Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

I'd be careful when attending those scientists march rallies. If you get arrested you could get put on a blacklist that would make it very hard to find employment in your field.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2017 04:41

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 08:10

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Now that I think about it one of the main reasons Putin supports Trump is probably his views on climate change. Russia is one of the few countries in the world that would actually benefit from significant global warming. If Siberia gets warm enough to support large-scale agriculture then Russia has the potential to have a massive population.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2017 17:38

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Uranium Phoenix posted:

There are a lot of geoengineering possibilities; spreading sulfur aerosols around is probably the cheapest and easiest, which is probably why it gets talked about most. It comes down as acid rain, though, so yeah, definite downsides. As a knock-on effect, if people believe climate change is "solved" by a given geoengineering scheme, it might accidentally lead to inaction on carbon emissions that keep worsening the climate.

Other ideas are:

"Paint a bunch of stuff white," such as roads, roofs, or other areas, or otherwise increase the albedo of the planet. This is likely pretty expensive to do and maintain, but as long as you're not doing the stupider variants such as make roads a blindingly reflective surface, it's unlikely to have nasty consequences. Things like reducing black carbon emission (so cutting things like coal) also increase albedo by keeping snow white and persisting longer.

Launch giant satellites. This might involve giant satellites that let some light in, or giant mirrors that just black out given areas. The idea is to reduce the incoming radiation so that there's a percent or two less light hitting earth, which will have a cooling effect. This is obviously going to be a massive expense to build and maintain, and you have to burn a bunch of fossil fuels to get the rockets up in the first place, so it's less than ideal.

Blow up various unoccupied areas with nukes to get dust in the air. Well, it'd be cheap at least, and also create lots of nature preserves Chernobyl-style. Baby teeth were getting a little light on how much strontium-90 they had anyways. (this is a terrible idea).

Greenhouse gas removal. Well, there's ways to do this, but few tested on a large scale and all of them expensive. Again, as long as we've got coal plants running, this isn't going to do much.

Marine cloud brightening involves running ships around the equator spraying seawater up to create lots of bright clouds that increase the albedo of the planet.

Iron-fertilizer in parts of the ocean. This tries to get plankton and stuff to grow more (iron often being the limiting nutrient for how large a population can get). Some rich idiot did this and I'm pretty sure it didn't work like they thought. Also this could severely gently caress up ocean ecosystems.

Most of the ideas are massively outweighed by the much cheaper, less risky, and larger effect that would come from shutting down coal plants and replacing them with renewables or nuclear. Geoengineering, at least, the less stupid versions of it, might be useful after we've brought emissions down drastically. We would also want to study the hell out of whatever it is we plan to do so it doesn't bite us in the rear end with some unforseen consequence.

Instead of nuking the Earth to create a dust cloud we should nuke the Moon in a controlled way to create a shielding ring of debris that blocks just enough sunlight to counter global warming.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2018 05:31

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Wouldn't more rain offset global warming via evaporative cooling? Seems like the Earth will simply "sweat" to cool itself.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2018 02:01

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Bishounen Bonanza posted:

When people refer to the earth, they are talking about the seas and the atmosphere too, the whole thing together is the system we call earth. Moving heat from one part of the earth to another, like from the atmosphere to the sea via rain, doesn't help. The total heat in the system stays the same.

You fool. You absolute gibbering moron.

Water will land on the ground and take some heat from the ground. When the water evaporates the vapor rises into the upper atmosphere. In the upper atmosphere the surface area of the vapor increases because the decreased pressure causes the vapor gas to expand. With this increased surface area the amount of heat the vapor loses via thermal radiation increases, with about half of that radiation being lost to outer space. Therefore rain cools the Earth by moving heat energy from the solid Earth into the upper atmosphere where it can more easily radiate into outer space.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2018 17:51

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Preen Dog posted:

As mentioned, water vapor hangs out predominately below the cloud layer, and selectively absorbs infrared emitted from the earth, making it a greenhouse gas.

The idea would totally work in the form of a pressurized, refrigerant-filled tube that goes from ground level to space. The liquid refrigerant at the bottom would absorb heat and vaporize, rise, then emit that heat when it condenses in a higher part of the tube. You'd just have to invent a new refrigerant, make the tube to withstands thousands of PSI, chrome it so it doesn't absorb sunlight, and tether the top of the tube to a satellite like a space elevator. The tube should have huge fins to improve heat transfer, while remaining clean and surviving high winds.

e. You can use existing refrigerants if you add a compressor and operate the tube at tens of thousands of PSI.

e2. It works way better if you flip it and separate the liquid and gas side with a regulating valve. You're welcome.

If the amount of heat radiated into outer space by the water vapor exceeds the amount it blocks from below then there will still be a cooling effect. More water vapor in the air also means more clouds, which reflect solar radiation.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/greenhouse-gases.php?section=watervapor

This site seems to indicate that little research has been done on the effects of water vapor on global warming, despite water vapor being the most abundant greenhouse gas. However given that the current Trump administration has an agenda to deny climate change I'm a bit skeptical that this piece was written without bias.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2018 01:51

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Hello Sailor posted:

Read it again. They know it's a positive feedback loop (generates more warming), where they're claiming confusion is in exactly how strong it is.

They don't know what the effects of other feedback loops could be. For example maybe a slight increase in global temperatures causes massive amounts of rainfall, which then cause cooling that causes global temperatures to drop below even pre-industrial temperatures, which subsequently causes a significant drop in water vapor such that the total amount of greenhouse gases once again equals the levels during pre-industrial times and global temperatures stabilize.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2018 03:43

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Iron Twinkie posted:

On that note, the current population NYC proper is about 8.5 million. How in the god drat gently caress is a city like that going to evacuate ahead of a climate change supercharged natural disaster or it's aftermath when it's rendered uninhabitable? How is that going to get any better by telling America's 325 million people to go cattle car themselves into some even larger, dystopian mega city?

During the Rwandan genocide 250,000 refugees crossed a single bridge in 24 hours, on foot. With proper organization it's possible that all of New York's inhabitants could be evacuated to higher ground in as little as a week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_refugee_crisis

quote:

On 28�29 April, 250,000 people crossed the bridge at Rusumo Falls into Ngara, Tanzania in 24 hours in what the UNHCR agency called "the largest and fastest refugee exodus in modern times".

# ¿ Oct 2, 2018 20:36

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

im depressed lol posted:

has there been even a mock proposal to start a new branch in the united states' Department of Defense to 'combat' climate change?

i'm trying to think of mechanisms by which governments can just print a gently caress ton of money, throw the money-catalyst at the problem (as a mechanism for mobilizing the resources necessary), and not have it destroyed by weird ron-paulites crying INFLATION! GOLD STANDARD! SOMETHING ELSE THAT ISN'T REAL! END THE FED!

maybe framed more like how the government built the a-bomb. something that requires serious planning and government/military/civillian co-operation due to a very real existential threat.

That very real existential threat has to be, you know, real, as in massive crop failures and massive coastal flooding. The Manhattan Project didn't start getting massive funding until after Pearl Harbor.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2018 17:29

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

How are u posted:

The human brain just ain't built to care about 50 years into the future, much less 100, 200, 300. It's the loving Great Filter, friends. Accept it, it's OK, it's what happens to virtually every sentient form of life in the universe. This is normal, nothing is wrong.

I always thought the Great Filter was the fact that any advanced species would necessarily have to be war-like, and once they discover thermonuclear weapons it is only a matter of time before they turn the planet into an irradiated wasteland.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2018 17:49

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

StabbinHobo posted:

i've been trying to think of forms of 'direct action' that stay well shy of anything that could be labeled terrorism or hurting anyone

I think the key flaw in our system is the use of financial leverage to force a long term compound interest growth outcome. The moral supremacy of bondholders and all that.

But it seems like that is incredibly ripe for being used against them. If someone is walking a tight-rope you don't have to touch them to send them plummeting, you just need a breeze or to provoke a flinch.

coal plants, imho enemy #1, are already in very precarious financial situations.

what could be done to drive the operating costs of a given coal plant up ... i dunno, 2%?

I think a kind of full-court-press strategy could easily do such a thing:
- protesters blocking the parkinglots and doors and whatnot on random frequent occasions
- air quality sensor networks built out in the surrounding communities with the data turned into nice web graphics and actively 'pushed' toward local mothers
- regular drone flyover/around HD videos for picking apart every little thing about the operation we can (very likely to find corners being cut)
- figure out how to choke them, like, how does the coal actually get logistically supplied to the station, how can every town and waterway in that path be brought into the fight, reverse engineer the supply chain and find its weakest links
- just straight up lawyers, I know that really means money, but are there ways to turn $10k of lawyer money on our side into $1M of laywer/compliance/etc work on their end?

come to think of it there's a multi decade history of this kind of thing being wildly successful with nuclear, we can probably just review the history and lightly refresh the tactics

The attacks on nuclear were only successful because the activists could point at coal and say "See, we don't need nuclear for energy, we have 300 years of coal reserves!" Ironically now environmental activists can point at nuclear and say "See, we don't need coal, nuclear provides the energy we need without carbon emissions!"

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 19:39

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Trabisnikof posted:

Ignoring the moral/ethical question and only looking predictively, even SR15 says that violence, war, conflict, instability are all more likely under scenarios where our political and social institutions aren't strengthened and more of the global economy brought into strictly regulated and controlled systems.

So the future of the world is either those creating the emissions stop, or eventually everyone else forces them. The middle part of the story, in what form does revolution come and when, can still be undecided even if the outcomes are not. Either the revolution comes sooner and less violently or later with more bloodshed, but it is coming.

The ones creating the emissions all have nuclear weapons, there is no way to stop them by force. The only hope for climate refugees is that Russia and Canada allow massive immigration to their uninhabited lands.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 23:06

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Who? Do people think Joe smog is somewhere creating pollution? It's everyone everywhere creating co2 through all sorts of mundane stuff that needs to be improved and replaced. Not some rich guy farting it all out personally.

Right, and how can all the millions of people who are producing emissions be stopped by force? They can't, they built nuclear weapons and elected leaders to use those nuclear weapons to protect them. Americans have no reason to stop global warming; they will just appropriate the rich jungles of Canada when the time comes.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2018 00:41

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Planes should be converted into gliders that have rocket engines fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The engines would fire to raise the plane's altitude and then turn off to let the plane glide, only turning on again once too much altitude is lost. The liquid hydrogen and oxygen would be produced using power from a source that emits low amounts of greenhouse gases.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2018 03:46

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

The problem is... there is no problem... yet.

Sea levels haven't risen to the point of inconvenience. Temperatures haven't risen to the point of inconvenience. None of the bad things that are predicted to happen because of climate change have happened yet. So climate change is going to be near the bottom of the average voter's concerns.

What can be done right now by those who care about climate change is to find ways to reduce carbon emissions that also benefit people directly. Stuff like more fuel efficient cars falls into this category, because they help people save money on gas, which is something they actually care about. Screaming about the doomsday implications of climate change will not accomplish anything because the average voter simply won't believe you, or worse, do the opposite of what you're suggesting because they think you have some kind of nefarious agenda.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2018 23:03

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

twodot posted:

Is there good evidence this doesn't just induce more demand like other efficiency gains?

I agree that making cars more fuel efficient by itself wont reduce overall CO2 emissions. However, by creating the technology now, it will make it easier to transition to a less fossil-fuel dependent society in the future when the effects of climate change become real and people start voting to restrict fossil fuel consumption.

Consider the following two scenarios:

A.) We don't make cars more fuel efficient right now.
B.) We make cars more fuel efficient right now.

Let's say that in 20 years the effects of climate change cause voters to pass a law that caps each person's yearly CO2 emissions to some value. In scenario A people would have to reduce their non-car CO2 emitting activities MORE than in scenario B, so the people in scenario A would suffer more while they wait for the technology to make cars more fuel efficient is developed.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2018 23:33

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Blanketspace posted:

Here's my problem with the plane thing: the empty seat, assuming nobody else books it, will result in just as many emissions as had you been on the plane. Until enough people cut out taking that specific route that the airline gets rid of the flight entirely and instead of four daily flights from tulsa to chicago they run three, no difference is achieved. Too many people currently rely on air travel for work or seeing families on holidays for a handfull of people cutting out leisure travel to make a difference.

Personal water and power conservation make a lot more sense to me, because those things have a direct impact on the pool of availible resources.

If there are too many empty seats airlines will cut down on flights so the planes are more full.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 05:21

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

It's important to note that countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo are still de facto colonial states, as in any decisions their government makes have to side with EU interests. If they don't, the FFL is sent in to kill the leaders and replace them with greedy local "rebels" who will gladly sign a "legitimate" trade agreement to sell off the countries resources for a little skim off the top.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2018 00:19

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Rime posted:

Unless you are actively dismantling the system, there are billions of other people without self awareness who are happy to keep eating McD's in your place and feeding the economic steamroller which is engaged in the industrial destruction of our biosphere.

You not flying or switching to a (agriculturally intensive and responsible for tropical deforestation) vegan diet means jack poo poo. You moving to a mud hut in the woods and going primitive means Jack. poo poo. There is no individual winning play here except for one. Get it?

We have at best a decade left before processes ensure our climate is guaranteed to kill off most sentient life present on the planet, and as far as we've been able to determine, our galaxy.

I could give two shits if some dude is flying around petting cats, because this is a thread full of privileged westerners who aren't willing to actually sacrifice to change the world.

Wrong, a single individual performing an action could eventually cause millions or even billions to do that action as well by emulating that action.

For example if I go to the grocery store and buy some tofu plus a bunch of other ingredients to make tofu taste better, and then go to the checkout aisle and neatly arrange the tofu and ingredients on the belt, then other customers near me would see the tofu and ingredients and think to themselves "hmm, this guy seems to be eating tofu, maybe I should give it a shot." Then they too buy tofu to try it out and other customers see them buying tofu. This way the number of people buying tofu instead of meat increases exponentially until meat consumption and hence CO2 production is greatly decreased.

I tried that tofu trick and it ended up not working because I ended up not liking the taste of tofu, so when I bought meat again customers saw me buying meat and agreed that meat was better.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2018 01:55

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Redirect the oil pipeline into the water supply of red counties. Then drop a match into the sink at a diner.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Oct 21, 2018 03:06

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

im depressed lol posted:

Has this been posted yet?

http://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/Pr...-brand-audits-/
This is a very significant example of how corporations collectively contribute to a massive problem like plastic pollution. The solution here is probably to ban by government single-use plastic or develop a non-proprietaery industry-wide standard for a plastic that.... sucks less?

Weren't there stories about like edible plastics?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/shortcuts/2018/apr/09/the-edible-solutions-to-the-plastic-packaging-crisis

What I'm saying is boys, we need some edible coal. Edit: this is a joke, i know a lot of stupid things have been said in this thread but this is a joke

The solution to plastic is simple; a bacteria that eats the plastic, since it is made out of organic material after all. The reason this bacteria hasn't been developed yet is because plastic pollution is a non-issue when compared to the imminent heat death of the planet.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2018 20:46

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Plumps posted:

Here's a little nugget from 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/09/fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-falters-six-years-after-tsunami - Fukushima cleanup cost estimate has doubled again to $198 billion, to take '30-40 years'. Reading the article it seems that these estimates are likely to increase in the future.

What a rip off. $198 billion and no giant robots. Just puny radiation prone ones.

I'm not saying nuclear is bad, but I could think of a few better things to spend that amount of money on.

Will be interesting to see where the sea level rise vs cleanup race is in a few decades.

It's going to cost $198 billion dollars precisely because they need giant robots to remotely extract the nuclear waste.

e: I was thinking that you meant giant robots would materialize out of the reactors Transformers-style.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2018 03:26

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Communism would cause less global warming than Capitalism because Communism is less economically efficient.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2018 12:40

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Libluini posted:

Nah, we would be wiped out by a gamma ray burst the next Tuesday after that.

A GMB would only wipe out half the planet though. But then again that paradoxically would save the half that survived from climate change.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2018 22:09

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

sitchensis posted:

It's cool and normal to have entire towns destroyed by wildfires in northern California during mid November.

I wonder how much CO2 those fires are releasing compared to the annual CO2 released by humans.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 22:31

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

So which is it, warmer air = drier air, or warmer air = able to hold more water = wetter air.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 23:33

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 08:10

qkkl: Jul 1, 2013; by FactsAreUseless

Notorious R.I.M. posted:

Temperature and humidity are two separate things.

Hot dry air is fire weather. Hot humid air is flood weather. I wonder if there's some sort of common factor here...

I'm talking about the relationship between change in temperature and humidity. So for a given environment, what would be the effects on humidity if the temperature increases or decreases.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2018 23:55

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