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StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

rscott posted:

Gay marriage being legal is like a thousandth of the amount of societal change that is absolutely required for the world to avoid disaster
lol yea thats as far as I got. people just do not understand the size of the problem at all. (really its more like a millionth)

edit: just to contribute something, here's a good article on the math:
https://newrepublic.com/article/136987/recalculating-climate-math

its too many words for some very simple numbers so i'll just excerpt the key parts:

quote:

Those numbers spell out, in simple arithmetic, how much of the fossil fuel in the world’s existing coal mines and oil wells we can burn if we want to prevent global warming from cooking the planet. In other words, if our goal is to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius—the upper limit identified by the nations of the world—how much more new digging and drilling can we do?

Here’s the answer: zero.

That’s right: If we’re serious about preventing catastrophic warming, the new study shows, we can’t dig any new coal mines, drill any new fields, build any more pipelines. Not a single one. We’re done expanding the fossil fuel frontier. Our only hope is a swift, managed decline in the production of all carbon-based energy from the fields we’ve already put in production.

...

Scientists say that to have even a two-thirds chance of staying below a global increase of two degrees Celsius, we can release 800 gigatons more CO2 into the atmosphere. But the Rystad data shows coal mines and oil and gas wells currently in operation worldwide contain 942 gigatons worth of CO2. So the math problem is simple, and it goes like this:

942 > 800

“What we found is that if you burn up all the carbon that’s in the currently operating fields and mines, you’re already above two degrees,”

...

Two degrees Celsius used to be the red line. But scientists now believe the upper limit is much lower. [...] last year, when the world’s leaders met in Paris, they set a new number: Every effort, they said, would be made to keep the global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees. And to have even a 50–50 chance of meeting that goal, we can only release about 353 gigatons more CO2. So let’s do the math again:

942 > 353


To have just a break-even chance of meeting that 1.5 degree goal we solemnly set in Paris, we’ll need to close all of the coal mines and some of the oil and gas fields we’re currently operating long before they’re exhausted.

“Absent some incredible breakthrough in mythical carbon-sucking unicorns, the numbers say we’re done with the expansion of the fossil fuel industry,” says Kretzmann. “Living up to the Paris Agreement means we must start a managed decline in the fossil fuel industry immediately—and manage that decline as quickly as possible.”

“Managed decline” means we don’t have to grind everything to a halt tomorrow; we can keep extracting fuel from existing oil wells and gas fields and coal mines. But we can’t go explore for new ones. We can’t even develop the ones we already know about, the ones right next to our current projects.

...

if the U.S. energy industry gets its way and develops all the oil wells and fracking sites that are currently planned [inside the US], that would add another 51 billion tons in carbon emissions. And if we let that happen, America would single-handedly blow almost 40 percent of the world’s carbon budget.

...

Another union official put it most eloquently: “Let’s not turn away and overregulate or just say, ‘No, keep it in the ground.’ It shouldn’t be that simple.”

She’s right—it would be easier for everyone if it weren’t that simple. Union workers have truly relied on those jobs to build middle-class lives, and all of us burn the damned stuff, all day, every day. But the problem is, it is that simple. We have to “turn away.” We have to “keep it in the ground.” The numbers are the numbers. We literally cannot keep doing what we’re doing if we want to have a planet.

...

we will need to pass the “Keep It in the Ground Act,” legislation that would end new mining and drilling for fossil fuels on public land. It’s been called “unrealistic” or “naïve” by everyone from ExxonMobil to the interior secretary. But as the new math makes clear, keeping fossil fuels in the ground is the only realistic approach. What’s unrealistic is to imagine that we can somehow escape the inexorable calculus of climate change. As the OCI report puts it, “One of the most powerful climate policy levers is also the simplest: stop digging.” That is, after all, the first rule of holes, and we’re in the biggest one ever.

This is literally a math test, and it’s not being graded on a curve. It only has one correct answer.

StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Apr 24, 2017

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StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
lol if you think congressmen are even 3 tiers down from the top

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
notice no one even tried to posit a scenario where we burn <400GT going forward

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
you mean 1850

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Crazycryodude posted:

That said, eat the rich and lynch every denyer you know it's honestly, unironically the best way to save what's left of the planet.
this, but to live in a single family detached home and/or drive a car is to be in denial so they're included

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
hey like, i dunno 100 pages back or so, somebody had a great list of the stages of denialism. can anyone paste that and save me hunting for it.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
two people said this already but just to drive it home, after cars and electricity comes home-heating

but home heating single family homes is absurdly wasteful compared to multi-unit buildings: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11731

quote:

Households living in apartment buildings with five or more units use about half as much energy as other types of homes

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
yea you can treat the carbon cost of car travel and the carbon cost of home electricity & heating as separate things, but really they're one thing: single family detached housing

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

large oblate cat posted:

pushing for denser cities is still the most impact any individual can make against CC.
just wanna quote & re-emphasize this

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

cheese posted:

I'm looking for a carbon calculator to get a better feel for the numbers, but struggling to find a good one. Specifically, I'm curious about the cost comparisons of, say, living in an apartment in a dense urban area with multiple gas cars used for commuting vs living in a single family home but using an electric car/bicycle for commute. Also, curious as to the overall carbon cost of living in different climates (we basically don't run central air or heat at all at any point in the year thanks to the bay areas mild climate).

w/r/t heating you could just go by mcf of gas and kwh of electricity.

but careful with the "*MY* burb castle is OK" line of reasoning. no amount of solar powered electric cars and heating can make up for the fact that city sewer, gas, electric, telco, and straight up asphalt paving has to be laid out (and maintained) to make it work. the road-network and land-use aspects of burb sprawl are intrinsic to the distances it takes to give every 2.3 people their own quarter acre. trying to make burb's sustainable is like putting filters on cigarettes and being proud of how much less tar you're inhaling.

StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 13:24 on Apr 30, 2017

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Minge Binge posted:

Anybody who's serious about GHG emissions will not include beef in their diet.
*after* they've not had kids, don't have a car, and live in a 5+ unit building. Which, if you've gone that far, I say gently caress it enjoy your cheeseburgers.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Potato Salad posted:

Our GDP growth had decoupled from fossil fuel use under Obama. The response to your post is that you don't need to commit national suicide to go green.

I don't buy this. I haven't done a phd thesis's worth of research on it or anything, but I believe that anytime you see gdp and energy usage decoupling you're either a.) not seeing where the energy usage got moved to (mexco, china, etc) or b.) seeing fake/bubble-number gdp growth that will pop soon (like the 'financialization' growth of the 00's or asset inflation in general).

I know you said 'fossil fuel use' not 'energy use', but for all intents and purposes they're still the same thing :( Any de-coupling you might see there is probably at best the coal->natgas shift, which isn't actually decoupling from fossil fuel use its just less carbon per kwh.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
ideally we will all just sit still in our neo-tenement co-work-live-holodeck spaces in our wall-e chairs that don't go anywhere wearing our vr headsets while our dozens $X.99/month subscription flitter about.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Libluini posted:


This argument in a nutshell: A stranger stands with a smoking gun over a bunch of hole-ridden corpses. He screams to the heavens: "The gun is evil! It has betrayed us!"

But if we destroy all guns, that same stranger will just switch to snapping people's necks, since the core of the problem was never touched. (He is the problem.)
oh hell yes, who'd have thought this thread could get worse after 170 pages of repeating the exact same arguments... GUN CONTROL CROSSOVER!

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I can't wait till they get the currents or whatever wrong and a bazillion ton iceberg crashes into a major coastal city during the middle of a heat wave.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
imagine if bangladeshi agents just started dropping tree branches on the right transmissions lines, and driving drone-boat barrel-bombs into oil tankers in the straights of hormuz and malacca

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
haven't read this yet but the animations alone are awesome:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/18/climate/antarctica-ice-melt-climate-change.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Potato Salad posted:

by not just letting the status quo continue with gradual energy/GDP decoupling

this is not a thing, economic activity is energy expenditure

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

BattleMoose posted:

It is a thing in; in so far as different countries have a different rate of CO2e per GDP. More energy efficient countries need less CO2e per GDP.

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

As an example, Switzerland gets 4 times the economic value per unit of CO2 than does the USA.

this whole worldview of nation states competing for gdp statistics is the root of the problem. its one planet. all of these numbers are just shuffling around the hot potato.

Potato Salad posted:

There is EPA / DoE literature on CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and GDP I can find tomorrow. Economic activity will always consume energy, but we (caveats: industrialized, developed nation) haven't appreciably increased energy consumption to grow our GDP in this decade. That GDP growth requires energy growth is something of an assumption.
its not though its really just stating the obvious. only in economist la-la land can you try to microscope your way to small subtle differences that are well within rounding errors to try and tease out a contrarian claim against the obvious r=1 correlation.

Paradoxish posted:

Yeah, I'd actually be very interested in seeing evidence that we aren't simply exporting our energy demand and emissions elsewhere.

Conspiratiorist posted:

Switching to a service economy that doesn't consume as much energy per GDP is fine and dandy when you've got a country elsewhere in the world taking care of the energy intensive resource extraction and manufacturing to meet your consumption demands.
exactly

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
using gdp opportunity cost as concern troll for climate change is the epitome of not getting it

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Accretionist posted:

It's super practical, though. For those at the top, progress often requires getting bad people to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. For the general public, it's immediately graspable as GDP growth/decline is a familiar image.

practical centrism is so pre-trump thinking (pre-obama even... pre-bush... has it *ever* worked?)

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

parcs posted:

Check out this recent lecture by Nate Hagens for a nice overview of our ecological predicament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUSpsT6Oqrg&t=6s

this is good in its being true but his proscriptions are just typical smug "do better people"

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
edit: nvm

vvv let the record show iiiiiii restrained myself

StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jun 3, 2017

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I honestly don't see a path forward. Can one of you optimists try and paint a path from here to say 2200 that isn't just directly projected out lines until breaking points are reached?

Like how do we effect a global <2 child policy peacefully within the next generation or two?

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
i wish i were creative and not-lazy enough to make a parody drawdown with a bunch of options like "super ebola", "ww3" "are bangladehsi's really even people?"

edit: "boomers voluntarily sacrifice a single little thing for the greater good"

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

New Report Finds Climate Change Caused By 7 Billion Key Individuals
http://www.theonion.com/article/new-report-finds-climate-change-caused-by-7-billio-34658

quote:


WASHINGTON—In a landmark report experts say fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the global warming crisis, new data published this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that the phenomenon is caused primarily by the actions of 7 billion key individuals.

These several billion individuals, who IPCC officials confirmed are currently operating in 195 countries worldwide, are together responsible for what experts called the “lion’s share” of the devastating consequences of global warming affecting the entire planet.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
The toba bottleneck was supposedly around 10,000 people. I think if it came on "fast" but like, 100 - 200 years fast, we could build out enough mega-bunkers to keep 10k rich people alive in a relatively indefinite/sustainable way. Even if the surface went full-venus.

In a way, maybe thats what it'll take. Only that level of hyper focus on working out the exact mix of sustainable consumption and resource sharing will ever get humanity to figure out communism.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

city of doves posted:

and then when our woodland spreads all the way to the borders of the gluttonous city... we shall make war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw0jwrWqOKI

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
net-metering for residential solar is just another subsidy for suburban housing. to hell with it.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
reminder for whatever page we're on: if you live in a detached house and drive a car your reduced-meat diet is you telling everyone around you "i'm smug as gently caress and bad at math!"



- have few and ideally no kids
- move to a 5+ unit building
- do not use a car daily
- eat cheeseburgers erry fukin day

StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Jul 12, 2017

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
oh yea but really i came here to post this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/giant-antarctic-iceberg-breaks-free-of-larsen-c-ice-shelf

quote:

Iceberg twice size of Luxembourg breaks off Antarctic ice shelf
Satellite data confirms ‘calving’ of trillion-tonne, 5,800 sq km iceberg from the Larsen C ice shelf, dramatically altering the landscape

A giant iceberg twice the size of Luxembourg has broken off an ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula and is now adrift in the Weddell Sea.

Reported to be “hanging by a thread” last month, the trillion-tonne iceberg was found to have split off from the Larsen C segment of the Larsen ice shelf on Wednesday morning after scientists examined the latest satellite data from the area.

lol edit triple-beat

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Burt Buckle posted:

So more than half of your carbon footprint can be eliminated by basically just moving to a city with public transportation.

Very cool chart.

exactly. every time you hear someone say "but what can I do" its simple "move to a condo or townhouse and take the bus or train to work". thats it. this is where they give you the litany of crybaby excuses of why it would be moderately inconvenience for them to change their lifestyle so blah blah nihilist-escape-hatch.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
it is not at all a coincidence that this breaks down on left/right barriers. buses and trains are shared transit. parks are shared yards. adjacent buildings are shared walls. the solution to climate change is SHARING YOU GREEDY FUCKS.

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
cue the litany

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
give a nearby intersection or throwaway address for where you work. i will find a 2br apartment you can afford within 1 hour public transit of it with ten whole loving minutes of google and craigslist.

edit: :WARNING: YOU MIGHT HAVE TO LIVE NEAR BLACK PEOPLE :WARNING:

StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Jul 13, 2017

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
if your posts starts with "to be fair" u r denying

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
dead boomers are a huge part of adressing global warming

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Accretionist posted:

Point being, this is America. Lower your expectations ever further.

what the gently caress how could you possibly get this less

StabbinHobo fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jul 13, 2017

StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Climate Change: Americans change a little bit or we all die, so SEE YOU IN HELL

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StabbinHobo
Oct 18, 2002

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
great, the press is going to play out the climate change argument that we've looped on every 3 to 5 pages in this thread for the next decade

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