emissions trends are unclear at best.” Unsurprisingly people want to actually use the coal plants they've built, especially when infrastructure and employment is tied to their continued operation. This is the case even as new solar capacity allegedly becomes cheaper than coal power to build AND operate. It reminds me of this plot (even discussed previously in this thread!):  It would be nice if China and India could reduce their emissions significantly in the near future, but realistically they are developing economies and have limited ability to actually impose climate policy on regional and local govts. If the US and EU are the only regions in a position to reduce emissions than any new fossil-fuel capacity is a disaster as owners+investors+employees will lobby very hard to prevent any future closure. The US is not on a course to make the required drastic cuts to emissions now OR in the near future, even if natural gas replacing coal power generation is superficially a good thing.
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Nov 13, 2017 18:08
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Some nice bombs within the last month. CO2 concentrations accelerating, and now emissions are still increasing. noice
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Nov 13, 2017 21:48
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b-b-but i was told that the chinese were making great strides in carbon emissionhahahahahha seriously you're so dumb if you ever believed that
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Nov 13, 2017 22:02
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Nocturtle posted:It would be nice if China and India could reduce their emissions significantly in the near future, but realistically they are developing economies and have limited ability to actually impose climate policy on regional and local govts. If the US and EU are the only regions in a position to reduce emissions than any new fossil-fuel capacity is a disaster as owners+investors+employees will lobby very hard to prevent any future closure. The US is not on a course to make the required drastic cuts to emissions now OR in the near future, even if natural gas replacing coal power generation is superficially a good thing. Yeah, the EU and US is going to have a lot of fun trying to destroys hundreds of billions of dollars of value in natural gas plants which doesn't depreciate on its own until it's already too late. 
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Nov 13, 2017 22:06
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Evil_Greven posted:
Arguing about natural/artificial climate change has always baffled me. Whether the world warms due to natural cycles or anthro emissions, the consequences are exactly the same. So long as we're stuck on this marble we have to be able to regulate the climate within survivable levels.
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Nov 13, 2017 22:46
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Pantsbird posted:Arguing about natural/artificial climate change has always baffled me. It's pretty useful to look at natural variation to see where we might be headed without additional human forcing. The Eemian (MIS 5e) and Holsteinian (MIS 11) interglacials both got pretty wild without anthropogenic forcing and they're pretty good analogs to the holocene. In particular they can be useful to figure out what equilibrium climate sensitivity might look like because they can help us factor in likelihoods and outcomes of things like ice sheet collapse, ocean current transport collapse, etc.... For example, large portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed in the Eemian with much lower CO2 concentrations than where we're at now.
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Nov 13, 2017 23:00
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:It's pretty useful to look at natural variation to see where we might be headed without additional human forcing. . Definitely. It's super important to learn why the planet does what it does. I mean, when people argue that natural climate change is perfectly fine, and resisting it would a crime against nature or god or oil companies or something. Like this guy, he describes the chaotic history of the earth, right before saying that climate change is a hyped up fad. https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/02/03/is-anything-wrong-with-natural-non-man-made-climate-change/#57d32b3a474e quote:
I don't want to live under a glacier of any thickness.
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Nov 13, 2017 23:35
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When people talk about climate change being natural. It's like, bruh, there is nothing natural about the 7.6 billion people ravaging at every piece of flesh on this god forsaken earth.
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Nov 14, 2017 00:00
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Minge Binge posted:When people talk about climate change being natural. It's like, bruh, there is nothing natural about the 7.6 billion people ravaging at every piece of flesh on this god forsaken earth. There are probably other Earths that have lit up their planet in a blaze of carbonaceous glory. It's a pretty natural phenomenon imho
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Nov 14, 2017 00:02
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Nocturtle posted:It would be nice if China and India could reduce their emissions significantly in the near future, but realistically they are developing economies and have limited ability to actually impose climate policy on regional and local govts. If the US and EU are the only regions in a position to reduce emissions than any new fossil-fuel capacity is a disaster as owners+investors+employees will lobby very hard to prevent any future closure. The US is not on a course to make the required drastic cuts to emissions now OR in the near future, even if natural gas replacing coal power generation is superficially a good thing. If the US and the EU are the only regions in a position to reduce emissions, then just forget about making a dent in climate change, period. The US and the EU combined make up about 25% of global emissions - compared to about 30% from China. And, as we're seeing, the ratio is likely to tilt further and further towards China as time goes on. So this is just a completely wrong-headed approach. It's going to have to be a global effort, and that's the assumption that existing climate accords are based on. As for natural gas: unless you're either going to somehow accelerate adoption of renewables, build nuclear reactors far faster than they've ever been deployed in history, or rapidly reduce energy consumption (with the concomitant recessions this would produce), then it's going to have include widespread adoption of natural gas. I'm sympathetic to the lobbying argument, but as far as I can tell fossil fuel companies already lobby as hard as possible, and it's surely going to be politically easier to retire those plants early than to enact drastic measures right now.
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Nov 14, 2017 01:21
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Minge Binge posted:When people talk about climate change being natural. It's like, bruh, there is nothing natural about the 7.6 billion people ravaging at every piece of flesh on this god forsaken earth. There's nothing unnatural about a newly emerged species causing global environmental devastation; it's happened a number of times
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Nov 14, 2017 01:42
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Gum posted:There's nothing unnatural about a newly emerged species causing global environmental devastation; it's happened a number of times Well, yes. The closest geological analogy to the anthropocene extinction event is the emergence of cyanobacteria.
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Nov 14, 2017 01:50
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Gum posted:There's nothing unnatural about a newly emerged species causing global environmental devastation; it's happened a number of times There's nothing unnatural about rape either and yet we seem to have moved beyond accepting it (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 14, 2017 02:50
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15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world in new ‘letter to humanity’quote:They pointed out that in the past 25 years:
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Nov 14, 2017 05:16
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Thug Lessons posted:If the US and the EU are the only regions in a position to reduce emissions, then just forget about making a dent in climate change, period. The US and the EU combined make up about 25% of global emissions - compared to about 30% from China. And, as we're seeing, the ratio is likely to tilt further and further towards China as time goes on. So this is just a completely wrong-headed approach. It's going to have to be a global effort, and that's the assumption that existing climate accords are based on. Well we have a bit of a bind there don't we though. The third world produces most of its emissions shipping products to us and in cases of countries like India, which is poor as dirt, fossil fuel plants are the cheapest and least complicated answer to their future energy woes. I don't think anyone is seriously going to argue that the third world doesn't also needs to cut its emissions but there needs to be some realism about our role in how that is possibly ever going to happen. If a country like Germany can't make a serious attempt at a carbon-neutral power-grid then how is a country with magnitudes less capital and R&D muscles ever going to hope to achieve the same. What almost all of the developed countries which are approaching carbon-neutral power grids have in common is that they rely on non-replicable geographical advantages like hydroelectrical dams and service-oriented economies to achieve that. It is up to the West to prove what a carbon-neutral society might actually look like because if we don't then no one is. Thug Lessons posted:As for natural gas: unless you're either going to somehow accelerate adoption of renewables, build nuclear reactors far faster than they've ever been deployed in history, or rapidly reduce energy consumption (with the concomitant recessions this would produce), then it's going to have include widespread adoption of natural gas. I'm sympathetic to the lobbying argument, but as far as I can tell fossil fuel companies already lobby as hard as possible, and it's surely going to be politically easier to retire those plants early than to enact drastic measures right now. The lobbying arguments surmount to 'this is cheaper than coal now' and that is literally the only real reason natural gas is replacing coal presently speaking. If oil or coal becomes cheaper again the industry will just as easily shift developments towards that instead. That nuclear power plants takes time to build doesn't mean we shouldn't be building them, they will continue to fill a vital role in the renewable puzzle until there is a better alternative. Presently speaking resource that could go into building nuclear is going into natural gas, that is not good for the future. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Nov 14, 2017 |
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Nov 14, 2017 06:10
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Thug Lessons posted:Again, I'm having a whole lot of trouble understanding what you mean. Can you put in some more detail? Over very long time scales, sure, it's not balanced, and GHG levels fluctuate. But the overwhelming bulk of the rise in atmospheric GHG levels right now is being driven by anthropogenic emissions, not natural ones. We're already at the point where natural emissions might've tipped over natural carbon sinks.
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Nov 14, 2017 06:39
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Notorious R.I.M. posted:There are probably other Earths that have lit up their planet in a blaze of carbonaceous glory. It's a pretty natural phenomenon imho The Fermi Paradox Solved! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
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Nov 14, 2017 07:26
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Rime posted:15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world in new ‘letter to humanity’ Well now. If that doesn't say "on the very brink of catastrophe" I don't know what does. VideoGameVet posted:The Fermi Paradox Solved! You joke, but that's actually a good point. Climate change might itself be a great filter, like an overfilled petri dish full of bacteria discovering that infinite expansion in a limited space will destroy you eventually.
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Nov 14, 2017 09:16
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MiddleOne posted:Well we have a bit of a bind there don't we though. The third world produces most of its emissions shipping products to us and in cases of countries like India, which is poor as dirt, fossil fuel plants are the cheapest and least complicated answer to their future energy woes. I don't think anyone is seriously going to argue that the third world doesn't also needs to cut its emissions but there needs to be some realism about our role in how that is possibly ever going to happen. If a country like Germany can't make a serious attempt at a carbon-neutral power-grid then how is a country with magnitudes less capital and R&D muscles ever going to hope to achieve the same. What almost all of the developed countries which are approaching carbon-neutral power grids have in common is that they rely on non-replicable geographical advantages like hydroelectrical dams and service-oriented economies to achieve that. It is up to the West to prove what a carbon-neutral society might actually look like because if we don't then no one is. It's absolutely not true that developing economies produce most of their emissions through export to the West. Even in heavily export-oriented economies like China exports account for only 33% of emissions, and you have to keep in mind that most of those exports are not going to the US and Europe. Even if we include the advanced Asian economies of Japan and South Korea, the West accounts for only about half of those exports. I haven't seen any country where exports to the West make up anything close to a majority of emissions. By and large the drivers are the same as they are anywhere else: domestic energy production, personal transport, agriculture, and all the rest of the familiar culprits. Now, as for the point about developing economies and their emissions, I'm actually in full agreement with you, and I don't think anyone disagrees with the notion that the advanced economies have to take the lead in decarbonization. That's certainly the position of, for example, the negotiators at Paris. Poor countries have very immediate problems with energy poverty, and the expectations that they jump immediately to no- or low-carbon energy sources strikes me as unreasonable and rather cold-hearted. But the converse position that these emissions are going to be offset by much deeper-than-planned cuts from rich countries, especially without the use of natural gas in the short- to medium-term, strikes me as equally unrealistic. I don't see how it's politically, economically or technically possible. So the "realist" position, it seems to me, is that we are actually going to blow well past a 2C limit and should expect warming more on the order of 2.5-3.5C — which, as it happens, is exactly what's projected in the same report showing emissions rising in 2017.
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Nov 14, 2017 10:35
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Conspiratiorist posted:We're already at the point where natural emissions might've tipped over natural carbon sinks. Really? According to whom? That's radically different from anything I've read from climate scientists. The view that I've seen is that, on top of re-absorbing all of its own emissions, the Earth's systems (in the form of the biosphere, oceans, weathering, etc.) absorb about half of human emissions, meaning they're acting as a net sink not only on their own emissions but on human emissions as well. And there is no recent indication that this is changing. Take, for example, the US government's Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report, out in draft form and due to be released soon, which shows Earth systems as a large net sink on atmospheric CO2. There are certain specific areas — particularly tropic wetlands, perhaps also Arctic permafrost and some other regions — that we are worried are acting as net carbon sources, but I haven't heard anyone claim we're even close to net natural emissions. Where are you getting this?
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Nov 14, 2017 11:06
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I wonder how long they can be a net sink for carbon before it starts being massively damaging or they just stop absorbing? Like the oceans are becoming acidic right? How long before that leads to die offs ilof sensitive species. Or will it?
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Nov 14, 2017 12:57
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:I wonder how long they can be a net sink for carbon before it starts being massively damaging or they just stop absorbing? Like the oceans are becoming acidic right? How long before that leads to die offs ilof sensitive species. Or will it? It's already leading to massive damage to coral reefs. As time goes on it will start having big effects on crustaceans, mollusks, etc., which is going to wreak havoc on the ocean ecosystem as whole. But actually turning Earth systems into a net carbon source is a much bigger geological change, probably well beyond the realm of possibility. Also, if anyone is still in doubt about this one, here's some graphs from the same report that showed rising GHG emissions. We aren't anywhere close to net natural emissions. There was a dip in land sink in 2015-16 as a result of El Nino, but nothing unprecedented, and the ocean sink goes ever upward. 
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Nov 14, 2017 13:24
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I think thig lessons is a new arkane gimmick, you know how the denier ladder progresses quickly from "it's not happening" to "well it's happening but it's not important"
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Nov 14, 2017 15:28
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The stuff people post here isn't about climate change. It's just nonsense of their own concoction like "Climate change is caused by Emoji Movie DVDs".
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Nov 14, 2017 15:55
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Thug Lessons posted:The stuff people post here isn't about climate change. It's just nonsense of their own concoction like "Climate change is caused by Emoji Movie DVDs". You seem to be well informed but also a little too literal my dude. When our planet is dying, technical precision is naturally taking a back seat to metaphor in the discussion. Does it matter that emoji guy hyperbolized some about the impact of one container ship of DVDs? He is alluding to how global capitalism is the driving force behind the destruction of most life on this planet, not engaging in a scientific argument about carbon release.
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Nov 14, 2017 16:59
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In order to understand Global Warming we must first understand the Emoji. What is an Emoji? Webster's dictionary defines emoji as "any of various small images, symbols, or icons used ... to express the emotional attitude of the writer". First conceived in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita the emoji arrived on a planet already polluted by a century of industrial carbon dioxide emissions.
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Nov 14, 2017 17:33
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Oh sorry, I was just working on my doctoral thesis, meant to save it to a word doc hold on still getting used to this mac
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Nov 14, 2017 17:34
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Thug Lessons posted:Really? According to whom? That's radically different from anything I've read from climate scientists. The view that I've seen is that, on top of re-absorbing all of its own emissions, the Earth's systems (in the form of the biosphere, oceans, weathering, etc.) absorb about half of human emissions, meaning they're acting as a net sink not only on their own emissions but on human emissions as well. And there is no recent indication that this is changing. Take, for example, the US government's Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report, out in draft form and due to be released soon, which shows Earth systems as a large net sink on atmospheric CO2. There are certain specific areas — particularly tropic wetlands, perhaps also Arctic permafrost and some other regions — that we are worried are acting as net carbon sources, but I haven't heard anyone claim we're even close to net natural emissions. Where are you getting this? I didn't even read that but you're wrong on every level.
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Nov 14, 2017 18:28
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Wakko posted:You seem to be well informed but also a little too literal my dude. When our planet is dying, technical precision is naturally taking a back seat to metaphor in the discussion. Does it matter that emoji guy hyperbolized some about the impact of one container ship of DVDs? He is alluding to how global capitalism is the driving force behind the destruction of most life on this planet, not engaging in a scientific argument about carbon release. I think you're misunderstanding his point. He's not offering a critique of global capitalism, but a moralistic condemnation of human greed. He wants people to believe that climate change is caused by DVDs, iPhones, Keurigs, etc.: sinful objects of wasteful consumption. But the reality is that these put together add up to a minuscule fraction of aggregate environmental damage, and their elimination wouldn't change the course of climate change in the slightest. It's a very conservative narrative, and more importantly a distraction from the real challenges of decarbonization.
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Nov 14, 2017 22:50
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Conspiratiorist posted:I didn't even read that but you're wrong on every level. What else is new? You've never read anything about climate change besides maybe a headline here or there, which is how you ended up as a Dunning-Kruger fuckhead who makes it up as he goes along. Maybe this will change someday, but probably not. Too stupid.
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Nov 14, 2017 22:53
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Thug Lessons posted:I think you're misunderstanding his point. He's not offering a critique of global capitalism, but a moralistic condemnation of human greed. He wants people to believe that climate change is caused by DVDs, iPhones, Keurigs, etc.: sinful objects of wasteful consumption. But the reality is that these put together add up to a minuscule fraction of aggregate environmental damage, and their elimination wouldn't change the course of climate change in the slightest. It's a very conservative narrative, and more importantly a distraction from the real challenges of decarbonization. I guess if all that is true then we really can maintain our current lifestyle in the west and solve climate change purely by killing off five billion humans elsewhere. Whew, I knew someone would validate me eventually! 
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Nov 14, 2017 23:01
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Rime posted:I guess if all that is true then we really can maintain our current lifestyle in the west and solve climate change purely by killing off five billion humans elsewhere. Whew, I knew someone would validate me eventually! I have no problem with advocating lifestyle changes. I'm a big advocate of vegetarianism and getting rid of your car. But pushing a sort of arch-conservative austerity politics as the solution to climate change is completely the wrong way to go about it. It's not possible, and even if it was it wouldn't work. We should be looking to raise everyone's standard of living to that of the West's while also combating climate change.
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Nov 14, 2017 23:23
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Rime posted:I guess if all that is true then we really can maintain our current lifestyle in the west and solve climate change purely by killing off five billion humans elsewhere. Whew, I knew someone would validate me eventually! Not quite, but if we can force the third world into the first world to curtail population growth at 9 billion, and through efficiency and rationing reduce each person to using on average 80 GWh per year (down from 200 in Australia) we can survive on only the solar energy we get from the sun, while still maintaining our decadent western lifestyle.
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Nov 14, 2017 23:26
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Thug Lessons posted:We should be looking to A bold strategy, cotton, lets see how it plays out. 
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Nov 14, 2017 23:30
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Rime posted:A bold strategy, cotton, lets see how it plays out. You don't have a strategy at all. You just complain about how climate change is caused by iPhones and are immune to evidence to the contrary.
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Nov 14, 2017 23:33
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Strategies that involve trying to suppress standard of living will fail due to non-compliance. The alternative is to decouple improving standards of living from increasing carbon intensity and resource intensity.
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Nov 15, 2017 00:53
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Trabisnikof posted:Strategies that involve trying to suppress standard of living will fail due to non-compliance. The alternative is to decouple improving standards of living from increasing carbon intensity and resource intensity. Even more than this, people playing on their iPhones in bed at night aren't loving and creating more humans, which are the driving force of climate change. The best solution is to up the production of gaudy poo poo and distribute it world wide.
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Nov 15, 2017 01:15
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Thug lessons is so loving liberal he literally can't comprehend a world where we reduce consumption. But.... He can envision world where we can beat climate change and bring all 7,8 billion people out of poverty. god drat thug lessons
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Nov 15, 2017 02:37
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Minge Binge posted:Thug lessons is so loving liberal he literally can't comprehend a world where we reduce consumption. Okay, reduce your consumption by 20% of whatever it is now.
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Nov 15, 2017 04:06
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If there's a 10e-3 chance we'll "science" our way out of it, I'd say that there's a 10e-4 probability that we'll voluntarily decrease our consumption so Thug Life isn't wrong.
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Nov 15, 2017 04:18
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