Preparing for An Unfriendly Future (Climate Change, Authoritarianism, etc)

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Wind and solar are great but do we even have enough materials to solve the temperature issue that way?  

I found a chart that breaks down the type of inputs needed to generate electricity in the USA.  Fossil fuels come in at 61% with coal the main fuel.  This chart is from 2021

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n 2021, about 4,116 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.12 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.¹ About 61% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 19% was from nuclear energy, and about 20% was from renewable energy sources.

see chart here

When you say materials do you mean to build wind and solar units?   Well, fossil fuels are used in the mining, manufacture and shipping of wind and solar units.  The wind turbines I've seen look like huge metal stanchions with huge metal blades, and metal comes from mining and smelting and neither of these are a green process.   

In the Nevada there is common bumper sticker "If it can't be grown, it has to be mined."  and mining is dirty, dirty, dirty.  Also, I've read that many wind turbines are shipped to the US from Europe and other countries, and shipping is not green either.  I guess my point is, dig down a little deep into green tech and it's only green in the final product, getting there though, ain't.   But so far, we have the materials to make lots of them. 

[Ran]

22 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Who has the most optimistic vision of the quite near future, those who believe in tolerance or those who believe in white supremacy?  Wonder how, say, o, the Chinese see these matters . . . .

I can't imagine the Chinese believe in white supremacy, but they are not models of tolerance, either.

As it happens, the Chinese are very optimistic in the world in regards to reversing climate change, at 80%. Europeans are at 59%, and Americans at 54%.  

 

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

I can't imagine the Chinese believe in white supremacy, but they are not models of tolerance, either.

As it happens, the Chinese are very optimistic in the world in regards to reversing climate change, at 80%. Europeans are at 59%, and Americans at 54%.  

 

I actually think that if there's going to be meaningful leadership away from fossil fuels, it'll come from the Chinese. Their government seems to be capable of long-term planning, and they are probably rational enough to realize it's in their best interests to address climate change. That's more foresight than the Republican Party can claim. They are better positioned for decisive government action, unlike sclerotic Western democracies.

I guess we're a decent way down the road to David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series.

[Zorral]

52 minutes ago, Ran said:

I can't imagine the Chinese believe in white supremacy

That's exactly what I was saying. 

But who is more optimistic: the fascist authoritarian repressionist intolerant violent sorts, or those whose pov isn't in favor of fascism, authoritarianism, repression and violence?  We do know that latter don't even believe in climate change, much less tolerance.

[Rippounet]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

 

@Larry of the Lake The IPCC summary for policy makers notes that "[p]rogress in adaptation planning and implementation has been observed across all sectors and regions, generating multiple benefits (very high confidence)." So... stuff is happening, pretty obviously.

 

Yeah, and then, just a few lines below, the very same report says this:

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Despite progress, adaptation gaps exist between current levels of adaptation and levels needed to respond to impacts and reduce climate risks (high confidence). Most observed adaptation is fragmented, small in scale, incremental, sector-specific, designed to respond to current impacts or near-term risks, and focused more on planning rather than implementation (high confidence). Observed adaptation is unequally distributed across regions (high confidence), and gaps are partially driven by widening disparities between the estimated costs of adaptation and documented finance allocated to adaptation (high confidence). The largest adaptation gaps exist among lower income population groups (high confidence). At current rates of adaptation planning and implementation the adaptation gap will continue to grow (high confidence). As adaptation options often have long implementation times, long-term planning and accelerated implementation, particularly in the next decade, is important to close adaptation gaps, recognising that constraints remain for some regions (high confidence).

So what the report actually says is that "things are being done, but it's nowhere near what's necessary, not even close."

 

 

5 hours ago, Ran said:

No. I'm saying that despite 2.5 not being good the fact is that the near-term future of humanity looks to be incredibly positive and that the negatives of a 2.5 increase don't erase that, much less reverse it as many seem to believe.

I really have no clue where this could possibly be coming from.

This is the kind of quote from the IPCC reports I have (collected):

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The AR5 concluded, with very high confidence, that climate change and climate variability worsen existing poverty and exacerbate inequalities, especially for those disadvantaged by gender, age, race, class, caste, indigeneity and (dis)ability (Olsson et al., 2014). New literature on these links is substantial, showing that the poor will continue to experience climate change severely, and climate change will exacerbate poverty (Fankhauser and Stern, 2016; Hallegatte et al., 2016; O’Neill et al., 2017a; Winsemius et al., 2018) (very high confidence).

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At 1.5°C warming, compared to current conditions, further negative consequences are expected for poor people, and inequality and vulnerability (medium evidence, high agreement). Hallegatte and Rozenberg (2017) report that, by 2030 (roughly approximating a 1.5°C warming), 122 million additional people could experience extreme poverty, based on a ‘poverty scenario’ of limited socio-economic progress, comparable to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP)4 (inequality), mainly due to higher food prices and declining health, with substantial income losses for the poorest 20% across 92 countries.

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Global heat stress is projected to increase in a 1.5°C warmer world and by 2030, compared to 1961-1990, climate change could be responsible for additional annual deaths of 38,000 people from heat stress, particularly among the elderly, and 48,000 from diarrhoea, 60,000 from malaria, and 95,000 from childhood undernutrition (WHO, 2014). Each 1°C increase could reduce work productivity by 1 to 3% for people working outdoors or without air conditioning, typically the poorer segments of the workforce (Park et al., 2015).

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Climate change and related extreme events will significantly increase ill health and premature deaths from the near- to long-term (high confidence). Globally, population exposure to heatwaves will continue to increase with additional warming, with strong geographical differences in heat-related mortality without additional adaptation (very high confidence). Climate-sensitive food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne disease risks are projected to increase under all levels of warming without additional adaptation (high confidence)

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Risks to health and food production will be made more severe from the interaction of sudden food production losses from heat and drought, exacerbated by heat-induced labour productivity losses (high confidence). These interacting impacts will increase food prices, reduce household incomes, and lead to health risks of malnutrition and climate-related mortality with no or low levels of adaptation, especially in tropical regions (high confidence). Risks to food safety from climate change will further compound the risks to health by increasing food contamination of crops from mycotoxins and contamination of seafood from harmful algal blooms, mycotoxins, and chemical contaminants (high confidence).

And, to sum it all up, the one sentence I personally find the most explicit (and chilling):

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Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change (high confidence).

 

So I'd very much like to know what is the actual source for this quote you used...

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IPCC scientists expect that average life expectancy will continue to rise, that poverty and hunger rates will continue to decline, and that average incomes will go up in every single plausible future, simply because they always have.

... Because this is the first time I've seen this much optimism from a climate scientist. And since this Mr O'Neill is American, I darkly suspect he may be talking about the United States of America here, not the world. I also darkly suspect that he's one of the most optimistic climate scientists out there, possibly even a fraud, because saying everything will improve "simply because they always have" isn't the kind of shit that a serious person says, but reflects a vision of the socio-economic and historical processes that is so naive that it becomes absolutely stupid, and in such a context, obviously dangerous and possibly criminal.

As far as the world is concerned, +2,5°C is basically hell. Without super high-tech (that as of now barely exists) there's no guarantee of being able to grow food or have access to drinking water anymore for most humans (let's bear in mind that drinking water is already becoming scarce without climate change, yes?), and heat waves become lethal (thanks to the wet bulb effect) on about a quarter to a third of lands - that thus become uninhabitable.
Also, at +2,5°C, the chances of a negative feedback loop kicking in are heightened, which means all bets are off (the IPCC admitted somewhere that it couldn't properly take negative feedback loops into account in its models).

Really @Ran one of us is deeply deluded here, so let's cut to the chase.

As I understand it, when we talk of +x°C it's really an average: temperatures go up on land significantly faster than around the world. So +1,1°C today actually means about +1,5°C on land.
But that, in turn is also an average. At +1,5°C on land you can get heatwaves that go over +10°C. And I know this for a fact, because it happened here last year (one article talked of a record +14°C). We also know that the Arctic has been recording temperatures at +20°C and over - which is why worrying about negative feedback loops is sensible btw.

As I understand it (i.e. according to climate scientists), what's going to happen is that such heatwaves will last longer. Right now, such intense episodes tend to last for about a week. As the climate keeps warming up, they will tend to last longer - and longer. The obvious problem here being that most life on Earth is not adapted to such intense heatwaves for more than a few days. When we get to the point where heatwaves of +10°C and over last for more than a couple of weeks, almost everything will die, including humans.

Now if I got any of this wrong, I'll be very very happy, since I have a kid, and I'm concerned about how exactly he can survive the heatwaves we'll have in the next decades (that is, survive the heatwaves themselves, but also their consequences).  I'd very much like to believe bringing him into the world was not a terrible mistake.

While you're at it, if you can disprove something that's been bugging me...
When Kate Raworth published Doughnut economics in 2017 she used a rise of +0,8°C.
Only 5 years later we're officially at +1,1°C.
This has been on my mind because it really does seem as if climate change is happening much faster than was predicted. Another way to see it though is that it's accelerating - which would make sense if a negative feedback loop has already kicked in (and we know entire cities in Russia are crumbling because of the permafrost melting).
So some basic maths tells me we'll get +1,5°C by 2030, and +2°C by 2040. But anyway, even the CIA gives us +2°C by "mid-century" so it's not like I'm being that pessimistic here anyway. BTW according to the CIA, "the last ten years have been the hottest on record, and all decades since 1960 have been hotter than previous ones."

So to sum up: were at +1,1°C today, and we get heatwaves that can easily be at +10°C. We already get droughts that threaten crops, lots of terrible forest fires (which are a type of negative feedback loop btw), desertification... etc, etc.
A rise of +2°C is predicted for 2050 (at best, really), which is almost double.
So what kind of heatwave will happen by 2050, and what kind of consequences will they have?
 

[JGP]

I was wrong, 3 girls and 1 non-binary coming over. Had to correct that. Cool kid

---

@Ran I also might/probably be wrong about the extent of insect loss at +2c. Lots of damning figures, but I can't find anything that corroborates my earlier statement. Yet. We're down a fair bit already however, 27-30% insect loss over the last 30 years, with estimates ranging from an additional 2.9 - 7ish [!] % more, per decade going forward.

None of this is good. Or even ok. I did find a few articles trying to debunk the insect apocalypse, but one was from Quillette which is a paper that seems to like, uh, phrenology, so... lulz.

---

I agree, Rip.

Methane is the more worrisome there, imo, [worse effect but cycles out faster than C02] but there doesn't seem to be a solid understanding of how the GHG spectrum interacts precisely, that I've seen, so...

[spreads hands]

Permafrost collapse [more Methane, yay] poles melting much faster than anticipated [less ice at the poles means less thermal energy soaked up in the melting-warming, ergo more direct heat] add exploitation, deforestation, etc. Just relentlessly stacking. 

If we're not in a loop already, can't be far out.

[JGP]

re heatwaves, permafrost:

scope out the weather around Inuvik this week. 200 km north of the arctic circle. Hottest month is July, average temp in the same is normally 19c. 

32c today, 30ish all week.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

17 hours ago, LongRider said:

I

In the Nevada there is common bumper sticker "If it can't be grown, it has to be mined."  and mining is dirty, dirty, dirty.  Also, I've read that many wind turbines are shipped to the US from Europe and other countries, and shipping is not green either.  I guess my point is, dig down a little deep into green tech and it's only green in the final product, getting there though, ain't.   But so far, we have the materials to make lots of them. 

I’d like to address this. While it’s true that green tech needs natural resources and the manufacturing process can be dirty, it’s no natural law that it has to be this way. You can envision a future with  cleaner mining, industry powered by renewables, even carbon-free ore metal smelting (a pilot project on this made big news in Sweden a while ago). But you can never have a sustainable society built on fossil fuels, because they are almost by definition unsustainable. 
 

So when using the “green tech is dirty too” argument, one better be sure what one’s arguing for. If it’s to say we have a long way to go and better get started ASAP, then I’m all for it. But I’ve seen it too many times being used as a form of whataboutism to argue we better stick to business as usual. 

[LongRider]

6 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

So when using the “green tech is dirty too” argument, one better be sure what one’s arguing for. If it’s to say we have a long way to go and better get started ASAP, then I’m all for it. But I’ve seen it too many times being used as a form of whataboutism to argue we better stick to business as usual.

Thanks, I appreciate your comment.  Living here in the USA I just don't feel hopeful as far as climate change is concerned, especially after the USSC rulings last week.  

[Zorral]

EXTREME SUMMER
Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/02/summer-2022-climate-change-heat/

Quote

 

.... Summer temperatures in Reno have risen 10.9 degrees Fahrenheit, on average, since 1970, making it the fastest warming city in the nation during the hottest months, according to an analysis by the nonprofit research group Climate Central. For two consecutive summers, smoke from blazes burning in California has choked the region, sending residents to the emergency room, closing schools and threatening the tourism industry.

It is among the sharpest examples of how climate change is fundamentally altering the summer months — turning what for many Americans is a time of joy into stretches of extreme heat, dangerously polluted air, anxiety, and lost traditions. ....

 

 

[LongRider]

46 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It is among the sharpest examples of how climate change is fundamentally altering the summer months —

Fake news!  As a former resident of Reno, I know that smoke from Calif fires have been chocking Reno for longer than that.  That caused me to name the seasons in Reno as: Colder than f*ck, windier than f*ck, hotter than f*ck, and Oh F*ck, California is on fire, again!  The wind blows the smoke easterly over the Sierria's, and Reno is in a valley between two mountain ranges, the Sierra Nevada to the west and the Comstock Range to the East. Smoke season is what late summer and fall has become. 

I left Reno in 2015, and the summers could get pretty hot though.   

[Ran]

17 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Because this is the first time I've seen this much optimism from a climate scientist. And since this Mr O'Neill is American, I darkly suspect he may be talking about the United States of America here, not the world. I also darkly suspect that he's one of the most optimistic climate scientists out there, possibly even a fraud, because saying everything will improve "simply because they always have" isn't the kind of shit that a serious person says, but reflects a vision of the socio-economic and historical processes that is so naive that it becomes absolutely stupid, and in such a context, obviously dangerous and possibly criminal.

I appreciate the honest sign-posting of conspiratorial thinking.

In fact, all the SSPs do in fact forsee a more prosperous future world, as also noted also in Kal's Carbon Brief article. And the scientist you suppose is a fraud is one of the leading architects of the very same SSPs used by the IPCC, and has been a lead author on several of its panels...

So long as we all understand that the best science we have does not suggest doomsday for humanity or the planet, we're on the same page. 

 

 

[JGP]

' The projections are subject to large uncertainties, particularly for the later decades, and disregard a wide range of country-specific drivers of economic growth that are outside the narrow economic framework, such as external shocks, governance barriers and feedbacks from environmental damage. Hence, they should be interpreted with sufficient care and not be treated as predictions.'

[JGP]

I'm not trying to be a dick here, but when you got to preface with a caveat like that it's more akin to, bEsT cAsE sCeNaRiOs, this is a rigorous as we can make it. I'm not saying it's junk, but the presuppositions... I wouldn't call any of those reliable.   

[Ran]

It's worth saying that all forecasts are just that: forecasts. Climate forecasts, economic forecasts, etc. The best forecasts scientists can make now about how things will look in 80 years are, indeed, not set in stone. But this cuts both ways. In 1992 the IPCC believed "business as usual" was 2 degrees above pre-industrial averages in 2025, and that number is now looking like maybe 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial averages in 2040. Just as the forecasts can under-estimate things, they can over-estimate things. The moving targets of policy and technology are very hard to forecast, it's true, but realistic attempts to forecast these things are what the SSPs are about.

I mean, the good news about climate change is this: we've appreciably moved the needle in a positive direction in a short time. The "business as usual forecasts" simply look at all current policy commitments and project out what the world might look like if that's all the commitments, but history shows that they never are, that as time passes more is done. We're rapidly advancing on green energy to the point where almost all new fixed energy is renewable in many countries, and there are countries already banning the sale of non-electric cars by 2030, with most manufacturers aiming to stop producing ICE vehicles by 2035.

If you are wedded to doom and gloom, we're psychologically not going to be able to meet halfway or change one another's minds.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

If you are wedded to doom and gloom, we're psychologically not going to be able to meet halfway or change one another's minds.

I don't think most people disagreeing with you or your position are wed to doom and gloom, just for many it's hard to see how the rest of this decade plays out well. There's very little to be optimistic about on the macro level. 

[JGP]

 

26 minutes ago, Ran said:

I mean, the good news about climate change is this: we've appreciably moved the needle in a positive direction in a short time. The "business as usual forecasts" simply look at all current policy commitments and project out what the world might look like if that's all the commitments, but history shows that they never are, that as time passes more is done. We're rapidly advancing on green energy to the point where almost all new fixed energy is renewable in many countries, and there are countries already banning the sale of non-electric cars by 2030, with most manufacturers aiming to stop producing ICE vehicles by 2035.

If you are wedded to doom and gloom, we're psychologically not going to be able to meet halfway or change one another's minds. 

 

The above quoted is a much more reasonable response though. 

My concerns are manifold, but the biggest is the modelling. We don't have computers that can handle these exchanges further than a few cells. That, to me, is an indicative problem. I understand it's a computing power issue, but, if the modelling can't do it either, I have no idea where denialism appropriates its confidence [if not from the individual]

I'm not wedded to anything, but if we're going to get real about climate change, understanding that we don't really understand it would be getting real too. edit: talking basis, here

 

[Ran]

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I don't think most people disagreeing with you or your position are wed to doom and gloom, just for many it's hard to see how the rest of this decade plays out well. There's very little to be optimistic about on the macro level. 

The massive surge in renewable energy to the point that a majority of new fixed energy is from renewables and the rapid pace towards manufacturing the last ICE automobiles with many auto companies targeting 2035 or earlier are pretty big positives that for some reason are just inspiring shrugs. Renewables have seen their fastest year-on-year growth quite recently, and have gone from 32% of global energy production to 38% in just a decade, with all signs pointing to an acceleration of this once the supply chain issues abate.

People take it for granted for whatever reason. And that's just a couple of pretty significant changes, changes which last I checked the IPCC's reports are actually probably under-estimating in terms of their net effect on climate change.

 

[Kalbear]

39 minutes ago, Ran said:

The massive surge in renewable energy to the point that a majority of new fixed energy is from renewables and the rapid pace towards manufacturing the last ICE automobiles with many auto companies targeting 2035 or earlier are pretty big positives that for some reason are just inspiring shrugs. Renewables have seen their fastest year-on-year growth quite recently, and have gone from 32% of global energy production to 38% in just a decade, with all signs pointing to an acceleration of this once the supply chain issues abate.

People take it for granted for whatever reason. And that's just a couple of pretty significant changes, changes which last I checked the IPCC's reports are actually probably under-estimating in terms of their net effect on climate change.

 

The counterpoint to this is that we are still not seeing reductions in carbon production (and in fact it is still increasing) and in developing nations we are seeing an acceleration in coal fired plants and use in order to do things like provide enough AC to deal with the effects of climate change. 

I also think that the notion that if it's not doomsday it's going to be just fine is remarkably heartless. We are talking about millions of extra, avoidable deaths every year, trillions in property damage, massive biological diversity loss and the literal loss of entire countries to sea level rise.

That isn't the end of the world, true - but it's a far cry from things just being fine.

Also, I will note that it is measuring prosperity largely in one way only - gdp growth. It's fair to say that it's hard to measure it other ways, but general production levels do not say, for instance, how many people are employed or have families or other life values. It is also an average, not a median - and in the inequality scenario you're looking at roughly half the planet having a significantly worse time. 

[Conflicting Thought]

And isnt the poverty line kinda sus? Like if you earn 2 dollars a day or something you are considered not poor.