|
Arkane posted:On this topic, though, we're possibly 3 years from a prototype beta fusion reactor from Lockheed Martin. If its a provable, we're ~25 years from fusion energy becoming commonplace. That would be the most efficient energy source ever created by mankind (by a large margin), with virtually 0 emissions. They've said that fusion is 25 years away for the past 50. While I'd like to believe that something like the Polywell or the Lockheed project you mention would be viable soon, historical predictions (never mind Hofstadter's Law) do not bode well for your prediction. (Doesn't mean I'm not eagerly following Polywell news, but still) Also, on the topic of emissions, while it may have few emissions, it still has a dirty secret if we're not explicitly talking about p-11B fusion: neutron radiation and resulting neutron activation of reactor core materials.
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2014 18:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 15:32 |
|
|
Bizarro Watt posted:Being in California, I'm well familiar with the ongoing drought and its consequences, along with how horrible it is compared to previous droughts within the past century. I think an important question to ask though is how sure we can be that this drought is being caused by the same climatic mechanisms that caused previous droughts? I'm not a climate scientist so I'm not sure how a research would be able to narrow that down using different paleo records. The current drought I believe is largely caused by that high pressure ridge up north that keeps diverting storms that would normally come down here. Yeah, basically California is bone dry for the same reason the rest of the US is seeing unprecedented cold; a blocking high was sitting over California (rather than further east over the Pacific) for most of December and January, which meant that the jet stream was hitting British Columbia and then diving back down over the Midwest as it went around the high and picked up arctic air that would normally sit over the Canadian Shield.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 06:51
|
|
|
I like how Arkane happens to choose a chart that plots temperatures relative to the mean temperatures between 1986 and 2005, so as to make the 201x temperatures conveniently close to 0, when most other charts actually show the temperature changes relative to the 1950-1980 means. Granted, both choices are implicitly "biased" in their own way (using an earlier mean is necessarily going to show a larger, baked-in, climb when the period up to 2000 didn't feature the climatic shifts we're seeing now), but at least taking a mean over the range 1950-1980 and plotting back to the 40s/50s acknowledges that global warming isn't some "crazy idea that just suddenly started in the year 2000."
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2014 04:37
|
|
|
Struensee posted:Yeah, those deaths were caused by hysteria, not nuclear. Sorry. Would you like to play again? The hysteria is implicitly tied to nuclear at this point. It may not be physically connected to nuclear, but it's not like the cause is somehow completely independent of Fukushima. If Fukushima had not happened, those deaths would not have either. Now we can agree that we should work to reduce hysteria, but being forced from your home is inherently stressful, and the reality of nuclear power today is that people are irrationally scared of it, which encourages psychological stress and related harms. Until you can change society's opinions on nuclear power, you have to accept that psychological harms will be part of the human cost of a nuclear disaster.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2014 15:13
|
|
|
Doctor_Fruitbat posted:That really isn't a good argument against anything. Actual psychological harm isn't the same as fears caused by ill-informed opinions, or else we might as well renege on gay marriage and include room for creationists on science programmes because a large number of idiots feel actual distress that their lovely views aren't given due credence. The fears and hysteria of the anti-nuke brigade I agree can probably be dismissed provided that we work to educate the populous. I am more saying that we cannot dismiss the very real health effects of stress that being permanently removed from one's home and being shunned by the hysterical (see the many reports of victims being shunned for having previously lived in the exclusion zones) results in. Now of course these health effects are not in isolation. You don't die solely from stress, an intelligent evacuation scheme would likely reduce the number of newly homeless, and the social shunning would not exist absent the underlying hysteria of the population, but you can't simply wave away the increase in mortality induced by these effects, since the increase would not have happened absent Fukushima. To wave away the increase and pretend it is completely unrelated is as intellectually dishonest as trying to wave away warming trends as "just a natural cycle" in my opinion.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2014 15:55
|
|
|
down with slavery posted:Quit being a huge baby, nuclear is safe, get over it. "Hysteria-related deaths" hahaha you have to be kidding me it's a nuclear power plant not a crowded bridge I agree that nuclear is safe. Don't take my opposition to your willfully turning a blind eye to the health effects of stress caused by treating those removed from Fukushima like hibakusha as an evidence that I believe that fossil fuels are preferable to nuclear, because I agree that fears are overblown. What I am arguing is that, just because we agree that fears are overblown doesn't mean the fears (and the effects of those fears) don't exist. To do otherwise is to willfully blind yourself to what is really happening. Own up to it and argue that the socioeconomic impacts of nuclear are still outweighed by the health and economic impacts of coal. You can't win fights against an irrational opposition by refusing to accept their facts as facts.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2014 16:15
|
|
|
down with slavery posted:Yes and we should be careful about letting the gays get married too because we don't want mississippi to have a heart attack. Think of the stress induced deaths! Losing your house and getting poo poo in compensation because of a nuclear disaster. Being discriminated against because people think you are a defective or dirty person for having lived near a nuclear power plant before it blew up and being forcibly relocated by the government as a result. Having to live with the realization that two people of the same gender who gently caress each other can also get married. One of these things is not like the others.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2014 16:47
|
|
|
Series DD Funding posted:That's a very ambitious proposal. Adding on to this, David Brooks over at Vox would like to remind us exactly how screwed we are. (Hint: scientists are lying to you to make you feel better)
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2015 06:10
|
|
|
eNeMeE posted:Man that threw me for a loop Sorry, got my wires crossed when it came to commentators 
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2015 21:28
|
|
|
Wanderer posted:(I figure it'll be Miami drowning.) Speaking of which...
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2015 07:35
|
|
|
Zodium posted:What's the issue here? It'll have post-publication peer review. Looks pretty on the up and up to me. I like how Hello Sailor merely quotes "written by James Hansen" as if that in and of itself is damning, while ignoring the fact that 16 co-authors have signed on as well.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2015 17:30
|
|
|
Time to unskew those temperature graphs! Huh! Whaddaya know! Global warming is fake! Just as predicted! Why am I unskewing them, you ask? How did I determine that the 50% of hottest stations have faked data? I don't need to tell you. Just be glad I've uncovered the conspiracy and proven those global warming activists wrong! Nothing to see here!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2015 16:17
|
|
|
Baudolino posted:I just watched " Cowspiracy" a movie that asserts that consumption of meat and animal Products ( eggs, milk etc) is responsible for over 50% of all climate gas emissions. It also claimed that animal husbandry is just plain awfully destructive in every way for the local global enviorment. Basically the moviemaker beleives that the most effective way to deal With climate change is for everyone to go vegan. If he`s rigth it would mean that it`s completely unnecessary to do anything else. You can keep on driving that ineffective rusty piece of poo poo, just don`t eat meat, milk or eggs so to speak. But is this correct, or the ravings of a nutjob? FAO estimates between 14 and 18%.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2015 17:36
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Seems like everyone wants to remove those from the OP and replace it with mitigation/adaption/geo-engineering only, right? Please don't forget to add a "So what can we do to fix it? / Nothing. We're poo poo out of luck at this point and it's time to start looking at adapting to the new world we've made for ourselves while reducing our emissions to zero, as best and as fast as we can." FAQ line to make it really clear to new readers why there's no talking about "fixing" it any more.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2015 07:59
|
|
|
How are u posted:gently caress the 3rd world, I'm not giving up my air conditioning and internet and xbox. You might not have the option when those third worlders come knocking at the door to escape their situation! Silver lining: Globalization is probably gonna force everyone but the super rich into poverty anyway as wages continue to be driven down, so maybe accelerationism really IS the solution to global warming.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2015 00:05
|
|
|
The AP will now be calling climate change "skeptics" climate change "doubters" I dunno, I guess the jury's still out, and it's not like they're rejecting the Holocaust, so we still can't call them "deniers"! 
ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Sep 26, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2015 16:21
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Did you know the boot of Louisiana doesn't exist anymore? This isn't because of climate change, but the shape of the state has actually changed because oil & gas developed destroyed the barriers keeping the marshlands from becoming sea. Relevant link.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2015 17:17
|
|
|
Vox reports again on what it would take to stay below 2°C taking into account all the latest climate pledges. (see thread title)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2015 02:14
|
|
|
24 states filed suit on Friday to block the EPA's Clean Power Plan.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2015 20:09
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Good thing the EPA already has the authority for this plan and the tea party can't do poo poo about it. Doesn't mean they can't get an injunction blocking it for the several years it sits in the courts.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2015 06:48
|
|
|
By 2100, summer temperatures in Mecca, Dubai, Doha, Bandar Abbas, and Abu Dhabi may become incompatible with human survival.
ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Oct 27, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2015 20:03
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:They aren't already? I thought Dubai only got down to like 100 degrees in the winter. They're talking about more incidents like this one, except humid enough to make human sweating completely useless. That is, a wet bulb temperature of 95 degrees. That incident only hit a wet bulb temperature of 89.6. The study shows that 5+ hour periods with wet bulb temperatures of 95+ degrees could happen several times in a 30 year period at the end of the century.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2015 20:46
|
|
|
Bubbacub posted:Did Lamar Smith really file a subpoena for public domain data from NOAA? No, he filed a subpoena for private e-mails surrounding the use of that data. Basically, Rep. Smith wants to create a new Climategate by demonstrating that climate scientists hate oil or something.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2015 18:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 21, 2024 15:32 |
|
|
So uh... China's been pumping a billion tons more CO2 into the air yearly than previously though. Whoops.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2015 17:08
|
|