Climate: Il fait VRAIMENT CHAUD (fka un petit)

[Tywin et al.]

You learn something new everyday. I knew that sound traveled further under water and that it gets magnified, but I never considered how the temperature impacted this. Sound travels even faster and more loudly in warmer waters, which means rising sea temperatures are going to cause sea life an increased amount of pain, especially from earthquakes. 

[Rippounet]

There's a severe heat wave in India as we speak:
https://www.axios.com/dangerous-heat-wave-india-pakistan-b2f57406-1946-4781-bede-9b2a54ef1e64.html

I can't help think this is how The Ministry for the Future starts. Though I tend to think reality will be far worse than a -rather optimistic- novel.

[polishgenius]

Holy shitballs
 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Things are happening as predicted I think.

I mean is anybody really surprised that even the worst case predictions from that 80s and 90s were too optimistic? Bullshit spread by the unholy alliance of optimism, faith in humanity and greed will only speed things up.

We are approaching the mid of the 21st century nothing about this is surprising to the experts.

[Which Tyler]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1541846701064978432

[The Anti-Targ]

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/472112/climate-change-govt-to-outline-plan-for-managed-retreat-in-some-areas

Managed retreat now official govt policy in the climate change adaptation toolbox here.

Quote

Some communities in Aotearoa* may be abandoned, with climate change driving increasing storms and flooding making continued occupation untenable.

The government will today release the first-ever national strategy for dealing with the inevitable effects of global heating - the National Adaptation Plan.

*Reminds me, I should update my location in my profile.

[Kalnestk Oblast]

Managed retreat is now the only sane policy. Anything else is willful ignorance, prayer, or deliberate evil.

[Toth]

On 8/1/2022 at 12:18 AM, Which Tyler said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1541846701064978432

Read the comments to see why we are doomed. Holy shit, I thought at some point the willfully blind will just shut up...

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, Toth said:

Read the comments to see why we are doomed. Holy shit, I thought at some point the willfully blind will just shut up...

Those comments are actually mild and sane compared to the ones I have read elsewhere.

 

[Toth]

8 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Those comments are actually mild and sane compared to the ones I have read elsewhere.

Mild? Sure. Sane? I don't know. Anyone who is still throwing hissy fits about this being just weather is just so ridiculously hard in denial. What's the point pointing at past climate changes that happened over the span of thousands of years and say it's all fine that we are now speed-running towards Venus' climate in the span of decades?

Edited August 3, 2022 by Toth

[IFR]

3 hours ago, Toth said:

Mild? Sure. Sane? I don't know. Anyone who is still throwing hissy fits about this being just weather is just so ridiculously hard in denial. What's the point pointing at past climate changes that happened over the span of thousands of years and say it's all fine that we are now speed-running towards Venus' climate in the span of decades?

A good book to read on this topic is Merchants of Doubt by Conway and Oreskes.

The "natural variability" argument is an easy one to proselytize to those poorly informed on the topic. It's probably going to continue to be one of the more popular ones for a long time yet. If there has been billions of years over which the climate has varied widely, isn't it a reasonable possibility that grant money-hungry scientists and green energy tycoons are exaggerating the effect humans have and the modern change in climate actually falls into that natural variability?

It's a conspiracy theory that is easy to arrive to for those receptive to such misinformation.

Edited August 3, 2022 by IFR

[Toth]

58 minutes ago, IFR said:

A good book to read on this topic is Merchants of Doubt by Conway and Oreskes.

No need to tell me that, I already have that book.^^

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, IFR said:

The "natural variability" argument is an easy one to proselytize to those poorly informed on the topic.

And this is compounded by the death of expertise sweeping over the West. Poorly educated and mostly super religious types are rejecting what scientists are telling them because it's completely out of step with their world view and they're unwilling to accept new information.

[IFR]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And this is compounded by the death of expertise sweeping over the West. Poorly educated and mostly super religious types are rejecting what scientists are telling them because it's completely out of step with their world view and they're unwilling to accept new information.

It's true that there is a strong science skepticism movement that permeates our culture.

As far as it pertains to climate change, it is actually an interesting psychological phenomenon deeply embedded in cognitive biases.

I know some very intelligent skeptics of climate change, one of whom is currently a consultant for TerraPower on their fast reactor (and it is not easy to become a consultant for TerraPower). This person has multiple publications to their name, and is an acknowledged expert in their field.

But they do consider the variability argument to be compelling. They aren't a climate change denier by any means, but they do feel that ultimately human influence is being exaggerated for political purposes, and technology in the market economy will adapt smoothly enough that climate change, while not a simple problem, doesn't deserve the hysterics that it often provokes.

On the other hand, I know some people who are absolutely convinced that climate change is a dominant problem of modern times, but these people are extremely ignorant about basically anything regarding climate change and its effects. They purely are partisan acolytes, and the physicist I know would wipe the floor with them in a debate on this issue.

And I'm sure that has historically been true with the debate on whether we know if smoking causes cancer.

It doesn't help when you have instances where decades of accepted scientific data does turn out to be false, and even falsified (eg the recent scandal on Alzheimer's disease research).

[Denvek]

You should show your consultant friend this graph https://xkcd.com/1732/

[IFR]

7 minutes ago, Denvek said:

You should show your consultant friend this graph https://xkcd.com/1732/

They are familiar with that graph. I love xkcd, btw. 

[Rippounet]

6 minutes ago, IFR said:

They aren't a climate change denier by any means, but they do feel that ultimately human influence is being exaggerated for political purposes, and technology in the market economy will adapt smoothly enough that climate change, while not a simple problem, doesn't deserve the hysterics that it often provokes.

I think this point tends to be underestimated. Your friend isn't wrong, but ironically it's the other way around: we haven't done anything (and aren't doing anything) about climate change for political reasons. It's just that it goes much deeper than politics and touches upon ideology, philosophy and theology (to take the big ones).

I'm probably preaching to the choir, but it takes a bit of time to grasp how momentous it is to call capitalism into question. At a glance, you'd think it's "just" an economic/productivist system, but as soon as you start reading about it, you realize it goes far beyond economics. It's our way of life, but also our collective social and political organisation, our conception of mankind's place in the universe, human nature, and the purpose of life! I can understand how difficult it is for some people to reconsider almost everything they've ever known.
It's also not a surprise that intelligent people end up being deniers: imho they understand, intuitively, that to acknowledge the implacable reality of climate change means questioning (and thus changing) the way they think of the world and themselves. That may especially be true of people having been trained in STEM fields btw, because these fields (not unlike the neo-liberal ideology) glorify human possibility and agency to such a point that admitting their limits is akin to renouncing your faith.

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

It's also not a surprise that intelligent people end up being deniers: imho they understand, intuitively, that to acknowledge the implacable reality of climate change means questioning (and thus changing) the way they think of the world and themselves. That may especially be true of people having been trained in STEM fields btw, because these fields (not unlike the neo-liberal ideology) glorify human possibility and agency to such a point that admitting their limits is akin to renouncing your faith.

Many good points raised, but this is especially important. Furthermore, people in general even if they fully believe climate change is a crisis are going to struggle to make minor changes in their lives, let alone the dramatic ones we really need to consider. COVID taught us that this is hard for people to do when a crisis is right in their face. Convincing people to change when they can't see the crisis and you can't assign a date when it will be really problematic is a lost cause for far too many people. 

[ThinkerX]

13 hours ago, Toth said:

Mild? Sure. Sane? I don't know. Anyone who is still throwing hissy fits about this being just weather is just so ridiculously hard in denial. What's the point pointing at past climate changes that happened over the span of thousands of years and say it's all fine that we are now speed-running towards Venus' climate in the span of decades?

The biggies I see aggressively pushed are -

'I remember when they were calling for an ice age' or 'Al Gore said we'd all be treading water by now,' followed by 'that didn't happen, those liberal idiots got it wrong, and they're still wrong.'

along with 

'I've lived on this shoreline for fifty years now. Water ain't gone up one single inch in all that time, so it's all bull-pucky. 

Others go, 'well, so the oceans is going up an eighth of an inch a year. That's not a problem.'

 

[Zorral]

2 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

I've lived on this shoreline for fifty years now. Water ain't gone up one single inch in all that time, so it's all bull-pucky. 

Anyone who says that, who isn't living on the banks of artificial lakes such as Tahoe, is lying. And/or not paying any attention whatsoever, and thus an idiot.