Global Warming/Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Dennisch]

Taken just now. Nice and sunny. Averaging 18c.

 

[Dotini]

Honestly, the question of how is going to be paid for, or perhaps, who is going to profit from it is more genuine, is really the only question. After that, the rest will be figured out, but probably not before that. Hurray our hero capitalism. It got us here, and by golly it will leave us here without financial incentive.

Okay, let's assume all questions are now answered except for who's to pay and who's to profit.

I will suggest that people who purchase food will be the first to pay, since climate change affects food production. If food prices are not changing, then we can take it that there is no significant climate change at this time.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Honestly, the question of how is going to be paid for, or perhaps, who is going to profit from it is more genuine, is really the only question. After that, the rest will be figured out, but probably not before that. Hurray our hero capitalism. It got us here, and by golly it will leave us here without financial incentive.

Capitalism isn't an "ism" at all but if you know of something other than capitalism that is capable of generating the resources necessary to fight climate change I'd be happy to hear about it.

 

[Rallywagon]

Capitalism isn't an "ism" at all but if you know of something other than capitalism that is capable of generating the resources necessary to fight climate change I'd be happy to hear about it.

as mentioned before, world wide communism. There is no way in hell capitalism is going to get us out of this, regardless of its status as an ism. I mean, it might get some people out of it, those that can afford to buy clean water, air and food. Everyone else... well. I doubt there will be much profit, thus not much expenditure in helping those that cant afford it, especially as demand for clean water and air starts to go up. Which it will.
Now, I dont know that that is totally true. I do think that our government could in fact do more to curb our effects on the climate. But first we would need to deal with crony capitalism, get rid of lobbyists, and spend as much as we do causing wars on getting industries and peoples daily habits in line with those that would create a cleaner world. But... well... I mean, we have immigrants to fight, and liberals, or conservatives to hate, and a war on terror, and a whole slew of other stupid issues that for some reason take precedence over cleaning up our lives.

 

[Danoff]

Why Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island prove nuclear is safe.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...-why-nuclear-is-inherently-safe/#23004fc81688

 

[Dotini]

World grain production is currently affected by bad weather and reduced harvested area. Reserves are not more than for a month or two, IMO.



European Union
Stratégie Grains (SG) forecasted total European Union (EU) wheat production at 136 MMT, down 11 percent year over year due to adverse weather conditions and decreased harvested area. Total EU harvested wheat area fell 2 percent year over year and total average yields for the region fell 9 percent.

 

[Dotini]

Extensive flooding in the US midwest, loss of stored foods and continued above average precipitation/flooding will cause steep food price increases.

 

[Dotini]

Here are some random notes I've made in order to eventually argue that the Sun, not man, is driving current potentially worsening climate conditions. However, the most immediate threat seems mostly to be increasing precipitation causing floods from large thunderstorms and melting snow from snowstorms.

A single thundercloud is more powerful than any nuclear power plant on Earth. "If you dissipate this massive amount of energy through anything, it is going to cause severe devastation."
https://www.livescience.com/65055-thundercloud-voltage-mapped-with-muons.html

There is a relationship between lightning and rain.
https://training.weather.gov/nwstc/METEOR/Lightning/Hvyrain.htm

Lightning precedes formation of rain gushes and hail.
J. Geophys. Res. 67

Cosmic Rays are increasing, 18% over the last 4 years:
Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015:



Cosmic rays cause cloud formation, and storms of all kinds, rain, gushers and hail to increase.
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2016/08/30/cosmic-rays-vs-clouds/

US precipitation 1895-2014 seems to change in cycles linked to the 11 year solar cycle.
US precipitation trends (lower 48), 1895-2014. Raw data:[84]

Magnetic field decline

The strength of Earth’s main magnetic field is currently about 29.5 microteslas, down 5 microteslas, or 14 percent from its strength three centuries ago.

Abrupt reversal, excursion
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/36/8913

about 98,000 years ago, the planet's magnetic field suddenly flipped polarity in as little as 100 years — roughly 30 times faster than the generally expected rate, and 10 times faster than what was thought to be the fastest rate possible.

A rapid reversal event within a century at 98 ka (PB2-1) (SI Appendix, Fig. S9) coincides with a global relative paleointensity (RPI) minimum (39⇓–41) (Fig. 3D), which indicates a strong link between the amplitude of the directional deviation and RPI.

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field varies continuously, and it has decreased by ∼10% over the past century, which has led to suggestions of an impending reversal (11, 12), although it is controversial (44).

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2015.00061/full

However, some characteristics may suggest that the hypothesis that some similarities exist between the Laschamp excursion and the present field is not entirely speculative. The rate of decrease of the field intensity during the first part of the Laschamp excursion shows a significant acceleration. This is reminiscent of the acceleration of the increase in the geographical extent of the SAA observed by De Santis et al. (2013) and which, according to these authors, would ultimately leads to the SAA extending over almost one hemisphere, setting the grounds for a geomagnetic reversal or excursion.
F

 

[Dotini]

Logical reasoning for abandoning capitalism?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/capitalism-economic-system-survival-earth

George Monbiot


The economic system is incompatible with the survival of life on Earth. It is time to design a new one

@GeorgeMonbiot
Thu 25 Apr 2019 01.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 25 Apr 2019 06.46 EDT

Refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border in 2016. ‘In the 21st century rising resource consumption has matched or exceeded the rate of economic growth.’ Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images
For most of my adult life I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”, “consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see that the problem is not the adjective but the noun. While some people have rejected capitalism gladly and swiftly, I’ve done so slowly and reluctantly. Part of the reason was that I could see no clear alternative: unlike some anti-capitalists, I have never been an enthusiast for state communism. I was also inhibited by its religious status. To say “capitalism is failing” in the 21st century is like saying “God is dead” in the 19th: it is secular blasphemy. It requires a degree of self-confidence I did not possess.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognise two things. First, that it is the system, rather than any variant of the system, that drives us inexorably towards disaster. Second, that you do not have to produce a definitive alternative to say that capitalism is failing. The statement stands in its own right. But it also demands another, and different, effort to develop a new system.

perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.

Those who defend capitalism argue that, as consumption switches from goods to services, economic growth can be decoupled from the use of material resources. Last week a paper in the journal New Political Economy, by Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis, examined this premise. They found that while some relative decoupling took place in the 20th century (material resource consumption grew, but not as quickly as economic growth), in the 21st century there has been a recoupling: rising resource consumption has so far matched or exceeded the rate of economic growth. The absolute decoupling needed to avert environmental catastrophe (a reduction in material resource use) has never been achieved, and appears impossible while economic growth continues. Green growth is an illusion.

A system based on perpetual growth cannot function without peripheries and externalities. There must always be an extraction zone – from which materials are taken without full payment – and a disposal zone, where costs are dumped in the form of waste and pollution. As the scale of economic activity increases until capitalism affects everything, from the atmosphere to the deep ocean floor, the entire planet becomes a sacrifice zone: we all inhabit the periphery of the profit-making machine.

This drives us towards cataclysm on such a scale that most people have no means of imagining it. The threatened collapse of our life-support systems is bigger by far than war, famine, pestilence or economic crisis, though it is likely to incorporate all four. Societies can recover from these apocalyptic events, but not from the loss of soil, an abundant biosphere and a habitable climate.

The second defining element is the bizarre assumption that a person is entitled to as great a share of the world’s natural wealth as their money can buy. This seizure of common goods causes three further dislocations. First, the scramble for exclusive control of non-reproducible assets, which implies either violence or legislative truncations of other people’s rights. Second, the immiseration of other people by an economy based on looting across both space and time. Third, the translation of economic power into political power, as control over essential resources leads to control over the social relations that surround them.

In the New York Times on Sunday, the Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz sought to distinguish between good capitalism, which he called “wealth creation”, and bad capitalism, which he called “wealth grabbing” (extracting rent). I understand his distinction. But from the environmental point of view, wealth creation is wealth grabbing. Economic growth, intrinsically linked to the increasing use of material resources, means seizing natural wealth from both living systems and future generations.

To point to such problems is to invite a barrage of accusations, many of which are based on this premise: capitalism has rescued hundreds of millions of people from poverty – now you want to impoverish them again. It is true that capitalism, and the economic growth it drives, has radically improved the prosperity of vast numbers of people, while simultaneously destroying the prosperity of many others: those whose land, labour and resources were seized to fuel growth elsewhere. Much of the wealth of the rich nations was – and is – built on slavery and colonial expropriation.

Like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good. Just as we have found means of generating useful energy that are better and less damaging than coal, so we need to find means of generating human wellbeing that are better and less damaging than capitalism.

There is no going back: the alternative to capitalism is neither feudalism nor state communism. Soviet communism had more in common with capitalism than the advocates of either system would care to admit. Both systems are (or were) obsessed with generating economic growth. Both are willing to inflict astonishing levels of harm in pursuit of this and other ends. Both promised a future in which we would need to work for only a few hours a week, but instead demand endless, brutal labour. Both are dehumanising. Both are absolutist, insisting that theirs and theirs alone is the one true God.


So what does a better system look like? I don’t have a complete answer, and I don’t believe any one person does. But I think I see a rough framework emerging. Part of it is provided by the ecological civilisation proposed by Jeremy Lent, one of the greatest thinkers of our age. Other elements come from Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics and the environmental thinking of Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, Raj Patel and Bill McKibben. Part of the answer lies in the notion of “private sufficiency, public luxury”. Another part arises from the creation of a new conception of justice based on this simple principle: every generation, everywhere, shall have an equal right to the enjoyment of natural wealth.

I believe our task is to identify the best proposals from many different thinkers and shape them into a coherent alternative. Because no economic system is only an economic system but intrudes into every aspect of our lives, we need many minds from various disciplines – economic, environmental, political, cultural, social and logistical – working collaboratively to create a better way of organising ourselves that meets our needs without destroying our home.

Our choice comes down to this. Do we stop life to allow capitalism to continue, or stop capitalism to allow life to continue?

• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

 

[Dotini]

I predict western civilization will prostrate and crucify itself on the altar of climate change.

The findings: BloombergNEF found that global investments in solar, wind, and other clean energy sources added up to $117.6 billion during the first half of 2019, a 14% decline from the same period last year and the lowest six-month figure since 2013.

China saw a 39% drop in investments, as the nation eases up on its aggressive solar subsidies to get costs under control. But spending also declined 6% in the US and 4% in Europe, part because of policies that are being phased out and weak demand for additional energy generation in mature markets.

The big picture: The new report suggests last year’s slowdown in renewable-energy construction has extended into 2019, taking the world in exactly the wrong direction at a critical time (see “Global renewables growth has stalled—and that’s terrible news”). Every major report finds that the world needs to radically accelerate the shift to clean energy to have any hope of not blowing past dangerous warming thresholds (see “At this rate, it’s going to take 400 years to transform the energy system”).

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613938/clean-energy-investments-are-plummeting-bloomberg-bnef/

 

[Danoff]

The economic system is incompatible with the survival of life on Earth. It is time to design a new one

It's not an economic system so much as it is a description of human behavior. And human behavior is no more incompatible with protecting the environment than it is with protecting each other - because protecting the environment can be reduced to protecting each other.

 

[Touring Mars]

There's good news and bad news on the climate change front, according to a new analysis by investment bank UBS. (FT article (paywall))

The good news is that we are likely to see a "20-30 year bull market in renewable energy" - in other words, invest in renewables today and reap the rewards for your retirement.

The bad news is we are most likely completely screwed when it comes to doing to halt man-made climate change.

I share their pessimism - not only am I still (totally) unconvinced about the supposedly benign nature of human fossil fuel use, I am also convinced that there is very little that can be done to stop fossil fuel use other than to make it economically unviable - while this is likely to happen eventually, it will not happen any time soon. There is an even more fundamental problem when it comes to limiting or even stopping global fossil fuel use before renewables and/or nuclear energy can be scaled up and deployed globally - it is simply not fair to expect developing nations to go without or pay for expensive clean energy programmes while developed nations have filled their boots through fossil fuel usage; protesters who believe that no more oil should be taken from the ground seem to ignore the potentially disastrous effects this would have on the developing world (and the developed world too, for that matter)...

The state of New Jersey recently commissioned the largest ever offshore windfarm to be paid for by a US state, called the 'Ocean Wind' project. UBS soberly state that, in order to reach the more ambitious targets for global emissions and clean energy use, we would need to commission a clean energy facility on this scale (1.1 gigawatts) every day for the next 30 years...

 

[niky]

The problem is how to scale back development without scaling back development.

 

[Dotini]

The problem is how to scale back development without scaling back development.

Not a bad problem to have. It could get worse! Or it could get better under certain conditions, such as a global cooling expected by those scientists who depart from the sola scriptura of "Carbon Only".

Edit:
Another way to scale back development - scale back developing nations.

 

[Dotini]

Water crisis now at hand for 25% of the world's population. And is predicted to affect everybody.
https://www.sciencealert.com/17-cou...they-hold-a-quarter-of-the-world-s-population

 

[mustafur]

Drought will force wars in the future, I have no doubt.

 

[Dotini]

Drought will force wars in the future, I have no doubt.

Agreed. And it will be soon, and it will bring magnified migration crises. It may well force more 1st and 2nd world dictatorial military regimes to deal with it.

 

[Dotini]

It might be that the US surface temperature has actually been cooling since the 80's.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/climate-global-warming-data-locations/

 

[niky]

It might be that the US surface temperature has actually been cooling since the 80's.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/climate-global-warming-data-locations/

Heartland Institute: Climate denial thinktank.

Also, the latter has nothing to do with the former. Political conflation.

Basically confirmation bias for the denial side.

 

[Dotini]

More confirmation bias for the denial side?


Philanthropist Bill Gates takes the stage before addressing the Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow) more >

Lost amid the coverage of Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg at last week’s U.N. Global Climate Summit were the 500 international scientists, engineers and other stakeholders sounding a very different message: “There is no climate emergency.”

The European Climate Declaration, spearheaded by the Amsterdam-based Climate Intelligence Foundation [CLINTEL], described the leading climate models as “unfit” and urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to pursue a climate policy based on “sound science.”

“Current climate policies pointlessly and grievously undermine the economic system, putting lives at risk in countries denied access to affordable, reliable electrical energy,” said the Sept. 23 letter signed by professionals from 23 countries.

Most of the signers hailed from Europe, but there were also scientists from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South America.

“We urge you to follow a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation,” the letter said.

The signers asked Mr. Guterres to place the declaration on the UN’s agenda for the meeting ending Monday—which hasn’t happened—and organize a meeting of scientists “on both sides of the climate debate early in 2020.”

Letter to UN SecGen @antonioguterres António Guterres from 500 scientists warns “current climate policies pointlessly and grievously undermine the economic system, putting lives at risk in countries denied access to affordable, reliable electrical energy.” https://t.co/INTsVOIlGu

— Dr. Waheed Uddin (@drwaheeduddin) September 28, 2019
The declaration was dismissed by Penn State climatologist Michael E. Mann, who called it “craven and stupid,” as well as the left-of-center [U.K.] Guardian, which said the document “repeats well-worn and long-debunked talking points on climate change that are contradicted by scientific institutions and academies around the world.”

Have to admit I did a double take when I first glanced at this. Was sure that last signature was “He Who Must Not be Named”.
Then I reflected on the matter and realized how unlikely that is.
Not even Valdemort would sign his name to something so craven and stupid…
pic.twitter.com/PPkkwVzNUI

At the same time, the sheer number of prominent signers with scientific and engineering credentials belied the contention that only a handful of fringe researchers and fossil-fuel shills oppose the climate-catastrophe “consensus.”

The U.S. contingent was made up of 45 U.S. professors, engineers and scientists, including MIT professor emeritus Richard Lindzen; Freeman Dyson of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton, and Stanford University professor emeritus Elliott D. Bloom, as well as several signers formerly affiliated with NASA.

The declaration made six points:

· “Nature as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming”

· “Warming is far slower than predicted”

· “Climate policy relies on inadequate models”

· Carbon dioxide is “plant food, the basis of all life on Earth”

· “Global warming has not increased natural disasters”

· “Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities”

Convincing climate-focused institutions like the UN to engage on such topics has been a struggle, said Guus Berkhout, professor emeritus of geophysics at Delft University of Technology and a CLINTEL co-founder.

“We promote a scientific discussion at the highest level between both sides of the climate debate, but the mainstream refuses so far,” said Mr. Berkhout in an email. “They always come with the same arguments: they are right and we are wrong. Period!”

Indeed, the UN discussion is moving full speed ahead on carbon neutrality, with policymakers, researchers and media outlets calling for increasingly urgent measures to combat the “climate crisis” and “climate emergency.”

“We need more concrete plans, more ambition from more countries and more businesses,” said Mr. Guterres in a Sept. 23 statement. “We need all financial institutions, public and private, to choose, once and for all, the green economy.”

UN spokesman Dan Shepard said the body is guided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, adding that any “compelling evidence to the contrary” should be “brought to the attention of IPCC working groups.”

In their letter, the CLINTEL network called it “cruel as well as imprudent to advocate the squandering of trillions of dollars on the basis of results from such immature models.”

“The science is far from settled,” said Mr. Berkhout.

CLINTEL was founded this year by Mr. Berkhout and journalist Marcel Crok with a grant from Dutch real-estate developer Niek Sandmann.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/29/scientists-tell-un-global-climate-summit-no-emerge/

My other question is who are these supposed countries at risk of being denied access to affordable, reliable electric energy, and what do they have to say about it?

Anecdote:


Bill has a snug beach house just a few miles away from mine.

My place of course is much smaller and older, being there since the early 40's.
The 116' bulkhead built 10 years later, like the original portion of the cabin, is still in near-perfect condition, and serves as part of the foundation for the cabin and boat house. We, probably like Bill, have noticed zero increase in seawater level.

 

[Thematic]

Exxon’s ‘Excellent Scientists’ Knew Back in 1982 Exactly How Bad Climate Change Would Be Now

A former Exxon scientist just spilled the truth to Congress.

 

[Rallywagon]

Exxon’s ‘Excellent Scientists’ Knew Back in 1982 Exactly How Bad Climate Change Would Be Now

A former Exxon scientist just spilled the truth to Congress.

"“We were excellent scientists,” the former employee, Martin Hoffert, told lawmakers Wednesday"
I guess morality doesnt have a variable in the excellence equation...
Even more gold:
"The Republicans on the House committee, however, argued that the public should thank Exxon, regardless of whether the company contributed to climate change.

“We have companies that are creating energy for the world,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas. He suggested that we should honor the fossil fuel companies that are producing the energy that powers the country"

Yes, thank you oil companies, for knowingly destroying our atmosphere, defrauding your investors and purposely lying to the public. What is it with politicians and victim shaming?

 

[Outspacer]

Exxon’s ‘Excellent Scientists’ Knew Back in 1982 Exactly How Bad Climate Change Would Be Now

A former Exxon scientist just spilled the truth to Congress.

That part isn't exactly shocking news. In 1982 they weren't hiding it away:

Exxon's own modeling research confirmed this and the company's results were later published in at least three peer-reviewed science articles. Two of them were co-authored by Hoffert, and a third was written entirely by Flannery.

It's the later disinformation* that appears to be hypocritical.

* or not, depending on viewpoint, that's not important here. What counts is whether they believed it to be disinformation, and it looks very much like they did.

 

[Famine]

"“We were excellent scientists,” the former employee, Martin Hoffert, told lawmakers Wednesday"
I guess morality doesnt have a variable in the excellence equation...

Scientists find out and disseminate information (within ethical boundaries). What people do with that information is outside the purview.

Unless these guys were gassing beagles for fun at the same time, there's not much cause for questioning their morality simply because their documented and disseminated predictions matched observations nearly 40 years later.

 

[Rallywagon]

Scientists find out and disseminate information (within ethical boundaries). What people do with that information is outside the purview.

Unless these guys were gassing beagles for fun at the same time, there's not much cause for questioning their morality simply because their documented and disseminated predictions matched observations nearly 40 years later.

Perhaps, but, if you knew what said company was doing with your research, and you knew it was being misrepresented to try and fool the public, isnt there a moral obligation to say "wait, that's not what my research showed."
I k ow I personally would feel obligated to make sure my research was being accurately portrayed.

 

[Barra333]

Their obligation as scientists was to make sure it was correctly conveyed in the peer-reviewed literature. What Exxon PR did with the data was probably well out of their control.

 

[Imari]

"“We were excellent scientists,” the former employee, Martin Hoffert, told lawmakers Wednesday"
I guess morality doesnt have a variable in the excellence equation...

Not really, no. You can be both an excellent scientist and a colossal :censored:hole. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Perhaps, but, if you knew what said company was doing with your research, and you knew it was being misrepresented to try and fool the public, isnt there a moral obligation to say "wait, that's not what my research showed."
I k ow I personally would feel obligated to make sure my research was being accurately portrayed.

Perhaps. And perhaps this leads evidence to the "they're excellent scientists that are :censored:holes" hypothesis.

On the other hand, perhaps they were just humans who feared for their livelihoods an decided not to sacrifice themselves for a cause. Unfortunate, but understandable. You can't really fault someone for refusing to jump in front of a bus to save a group of orphans.

Or perhaps they thought that they could do more good from remaining on the inside; after all, if they're getting funded to do this research at all that's a lot better than what a lot of scientists in academia can expect. Ultimately there may have been more climate science done for them remaining where they were, and if it was published then at least other scientists will have been able to gain from that.

If there's people that were misrepresenting studies, I think it's primarily on those doing the misrepresentation rather than on the scientists themselves. If the marketing department misuses your study to tell lies, that's the marketing department you should be mad at. I think it's disingenuous to try to blame those who had their work misused.

 

[Danoff]

Their obligation as scientists was to make sure it was correctly conveyed in the peer-reviewed literature. What Exxon PR did with the data was probably well out of their control.

They may have been expressly forbidden from doing so by law. Exxon most likely owned the results of their analysis.

 

[LeMansAid]

I love this:

 

[VBR]

I wonder how much the replication/reproducibility crisis affects the science on both sides regarding global warming/climate change...

"More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. Those are some of the telling figures that emerged from Nature's survey of 1,576 researchers who took a brief online questionnaire on reproducibility in research." Source.

Earth & Environment has a failure rate of between 40 to 65%.