Climate: Il fait VRAIMENT CHAUD (fka un petit)

[Rippounet]

On 4/3/2023 at 10:20 PM, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Conversely, while the temperatures have not gone quite as bad as we expected the actual effects have been even faster than anticipated. So...yay?

I'm even highly skeptical of Ran's point to begin with.

For instance, the IPCC's 2007 report predicted a +0,2°C rise per decade. As far as I know, that's pretty much what we got.

Generally speaking, past climate model predictions have been accurate. Yes, a few were overly pessimistic, and as you say, this is largely offset by the fact the effects are worse than anticipated.
But if one wants to be fair, like actually want to be fair instead of being driven by faith or dogma, you need to bear in mind that there were also a few overly optimistic scenarios.

Point here being that systematically basing your ideas on the few optimistic noises you might be hearing is a terrible idea.

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

So one decent place to start is, again, to acknowledge that things are still getting worse, not better. The discussion is about how fast things are getting worse (and what i means). "Optimistic" scenarios or viewpoints are based on the idea that things aren't getting worse quite as fast as before, so it's all going to be all right. It's about taking a few encouraging trends and assuming that these trends will accelerate.

My viewpoint is...'somewhat' like that.

 

First, solar and wind projects combined with EV's and energy efficiency, did have a modest effect on slowing down the rate of change. That is not really open for dispute.

 

Second. the advent of Peak Oil - which has been underway for years and is rapidly growing chronic - will force an increasingly rapid growth in solar, wind, and EV's. This is driven by people looking for cheaper alternatives to increasingly expensive fossil fuels.  I would point out the article you linked to mentioned much of the increase in fossil fuel production comes from projects that are 'unconventional or higher risk.' What doesn't get mentioned is these projects are monumentally expensive with major social and environmental blowback. Companies do not develop such fields if easier alternatives are available. That they choose to do so speaks of desperation.

 

Third, 'net zero' by 2050 is not going to happen and was never a remotely realistic goal in the first place. By 2100, maybe, but not much earlier than that. Again, the motivator will be economic, not political or social activism. 

 

Then there is the insistence on 'global,' rather than regional effects of massive carbon burning. China opens a thousand new dirty coal fired power plants? The overwhelming majority of those emissions stay confined to China - or more accurately, parts of China.  Yes, some of those particles migrate elsewhere - US, Europe, wherever, but that is a small fraction of the amount 'made in China.'  What we end up with are places that are 'hell on earth' while much of the rest...suffers only somewhat. (Additional note - conservatives WILL use this point to declare artificial climate change a hoax.)

 

Finally, there are major uncertainties in the models and predictions. Is the Antarctic Ice Sheet gaining or losing Ice? The El Nino/La Nina cycle along with the Jet Stream appear to be going haywire. How do these things affect climate change? My view is there are major unknowns here.

[Rippounet]

8 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Then there is the insistence on 'global,' rather than regional effects of massive carbon burning. China opens a thousand new dirty coal fired power plants? The overwhelming majority of those emissions stay confined to China - or more accurately, parts of China.  Yes, some of those particles migrate elsewhere - US, Europe, wherever, but that is a small fraction of the amount 'made in China.'  What we end up with are places that are 'hell on earth' while much of the rest...suffers only somewhat. (Additional note - conservatives WILL use this point to declare artificial climate change a hoax.)

For better or for worse, that is not how this shit works.

To elaborate: right now the "hot spots" are not places where emissions are the highest. We're talking about places like the Arctic, Kazakhstan, and Switzerland...

8 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Second. the advent of Peak Oil - which has been underway for years and is rapidly growing chronic - will force an increasingly rapid growth in solar, wind, and EV's. This is driven by people looking for cheaper alternatives to increasingly expensive fossil fuels.  I would point out the article you linked to mentioned much of the increase in fossil fuel production comes from projects that are 'unconventional or higher risk.' What doesn't get mentioned is these projects are monumentally expensive with major social and environmental blowback. Companies do not develop such fields if easier alternatives are available. That they choose to do so speaks of desperation.

That is one odd way of looking at it.

Oil companies are betting that demand will make these projects quite profitable, but it doesn't really matter if they're wrong. What matters is that the 195 "climate bombs" represent about 18 years of emissions at the current level.
One way of looking at it is that these projects alone will keep us on RCP 6.0 (stabilizing emissions).

Consequently, how can we be on RCP 6.0? Even if I'm doing my best to be optimistic, we're still somewhere between RCP 6.0 and RCP 8,5, with a lot of uncertainty.

8 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

First, solar and wind projects combined with EV's and energy efficiency, did have a modest effect on slowing down the rate of change. That is not really open for dispute.

But how modest is this effect?
If the emissions stabilize soon, for instance if we remain at [+1% emissions] or lower for 2023 and 2024, then we will be able to say that we have indeed avoided RCP 8,5 and the worst predictions. I will acknowledge that.
However, at present, such optimism is premature. We've had at least one good year, but it's not easy to know why, and whether the trend will continue (yet alone, accelerate). If the emissions start increasing again in 2023 (or in the next few years) by 2% or more, we will have undisputable proof that we need to do much more, and urgently.

[Kalbear]

I think its also important to point out that one of the reasons emissions looks as okay as it does is because for about 12-15 months the highest emitters in the world shut most things down and made everyone work from home while severely limiting air travel and freight.

It probably isn't reasonable to expect a pandemic every 5 years in our projections.

[horangi]

5 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

 

It probably isn't reasonable to expect a pandemic every 5 years in our projections.

It isnt like you Kal to be such an optimist! 

[Kalbear]

37 minutes ago, horangi said:

It isnt like you Kal to be such an optimist! 

I was tempted to parenthesize every ten years being more reasonable

[ThinkerX]

6 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

I think its also important to point out that one of the reasons emissions looks as okay as it does is because for about 12-15 months the highest emitters in the world shut most things down and made everyone work from home while severely limiting air travel and freight.

It probably isn't reasonable to expect a pandemic every 5 years in our projections.

None of which changes an ever-growing number of windfarms, solar arrays, and EV's.  

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, ThinkerX said:

None of which changes an ever-growing number of windfarms, solar arrays, and EV's.  

It doesn't, but it also means that the overall emissions that we've had are not exactly sustainable unless we're planning on having an airborne pandemic every few years.

It also doesn't change things like China opening a record amount of coal plants this year or Germany un-retiring coal plants because of lack of natural gas. You can't just pick some of the data that you want to use.

[ThinkerX]

Just now, Kalnestk Oblast said:

It doesn't, but it also means that the overall emissions that we've had are not exactly sustainable unless we're planning on having an airborne pandemic every few years.

It also doesn't change things like China opening a record amount of coal plants this year or Germany un-retiring coal plants because of lack of natural gas. You can't just pick some of the data that you want to use.

Global Warming - yet LA had its first blizzard in decades - and much of the US had record snowfalls. Might be the same next year, might not.

The El Nino/La Nina cycle is messed up along with the Jet Stream.

Whether the Antarctic ice sheet is experiencing net loss or gain is up in the air. 

Greenland melting dumps a lot of really cold icebergs and water on top of the warm water current that keeps much of western Europe from being classified as subarctic. Hence, short to moderate term at least, western Europe is looking at some really ugly winters, in defiance of the overall warming trend.

Oil supplies are finite. Most of the remaining fields are expensive and/or dangerous to exploit - the only way the oil majors make money off them is when prices are very high - high enough to drive people to look for alternatives.

Despite all the pessimism and attempted conservative sabotage, wind farms, solar farms, and EV's went from being negligible a dozen odd years ago to 'niche.' This happened in part even under Trump, who loathed such technologies.  Even Trump Mark II won't be able to prevent these technologies from becoming 'mainstream' providing at least half the nation's power and replacing at least half the vehicles on the road over the next dozen years. This is part of 'a timeline of technological acceptance' I went into earlier in this thread. Just that much alone tilts the climate needle.

That said, yes, climate change is a major problem. It will continue to be a major problem for multiple decades.

 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Global Warming - yet LA had its first blizzard in decades - and much of the US had record snowfalls. Might be the same next year, might not.

 

Most of the stuff you're saying is relatively harmless cherry picking that I'm used to, but this can fuck right off. The notion that because an area has a record anything means that climate change is not actually affecting the world is such huge, oil company PR bullshit. I am so fucking tired of this being used. This is akin to saying that world hunger doesn't exist because you ate a sandwich today. 

Fuck all the way off with that argument. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

27 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Most of the stuff you're saying is relatively harmless cherry picking that I'm used to, but this can fuck right off. The notion that because an area has a record anything means that climate change is not actually affecting the world is such huge, oil company PR bullshit. I am so fucking tired of this being used. This is akin to saying that world hunger doesn't exist because you ate a sandwich today. 

Fuck all the way off with that argument. 

To be fair it's not like someone in New Orleans needs to be concerned about rising sea levels, there are no glaciers there, I don't see what all the big fuss is about, personally. 

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Most of the stuff you're saying is relatively harmless cherry picking that I'm used to, but this can fuck right off. The notion that because an area has a record anything means that climate change is not actually affecting the world is such huge, oil company PR bullshit. I am so fucking tired of this being used. This is akin to saying that world hunger doesn't exist because you ate a sandwich today. 

Fuck all the way off with that argument. 

you demonstrated poor reading comprehension. 

At no point did I say climate change is not affecting the world.

I am saying that increasing climate chaos is the order of the day despite an overall warming trend. 

 

[polishgenius]

6 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I am saying that increasing climate chaos is the order of the day despite an overall warming trend. 

 

Yeah but you keep bringing it up, insistently, and pointing out any moment you can find where it's 'change' and not 'warming'. And since you're in a topic full of people who already know this - that's why climate activists call it 'climate change' and not 'global warming'- you constantly going back to that point does make it sound like you're trying to distract from the fact that, while locally speaking increased extreme weather is going to be a more immediate change than obvious actual warming for many places, it's the warming that is causing that. 

[ThinkerX]

46 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Yeah but you keep bringing it up, insistently, and pointing out any moment you can find where it's 'change' and not 'warming'. And since you're in a topic full of people who already know this - that's why climate activists call it 'climate change' and not 'global warming'- you constantly going back to that point does make it sound like you're trying to distract from the fact that, while locally speaking increased extreme weather is going to be a more immediate change than obvious actual warming for many places, it's the warming that is causing that. 

I post links to and excerpts from articles I deem interesting. Some of those closely align with the board consensus, while others differ. I go for articles that appear to be well supported by research. Several times in the past I have attempted to calculate sea level rise from glacial melting, among other things.