What shouldn't be done...about climate change

[Varysblackfyre321]

55 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

We don't even have 50 years.

Right now it seems the worst-case scenarios were always the correct ones. Which means large-scale disasters and the geo-political upheavals accompanying them in the next couple of decades, swiftly followed by -at least- a partial collapse of civilization at +30.
IIRC it was estimated that in the worst-case scenario, agriculture fails globally around 2050. That's where we're headed right now.

At the+50 mark, Earth basically turns into Venus. Though oddly enough the preceding collapse of human civilization may very well save the planet (as an inhabitable one, I mean).
Realistically speaking, humanity will -barely- survive in a post-apocalyptic world for quite a few centuries and, hopefully, Earth's ecosystem will restore itself through time, allowing our descendants to thrive again around 2300 or something (just in time to build the Federation of Planets, I guess).

The thing is, of course, that we (i.e. the generations discussing shit on this forum) will see the darkest of times. The ecological disasters, the climactic super-events, the wars, the genocides, the heat (or the freeze), the famines, the pandemics (ha ha)...
Ah, FFS, we really are the shittiest species.

Purportrated by much of the far-right who insisted Climate Change was some leftist boogyman.

[Altherion]

One interesting consequence of the pandemic is that oil demand has cratered and, given that other technologies are catching up, it might not actually come back to pre-pandemic levels:

Quote

 

In a report Tuesday, the influential advisory body called the International Energy Agency revised its forecasts for global oil consumption downward, warning that the market outlook is "even more fragile" than expected and that "the path ahead is treacherous."

It's the latest in a flurry of diminished forecasts from major energy players. On Monday, oil cartel OPEC slashed its expectations of oil demand, just as Trafigura, a large oil trading company, warned that another large oil glut is building.

And energy giant BP, which has grabbed headlines with its new carbon-neutral commitments, raised the possibility that the world might never again use as much oil as it did before the pandemic.

 

In and of itself, this is not enough to stop the increase in CO₂ levels (we're still using a lot of oil, just not as much as at the peak), but it's a silver lining to a very dark cloud.

[drawkcabi]

7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’ve said this before, I always assumed I’d be dead before the worst happened, but now it seems I may live to see the worst of it. I always took what I read about climate change seriously, and decided in my 20s not to have children. I look at some of the wonderful children my friends have and feel a great deal of sorrow. 
 

I figure my decision not to have children means I made a much bigger contribution to reducing the effects of climate change than anything else I could have done. I don’t even feel guilty about the times I’ve travelled to Europe. 

 

 

This mirrors my thoughts for the last 20 years almost exactly.

 

it's gotten so towards the end of every winter I begin to dread more and more the heat the coming summer will bring and how long it's gonna last.

 

But hey, Rush Limbaugh says we will just make better air conditioners because we have the good brains. So it will all be ok!

[Altherion]

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

We don't even have 50 years.

Right now it seems the worst-case scenarios were always the correct ones. Which means large-scale disasters and the geo-political upheavals accompanying them in the next couple of decades, swiftly followed by -at least- a partial collapse of civilization at +30.
IIRC it was estimated that in the worst-case scenario, agriculture fails globally around 2050. That's where we're headed right now.

At the+50 mark, Earth basically turns into Venus.

Why do you feel the need for such exaggeration? The atmosphere of Venus has a mass of 4.8e20 kg and is composed almost entirely (96.5%) of carbon dioxide whereas the atmosphere of Earth has a mass of 5.15e18 kg (i.e. there's two orders of magnitude less air) and the carbon dioxide fraction is only 0.04%. Thus, we couldn't turn Earth into Venus regardless of how many fossil fuels we burned. Of course since the surface temperature of Venus is 467 C or 872 F, this is not much consolation. Fortunately, we know that Earth will be fine because CO₂ levels have been an order of magnitude higher than they are now as recently as half a billion years ago.

With all of that said, it's still a serious problem for a few reasons:

1. Most life on Earth (including humanity) is quite sensitive to local changes of even a few degrees of either temperature system. Earth will be fine, yes... but rapid changes lead to mass extinctions.
2. The projections are global averages so some localities will get considerably hotter than average (and some will barely change).
3. The temporal lag between our actions and tangible results is decades.

Thus, there's no need for these apocalyptic predictions -- the reality is bad enough as it is. Also, unless you plan to live for at least half a century and probably twice that, then no, you will not see the worst of the heat (not unless we figure out a good way to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere). Of course, there might be some massive calamity relatively, but humanity has never had a shortage of causes for these even without the CO₂.

[Larry of the Lawn]

31 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Why do you feel the need for such exaggeration? The atmosphere of Venus has a mass of 4.8e20 kg and is composed almost entirely (96.5%) of carbon dioxide whereas the atmosphere of Earth has a mass of 5.15e18 kg (i.e. there's two orders of magnitude less air) and the carbon dioxide fraction is only 0.04%. Thus, we couldn't turn Earth into Venus regardless of how many fossil fuels we burned. Of course since the surface temperature of Venus is 467 C or 872 F, this is not much consolation. Fortunately, we know that Earth will be fine because CO₂ levels have been an order of magnitude higher than they are now as recently as half a billion years ago.

With all of that said, it's still a serious problem for a few reasons:

1. Most life on Earth (including humanity) is quite sensitive to local changes of even a few degrees of either temperature system. Earth will be fine, yes... but rapid changes lead to mass extinctions.
2. The projections are global averages so some localities will get considerably hotter than average (and some will barely change).
3. The temporal lag between our actions and tangible results is decades.

Thus, there's no need for these apocalyptic predictions -- the reality is bad enough as it is. Also, unless you plan to live for at least half a century and probably twice that, then no, you will not see the worst of the heat (not unless we figure out a good way to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere). Of course, there might be some massive calamity relatively, but humanity has never had a shortage of causes for these even without the CO₂.

Im gonna go way out on a limb here and assume that comparing Earth in 50 years to the atmosphere of Venus (which has been discussed contemporaneously in another thread) is a rhetorical device and not to be taken literally beyond being hostile to many extant life forms.

So just because few of us reading this thread will see peak anthropogenic climate horror there's no need to hurry to correct anything?  That's the way I'm reading this.

[Altherion]

31 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

So just because fee of us reading this thread will see peak anthropogenic climate horror there's no need to hurry to correct anything?  That's the way I'm reading this.

No, it's exactly the opposite (see the third point about lag): if we want to correct something about this that is decades away, we have to act now. Fortunately, there are already people acting.

[Rippounet]

6 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Fortunately, we know that Earth will be fine because CO₂ levels have been an order of magnitude higher than they are now as recently as half a billion years ago.

No, we do not know that, because the current CO₂  levels are due to human activity and have been built in what amounts -for the planet- to the blink of an eye. And the thawing of the permafrost combined with deforestation in the Amazon is about to make things worse. No one knows whether "Earth will be fine," and even if "Earth" is, the eco-system will definitely not be.
And why is your wikipedia page supposed to matter? Humans did not exist 500 million years ago.
And Earth doesn't have to literally be as hot as Venus to be uninhabitable for humans.
Basically, what the fuck are you even talking about?

You have to realize what it means that we're in the worst-case scenario, how it affects all the estimates we had until now. For example it was predicted that the tropics would become uninhabitable around 2080 at the earliest, but it turns out that was probably conservative.
There are 3,3 billion people living in an area that will become uninhabitable for humans in the next decades.
3,3 billion. 40% of humanity.
Now, of course I'll probably die before the tropics become totally uninhabitable, but does anyone seriously expect these 3,3 billion humans to wait there until they die of heat? And that's in the tropics alone, what about all the other areas that will become uninhabitable because of rising sea waters, droughts, floods, or other climactic events or changes?
I'm in my thirties. How many climate refugees do you think I'll see in my lifetime?
What kind of geopolitical consequences do you think all this will have? Just think for yourself and tell me what I will see in my lifetime. Come on man, prove me wrong. Tell me how humanity is going to deal with what's coming. Tell me we humans are so great that we'll be good and generous and manage this shit without making it worse.

6 minutes ago, Altherion said:

unless you plan to live for at least half a century and probably twice that, then no, you will not see the worst of the heat

So what? Have you read anything I wrote? It was 35°C in Paris yesterday. The "normal" average for September is around 18°C. The "normal" maximum is exactly 21,1°C. This is Northern France, we don't get this kind of termperatures here, no one is used to them.
But we have 35°C, like now. And this is at least the third "heat wave" this year, I'm losing count at this point, because it gets worse every year (yes, it does, I'm keeping track now).

It's considered that we're around +1°C right now. But I'm actually experiencing +14°C or +16°C (depending on which paper you read).
You work in STEM don't you, so I'm sure you can speculate. What's it going to look like with +2°C? +3°C? +4°C? By that I mean, what are the local extremes we're going to see? If I'm seeing +15°C now (let's settle for +15°C), just how far is the heat going to go in the next couple of decades?

And bonus questions: how are the crops going to be affected? The forests (forests are in fact already dying around here)? How will people manage to work or do anything at all? What about the elderly, the kids, the sick? How is society going to function with such heat waves becoming common?

Point is, I don't need to see "the worst of the heat." What I'm seeing now is enough. At 35°C, with the urban heat island effect, Paris is basically a hellhole. Which means we'll see air conditioning everywhere soon, which in turn will make things worse. And everyone will do the same, and make things worse.
Unless we find a miracle "green" energy source and/or a way to bring the CO₂  levels down, on our current trajectory, we have about 30 years.
Maybe you will have more because your super-powerful military will invade Canada once crops start failing in the US (sorry, Bird)...

4 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Fortunately, there are already people acting.

Yes, Bolsonaro is pushing for deforestation in the Amazon and the rain forest is nearing its point of non-return. And Trump reversed Obama-era decisions in the US.

So who are the "people acting" and what are they doing? Are they even offsetting the bad that's being done? Because as far as I can tell, humanity is doing fuck'all right now. We're collectively burying our heads in the sand and acting as if we had decades we do not actually have. Anything implemented in 20 or 30 years will be too late.

But if you have reassuring information I don't have, by all means, please share them with us, I'm all ears.

[karaddin]

@Rippounet Elon Musk is "acting" by working to fly a small chunk of people to Mars where they can live in biospheres on an even less habitable planet rather than working to keep the one we already have. Duh!

[Free Northman Reborn]

16 minutes ago, karaddin said:

@Rippounet Elon Musk is "acting" by working to fly a small chunk of people to Mars where they can live in biospheres on an even less habitable planet rather than working to keep the one we already have. Duh!

Actually his Mars plans have nothing to with climate change. However, the approximately 50% of his time spent on moving humanity away from internal combustion vehicles to electric cars, and to move the world from fossil fuels to renewable energy generation and storage very much does.

[karaddin]

Are you including the time he spends on twitter in the 50% working for humanity's good or the other 50%?

[Altherion]

51 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

No, we do not know that, because the current CO₂  levels are due to human activity and have been built in what amounts -for the planet- to the blink of an eye. And the thawing of the permafrost combined with deforestation in the Amazon is about to make things worse. No one knows whether "Earth will be fine," and even if "Earth" is, the eco-system will definitely not be.
And why is your wikipedia page supposed to matter? Humans did not exist 500 million years ago.
And Earth doesn't have to literally be as hot as Venus to be uninhabitable for humans.

Well yes -- global ecosystems will be devastated -- but Earth has been through rapid changes before. My point was simply that life will eventually adapt just as it did to other shocks (but of course not in our lifetimes as it takes millions of years). And humans are pretty good at modifying their local environments. We've spread throughout the globe precisely because of this ability. I'm much more worried about the other animals and about plants.

57 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

You have to realize what it means that we're in the worst-case scenario, how it affects all the estimates we had until now. For example it was predicted that the tropics would become uninhabitable around 2080 at the earliest, but it turns out that was probably conservative.
There are 3,3 billion people living in an area that will become uninhabitable for humans in the next decades.
3,3 billion. 40% of humanity.
Now, of course I'll probably die before the tropics become totally uninhabitable, but does anyone seriously expect these 3,3 billion humans to wait there until they die of heat? And that's in the tropics alone, what about all the other areas that will become uninhabitable because of rising sea waters, droughts, floods, or other climactic events or changes?
I'm in my thirties. How many climate refugees do you think I'll see in my lifetime?
What kind of geopolitical consequences do you think all this will have? Just think for yourself and tell me what I will see in my lifetime. Come on man, prove me wrong. Tell me how humanity is going to deal with what's coming. Tell me we humans are so great that we'll be good and generous and manage this shit without making it worse.

Again, I think you underestimate the ability of humans to adapt. That said, what will most likely happen is the end of the post-WWII system of treaties regarding refugees and asylum seekers. It's already causing severe strain that manifests in a resurgence of the far-right in both Europe and the US. At some point, the threat from angry natives will outweigh the elites' desire for a cheap labor force and this system will be severely curtailed.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

So what? Have you read anything I wrote? It was 35°C in Paris yesterday. The "normal" average for September is around 18°C. The "normal" maximum is exactly 21,1°C. This is Northern France, we don't get this kind of termperatures here, no one is used to them.
But we have 35°C, like now. And this is at least the third "heat wave" this year, I'm losing count at this point, because it gets worse every year (yes, it does, I'm keeping track now).

It's considered that we're around +1°C right now. But I'm actually experiencing +14°C or +16°C (depending on which paper you read).
You work in STEM don't you, so I'm sure you can speculate. What's it going to look like with +2°C? +3°C? +4°C? By that I mean, what are the local extremes we're going to see? If I'm seeing +15°C now (let's settle for +15°C), just how far is the heat going to go in the next couple of decades?

Weather is not climate. As far as I can tell, the 35 C in Paris is not even a record for September; the latter is 36.2 C and was set in 1895 -- long before global warming (PDF). But yes, it will get worse every year. The highs in most places will be slightly higher, the storms slightly more energetic and so on. That said, Northern Europe might actually get slightly cooler as the Gulf Stream diminishes. We'll see.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

And bonus questions: how are the crops going to be affected? The forests (forests are in fact already dying around here)? How will people manage to work or do anything at all? What about the elderly, the kids, the sick? How is society going to function with such heat waves becoming common?

The good news regarding the crops is that there is currently more than can be consumed and it's routinely being thrown out to keep prices up. Furthermore, while some areas will become less hospitable to crops, others (in the northern US, Canada and Russia) will be more hospitable. Also, we can genetically engineer crops to tolerate a higher temperature range.

Regarding the heat waves: as you mention below, the most likely outcome is more air conditioning. In theory, one can build houses so they don't get too hot even when it's hot outside, but this is much more expensive so AC is much more likely. And yes, this is problematic because AC consumes a substantial amount of electricity.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

So who are the "people acting" and what are they doing? Are they even offsetting the bad that's being done?

There are many people working on many approaches. Solar power is cheaper and more prevalent than it has ever been and so are electric cars. Charging networks are growing and people are working on a variety of energy storage solutions to deal with the variability of renewable sources. Other people are working on small nuclear reactors (the US approved a design last week). There is a lot of work going into solving this problem, but the problem is hard and the results aren't obvious yet because we have not quite gotten to any tipping points where one of these solutions is outright better and cheaper than the fossil fuel alternatives (without subsidies). We will get there eventually -- maybe as soon as in half a decade or so.

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Are you including the time he spends on twitter in the 50% working for humanity's good or the other 50%?

Not the kick-ass point you thought you were making. Considering he does 60-80 hour weeks, the portion he spends on Tesla actually far exceeds 50% of a normal working week, no matter how many twitter posts he makes during interludes.

A better attack vector is to just say you don’t like the guy. Trying to downplay the magnitude of his contribution to changing the world just makes you look stupid.

[Free Northman Reborn]

In my mind there are however only two long term solutions to the problem - reduce the human population or move much of the population - and associated industry - off planet. The earth’s carrying capacity is finite, so at some point it will be exceeded. All other steps are merely intermediate measures to buy us time.

[karaddin]

I actually don't have any larger issue with the guy than I do for any billionaire with as much wealth as him when he stays in his lane. When he's calling people that contributed to saving kids pedo's I have rather more of an issue, but that isn't my point here. My issue is with his fanboys that act like he's a benevolent genius that's going to save us all while they categorically oppose any and all collective actions that might improve our circumstances, or downplay the actual threat in favour of defending their ideological position and the wealth of the 1%. So you know, you and Altherion in this thread - not actually Musk.

He's a rich boy that is an asshole to work for, but is at least legitimately trying to use technologies which will indeed improve the world as his vector for making more money. I accept that probably does matter to him. The conditions of the workers in his factories? Not so much concerned about improving their condition, but its not like he's worse than Bezos on that front either.

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I actually don't have any larger issue with the guy than I do for any billionaire with as much wealth as him when he stays in his lane. When he's calling people that contributed to saving kids pedo's I have rather more of an issue, but that isn't my point here. My issue is with his fanboys that act like he's a benevolent genius that's going to save us all while they categorically oppose any and all collective actions that might improve our circumstances, or downplay the actual threat in favour of defending their ideological position and the wealth of the 1%. So you know, you and Altherion in this thread - not actually Musk.

He's a rich boy that is an asshole to work for, but is at least legitimately trying to use technologies which will indeed improve the world as his vector for making more money. I accept that probably does matter to him. The conditions of the workers in his factories? Not so much concerned about improving their condition, but its not like he's worse than Bezos on that front either.

I actually agree with some of what you said above. Specifically, I don’t have a rose tinted view of the guy. I do not think his motivation is money, other than the means it gives him to achieve his ends - “the ability to allocate capital more productively based on the power of his shareholding”, to use his own words.

I think he has a vision, and to him the ends justify the means. Centuries from now, that may well prove correct, given the magnitude of the goals being pursued. Just like no one cares today about the sailors lost in Columbus’s attempt to cross the Atlantic.

Anyway, I would focus on the net outcomes achieved, rather than every ideological difference one might have with the individual.

[The Anti-Targ]

It's the absolute hero worship of Musk that makes me roll my eyes, as if he is our great savior and the only one who can do it, and everything he says is gospel and not to be gainsaid. And maybe he believed in his own legend a bit too much. I think history will say he made some great contributions to the technological and space exploration advancements in the 21st century. But he's not going to be mythologised in song and effigy like Bill and Ted. But even his SpaceX advancements is standing on the shoulders of giants. Had NASA and its other counterpart agencies of other govts, and various, mostly public, universities not done all the hard work in the first 50 years of space travel private enterprise would never have looked at space as an area of interest.

And he's definitely not my ideological cup of tea.

[karaddin]

Its not like I'm actually "acting against the individual" in Musk anyway, I took an easy poke at someone who was spouting a whole load of bs in this thread for a small spark of amusement in the face of an extremely uncertain future. Shockingly I would indeed like to live 50 years and seeing the world go to shit around me isn't really what I'd dreamed of for my older years when i was a kid. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It's the absolute hero worship of Musk that makes me roll my eyes, as if he is our great savior and the only one who can do it, and everything he says is gospel and not to be gainsaid. And maybe he believed in his own legend a bit too much. I think history will say he made some great contributions to the technological and space exploration advancements in the 21st century. But he's not going to be mythologised in song and effigy like Bill and Ted. But even his SpaceX advancements is standing on the shoulders of giants. Had NASA and its other counterpart agencies of other govts, and various, mostly public, universities not done all the hard work in the first 50 years of space travel private enterprise would never have looked at space as an area of interest.

And he's definitely not my ideological cup of tea.

You do however suffer from the typical Australasian tall poppy syndrome. Individuals are not really celebrated as much in your world view.

If you follow the field of space exploration really closely, however, as I do, then what Elon Musk has achieved and is aspiring to still achieve will undoubtedly make him an extraordinary historical figure. 

[Altherion]

4 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In my mind there are however only two long term solutions to the problem - reduce the human population or move much of the population - and associated industry - off planet. The earth’s carrying capacity is finite, so at some point it will be exceeded. All other steps are merely intermediate measures to buy us time.

Reducing the human population is not happening without measures that have grown unpalatable since the mid-20th century. It's still growing despite the fact that most Western nations are well below replacement fertility rates. Of course, some cataclysm may reduce it despite anything humans do, but it doesn't work as a policy.

Moving people and industry off-planet is a very long term solution (centuries, not decades). It will probably happen, but only if we can get the intermediate measures to work.

12 minutes ago, karaddin said:

My issue is with his fanboys that act like he's a benevolent genius that's going to save us all while they categorically oppose any and all collective actions that might improve our circumstances, or downplay the actual threat in favour of defending their ideological position and the wealth of the 1%. So you know, you and Altherion in this thread - not actually Musk.

I do not think of him as a benevolent genius who will save us all. As I said in my post above, there are many, many people and organizations all over the world who are working on a variety of solutions. Musk is simply the most famous of them.

[karaddin]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

Reducing the human population is not happening without measures that have grown unpalatable since the mid-20th century. It's still growing despite the fact that most Western nations are well below replacement fertility rates. Of course, some cataclysm may reduce it despite anything humans do, but it doesn't work as a policy.

For anyone paying attention that's the second reference to a course of action that falls under the eugenics umbrella in the last week and the tone both times comes across as regretful that its not an option. This shit needs to be roundly condemned whenever it comes up. Also I'm being charitable by interpreting this as eugenics because this example could just as easily read as straight up advocating genocide - I'm not trying to snidely or deniably accuse you of that, I think you do simply mean eugenics which is bad enough on its own.

I'd rather an increased investment in renewable energy by my country as an action to take, so I guess in answer to the actual subject of this thread - What shouldn't be done about climate change? Eugenics. Eugenics should not be fucking done.